Awards and Honours

Recent award-winning faculty

Dr. Mike Melchin – 2022 Winner of the University Research Award

Dr. Michael Melchin, Professor of Earth Sciences, is a prolific researcher who has published more than 120 refereed scientific journal papers. Dr. Melchin’s research

is focused on understanding the response of life to a pivotal time interval of global change, some 500 and 400 million years ago. He has championed the use of elemental and isotopic geochemical techniques to understand the processes that govern the relationship between ocean water chemistry, nutrient supply and the diversification or extinction of species. Dr. Melchin has had continuous research support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) since 1990 and his NSERC Discovery Grant was recently renewed until 2024. His research requires an extraordinary commitment of time and effort. He has provided numerous generations of StFX students with unique research experiences, including field work in the Arctic, the Canadian Rockies, and in China. These are remote and rugged areas for field research; many require expensive helicopter support, and he has been isolated on occasion for up to eight weeks. Dr. Melchin is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including visiting professorships and fellowships in other countries such as the Czech Republic and China. He is a President’s Medal recipient and Distinguished Fellow of the Geological Association of Canada. In 2020 he was awarded a James Chair in Pure and Applied Sciences at St. Francis Xavier University. In the community, Dr. Melchin’s abilities as a musician and organizer of charity concerts are legendary – to his colleagues, students, and our community he truly is a “rock star”.

Dr. Kara Thompson - 2021 Winner of the President's Research Award

Dr. Kara Thompson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. Dr. Thompson received a Ph.D. in Life Span Development Psychology from the University of Victoria in 2014. After completing a post doctorial fellowship at Dalhousie University, she joined the Psychology department at St FX in 2015. Dr. Thompson quickly established herself as prolific scholar. Dr. Thompson has already published more than 50 peer reviewed articles at this early stage in her career. Her research revolves around child and youth health. In particular, she is internationally recognized as an expert in alcohol and cannabis use in youth and emerging adulthood. Her research spans mental health and health policy, focusing on prevention and harm reduction in youth drug use and abuse. Dr. Thompson’s outstanding publication record and focus on health has helped to attract a substantial amount of external support for her research program. She has been a principal investigator on grants totaling more than $250,000 and is a co-applicant on a $200,000 CIHR grant and a $2.5 million SSHRC partnership grant.

Dr. Tara Callaghan - 2020 Winner of the University Research Award

Dr. Tara Callaghan is internationally recognized as a leading researcher in the development of children’s symbolic representation. Her research into the cross-cultural effects of symbolic understanding in children has led her to broaden her investigations into children’s understanding of reciprocity, fairness, and sharing across cultures. She has studied children's development in Canada, India, Peru, Thailand, Samoa, and Japan. Tara brings rigor, creativity, and energy to her research program. In her cross-cultural work, she often takes student interns into the field where they hone their research skills and problem-solving abilities as they learn to appreciate the issues and challenges of doing this type of research. Currently Tara holds two federally-funded research grants, one in which she is longitudinally investigating preschool children’s reciprocal sharing in two cultures, India and Canada, and a second in partnership with international agencies in which she is investigating altruism, sharing, and compassion in Rohingya refugee children in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Her most recent project in Rohingya refugee camps has the potential to benefit the lives of children who have been witnesses or victims of conflict, violence, and displacement, as well as add to our understanding of how such experiences affect children’s development.

Dr. Mathias Nilges - 2019 Winner of the President's Research Award

Dr. Mathias Nilges, a StFX English professor since 2008, has in just over a decade, established a laudable record of achievement, positioning him as one of the pre-eminent literary and cultural critics of his generation. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he won the 2009 University of Illinois at Chicago Outstanding Dissertation Award. He has been appointed an Obama Fellow, Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, May/June, 2019, and is a Jules Léger Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences at StFX. In 2018, he was named director of StFX’s Frank McKenna Centre for Leadership. A frequently invited keynote speaker, he was the prestigious Rheney Lecturer at Vanderbilt University. He was also the driving force behind The Examined Life Lab, a student-led online lab at StFX. He is the author of three monographs, including one in preparation, and numerous edited collections, edited journal volumes, articles, book chapters, reviews, and translations. He has been actively involved in the StFX community, from serving as the Chair, Faculty of Arts to an Immersion Serving Learning faculty leader.