Graduate Recruitment for 2010

Students are asked to contact an appropriate faculty member before submitting an application for graduate study. Please note that this list of student assistanceships is not exhaustive, and that faculty members may be happy to supervise independent student research related to their areas of study.

Political, Urban, Economic, and Health Geography

Lea Berrang Ford: I am open to inquiries and discussions with students interested in projects in the following areas: 1) Modeling of climate impacts on mosquito-borne disease in Canada – PhD only 2) Human adaptation to the health impacts of climate change, 3) Climate change and health in Uganda – PhD only, 4) Conducting mosquito bite diaries & landscape entomology in Canada – MSc only. Candidates should have experience or explicit interest in environmental epidemiology and health geography, and should be prepared to develop funding proposals to support research.

Sebastien Breau: I am looking for 2 Masters' students to work on two separate projects (starting in the fall of 2010). The first project looks at changes in the geography of inequality/poverty in Canada. The second examines recent patterns of government spending on regional development programs. Individuals interested in pursuing their own projects in economic geography should also contact me for information on other research and funding opportunities.

Benjamin Forest:I am looking for a graduate student (Master’s or Doctorate) to work on the following projects, or on their own related research. My first project analyzes political representation in Canada and the United States with particular attention to ethnic minorities and GIS technology. The second project -- with co-investigator Juliet Johnson (Political Science) -- examines national identity in the post-Communist world through an analysis of monuments and memorials. All prospective applicants should contact me well before the application deadline.

Natalie Oswin:I have funding available for graduate students (MA or PhD) to pursue research projects that intersect with my own broad interests in the geographies of sexuality and urban cultural politics. I am particularly interested in supervising projects that relate to one or more of the following topics: sexual citizenship, queer geographies, the politics of family and marriage, social geographies of global cities, migration and mobilities. I am open to work conducted in a range of geographical sites (including, but not limited to, Canada, Southeast Asia and Southern Africa) and informed by a range of critical geographical and social theories.

Nancy Ross: I am interested in hearing from prospective graduate students (Master's or Ph.D.) for projects examing the role of the built environment in obesity and chronic disease and the relationship between income inequality of places and population health. Please contact me for further details.

Sarah Turner: I am willing to discuss graduate opportunities with prospective students for 2010, especially those interested in working in Vietnam and southwest China. Those with a broader background in Asian studies are also encouraged to apply. Please see my web page for further details, and note carefully the information that I would like you to send me with your initial email enquiry.

Also see Health related topics offered by Renee Sieber below.

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Earth System Science

Dr. Elisabeth Levac (adjunct professor in Geography): I have funding to support a M.Sc. student (possibly Ph.D.) conducting palynological research. The proposed topic is Holocene millennial-scale variability in paleoceanographic records from the eastern Canadian margin. Other paleoenvironmental projects may be available. Skills in palynology are an asset. Interested students should contact me (elevac@ubishops.ca).

Damon Matthews (adjunct professor in Geography): I am looking for a PhD student in the area of Earth system modelling of recent and future climate change.  Possible projects include: (1) modeling land-use change and its impact on carbon sinks, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; or (2) developing a model to represent Northern peatlands and their contribution to contemporary greenhouse gas budgets.  Both projects would involve the development and use of an Earth system climate model, so some experience with computer programming, modelling and data analysis is required.

Navin Ramankutty: I am looking for 1 Doctoral and 1 Master's student. PhD student: Global ecosystem modelling. Possible projects include: a) Continued development of global crop models to predict the influence of climate change and land management on crop production; b) Understanding the role of fires, insects, and land use on Canadian carbon balance, and predicting the future of Canadian carbon sinks. MSc student: a) Development of global or regional land use data sets (potential projects include understanding current patterns of mechanization; historical evolution of crop areas and yields; historical development of fertilizer application), ; b) Developing a data base of land-cover transitions (forest, cropland, pasture, urban, degraded, other) in the tropics, and estimating the subsequent emissions of carbon.

Nigel Roulet:I am looking for several Doctoral and/or Masters' students to work on various aspects of the links among hydrology, biogeochemistry and ecosystem functions.  The focus of my work is on how ecosystem structure and functions changes with changes in external inputs and internal feedbacks.  The two ecosystems I am most interested in are northern peatlands and temperate and boreal forested catchments.  With the peatlands we are working on how vegetation changes with changes in moisture conditions due to climate change, and in particular the role of thawing permafrost in reorganizing the hydrology, hence the moisture environment for plants and changes in oxic and anoxic biogeochemical functions.  At the catchment scale we are interested in determining whether the landscape is a net sink or source of carbon and therefore are quite interested in understand how the water borne landscape scale transfers of dissolved organic carbon and the resultant changes in the land/lake - atmospheric exchanges fit into the overall picture.  In northern Sweden we have graduate projects to measure and simulate the exchanges of energy, water, carbon and possible methane, between northern peatlands and adjacent lakes and the atmosphere. At our long-term peatland carbon study site we have initiated a study on the relationship between the net ecosystem exchange and methane emissions, and plan to add the measurement of volatile organic compounds this fall.  Also for this site we continue our work on the long-term (10 years +) on the inter-relationships among the energy, water and carbon balances of a northern peatland.  Finally, in the peatland research we continue to have projects related to evaluating and developing further the McGill Wetland Model (MWM) and the Holocene Peatland Model (HPM).  Over the next two years we would like to improved the methane components of MWM in collaboration with investigators at the Finnish Meteorological Institute and incorporate in functions to describe the dynamics of peatland vegetation.  For the work of forested catchments we have seven nested basins we monitor runoff and stormflow at Mount Saint Hillaire (MSH) but we wish, with the right student to add in a study of the dynamics of dissolved carbon and nitrogen.  This is particularly interesting since MSH has covered with a relatively pristine old growth temperate forest but is also located in a area of high nitrogen deposition, therefore is a great place to test some of the main hypothesis on the relationship between nitrogen retention, export and saturation and to study the links between dissolved organic and inorganic nitrogen.

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Environment and Human Development

Lea Berrang Ford:  I am open to inquiries and discussions with students interested in projects in the following areas: 1) Modeling of climate impacts on mosquito-borne disease in Canada – PhD only 2) Human adaptation to the health impacts of climate change, 3) Climate change and health in Uganda – PhD only, 4) Conducting mosquito bite diaries & landscape entomology in Canada – MSc only. Candidates should have experience or explicit interest in environmental epidemiology and health geography, and should be prepared to develop funding proposals to support research.

Oliver Coomes: I am looking for 1 Master's and 1 Ph.D. student to conduct field research on themes related to agrobiodiversity, rain forest extraction and adaptation to environmental change among traditional peoples of the Peruvian Amazon.

Natalie Oswin: I have funding available for graduate students (MA or PhD) to pursue research projects that intersect with my own broad interests in the geographies of sexuality and urban cultural politics. I am particularly interested in supervising projects that relate to one or more of the following topics: sexual citizenship, queer geographies, the politics of family and marriage, social geographies of global cities, migration and mobilities. I am open to work conducted in a range of geographical sites (including, but not limited to, Canada, Southeast Asia and Southern Africa) and informed by a range of critical geographical and social theories.

Jeanine Rhemtulla: see Environmental Mangement node below.

Sarah Turner: I am willing to discuss graduate opportunities with prospective students for 2010, especially those interested in working in Vietnam and southwest China. Those with a broader background in Asian studies are also encouraged to apply. Please see my web page for further details, and note carefully the information that I would like you to send me with your initial email enquiry.

Jon Unruh: I am looking for 1 PhD student who has interest and experience in postwar land and property rights. The regional areas of priority are: the Middle East, Shri Lanka, Congo, Afganistan, Central America, and the Horn of Africa. The candidate should have considerable field experience, be knowledgable about land customary and statutory tenure and law-making, and be able to conduct fieldwork

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Environmental Management

Peter Brown: I am looking for up to 2 students to work with me on stewardship economics -- designing an economic system compatible with, and respectful of, the Earth's living communities and the chemical and physical processes on which they depend. Financial support of approximately 20,000 CAD per year is available for three years. Ph.D. level student(s)preferred.

Gail Chmura: My research is focused on tidal salt marshes and biogeography of coastal organisms. I welcome applications from M.Sc. or Ph.D. candidates interested in these topics particularly as it relates to the value of salt marshes as carbon sinks.

James Ford: I am looking for a master’s student to work on climate change vulnerability and adaptation research in Arctic Canada with a health / food security focus. The candidate should have a high GPA and preferably experience working in the Arctic and/or climate change.

Margaret Kalacska: I am looking for up to two students, either M.Sc. or Ph.D. with interests in ecological applications of remote sensing of tropical or temperate environments.

Renee Sieber: I plan to fund up to two graduate positions for either Master's or PhD students who will investigate applications of the geoweb (GIS, digital earths on Web 2.0). One student would investigate methods to aid in communicating climate change to a general public (e.g., via mashups, geowikis, Facebook). Another student would develop applications to integrate environmental and climate change models with digital earths. Prior experience in computer programming (especially Python, PHP) or a demonstrated aptitude to learn programming is a MUST.

I also have two years funding for a graduate (masters) student to participate in a health  informatics grant to investigate existing Web 2.0 data and geo visualization tools for hotspots of injuries (i.e., motor vehicle accidents, pedestrian injury, gunshot wounds and blunt assault). Injuries represent a leading cause of death among the young worldwide.  The focus is on free and open source software (FOSS). The student would develop innovative means to model and visualize geospatial data and integrate it with other environmental and health related information. This research will yield methods and protocols for building virtual models of injury hotspots; in the process it will instantiate Web 2.0 as a working component of health informatics. A Web-based platform also lends itself to knowledge dissemination and exchange. By virtually rendering actual injury hotspots, the student's research will provide a wealth of essential, policy-relevant evidence to communities at risk, health care providers, researchers, injury prevention workers, urban planners and policy makers.

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GIS and Remote Sensing

Margaret Kalacska: I am looking for 1 Master's or 1 PhD students whose research will focus on a) environmental applications of hyperspectral remote sensing and modeling of ecosystem structure and/or diversity; or b) forensic applications of remote sensing, specifically application of longwave infrared imagery or vis/nir hyperspectral data analysis; or c) distributed computing networks for the processing of very large datasets in a short periods of time. Basic knowledge of remote sensing is an asset. Computing science or computer engineering background is a requirement for option 'c'.

Renee Sieber: I plan to fund up to two graduate positions for either Master's or PhD students who will investigate applications of the geoweb (GIS, digital earths on Web 2.0). One student would investigate methods to aid in communicating climate change to a general public (e.g., via mashups, geowikis, Facebook). Another student would develop applications to integrate environmental and climate change models with digital earths. Prior experience in computer programming (especially Python, PHP) or a demonstrated aptitude to learn programming is a MUST.

I also have two years funding for a graduate (masters) student to participate in a health  informatics grant to investigate existing Web 2.0 data and geo visualization tools for hotspots of injuries (i.e., motor vehicle accidents, pedestrian injury, gunshot wounds and blunt assault). Injuries represent a leading cause of death among the young worldwide.  The focus is on free and open source software (FOSS). The student would develop innovative means to model and visualize geospatial data and integrate it with other environmental and health related information. This research will yield methods and protocols for building virtual models of injury hotspots; in the process it will instantiate Web 2.0 as a working component of health informatics. A Web-based platform also lends itself to knowledge dissemination and exchange. By virtually rendering actual injury hotspots, the student's research will provide a wealth of essential, policy-relevant evidence to communities at risk, health care providers, researchers, injury prevention workers, urban planners and policy makers.

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Land Surface Process Studies

Gail Chmura: My research is focused on tidal salt marshes and biogeography of coastal organisms. I welcome applications from M.Sc. or Ph.D. candidates interested in these topics particularly as it relates to the value of salt marshes as carbon sinks.

Michel Lapointe: I am looking for 2 Masters' (or 1 Master's and 1 Doctoral) student to work on projects that have to do with: A) The physical controls on geometry and location of 'thermal refugia' (cool spots): critical habitats in trout and salmon streams during warmer summers; B) the effects of hydro-electric damming on river ecosystems and fish habitat: comparative studies.

Tim Moore: My research focus is in the biogeochemistry of wetlands and in particular in linking the carbon and nitrogen cycles. I am looking for two graduate students to start in fall, 2009. Topics include rates and controls on nitrogen fixation, the uptake of organic nitrogen by peatland plants, and the release and microbial consumption of organic and inorganic forms of nitrogen (along with dissolved organic carbon and carbon dioxide) as litter and peat tissues decompose. In addition, we are conducting a long-term N (and PK) bog fertilization experiment at Mer Bleue, which offers opportunities, such as determining root growth and dynamics under natural and fertilized conditions. I also welcome students with 'bright ideas' of their own.

Wayne Pollard: I am currently looking for a Doctoral student to work on thermokarst and the impacts of climate change related landscape processes in either the High Arctic or the western Arctic.

Nigel Roulet: See Earth System Science node above.

Jeanine Rhemtulla: see Environmental Mangement node above.

Ian Stachan: I am looking for up to two Master's or Doctoral students to work within the general area of GHG exchange in wetland ecosystems. Both will involve using micromet equipment to study processes behind the surface-atmosphere exchanges of GHGs.

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