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SCWIST Newsletter - April 2009
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SCWIST member Mya Warren receives UBC Faculty Science Achievment award
Congratulations to Mya Warren – a recipient of this year’s Faculty Science Achievement Awards at the University of British Columbia.
Mya led the team that developed the Teaching Assistant Training program in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, which has become a model for such activities across the faculty of Science.
SCWIST nominates Judy Illes for 2009 YWCA Women of Distinction Award
SCWIST has a proud tradition of nominating excellent women in science, engineering and technology for the YWCA Women of Distinction awards. We also are delighted to have several previous awardees and nominees among our members (including the 2008 winner Dr. Rabab Ward).
This year Elana Brief, Kim Hellemans and Gulnur Birol and Julia Vaughan wrote and assembled the nomination package for Dr. Judy Illes. Below is an excerpt from the nomination.
Dr. Judy Illes, Canada Research Chair in Neuroethics and Professor of Neurology, is the Director of the National Core for Neuroethics, based at the University of British Columbia and leads the Women in World Neuroscience Committee of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). In less than a decade, Judy pioneered the field of neuroethics to provide ethical and legal guidelines for advances in neuroscience so that patients, doctors, researchers and policy-makers are able to make ethical decisions. Judy volunteers her time nationally and internationally to advance women in science, and is working towards reducing barriers that exist for women neuroscientists in low- to mid-income nations. Judy is admired by her students and colleagues and is an inspiring role-model for both women and men.
We are delighted to see the impressive list of nominees that have been put forward by the many dedicated women and men who work to promote and advance women in science.
The full list of nominees for the 2009 YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Technology, Science and Industry is:
Elizabeth Croft – Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UBC
Charmaine Dean – Professor of Statistics and Actuarial Science, SFU
Adele Diamond – Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, UBC, and Canada Research Chair
Judy Illes – Director, National Core for Neuroethics and Professor of Neurology, UBC
Shelia Innis – Director, Nutrition Research Program, Child & Family Research Institute
Margo Moore – Professor of Biological Sciences, SFU
If you wish to attend the awards dinner (June 3, 2009), please let .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) know. We may be able to assemble a SCWIST table. For more information on the awards or the dinner, go to http://www.ywcavan.org/content/Women_of_Distinction_Awards/201/30/114.
Your Brain and Protein Power
As nerve cells develop, they grow connections and become integrated into neural networks that transmit electrochemical signals through the nervous system. Once these networks are established, a neuron’s capacity for growth and formation of new connections is diminished. This loss of neural plasticity is why an ageing or damaged brain is unable to repair itself by forming new connections.
But UBC researchers have discovered that neurons don’t lose their capacity for growth; rather, they are prevented from doing so. Researchers have pinpointed the agents involved in neural growth and suppression: the proteins calpain and cortactin. Cortactin activates neural growth, and calpain blocks cortactin once the neuron has developed and integrated into the nervous system.
The researchers were able to demonstrate in animal models that suppression of calpain results in greater neural plasticity. They are hopeful their discovery will lead to new treatments for neurological disorders and boost in the efficacy of treatments for other conditions.
Ana Mingorance-Le Meur, a postdoc in the department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, is study lead along with professor Timothy O’Connor. “The maintenance of neuronal connections is an active process that requires constant repression of the formation of nerve sprouts by the protein calpain to avoid uncontrolled growth,” she says. “But a consequence of this role is that calpain limits
neural plasticity and the brain’s ability to repair itself. The next step is to find a way to enhance neural plasticity without interfering with the good connections that are already in place.” Mingorance-Le Meur is also a member of the Brain Research Centre at UBC and VCH Research Institute.
UBC Alumni’s Trek magazine Issue 23, Spring 2009 p 7
Rot and Human Health
Composting is good for the planet. But is it good for human health? As more cities adopt a mass composting policy, UBC researchers are trying to find the answer. “Even though it is an eco-friendly practice, we know biohazards may be present,” says associate professor Karen Bartlett of UBC’s school of Environmental Health. “There are disease-causing organisms present throughout the process.” The wastes can contain nasty microorganisms such as listeria and salmonella, but these break down as the waste heats up and decomposes.
Researchers at UBC are able to study three different composting technologies used in Vancouver, Kamloops and Kelowna. These also present different environmental conditions for the rocess. “We will be able to make recommendations to the composting industry, which could help prevent both acute effects and chronic lung disease,” says Jim Atwater, an associate professor of civil engineering.
On the front line are the five to 10 workers at each composting site. “Workers are exposed to massive blooms of organisms that can potentially cause lung damage in high doses,” says Bartlett. “We’ve seen studies from countries where composting is a bigger industry than in Canada. They show that some workers experience ill health associated with breathing organic dust.” Chronic health effects can include permanent scarring of the lungs.
Researchers are exploring what bearing different methods of composting have on human exposure to fungal spores, thermophilic spore-forming bacteria and endotoxins, and on the presence of disease-causing microorganisms. They are also considering environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, which have already been shown to make a difference. “The dry air in Kamloops and Kelowna has an impact on the dispersion of microorganisms and a buffer zone between the composting facility and other facilities may be required,” says Bartlett. “On the other hand, the amount of rain in Vancouver has an impact on dispersion and a buffer zone may not be required.” The researchers also want to establish if minimum temperatures for the destruction of disease-causing mircoorganisms are always met.
The project, which is funded by Worksafe BC, will be used to establish work safety practices.
UBC Alumni’s Trek magazine Issue 23, Spring 2009 p 5
Beetling About in Kelowna
When people think about pine beetle infestation, they usually think of vast tracts of dead forest. But pine beetles don’t limit their activities to rural areas, as Kelowna residents can testify. The city was hit with an infestation of the insect for the first time last summer. For UBC Okanagan researchers, this presented an opportunity to learn how the beetle moves and spreads through an urban area.
Bob Lalonde and Rebecca Tyson combined their expertise in biology and mathematics respectively to gather data and build a mathematical model that can identify dispersal patterns. “We are
trying to determine how the bark beetle enters the city, what direction they come from and how they move in the city,” says Lalonde. “In addition, we plan to study the beetles themselves and look at factors such as how much energy is being burned in their flight path.”
With two summer students, the researchers placed 44 pheromone traps around the city and its outskirts. They were left for two months and checked every week. Depending on location and the prevalence of natural predators (the work should also shed light on how quickly beetle predators follow their prey into new areas) the traps contained anywhere from zero to 200 beetles. Other variables used to create the dispersal model include concentration of pine trees, beetle biology and weather conditions.
“Mathematical modeling often reveals interesting behaviors that aren’t anticipated,” says Tyson, an assistant professor of mathematics, statistics and physics. “We are using beetle biology, spatial data and math in this research, which may help us gain insight into the risk of infection for pine trees in certain areas of the city. This could result in possible solutions or preventative measures.”
The team plans more data collection this summer. This time, the data may help reveal the number of beetles originating from the city rather than entering it. “There is still a lot of data to be collected and analyzed,” says Tyson. One thing we can say with confidence is that, based on early results, it looks as though bark beetles enter a city from the outskirts inward, as opposed to dropping randomly from above, as some people had originally suggested.”
UBC Alumni’s Trek magazine Issue 23, Spring 2009 p 11
New Patinas Bridge Science and Art
by Jody Jacob
Entirely new colours for metal patinas are being developed by UBC Okanagan fourth-year undergraduate Ashley Devantier and chemistry professor Stephen McNeil.
Imagine a purple Statue of Liberty dressed in a canary-yellow robe, holding a bright red flame.
The artistic concept is in the scientific works thanks to research by Ashley Devantier, a fourth-year UBC Okanagan student who is using chemistry to create more colour options for artists working with patinas.
A patina is a coloured coating on the surface of bronze or similar metals, often produced naturally by oxidation over a long period, such as the blue-green colour on the Statute of Liberty’s copper surfaces. Artificial patinas are used by artists to add an antique look or feel to their artwork, but these artificial patinas have their drawbacks: they’re confined to a very limited colour palette (usually blue-green) and often use highly toxic or hazardous compounds.
By mixing and manipulating common – and far less toxic – metallic elements and identifying the molecular basis for new colours, Devantier has produced nearly a full rainbow of colours not previously available in the patina palette. In addition, she has studied and analyzed the underlying molecular changes that take place when applying these new patinas.
“I took some common metallic elements – chromium, iron, cobalt and copper – which are known to give compounds very intense, vibrant colours, and started to explore the chemical processes that occur when they are applied to bronze surfaces,” says Devantier. “All of a sudden these amazing colours started to show up.”
Although the practical applications are yet to be determined, Devantier’s research could potentially give artists new, less toxic formulas to create patinas of varying colours and an array of exciting options for their bronze art.
Devantier, who received an Undergraduate Research Award (URA) from the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences to conduct her research last summer, says interest in her work has been overwhelming and the experience itself has been life-changing.
“The response I’ve had from the internal UBC arts community is fantastic,” she says. “When I look at where I was only a few months ago and where this project has taken me, well, it’s mind-boggling. The URA grant has completely changed my personal path and the way I thought about science and research.”
Devantier had planned to finish her bachelor of science degree in chemistry by December. She was looking forward to finishing university and was eager to start working in whatever field she was able to land a job. But after receiving the URA and completing the research part of her project last summer, Devantier decided to continue with her project through an honours thesis.
“This project has been in Ashley’s hands since day one,” says Stephen McNeil, assistant professor of chemistry and primary supervisor of Devantier’s patina research project. “It is really something off the beaten path. I was surprised to find out that nobody has done the preliminary work to see what transition metals could be put on a surface to create colour, so it was very exploratory at the start. It’s a visually enticing project that bridges science and art.”
As part of her honours thesis, Devantier is studying molecular changes over time occurring on the surface of the bronze patinas, and recording them. The next step will be to approach the arts community to determine the practical applications of the research.
Although the project has been rewarding for Devantier, it has presented interesting challenges. “There was the great saga of the disappearing red,” she says. “I produced this beautiful bright red and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to do it again. I used the exact same mixture, and it would repeatedly turn blue. I was convinced the colour gods hated me.”
A few weeks of perseverance and careful study revealed the cause: solutions of an iron salt would react with the copper atoms in the bronze surface, yielding a red iron compound. If the iron solution had time to react with oxygen in the surrounding atmosphere, the iron complex would oxidize and form a blue colour instead. Applying the iron under a flow of nitrogen gas would prevent the oxidation, leaving the original red. Chemical identification of the blue and red materials provided the clues needed to reproduce each colour.
“Figuring that out was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” says Devantier.
UBC ALumni’s Trek Magazine Issue #23: Spring 2009 pp 30-31
Grade 12 student wins award for alzheimers work
By Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun – April 10, 2009
Volunteer work at a seniors’ home inspired Delta Grade 12 student Linda Liu to conduct scientific research she hopes could lead to improved treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
Liu earned first place in the $3,000 2009 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge — or SABC — in the B.C. region for her study into the tangling of the tau protein that causes neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s.
She discovered that rhubarb extract possesses the ability to preserve the structure of the protein by inhibiting its tangling.
Tau proteins are abundant in neurons in the central nervous system.
The idea of studying the causes of Alzheimer’s came to the student from Sands Secondary School in Delta when she was helping old people who were in a state of chronic confusion.
“I really saw how devastating Alzheimer’s disease is,” said Liu. “It’s so scary. I was constantly telling people who they were, who I was and where they were.”
Liu, whose parents moved to Canada from China 14 years ago, began looking into possible research topics online last summer. She had earlier researched traditional Chinese medicines, but this time turned to ancient medicines from India.
She learned that foods with an astringent taste were believed, in the Indian tradition, to increase vata, a sort of life force. She had also read that Western scientists had decided that astringent plants such as mulberry, turmeric and persimmon could help inhibit Alzheimer’s.
So she decided to test the astringent rhubarb on the tau protein. She conducted a series of trials earlier this year at Simon Fraser University, where she was provided laboratory time and help from a graduate chemistry student.
“The point was to prevent a protein from ‘misholding’ — to get it to keep its structure.”
She will travel to Ottawa to compete in the national SABC competition on May 5. The competition will be judged by a panel of experts at the National Research Council.
This is the second consecutive placing for Liu in the competition, having placed second in 2008 as a member of a team that performed research on human melanoma cells.
Liu loves science because of its “ability to change the world.”
“It’s like a bunch of puzzle pieces that in the end fit together.”
Liu, whose school average is more than 95 per cent, has been offered scholarships by many Canadian universities.
Besides being a brainiac, Liu loves surfing at Tofino. Despite her success in science competitions, she may not pursue a career in scientific research.
“I really want something that will combine my two passions: science and humanitarianism.
“So I would really like to become a medical doctor and work for Doctors Without Borders.”
Girl power can mean a career using math
Arvind Gupta answers math questions
By Arvind Gupta, Special to the Vancouver Sun – April 8, 2009
Lee Woods
This excellent series on math is long overdue! I have noticed with alarm my teenage daughter and her friends seem to be squeaking by in their math classes. They seem to believe that math is for boys only and they “dumb” down constantly. They all want to be famous like Beyonce and don’t seem to understand the importance of math and science.
In our cult of celebrity worship, this attitude is encouraged in school and society. I want my daughter and all young women to pursue the careers of their choice but not all these girls are going to be rich movie stars and rock stars. These are the same women who have trouble counting out change in their part-time retail jobs even when the cash register shows them the exact amount.
How can parents get their kids able to function at the standard level required in the real world while working towards their dream jobs? I am very worried about my daughter’s future and worry she will be left behind. How can I get my daughter interested in math before it is too late?
Hi Lee,
I’m glad you see the need to promote math, science, technology, and engineering with young women. And as you are aware, keeping your teenage daughter’s interest and confidence in math is crucial. We all know what a big difference a little intrinsic motivation can make.
As a start, make it personal and find out what careers interest your daughter. Take a look at the math websites we posted with the March 31 “Math and Gender” article, such as GirlsareIT, Girlsgotech, and girlstart on the Vancouver Sun website and show your daughter some new possibilities while surfing together.
You will find career descriptions, bios of professional women, and tips for parents on how to encourage their daughters to pursue math, science, technology, and engineering.
Locally, Science World has a program called Opening the Door. This is a networking event for students in Grades 10-12 who are interested in careers in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
The program provides students with the opportunity to meet professional scientists, engineers, technologists and technicians who work in a variety of fields.
The key is to connect kids with real people who have careers which use math and science.
Science World also has a program called Scientists & Innovators in the Schools, which brings engineers technologists and technicians into B.C. schools to speak to children in Grades K to 12 about their research. Perhaps talk to your daughter’s math teacher about inviting a local scientist or business person who uses math in their job into the classroom.
Another site that I came across that looks fabulous is the Expanding Your Horizons conference network in the United States. They provide support to professional women in sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics, who want to plan and deliver a conference to encourage young women like your daughter to keep up their math and science studies for future opportunities. Suggest that your daughter search “Expanding Your Horizons” in YouTube to see how exciting the possibilities are.
Also very timely—next week’s Math Matters article will reveal 10 fabulous careers that use math. And they are not the usual ones that you would think of!
On a daily basis, do all that you can to encourage and help her be successful in math at school. Check with her teacher to see what support you can help provide at home. You could also take a look back at our original Math Matters article about why we all need math. Don’t despair and keep looking for that hook—that career or situation that will show her the connection between math and her future.
Mishaps befall Canadian teams at NASA moonbuggy race
Friday, April 3, 2009 CBC News
Carleton University students Chris Polowick (left) and Lindsay Los (right) ran into difficulties 10 metres into the race, when Polowick’s chain lost tension due to a sprocket that fell out. (CBC)A warped wheel, a loose sprocket, and a bloody finger were a few of the challenges that reared up against the Canadian teams at NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race in Huntsville, Ala., Friday.
Teams from McMaster University in Hamilton, Carleton University, in Ottawa, and Ryerson University in Toronto were among the 75 scheduled to take on a twisting course through moon-like terrain strewn with obstacles such as rockets.
Each team had lovingly designed and built a three- or four-wheeled human-powered vehicle inspired by the original lunar rovers from the 1970s Apollo missions to navigate the racecourse.
Neither the McMaster team nor the Carleton team managed to finish their first race within the 12-minute time limit Friday due to mechanical mishaps during the race, one of which ended in a trip to the hospital for Carleton University engineering student Chris Polowick.
During the first 10 metres of the race, Polowick had been riding side-by-side with teammate Lindsay Los when a sprocket necessary to maintain tension on his drive train fell out.
The four-wheeled vehicle has two drivetrains, one for each driver, so Los continued pedaling as Polowick reached underneath the seat trying to fix the problem.
“His hand got caught in the sprocket, and it resulted in a finger injury, which sent him to the hospital,” Los told CBC News.
Despite the injury, the team waited until after the race before seeking first aid, said Doug Parks, father of Carleton team leader Curtis Parks.
Instead, they continued doggedly through the course with half their pedal-power. In some of the tougher terrain, Polowick got off the buggy and pushed it, incurring a time penalty in the process.
The team eventually ran out of time, but managed to repair the vehicle after the race in preparation for another chance on Saturday, Parks said.
Each team was to race once on Friday and once on Saturday, with the best of the two times counting in the competition for prizes.
In fact, the mechanical challenge faced by the Carleton team pales in comparison to the one faced by McMaster.
Collision with mogul
While their buggy was rolling down one of the downhill slopes on the course Friday morning, powered by the pedaling of engineering students Bogdan Burbulea and Tabitha Johnson, it hit a large mogul, causing the steering to jar and forcing the wheel sideways over the mogul, reported McMaster mechanical engineering student Brenden Wendover.
“The wheel got warped pretty bad,” he said, adding that the disc brake also suffered a little bit of damage. “Our custom rear differential took a bit of a pounding too.”
Wendover said the team was hoping to get a replacement wheel from a local bike shop on Friday afternoon, but had also been offered plastic wheels of the wrong size from another team if that didn’t pan out.
They planned to work well into the night repairing the buggy, and Wendover was confident the team still had a chance at a prize on Saturday.
“I think we have a good shot, yeah. Our buggy’s really durable,” he said, drawing laughter from his teammates, who were in the process of conducting repairs nearby.
“Well — the major parts of it are pretty durable.”
Ryerson University’s team of Aerospace Engineering students Cindy Hok and Gautam Mehta were scheduled to race late in the day.
NASA has run the Great Moonbuggy Race annually since 1994. More than 475 students designed and built moonbuggies for the 2009 competition at Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Ala. The course is about 1,100 metres long and includes hills and craters as well as actual space debris such as: the Saturn Moon Rocket.
Prizes will be awarded Saturday both for fastest course completion times and best vehicle assembly.
Math and gender: Is there a link?
The performance gap is negligible, so we should encourage boys and girls to resist stereotypes
By Arvind Gupta, Special to the Vancouver Sun April 1, 2009
The relationship between gender and mathematics in North American culture is a complicated thing. “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus”-style stereotypes are often unquestioned, confessing to being bad at math is socially acceptable, and unmediated math anxiety is common, particularly among women. With few exceptions, people who are good at math are portrayed in popular media as nerdy, hypercompetitive, socially inept males with pocket protectors.
My own daughters, ignoring the indisputable evidence of their parentage, point out to me that math just isn’t very attractive. But, it seems that with the popularity of the TV show Numb3rs, and the recent success of the best-selling book Math Doesn’t Suck by TV star and mathematician Danica McKellar, math does seem to be losing some of its stodgy image—perhaps not soon enough to sway my daughters and their friends, but maybe for a younger generation.
Like many of their peers, my daughters are capable young women who do well in math and exhibit the kind of curiosity and intellectual drive that would make them successful mathematicians. But for some reason, they just aren’t interested in pursuing it as a career.
Although we have come a long way since the days of gender-tracking students’ educational options, in countries like Canada and the U.S., fewer women than expected end up pursuing advanced degrees in fields like math, engineering and computer science. While the historic gender performance gap in mathematics is now negligible, women remain under-represented in the field. The study “Culture, Gender, and Math” published in the journal Science last year, underscores this fact. Using data from 40 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, it shows that in societies with high levels of gender equality, “girls perform as well as boys in mathematics and much better than them in reading.”
But, in another large-scale study of 44 industrialized or industrializing countries, researcher Karen Bradley observed that, “gender gaps in attitudes toward math and math careers was greater in advanced industrial societies, despite the smaller math achievement gap.”
This attitude gap is what mystifies me. With competitive quantitative skills and superior reading abilities, girls, in many ways, are in a better position to succeed than boys! Categorically, boys tend to perform slightly better than girls in geometric or spatial testing, but with practice there is nothing that girls can’t learn and excel at.
Yet instead of confidence, many young women seem to internalize self-doubt, and distance themselves from pursuing the quantitative knowledge that will open up dozens of highly rewarding and interesting career paths. Be it from parental attitudes, teacher cues, the media or their peers, oftentimes girls don’t think they’re supposed to be good at math, or, if they are, that it will make them less feminine. Some girls are still getting the message that it’s okay to be smart, but just not too “math smart.” What they believe about themselves is critical to their ability to succeed in math.
A fascinating study by University of B.C. researchers Ilan Dar-Nimrod and Steven J. Heine published in Science in 2006 showed that “women who read of genetic causes of sex differences performed worse on math tests than those who read of experiential causes.”
The reason for this result, they suspected: “If individuals share the same genetic foundation at the base of the stereotype, they might feel that the stereotype applies to them … people might react differently if the origins of the group differences were perceived to rest on the specific experiences that people’s groups have had. People may reason that their own experiences are different or that they can resist the effects of their experiences.”
While research into math and gender issues will continue to expand, we know enough right now to encourage our girls and our boys to resist stereotyping themselves or others, and to take interest in the many exciting places that mathematics can take them.
Arvind Gupta is a mathematician and scientific director of MITACS, a national research network focused on connecting university-based math researchers with companies and other organizations to solve real-world challenges. For more information on MITACS, visit http://www.mitacs.ca.
What Makes Oceans, and Researchers, Resilient?
By Brian Lin
Jennifer Selgrath’s quest to study and restore the resilience of ocean habitats in the Philippines took a detour last year when she and her bike were struck by a car and thrown into oncoming traffic.
On the road to recovery, however, she learned her own strength and resilience – and found a renewed passion for research.
Growing up in Southern California on the beach where Baywatch was filmed, the PhD candidate with the UBC Fisheries Centre’s Project Seahorse dreamed of becoming a dancer. But her dreams expanded – she is still a dance artist – when she traveled to Southeast Asia as an undergrad and realized that answers to the most severe environmental problems weren’t as straightforward as she’d thought.
“In my Los Angeles-based worldview, sustainability was a goal that seemed achievable by moderately shifting my lifestyle,” says Selgrath. “It was through my interactions with the local communities that I understood why people sacrifice long-term sustainability for short-sighted gains, especially when basic survival is on the line.”
The experience was “uncomfortable but inspiring,” according to Selgrath, who began devoting her energy to environmental education, policy and research – and eventually landing at UBC.
“Project Seahorse is highly unusual in a university setting, because we advance marine conservation by blending academic rigour with applied management and policy work,” says Selgrath. The groundbreaking project, headed by Prof. Amanda Vincent, works with partner organizations around the world to conduct marine biology research and apply the findings immediately to improve the lives of communities that rely on fisheries resources, while helping conserve and rehabilitate ocean environments at the same time.
As part of her PhD work, Selgrath examines viable strategies for rehabilitating coastal ecosystems in the Philippines, which are among the most diverse marine environments in the world. Decades of exploitative fisheries practices, including blast-fishing and trawling, have left the area severely damaged and the local fishers’ livelihoods in peril.
“The area is experiencing very different pressures from what most people here in Canada are familiar with when it comes to fisheries conservation,” says Selgrath. “Fishers there largely draw on the marine resources for food and to supply tropical aquarium and traditional Chinese medicine trades.
“While the methods and scale of the fishing practices are different, the consequences of and damage to the marine environment are similar to that of large-scale fishing fleets – destroying marine habitats such as coral reefs and seagrass, and reducing biodiversity.”
The good news, says Selgrath, is that her research is indicating that damaged marine habitats could bounce back. “What I’m attempting to find out is what contributes to this resilience,” she explains.
“Protecting habitats is the most effective way to conserve biodiversity. But do we protect habitats that are most robust and therefore have a better chance of rebounding, or do we protect habitats that are more sensitive so they don’t get to the point of being beyond recovery?”
To understand the intricate factors affecting the marine ecosystem, Selgrath is turning to both new technology and good old-fashioned footwork. She has convinced Planet Action, a French satellite imaging company, to donate decades of satellite images of the region – worth approximately $150,000 – so she can analyze and identify areas most threatened by habitat degradation.
Starting this fall, she’ll use her Fulbright Scholarship to visit the Philippines and interview fishers in these communities to learn where they fish, what practices they’ve used historically and what methods they now use to adapt to the decline in fish abundance.
“I’ll then tie the fishing pressure and coral survival data together to evaluate how habitats respond to human activities, and suggest what the communities can do to conserve the longevity of their livelihood while continuing to prosper in the meantime,” says Selgrath, who’ll collaborate with colleagues from the Philippines-based Project Seahorse Foundation.
“The toughest part of any conservation effort is convincing people to change their behaviour,” she acknowledges. “As a marine biologist, my job is to provide communities that rely on the ocean for survival with information that they can use to determine their own approach to long term sustainability.”
From the brink of death and after months of rehabilitation, Selgrath has chosen research as her lifelong career.
“I wouldn’t have done any of the things I did before the accident – teaching, dancing and research – if I didn’t love them,” says Selgrath, who could barely follow one train of thought at a time following the injuries suffered in the accident. “But out of everything I love, research affords me the opportunity to transform the future of the ocean and to sustain the wellbeing of the people who rely on it. It gives me the tools to make a real difference in the world.”
UBC Reports | Vol. 55 | No. 3 | Mar. 5, 2009
Wed Feb 01
