Profiles

Jenna Falk, MA Candidate

Jenna is studying the impacts of long-term remote landscape change on ecosystem management in two Canadian Rocky Mountain parks - Mount Robson Provincial Park in BC and Willmore Wilderness Park in AB. She uses repeat-photograpy to assess the long-term landscape changes in both parks using historical survey images through the Mountain Legacy Project. With these image pairs, she is conducting focus group photo-elicitation activities with parks managers, rangers and area supervisors local to these respective parks. Focus groups will identify what the inherent challenges are in managing and restoring remote ecosystems in these two parks, and how managers of remote ecosystems should best approach these issues in the face of rapid ecological change.
Jenna is a member of the Mountain Legacy Project under the supervision of Dr. Eric Higgs in Environmental Studies.

Hannah Roessler, MA Candidate

Hannah finds the diversity of ways that humans grow, gather or cultivate their food simply thrilling. Her current research explores how organic farmers in the Pacific Northwest perceive climate change, and adapt to changing environmental conditions. She is testing the effectiveness of using participatory video techniques in the learning and transfer of local farming knowledge and adaptive strategies.
Hannah likes to misquote Margaret Mead by saying “dirt is just soil out of place”.
www.farmersfilmanac.com

Jennifer Anne Sauter, MA Candidate

Jennifer is interested in the planning and restoration of urban food systems. Through interviews with planners, educators, and urban farmers, she is developing site selection criteria to conduct a GIS based urban agriculture land inventory for the City of Victoria. She is also examining the underlying barriers and supports for allotting land to urban agriculture. The objective of her research is to provide an informed assessment of potential land for urban agriculture, while granting insight into the processes and perceptions that currently shape how land is allotted to urban agriculture and the role of urban agriculture in ecological restoration. Her supervisor is Dr. Valentin Schaefer, Academic Administrator of the Restoration of Natural Systems Program.

Leigh Joseph, MSc Candidate

Leigh is a member of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations. Her graduate research focuses on the ethnoecological restoration of northern riceroot (Fritillaria Camschatcensis) in the Squamish estuary. Riceroot is known as lhásem in the Skwxwú7mesh language. Historically, this plant was an important traditional root vegetable that was cultivated by indigenous people in estuary gardens along the coast of British Columbia. Today, the population of this plant has been greatly reduced in the Squamish estuary and it has become a focal point for Squamish Nation members who are interested in renewing knowledge and practices connected to their traditional plant foods. Leigh's research has produced a series of experimental restoration gardens in the Squamish estuary with the hope of these gardens developing into future food harvest sites.

Harneet Gill, MA candidate

I am studying the effects of disturbance and landscape changes in arctic ecosystems, through both a scientific and social perspective. I am working in the Peel Plateau in the Northwest Territories, in collaboration with the Tetlit Gwich’in of Fort McPherson. My research goals are to test for differences in plant communities and microenvironment in disturbed sites, and to record local observations of landscape changes through participatory research. My supervisor is Trevor Lantz.

Martina Beck, MSc candidate

Martina studies non-native smallmouth bass in British Columbia lakes. Martina uses visual snorkel surveys to document habitat utilization and gut-content / stable isotope analysis to determine smallmouth bass trophic dynamics. The primary objective of this project is to determine variability of smallmouth bass habitat use and diet as a function of lake physical and biological diversity. Martina is a member of the Seafood Ecology Research Group (SERG) under the co-supervision of Dr. John Volpe in Environmental Studies and Dr. Matthias Herborg, BC Ministry of Environment.

Katharine Corriveau, MSc candidate

Katharine is concerned for the threatened alpine tundra ecological zones of British Columbia. Since biodiversity is known to enhance ecosystem resilience in the face of change, she is planning an epic journey in the southwestern Coast Mountains to examine the strength of the relationship between precipitation and alpine plant diversity. Understanding the importance of climate parameters in maintaining diversity in the alpine tundra will be critical in our attempts to predict how this ecosystem will respond to the impacts of future climate change.

Anna Melnik, MA candidate

Anna is interested in the human face of sustainability. Currently, she is using qualitative inquiry, including interviews and narrative and thematic analysis, to explore the experiences of people engaged in sustainable lifestyle practices and communities of practice. Her Master’s thesis research aims to empirically study experiences of needs satisfaction connected with engagement in sustainable lifestyles and associated communities.

Lindsay Monk, MA candidate

Lindsay is interested in how change happens. She will be looking at First Nations housing and assessing current changes to the on-reserve housing system, considering whether and how First Nation engagement – at both a policy and community level – could be supported to enable housing to serve as a focal point for the restoration of economic, environmental, cultural and social well being of First Nation communities.

Jason Straka, MSc candidate

When fertilization is needed,
For plants to assure they’ll be seeded,
If insects are missing,
When blooms are dehiscing,
Will their reproduction be impeded?

Jason is interested in factors affecting diversity and abundance of plants and pollinators in Arctic and alpine ecosystems. He is currently using experimental and observational approaches to investigate the potential demographic consequences of mismatches in the timing of interactions between flowering plants and their pollinators. The results of his studies will provide important information about the impacts of climate change on pollination services.

Andra Forney, MSc candidate

As an Ethnoecologist, Andra is interested in the social-ecological relationships between people and their environments. Her research focuses on the local knowledge and management of the black mountain huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum) in the East Kootenays of British Columbia.

Carla Burton, PhD candidate

In collaboration with elders of the Nisga'a First Nation, Carla is documenting their traditional plant use. In addition, she is comparing plant names and plant distribution on Nisga'a traditional territory with that of neighbouring First Nations, to look for evidence of cultural interaction and trade.

Thomas Child, MSc candidate

Though of mixed ancestry Tom is Kwakiutl from the village of Fort Rupert on Northern Vancouver Island. The two pillars of Tom's research project include: a characterization of traditional food consumption in five Vancouver Island First Nations communities, and an assessment of toxic contaminants in coastal marine foods. The project involves a partnership between five Vancouver Island First Nations, UVic, Health Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Vancouver Island Regional Wildlife Management Society.

Michelle Church, PhD candidate

Michelle's research is concerned with the ways in which we come to understand, perceive, conserve and restore natural sacred spaces such as medicine wheels and henges, among others.She is interested in those places that are sacred to communities, rather than personal sacred places. Michelle's PhD work will use the on-going disputes at Bear Mountain as a case study for finding ways in which we can come to respect and preserve such places, and will also look at developing a cross-culturally acceptable typology of sacred places. This, hopefully, will mean that in the future, such disputes will be settled more peaceably, and with more respect for both culture and the environment.

Rod Davis, PhD candidate

Rod’s PhD research is focused on evaluating conservation policy alternatives and adaptive social governance mechanisms to address wildlife resiliency, changing land use, and climate change in the Columbia Mountain region of British Columbia.

Kris Kloehn, MSc candidate

Kris' research interests are broad in nature but have been focused by the pressing need for actionable research in the field of finfish aquaculture. Globally, production of high trophic level finfish species is growing as wild stocks fail to supply demand. While growth of aquaculture may remedy the gap in supply, the effect of the industry on wild species is not fully understood.

Nutrient input and structure created by salmon farms provide subsidies to the local marine environment. Kris is investigating the influence of these subsidies on host parasite dynamics of wild fish in the Broughton Archipelago of British Columbia. Research conducted in Chile has confirmed the aggregating effect of farms greatly increases the rate of successful transfer of parasites (internal and external) within the wild fish community. This effect has not been evaluated in British Columbia waters. The focus of Kris' research is to quantify the magnitude of change in parasite load in wild fish relative to ambient farm-free zones and to formulate predictions regarding the population level effects.

Rick Kubian, MSc candidate

Rick is a Fire/Vegetation Specialist working for Parks Canada in the Lake Louise Yoho Kootenay Field Unit. He has been involved in Fire and Vegetation Management since 1990 when he began his career as a warden in Jasper National Park. Rick is an active member of the Fire Operations program and has been very involved in the Prescribed Fire program. Rick's research interest is to develop a better understanding of historic fire regime conditions in order to set more definitive restoration objectives for Parks Canada's prescribed burn program. He hopes to use repeat photography in this endeavour.

Valerie Mucciarelli, MSc candidate

The nutrient rich waters and rocky coastlines of British Columbia support some of the greatest marine biodiversity in the world. While we have some of the most diverse subtidal ecosystems across the globe, factors that drive this species diversity have rarely been studied. A few studies conducted in tropical subtidal environments have shown that habitat complexity increases the diversity of fish and gastropods. I am interested in determining if this correlation is present among algae and sessile invertebrates located in the temperate subtidal environment of BC.

Ashley Park, MSc candidate

Ashley's research focuses on the dynamics between open-net salmon aquaculture and native species. She is specifically interested in evaluating if emamectin benzoate (SLICETM), a crustacean neurotoxin administered in salmon feed to decrease sea lice abundance on farm salmon, has impacts on non-target benthic spot prawn (Pandalus platyceros) populations. The ecological as well as food safety concerns posed with this question makes this research an important step in determining the dynamics of chemical residues in the marine environment.

Kate Proctor, MSc candidate

Kate is exploring whether in situ propagation of camas using traditional management methods is compatible with the current approaches to ecological restoration of Garry oak meadows. More specifically, she is interested in researching the effects that burning, weeding and tilling (aimed at increasing camas populations) have on the existing and subsequent plant diversity and composition. Kate will be conducting her research at the Nature Conservancy's Cowichan Garry Oak Preserve.

Edosdi (Judith Thompson), PhD candidate

Judy's Tahltan name is "Edosdi" which means "someone who raises up children and pets." She is a member of the Tahltan First Nation and is an instructor of First Nations Studies, Science and Math at Northwest Community College in Prince Rupert. Her research involves working with Tahltan Elders in regards to the role and importance of language and oral traditions in the maintenance and renewal of cultural knowledge of her people and their relationship to the land. Her long-term goal is to develop curriculum that honours this knowledge and wisdom in culturally appropriate and respectful ways.