{"id":54423,"date":"2018-11-15T14:02:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T19:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=54423"},"modified":"2018-11-15T14:02:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-15T19:02:48","slug":"brock-student-wins-two-awards-in-national-science-photo-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2018\/11\/brock-student-wins-two-awards-in-national-science-photo-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock student wins two awards in national science photo competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana Harris calls Nov. 9 her \u201cspecial day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It was on that day last week that the Master of Sustainability student became a first time aunt, and also the day she was told, in the strictest of confidence, that she had captured two top prizes in a national science research photo competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Harris had to keep the secret of her achievement under wraps until Nov. 14, when the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) announced the winners of its Canada-wide<\/span> Science Exposed<\/span><\/a> competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

The competition showcases images taken during scientific research being conducted in all fields by faculty and student researchers in post-secondary institutions and researchers in public and private research centres.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Dana

Dana Harris’ submission to the NSERC Science Exposed competition featuring cells of the jack pine tree.<\/p><\/div>\n

Harris received the People\u2019s Choice Award and a Jury Prize for her photo, \u201c<\/span>Exploring the Jack Pine Tight Knit Family Tree<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a super huge honour to have people sharing my photo, voting on it and just enjoying it,\u201d says Harris. \u201cAnd, to get that mention from the NSERC jury members was really gratifying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Diane Dupont, Dean of Graduate Studies, said the Faculty is \u201cso proud of Dana and her success in the NSERC Science Exposed photography contest.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo win the People\u2019s Choice Award is an outstanding achievement,\u201d Dupont said. \u201cThis award is a testament to the cutting-edge research she is pursuing involving the globally-relevant topic of climate change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Harris\u2019 photo shows phases of developing xylem cells, stained in different colours, that are found in a wood sample cored from the outermost part of a jack pine tree in the Northwest Territories, where she is from.<\/span><\/p>\n

The image, shot from a microscope, shows the jack pine tree\u2019s phloem, cambial and xylem cells (blue dye) and mature xylem cells (red dye) in a thin slice of the wood. It is one of a series of images taken weekly over the past year to track the growth of the jack pine tree\u2019s various cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis type of information is useful for researchers who create climate reconstructions using tree rings as a source of historical climate data,\u201d explains Harris.<\/span><\/p>\n

She thanked her supervisor, Professor of Geography and Tourism Studies Michael Pisaric, and her fellow student researchers in Brock\u2019s Water and Environment Laboratory (WEL) for their support.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDana’s research is helping to understand how important tree species in the boreal forest are affected by climate change,\u201d says Pisaric. \u201cHer research also helps to inform larger questions concerning carbon uptake by the boreal forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorthern regions of Canada are being impacted by changing climatic conditions, including warmer temperatures, changing precipitation regimes and altered frequency and intensity of forest fires and other disturbance agents.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The WEL lab is co-directed by Pisaric and Associate Professor of Geography and Tourism Studies Kevin Turner, with the aim to explore how terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in Canada’s North are changing in response to climatic and environmental change. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Harris says she is happy that research on climate change and environmental conditions in the North were acknowledged with awards in the competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this year<\/span><\/a>, the photos of 20 researchers from across Canada, including Harris\u2019s entry, were shortlisted and posted on NSERC\u2019s website. People viewing the 20 photos were given the chance to vote for their favourite image. A panel of judges also chose three images that won jury prizes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Harris was also a competitor in<\/span> NSERC\u2019s Science, Action!<\/span><\/a> research video contest,<\/span> making the first cut<\/span><\/a> of the three-round competition with her video\u00a0<\/span>\u201cJack Pine Growth, NT.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

NSERC<\/span><\/a> is Canada’s federal funding agency for university-based research, supporting faculty and students through a number of awards. In the<\/span> most recent round of funding<\/span><\/a>, 18 faculty researchers and nine students received a total of $3.2 million.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dana Harris calls Nov. 9 her \u201cspecial day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":54427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,4052,188,55,1,4,5,38],"tags":[794,6649,5014,296,607,522,7221,4201,4999,7220,1440,6650,7219],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54428,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54423\/revisions\/54428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}