SPONSORED AND HOSTED BY GRAMSS AND THE FACULTY OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE
Conference Info
FMS GRaD Conference
October 1, 2026
Pond Inlet, Brock University
This event focuses on providing graduate students in the Faculty of Mathematics and Science (FMS) and beyond opportunities to talk about their research. The goal of FMS GRaD Conference is to celebrate the academic achievements of all FMS graduate students, to develop a sense of community among the FMS graduate students, and to showcase the FMS research to the Brock University community.
Main participants and presenters:
- Keynote speakers and guest speakers
- Current graduate students registered in FMS
- Incoming graduate students in FMS
Keynote speaker: Dr. Rahnuma Islam Nishat, Brock University
Presentation Roster:
Registration is now closed.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions.
Important dates:
Registration: Closed
Oral and Poster Presentation abstract submission: Closed
2026 Norgen Rising Star Award application deadline: Closed
Conference Date: October 1, 2026
Schedule
| Time | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 - 9:00 a.m. | Registration | Pond Inlet |
| 9:00 - 9:30 a.m. | Opening Remarks | Pond Inlet |
| 9:30 - 9:40 a.m. | Break to go to sessions | Pond Inlet |
| 9:40 - 10:40 a.m. | Oral Presentation Session 1 | RFP 214/215, ST 108, TH 240, TH 246 |
| 10:40 - 11:20 a.m. | Coffee Break | Pond Inlet |
| 11:20 a.m. - 12:20 p.m. | Oral Presentation Session 2 | RFP 214/215, ST 108, TH 240 |
| 12:20 - 2:00 p.m. | Lunch | Pond Inlet |
| 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. | Plenary | Pond Inlet |
| 3:00 - 3:45 p.m. | Poster Presentation Session 1 | Cairns Atrium |
| 3:45 - 4:30 p.m. | Poster Presentation Session 2 | Cairns Atrium |
| 4:30 - 5:00 p.m. | Coffee Break | Pond Inlet |
| 5:00 - 6:00 p.m. | Awards and Closing Ceremony | Pond Inlet |
Coming Soon!
2026 Norgen Rising Star Award
The Norgen Rising Star Award, generously sponsored by Norgen Biotek Corp and administered by GRAMSS, will be presented to two Brock University graduate students who are currently enrolled and presenting at the 2026 FMS GRaD Conference.
This award recognizes students who demonstrate exceptional research potential, academic excellence, and the capacity for future leadership within their field of study. Consideration will also be given to candidates who are, or have been, actively involved in graduate student representation on committees or who have participated in activities that positively contribute to and reflect well on the graduate student community.
Award categories: Oral Presentations, Poster Presentations, Proposal Presenations
Eligible candidates must be registered to present at the 2026 FMS GRaD Conference, must not have previously received this award, and should demonstrate strong research and leadership abilities, meaningful community involvement, and clear research and career goals that reflect the qualities of a rising star.
Application Deadline: Closed
General Guidelines for Oral Presentations:
Each oral presenter will be given a 15-minute presentation slot, consisting of a 12-minute talk and 3-minute Q & A period. Presentations should be in the format of a PowerPoint or PDF file.
All oral presenters must submit their final abstract by: September 22, 2026
We strongly recommend presenters bring their presentation file on a USB drive to their session.
General Format for Poster Presentations:
Each poster presenter will be assigned to a 60-minute poster session. Presenters should prepare a 5-minute presentation introducing their poster to judges and visitors.
All poster presenters must submit their final abstract by: September 22, 2026
Final posters should be printed in the 3 ft by 4 ft size before the morning of September 28, 2026. Information on requesting poster printing and locating the Brock Printing Services Office is found here: https://brocku.ca/printing/
Abstract Submission is closed.
| Time | What’s the Matter? RFP 214/215 | Let’s Get Making Thistle 246 | Learning about Learning Thistle 240 | Ecology and Behaviour Schmon Tower 108 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:40 a.m. | Early Martian crustal formation mechanisms inferred from feldspathic units in Jezero Crater, Mars • G. E. White Code: T1 | Exploring Molybdenum Carbide MXene for Sustainable Hydrogen Production • Kevin Stefanchuk Code: T3 | Post Shrinkage Estimation for Graph Neural Networks: A Statistical Learning Framework • Elfreda Nartey Code: T6 | Metal Contamination Across Water, Sediment, and Benthic Organisms in Agriculturally Impacted Aquatic Ecosystems • Natasha Hearn Code: T8 |
| 10:00 a.m. | Structural Stability and Magnetic Tuning through Sm Substitution in La2CoMnO6 Double Perovskites • Jia Xu Code T2 | Phase-Engineered Cobalt Selenide for Stable High Current Density Alkaline Water Electrolysis • Pritish Kumar Behura Code: T4 | Center-based Sampling in Optimization and Machine Learning: A Theory and Review • Rasa Khosrowshahli Code: T7 | Evidence of olfaction and olfactory communication in Humboldt penguins • Alex Wilder Code: T9 |
| 10:20 a.m. | Examining an Incautious use of Simulations for Yb2Te5O13 • Hazel Gifford • Proposal Code: PR1 | An analytical framework for humidity-dependence in polymer-polymer triboelectric nanogenerators • Gurmeet Singh Code: T5 | Structure-Aware Semantic Code Segmentation Across Programming Languages and Software Domains in the LLM Era • Nurbek Imangazin • Proposal Code: PR2 | Being prosocial in STEM: How compassionate goals benefit graduate student wellbeing • Estera Houshang Code: T10 |
| Time | DNA and Physiology RFP 214/215 | AI for Humanity Thistle 240 | Stop Bugging Me Schmon Tower 108 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:20 a.m. | Beyond the Pellet: Rethinking What “Better” Means in DNA Recovery • Giovanna Costa Code: T11 | AI Drug Design to Fight The Opioid Epidemic • Karl Grantham Code: T13 | From contact to colonization: A model of natural locust infection by Metarhizium acridum • Isabela Fetter Code: T16 |
| 11:40 a.m. | How do neuronal growth cones integrate opposing guidance cues? • Alicia Piazza Code: T12 | Scoping Review: Equitable Use of Artificial Intelligence for the Early Detection of Sepsis • Hasan Rana Code: T14 | Effects of hydroxyl-radical treatments on survival and reproduction of Multi-coloured Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis), a contamination pest in Ontario’s vineyards • Harmandeep Singh Code: T17 |
| 12:00 noon | Repeated Hot Water Immersion: Effects on Females with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome • Lindsay Miller • Proposal Code: PR 3 | Common to Whom? Regional Cultural Commonsense and LLM Bias in India. • Sangmitra Madhusudan Code: T15 | Maternal and Developmental Influences on Thermal Tolerance in Small Carpenter Bees • Joseph Armstrong Code: T18 |
| Poster # | Name | Title |
|---|---|---|
| PR4 | Parth Chauhan | Reconfiguration of Spanning Trees of Triangulated Graphs Rotations, Edge Slides, and Face Slides |
| P2 | Elham (Ellie) Rezaee | An Impedimetric Immunosensor for Progranulin Detection Using Streptavidin-Biotin Conjugation on Carbon Screen-Printed Electrodes |
| P4 | Subrat Kumar Sethy | Electrostatic Tuning of Photosystem I Cofactors under Far-red Light |
| P6 | Chyenne Panetta | Impact of HOP-C on Anxiety, Depression & Stress in Post-Secondary Students with Mental Health Challenges |
| P7 | Noah Rhoden | Impacts of Developmental Exposure to Urban Stressors on Eastern Gray Treefrogs (Dryophytes versicolor) |
| P9 | Holly Eaton | Optimizing Production Methods for Low-Alcohol Wine Using Fungus-Resistant Grape Varieties and Ontario Yeast Strains |
| P11 | J.E. Schumacher | Analysis of Fe-Phosphates in Sedimentary and Igneous Analogues to Constrain Formational Environment of Fe-Phosphates Found in Jezero Crater, MARS |
| P13 | Nanhua Bu | Structural and Magnetic Study of Nd-doped La2CoMnO6 Double Perovskites in Bulk and Thin-Film Forms |
| Poster # | Name | Title |
|---|---|---|
| P1 | Gideon Oludeyi | Genetic Algorithms for Optimized Routing and Scheduling in Stochastic Home Health Care |
| P3 | Krishna Patel | A new side to an old photoacid: does HPTS have a secret? |
| P5 | Lucy Teminski | Rasping to remember: will the younger generation ever learn? |
| PR5 | David Justinico-Castro | Effects of Environmental Temperature on Parental Care and Offspring Thermoregulatory Development in Degus (Octodon degus) |
| P8 | Rachel Ciccone | Hormone and Metabolite Profile of Merlot Buds Treated with Tetralone Abscisic Acid |
| P10 | Nicholas Benton | Pathogen prevalence within populations of Ixodes scapularis (Ixodida : Ixodidae) surrounding a university campus in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada |
| P12 | Samuel Long | Fabrication and Structural Analysis of (La_(1-x) Sm_x )_2 CoMnO6 Thin Films on SrTiO3 (100) Substrates Using Pulsed Laser Deposition |
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: DR. RAHNUMA ISLAM NISHAT, BROCK UNIVERSITY
Dr. Rahnuma Islam Nishat is an Assistant Professor in Brock University’s Department of Computer Science. Her research lies at the intersection of mathematics and computer science, exploring algorithmic and geometric problems with real-world applications. Her work spans graph drawing and visualization, computational geometry, graph theory and combinatorics, path and cycle reconfiguration, additive manufacturing, and data mining. Her research program is supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant.
Dr. Nishat earned her PhD and MSc in Computer Science from the University of Victoria and her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Prior to joining Brock University, she held postdoctoral appointments at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, Toronto Metropolitan University, and the University of Victoria.
An active leader in the computational geometry and graph drawing communities, Dr. Nishat serves as Organizing Co-Chair of the 34th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2026) and has held numerous program and steering committee roles for major international conferences. Her contributions to research have been recognized with awards, including the Wilkes Award for outstanding publication.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
- Faculty of Mathematics and Science
- Office of the Vice-President, Research
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