Informally meet colleagues, professors, and guest speakers; learn about ongoing research and issues related to the environment
Free and open to all members of the Trent community and the public
2023-24 Seminars:
Thursday, April 4th: Hydroclimate dynamics across the Lake Erie Basin: New insights from transboundary meta-analyses
Genevieve Ali, Associate Professor, cross-appointed between the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences and the Department of Geography at McGill. She earned her BSc (2005) and PhD (2010) in environmental geography from the Université de Montréal. Genevieve held research and faculty positions at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, United Kingdom), the University of Manitoba, and the University of Guelph before joining McGill in 2022. Her research expertise includes runoff generation processes, contaminant export, landscape connectivity and watershed classification through the integration of field work, laboratory work, and modelling. Her research group (ECOHYDROS) examines not only forested watersheds but also human-dominated watersheds, with a special focus on agricultural watersheds where natural water and contaminant flow paths have been altered by surface drains, tile drains, storage ponds, farm dams, wetland drainage, and various other practices.
Friday, March 8th: A retrospective look at 40 years of mass balance glacier work in Canada's high arctic
Miles Ecclestone worked in the Geography Department and the TSE for 39 years from 1979-2018, as Senior Demonstrator-Technician. From 1984 through 2012 he led the field party measuring the mass balance of White Glacier in Canada's high Arctic. Field parties usually included one or two Geography Honours undergraduate research assistants, many of whom have gone on to highly successful careers in Polar research.
After 2012 with Geography faculty retirements, the research effort was handed off to University of Ottawa for three years, and then to Queens University. Miles feels extremely fortunate to continue to be included in the field program, which has been running continuously (excepting 2020) since 1984.
Friday, February 9th, Barbara Wall Moktthewenkwe, Assistant Professor and Director of Studies, Indigenous Studies PhD Program, Trent University: Nibi Waboo: An Anishinaabekwe's perspective of Water
Dr Barbara Moktthewenkwe Wall is a mixed-ancestry Bodwewaadmii Anishinaabekwe and enrolled member of the federally-recognized Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Shawnee, Oklahoma. As a traditional knowledge holder and committed learner of Anishinaabemowin, she works to incorporate her cultural teachings and the language into all aspects of her life. Dr Wall holds a PhD in Indigenous Studies from Trent University, MSc in Civil Engineering for University of California Berkeley, and BSc in Geological Engineering from Michigan Technological University.
Dr Wall’s research focuses on the collaboration of Indigenous knowledge systems and euro-centric scientific knowledge systems. She teaches courses in the Indigenous Environmental Sciences and Studies Program, including Foundations in Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences; Water, Indigenous Knowledges and the Great Lakes; and Introduction to Indigenous Food Systems.
Beyond academia, Barbara is a mother, auntie, daughter and Grandmother. She is an uninvited guest on Michi Saagii Anishinaabe territory where she enjoys paddling, growing Anishinaabe foods, and turning sweetwater into sugar.
Friday, January 19th, Ali Giroux: The University Green Network: a new way forward
Ali Giroux is the Land Stewardship Coordinator at Trent University. Ali has a Bachelor of Science in animal biology from the University of Guelph and a Master’s in wildlife science from the University of Queensland. She came to Trent with over 15 years of experience in land stewardship, most of which was spent with the Nature Conservancy of Canada in eastern and central Ontario as a conservation biologist. Ali feels very fortunate to have worked and explored in some of southern Ontario’s incredible landscapes, like the Frontenac Arch, Ottawa Valley, and Carden Alvar which involved an array of activities like inventories, trail building and maintenance, restoration, partnership development, and conservation planning. The position at Trent has offered the opportunity to work in her own community, where her role involves writing plans for how the university will care for the University Green Network and the eleven nature areas on campus. Ali is a mom of a curious five-year-old boy and a ball-obsessed eleven-year-old border collie/Aussie shepherd. She is happiest in a swamp or better yet, in a swamp in a canoe!
Friday, November 3rd, 2023, Peatland Response to a Changing Climate: Lessons from two hemispheres
Peter Lafleur, Professor Emeritus (Geography), Trent University, specializing in climatology and ecosystem-atmosphere interactions. Research for the past 40 years has focused on atmosphere-ecosystem interactions in two critical Canadian environments: wetlands and the Arctic tundra. The central objective is to explore how energy and mass are exchanged between the ecosystem and atmosphere, with the goal of increasing our understanding of ecosystem functioning and how ecosystems influence the climate system.
Peatlands are an important feature of the Canadian landscape, they provide critical habitat for key species, influence hydrologic systems and have acted as reservoirs for atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past millennia cooling the climate system. It is important that we understand how these ecosystems might react in a changing climate. This research compares energy regimes and their responses to warming for two different peatlands: a typical North American bog and a restiad raised bog in New Zealand. Both ecosystems have large soil carbon stocks, however the vegetation forming these peatlands is very different. This comparison shows that this difference in vegetation controls intimately energy and water exchanges with the atmosphere and leads to very different responses to climate warming. The results suggest that NA peatlands may be particularly susceptible to climate warming, while the NZ peatland displays an internal resilience that may buffer the effects of warming.
Monday, October 16th, 2023, A just food systems transition on the Indigenous lands of the Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú, Brazil
Mateus Tremembé is an Indigenous leader, researcher of Indigenous food systems, agroecological farmer, Agronomy student at UNILAB, and cultural knowledge keeper for the Tremembé people in Brazil.
The Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú Indigenous Lands are in Ceará, on the west coast, where the Indigenous villages of São José, Munguba, Buriti do Meio and Buriti de Baixo are located. Currently, 160 families live in these communities and have been fighting for their rights and for the demarcation of their sacred territory. Preparing traditional foods has been central to this struggle and is one of the main ways that Tremembé Indigenous culture is preserved and how their relationship with Mother Earth, the provider of sacred food and healing, is strengthened. Producing healthy and ecological foods through Indigenous cultural practices has become a fundamental tool for the protection of knowledge, traditions, and lands for future generations.
In this talk, Mateus taught us about the Just Transition in Food Systems Project (in which the Tremembé is a project partner) and shared some of the traditional Tremembé practices that are the foundation for the agroecological transition and food sovereignty taking shape in their community.
This talk supported by Trent School of the Environment, Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences, and SSHRC
Friday, October 6th, 2023, Climbing Kilimanjaro: Geology, Ecology and Physiology
Chris Metcalfe was a Professor at Trent University for over 35 years and retired in 2021. He continues to teach for the TSE on a part-time basis. Chris' consulting firm, Ambient Environmental Consulting, provides services in water resource management, with a particular focus in Latin America and the Caribbean. He just returned from meeting in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago related to Water Safety Planning in those countries.
Chris is also the Editor in Chief of the Springer journal, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. However, in retirement he still has time to indulge his passion for playing music and for travel. In February of 2023 he travelled to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and to safari in the Serengeti.
Thursday, August 3rd, 2023, Luiz Drude Lacerda, Federal University of Ceará, Institute of Marine Sciences, Brazil: Impacts of climate change on Hg mobilization and bioavailability
