Applications for the 2010
Sustainability Scholarship have ended. The Scholarship Selection
Committee is in the process of selecting a winner. The 2010
Sustainability Scholarship recipient will be announced at the June
12 2010 Annual General Meeting of the
Membership.
2010 Sustainability
Scholarship
The Coalition recognizes that there is a shortage of personnel
doing research on environmental and sustainability topics in the
Gulf region. To encourage students to pursue this type of research,
the Coalition has a Scholarship fund.
The Coalition offers a $5,000 scholarship annually to graduate
students who undertake research in the Southern Gulf of St.
Lawrence region. The scholarships winners are selected by Members
of the Coalition’s Scholarship Review Committee. The
selection criteria includes the student’s academic standing,
the merit of the proposal and the relevance of the research with
respect to the vision of the Coalition which is “a future in
which the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence is environmentally,
economically and socially sustainable”.
The winner must be prepared to present the results of her/his
research at the Coalition’s AGM in June and provide regular
updates for the Messenger — the Coalition newsletter.
Please note - the scholarship is available pending the financial
capacity of the Coalition.
Eligibility
Candidates for the Coalition scholarship must:
1. Be a Canadian citizen;
2. Be a full-time Masters or Ph.D student enrolled
with an accredited university with one or more years of research
remaining;
3. Have a research project based in the Southern Gulf
of Saint Lawrence region that that corresponds to the vision of the
Coalition.
Application process
Candidates must submit:
1. A completed application form;
2. A summary of at least 500 words on the research
topic: it should demonstrate the need and the relevance of the
project to the Coalition;
3. A list of scholarships, grants and other funding
support already received with the research in question;
4. A curriculum vitæ including past degrees and
experience;
5. An official transcript (or registration) showing
the acceptance of the student in a graduate program;
6. Two letters of recommendation with at least one
from a University official;
7. Academic supervisor’s letter of support and
recognition of the project.
Deadline to apply is January 31 2010
Scholarship Application Form (PDF)
2009 Scholarship
Winner
This year’s scholarship recipient is Allan Debertin from
the University of New Brunswick ($5000).
Allan’s research is focused on determining what fish in the
Northumberland Strait are eating. A master’s student at the
University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, Allan uses data,
specimens and samples collected on annual Department of Fisheries
and Oceans 2008-2009 surveys to research the predator-prey
interactions of planktivorious fish and their prey.
Information collected on these surveys and subsequent analysis are
then used to map the distributions of planktivorious fish and their
prey, describe their diets, and determine whether environmental
variables best explain patterns in fish community assemblages in
the Strait. The goal of this work is to better understand how the
ecosystem functions in Northumberland Strait. Allan hopes to
complete his thesis by the end of 2010.
2008 Scholarship
Winner
This year`s scholarship winner is Anne-Marie Leclerc from the
Université du Québec à Rimouski ($5000).
Her thesis - The evolution of the coastal environment: Are beaches
with rigid erosion control structures similar to their adjacent
natural beaches - includes first an assessment of the
disimilarities of the physical components of artificial beaches in
comparison to natural coastlines and second, the effect of these
physical components on the structure of benthic assemblages and
third, an assessment of the recent sediment dynamics. In maritime
Quebec, coastal communities and local governments are becoming
increasingly concerned about coastal erosion. In order to protect
local infrastructure against erosion, a widely recommended
procedure is to install erosion control mechanisms give the
impression that it completely stabilized the coast... but neglects
the every changing dynamics of the coastal environment!
2007 Scholarship
Winners
This year`s scholarship winners are: in first place Lyanne J.F.
Burgoyne ($5000), in second place Annick Drouin ($3000) and in
third place Samantha Boswan ($2000).
A
M.Sc student at the St. Francis Xavier University, Lyanne J.F.
Burgoyne is doing her research on Community Aquatic Monitoring
Program and the importance of submerged aquatic vegetation to
estuarine community. Estuaries are complex, dynamic systems with
rich biodiversity that are thought to be important nursery grounds
for many economically important fauna. As such, these ecosystems
are important to both the economic and ecological sustainability of
coastal communities and their habitats are being threatened by many
human-induced changes. These threats initiated concern and the
development of the Community Aquatic Monitoring Program. Her role
in this project will be to analyze data collected thus far, the
protocol and to assess the importance of submerged aquatic
vegetation e.g. eelgrass and sea lettuce. The impacts of shifting
vegetation, from algae to eelgrass, on faunal communities have not
been addressed in the Southen Gulf of St. Lawrence and will become
an important part of my future research.
Annick Drouin is a Ph.D. student in biology at
Université Laval. Her doctoral research is focused on the
invasive species: macroalgae (Codium fragile ssp. tomentosoides).
She is interested in discovering the impacts it has on fish and
invertebrate communities associated with sea grass and also its
dispersal potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The field work and
observations will take place in the Magdalen Islands, NS and NB.
This project will serve to increase our understanding of the
impacts of invasive species and the role of sea grass in the
ecosystem. The research results will contribute to improved
management of the marine environment and commercial fisheries and
to increase the fundamental marine ecology knowledge base. This
study is in collaboration with Université Laval and DFO.
As a biology masters student at UNB, Saint John, Samantha Boswan is
investigating species assemblages in the Northumberland Strait.
Ecosystem management requires long-term data sets provided by
annual surveys to identify species assemblages. Since 2000, DFO
Moncton has been conducting an annual trawl survey in the
Northumberland Strait - an ecosystem home to many commercially
important species, some of which are in decline. She will: 1)
describe the fish assemblage structure in the Northumberland
Strait, 2) determine if assemblages are persistent from year to
year and 3) identify environmental variables important with
influencing assemblage structure. Defining these assemblages and
determining factors that influence assemblage structure is an
initial step towards a more sustainable and holistic approach to
fisheries management.
2006 Scholarship
Winners
The scholarship winners for 2006 were Douglas. B. Deacon and Mark
Skinner for the amount of $5,000.
A
Ph.D. student in Biology of the University of New Brunswick, Mark
Skinner’s research involves analyzing the effects of
Suspended Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) Aquaculture on Benthic
Estuarine Ecosystems. Present research on oyster aquaculture is
limited; therefore this research will contribute with acquiring
information on the subject of sustainability with respect to this
industry and to determine the extent of how suspended oyster
aquaculture influences benthic organisms. Today, the disappearance
of species is a fact and an important issue of concern. A popular
solution for the shellfish industry is aquaculture. Therefore, it
is vital that we consider the environmental consequences of
aquaculture in order to achieve a sustainable future for the
Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence ecosystem.
Douglas B. Deacon is a Masters student in Island Studies at
UPEI conducting research on how the total economic value of natural
capital, an economic concept that refers to natural resources,
could be recognized in an island society. In spite of the
challenges with assigning economic values to our natural resources,
it is nonetheless crucial that we consider natural capital in our
economy. More and more people are interested in ecological tourism
and this research will attempt to determine the values that are
related to this specific kind of tourism in Prince Edward Island.
At present, marketing strategies are targeted towards
gulfing, Island history and beaches. Therefore this research will
try to determine optimal marketing opportunities for
eco-tourism.
2005 Scholarship and
Sustainability Award Winners
During the AGM 2005 awards banquet, the Coalition—SGSL
president, Harry Collins was pleased to recognize the following
individuals for their involvement with sustainability:
2005
Scholarships
That year the Coalition-SGSL awarded both Véronique
Gélinas and André Drapeau each with a $5,000
scholarship.
As an Education Masters student at Université de
Moncton, Véronique Gélinas was conducting her
research on how schoolchildren identify and define an environmental
problem along a specific river — Cocagne River in New
Brunswick. The goal of the experiment was to provide the young
participants with an opportunity to reflect on how they can take
action to positively change their local ecosystem.
André Drapeau was a Masters Student at the Atlantic
Veterinary Collage at UPEI and conducted research on the
relationship between inter-sock spacing and productivity in Prince
Edward Island Mussel Farms. His initial research suggested that
optimizing inter-sock spacing on a given lease leads to improved
productivity, sustainability while also minimizing environmental
costs.
2005 Excellence in Sustainability Award
The 2005 Excellence in Sustainability Award went to a
student as well. A Masters student of the Atlantic Veterinary
Collage at UPEI, Kimberly Swan was recognized for her work on
determining the effects of treating clubbed tunicate. This invasive
species attaches itself to mussel growing gear and competes for
food with the blue mussel — an economically important
shellfish in PEI. Kimberly was involved with discovering how the
treatment of clubbed tunicate affects the physiological fitness of
the blue mussel population.
Scholarship Application Form (PDF)
