Dr. Karen Alley
Research Focus: Glaciology, Ice-Ocean Interaction, Remote Sensing
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Measuring ice sheet-ocean interaction through basal channel change
2. Using visible-band satellite imagery to detect ice-sheet surface melt
3. Investigating long-term changes in ice shelf geometry and velocity
4. Supraglacial lake changes on Arctic mountain glaciers
Contact Email: karen.alley@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Mary Benbow
Research Focus: Animal Geographies, Critical Cartographies,
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Critical Cartographies
2. The Tourist Gaze
Contact Email: mary.benbow@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Kristina Brown
Research Focus: Arctic Ocean Biogeochemistry, River-Ocean Interactions
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Assessment of the biochemical cycles of nutrients and carbon in the southern Northwest Passage
2. Tracing river water distributions in the marine environment using isotope tracers
3. Evaluating methods to collect inorganic carbon system parameters along the river-ocean salinity gradient
4. Connecting river geochemical fingerprints to landscape-scale variables using Arc-GIS
5. Developing in-situ tools to observe inorganic carbon system parameters under sea ice
Contact Email: kristina.brown@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Michael Campbell
Research Focus: Nature Based Tourism, Human Dimensions of Wildlife
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Motivations for travel to natural areas
2. Urban wildlife management
3. Changing attitudes to wildlife management and the “place” of wildlife in cities
4. Volunteer tourist motives in natural environments
5. The role of popular media in creating demand to visit natural areas
Contact Email: michael.campbell@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Eric Collins
Research Focus: Arctic Microbial Ecology and Genomics
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Understanding the role of horizontal gene transfer in adaptation to icy environments
2. Discovering novel Arctic microbes through metagenomics
3. Investigating the impacts of oil spills on marine microbial ecosystems
4. Exploring the biodiversity of sea ice microbial communities
Contact Email: eric.collins@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Jens Ehn
Research Focus: Arctic marine physics and climate
Website:
Google Scholar
Departmental Profile
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Remote sensing and modelling of river plumes and mixing fronts in the Arctic coastal domain
2. Development and application of ice drift algorithm using new high-resolution satellite imagery
3. Role of sea ice in sediment transport in coastal environments
4. Assessment of the sea ice-albedo feedback mechanism during the Arctic melt season
5. Analysis of climate trends and variability in high-latitude marine environments
6. Scientific and indigenous use of sea ice as platforms: benefits and obstacles
7. Same as for 1-6 above, but for freshwater systems (lakes, river and glaciers) of your choice
Contact Email: jens.ehn@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Bruce Erickson
Research Focus: Tourism, Political Ecology, Cultural Geography
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Canoeing, Culture and Politics
2. Historical Aspects of Tourism in Churchill Manitoba
3. Iconography of Polar Bears in Manitoba
4. Environmental Movements in North America
5. Development of Winnipeg Tourism
Contact Email: bruce.erickson@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Bonnie Hallman
Research Focus: Social and cultural geography; therapeutic landscapes and wellness; families and caregiving
Website:
Possible Honours Projects: These are fairly broad themes which in collaboration with interested Honours students would be developed into specific foci for a research project that can be accomplished within 6-7 months.
- Space/places/geographies of wellness – e.g., effects of engagement with nature, social interaction and sense of community amongst different social groups
- Therapeutic landscapes: ‘blue place’ (e.g, water, prairie skies) as therapeutic/source of mental & physical wellness – may involve creative work
- Food geographies topics: e.g., social media and notions about healthy food, food trends, tor echnologies such as 3D food printing
Contact email: bonnie.hallman@umanitoba.ca
Dr. John Hanesiak
Research Focus: Storms, Extreme/Severe Weather, Convection, Surface-Atmosphere Interactions
Websites:
Possible Honours Projects:
1) Characterizing historical tornado events
2) Characterizing historical storm events (any season)
3) Analysis of future changes in severe weather
4) Projects in collaboration with the Prairie and Arctic Storm Prediction Centre
Dr. Mark Hanson
Research Focus: Aquatic Ecotoxicology and Risk Assessment
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Biological mechanisms of microplastic formation in freshwater ecosystems.
2. Characterizing recovery of aquatic plants following herbicide exposure.
3. Understanding the use of pesticides by Old Order Mennonites.
4. Investigating reporting biases within the ecotoxicology literature.
5. Lead in wetlands as driver of invertebrate declines.
Contact Email: mark.hanson@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Lisa Loseto
Research Focus: Arctic Marine Ecology
Website:
Google Scholar
Departmental Profile
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Photo analyses of beluga health from harvested whales.
2. Beluga health: visual and biotracer analysis blubber
3. Indigenous knowledge of Beluga whales in the ISR.
4. Temporal trends in beluga diet
5. Characterizing vocalization of beluga calls.
Contact Email: lisa.loseto@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Juliana Marini Marson
Research Focus: Polar Physical Oceanography, Ice-Ocean interaction, Numerical Modelling
Website:
https://sites.google.com/view/portal-ocean/portal
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Comparing modelled iceberg dispersion to observations
2. Antarctic-origin water masses representation in a North Atlantic-Arctic model domain
3. Role of iceberg melt plume on primary production
4. Iceberg dispersal and climate change
5. Freshwater accumulation and release from the Arctic in perturbed simulations
Contact Email: juliana.marinimarson@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Stephane McLachlan
Research Areas:
COVID-19 and Indigenous communities; environmental health; environmental justice; cross-cultural environmental impact assessment; environmental education; land-based education; experiential and community service learning; environmental conservation and restoration; community-based research with Indigenous and rural communities; food justice; Indigenous food systems and sovereignty; alternative agriculture; risk analysis; risk communication; documentary film
Websites:
Environmental Conservation Lab
Possible Honours Projects:
(there may be opportunities for student employment for all the projects below)
1. COVID-19 and its implications for Indigenous communities across Canada
2. Impacts of past pandemics including H1N1 and Spanish Flu for Indigenous communities
3. Land-based environmental education with Indigenous communities.
4. Community-based environmental monitoring in the North focusing on fish, wildlife and/or water quality
5. Health and food implications of hydropower for nearby Indigenous communities in northern Manitoba
6. International alliances and environmental justice as related to megadams
Contact Information: steph.mclachlan@umanitoba.ca
Dr. C.J Mundy
Research Focus: Biological Oceanographer – focus on Arctic primary producers
Websites:
Possible Honours Topics
1) Phenology (timing) of Arctic phytoplankton production – remote sensing from under the sea ice
2) Physical and environmental drivers of kelp distribution and production
3) Light availability and limitation in the sea ice ecosystem
4) Nutrient uptake and limitation in the sea ice ecosystem
5) Tracing the importance of ice algae in an Arctic marine foodweb (collaboration with DFO researcher)
6) Distribution of zooplankton around Southampton Island, northern Hudson Bay (collaboration with DFO researcher)
Contact Email: cj_mundy@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Tim Papakyriakou
Research Focus: Microclimate of northern marine and aquatic systems
Websites:
Google Scholar
Departmental Profile
Possible Honours Projects:
• Several opportunities under the umbrella of carbon budget studies on Manitoba Great Lakes, including Lake Winnipeg in addition to northern rivers and estuaries in MB.
Contact Email: tim.papakyriakou@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Jonathan Peyton
Research Focus: Environmental History, Political Ecology, Resource Conflict
Website:
Possible Honours Projects
1. The history of oil and gas extraction in the Arctic
2. Resource transitions on the Canadian Prairies
3. Animals, Energy and the politics of protected areas in the North
4. Socioeconomic and environmental effects of extractive economies
5. Nature in the city: Urban political ecology in Winnipeg
Contact email: jonathan.peyton@umanitoba.ca
Dr. David Walker
Research Focus: Biogeography, GIS, Wildlife Conservation
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Plant community changes in former PFRA Community pastures
2. Habitat mapping and site suitability assessment for caribou using machine learning
3. Characterizing spatial entropy on post-fire landscapes
4. Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) of urban wildlife habitat
5. Automated analysis of drone thermal imagery in nest detection
Contact Email: david.walker@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Feiyue Wang
Dr. Wang is on leave til July 2023
Research Focus: Environmental chemistry; biogeochemistry; environmental contaminants
Website:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~wangf
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Mercury and other trace element contaminants in the Arctic/global environment
2. Fate and response techniques for oil spills in Arctic/marine waters
3. Microplastics in Arctic/marine waters
4. Chemical processes at freezing temperatures
Contact Email: feiyue.wang@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Nicole J. Wilson
Research Focus: Community-Based Monitoring, Environmental change, Environmental governance, Indigenous studies, Water governance and policy
Website:
Possible Honours Projects:
1. Climate change adaptation in Indigenous communities
2. Community-Based Monitoring of environmental change
3. Indigenous governance and the environment
4. Ground water security in the Arctic
5. Water governance and policy and climate change
Contact Email: nicole.wilson2@umanitoba.ca