Monday, December 14, 2020

Athletics celebrates members of the President's Academic Honour Roll

This article was originally published on the Athletics website.

The Department of Athletics and Recreation is extremely proud to announce that 336 student-athletes have been named to the 2019-20 President's Academic Honour Roll.

This distinguished recognition is given to student-athletes who have maintained an average of 80 per cent and higher while competing for an interuniversity sport. The University of Waterloo has one of the highest percentages of Academic All-Canadian student-athletes in the country on an annual basis.

The 336 student-athletes honoured represents over 50 percent of the student-athlete population at UWaterloo, and was an increase of 84 student-athletes from a year ago. In addition, 22 of the 31 Warriors varsity teams have at least 50 per cent of their student-athletes represented on the Honour Roll, while all 31 programs have at least four student-athletes represented.

For the fifth year in a row, the number of student-athletes receiving this honour is an all-time high for the Warriors. Consistently UWaterloo student-athletes have demonstrated excellence both in the classroom and on the playing field and it is something to be very proud of.

"Academic success is a top priority in our department and it is very rewarding to see so many of our student-athletes achieving this high level of success in the classroom," said director of athletics and recreation Roly Webster.
 
"Although we can't all be together to celebrate the exceptional accomplishments of these student-athletes, we want each and every one of them to know just how proud we are of the dedication required to pursue academic and athletic excellence, here at the University of Waterloo." 
 
Over the past week, the student-athletes were honoured with individual messages by their respective Dean on the Warriors' social media platforms.

Top Academic Student-Athletes 

Four student-athletes were honoured for their outstanding achievements, earning the highest academic average of all 336 student-athletes.   

Selena Dirven from women's hockey and MacKenzie Strong from baseball were the top undergrad award winners thanks to their staggering averages of 96.7 per cent and 98.3 per cent respectively. Dirven is in her fourth year of Kinesiology and Strong is in his third year of Chemical Engineering. 
 
Dirven and Strong were also recipients of the Fairfax Financial Award along with Karen Fan (Biomedical Sciences) from women's volleyball and Ahmed Fouad (Biomedical Sciences) who is a dual student-athlete with football and squash. 
 
Congratulations to all 336 student-athletes who earned their way onto the 2019-20 President's Academic Honour Roll.

Register for tomorrow's Research Talks: Mapping the human brain

Join Research Talks tomorrow for Mapping the human brain, an online panel presentation and discussion examining cognition, behaviour, and degenerative disease.

Please register to receive a link and take part in this event on Webex scheduled for Tuesday, December 15 (11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.) featuring:

• Amer Burhan, Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health

Modulating brain networks with non-invasive brain stimulation to treat neuropsychiatric illnesses

• Myra Fernandes, University of Waterloo

Memory and the life cycle of the brain

• Peter Hall, University of Waterloo

Reaching beyond conventional brain health metrics

• Donna Kwan, Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Institute (ONDRI) and Ontario Brain Institute (OBI)

A team science approach to looking across the neurodegenerative spectrum

Evidence of accelerated climate change seen in Labrador mountain range

This article was originally published on Waterloo Stories.

Climate change is accelerating shrub growth across many northern regions, which has important consequences for people and wildlife who live there. 

A new study led by Emma Davis, a University of Waterloo postdoctoral fellow, examines rapid shrub expansion in Torngats Mountains National Park. The changes were first detected by Inuit elders, prompting Davis’ interdisciplinary team of researchers to determine how climate change is impacting Nunatsiavut, in northern Labrador. 

“To understand why shrub growth is accelerating we needed data, expertise and knowledge from many different disciplines and communities,” said Davis. “Climate change in the Western Arctic has been studied extensively, our approach was to bring together a diversity of people to paint a clearer picture of where arctic climate change is going.”

Traditional knowledge was a motivation for the work, now published in Ecosystems. The paper includes on-the-ground expertise from government partners including Darroch Whitaker, an ecosystem scientist with Parks Canada and a co-author on the report.

“Rapid shrub expansion was first brought to our attention by Inuit elders and was of concern to them because shrubs can make travel on the land more difficult, provide cover that helps bears hide, and changes the way they can use the land,” said Whitaker. 

The study is remarkable because of the length of time of the long-term collaboration between university researchers and Parks Canada staff. 

“The report was done in consultation with the park’s Cooperative Management Board, and helps us better understand how this profound environmental change is affecting the ecological integrity of the park and the lives of Inuit in the region.”  

A full version of the report, Plant–Environment Interactions in the Low Arctic Torngat Mountains of Labrador, can be found online.