Mackenzie Cameron and Sierra Legare have been named this year’s winners of the Mehta-Jenner Climate Mitigation Graduate Scholarship.
The Mehta-Jenner Climate Mitigation Graduate Scholarship recognizes outstanding research focused on climate change or climate change mitigation by graduate students in the Faculty of Mathematics.
The scholarship was established by Adarsh Mehta (BMath’ 98) and Jeffrey Jenner (BMath’ 84) to support and celebrate graduate students who share their passion for environmental and ecological issues, as they are explored through mathematical fields.
Mackenzie Cameron (l) and Sierra Legare (r) were recently announced as the winners of the Mehta-Jenner Climate Mitigation Graduate Scholarship.
Mackenzie Cameron is a master’s student in the Department of Applied Mathematics. Her research investigates the relationship between human behaviour in a social system and the responses in the climate in a physical system by considering a coupled social-climate model.
Cameron’s research sets out to capture the effects of human responses to climate change. Her work analyzes the changes in behaviours that influence mitigation practices that then lead to changes in emissions and changes in the climate, which humans then experience.
“I got interested in research in climate change by initially coming across climate projections as part of an undergrad course and wondered about the mathematics behind those projections,” Cameron says. “I developed an interest in studying the human interactions with the environment and climate change through acknowledging that humans play a role in producing anthropogenic emissions while also having the capability to mitigate to some extent those emissions. Often, the behavioural aspects of these actions are left out of climate models.”
“This scholarship will help provide support and motivation as I now focus on research in these next stages of my master’s program,” she continues. “It will allow me to make the most out of my program and the research I am doing.”
Sierra Legare is an incoming master’s student in the Department of Applied Mathematics. Her research focuses on the climate dynamics of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Tropical regions are generally underrepresented in climate research, which causes inaccuracies in global climate models, so Legare’s aim is to develop a model that identifies how different climactic modes impact the region.
“After my third year of undergrad, I took a co-op position researching fluid dynamics and found that I really enjoyed it,” Legare says. “When I started thinking about potential topics for my graduate studies, fluid dynamics combined with my passion for the environment seemed like a natural choice. In my fourth year of undergrad, I took a reading course on climate dynamics, which allowed me to explore the topic even further.”
“A profound shift needs to be made from a society that values consumerism to one that values the natural world,” she continues. “A vital part of that is helping people understand how communities other than their own will be affected by the climate crisis. This scholarship will allow me to participate in fieldwork and get a deeper understanding of not only the local climate in the Yucatan, but how it shapes people’s lives.”
Learn more about the Mehta-Jenner Climate Change Mitigation Graduate Scholarships on the award homepage.