Grad Chat - Queen's School Of Graduate Studies

Topic: The Lives of Monkeys in Costa Rican Sanctuaries Overview:  Despite Costa Ricas’ ‘green’ reputation, their monkey populations are at risk. My work addresses the call for interdisciplinary in tourism research by drawing on animal welfare, conservation, tourism and animal studies to understand the entangled lives of monkeys and humans, and what a ‘good life’ looks like for a monkey in a sanctuary.

Topic: Microfluidics for cell studies Overview:  The microfluidic devices are well suited for the study of individual cells since the small scale of operation allows for the manipulation of these cells. Microfluidic devices can be used to sort and isolate individual cells for analysis as well as to create different on-chip conditions to study the cells’ responses. In my research, I design these devices, computationally simulate the conditions in the device, and fabricate these devices for experimentation with the cells.

Topic: Queen’s Reads – Other Side of the Game Overview:  Clarissa will explain this year’s programming for Queen’s Read book, the Other Side of the Game, by Amanda Parris.

Topic: Queen’s Grad Students In Action – Part 2 Overview:  Want to know what some of our graduate students do on the side!  Three grad students will talk about their research and volunteering with tours recently during Doors Open Kingston at the Lower Burial Ground.

Topic: Queen’s Grad Students In Action – Part 1 Overview:  Want to know what some of our graduate students do on the side!  Listen to 3 grad students talk about their research and volunteering with tours recently during Doors Open Kingston at the Lower Burial Ground.

Topic:  How planners can help Cities and Towns even during a pandemic Overview: Claire talks about  “Public transportation Covid-19 response and recovery” and Stephan talks about the “Quite Streets Pilot in Kingston”

Topic: Asian Mixed Race Identity Creation in Contemporary North American Literature. Overview:  I am interested in looking at genres and forms of literature to see how multiracial people with Asian heritage construct their identities. These forms include the novel, memoir/creative non-fiction, and poetry

Topic: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Polar Bear Co-Management in a Changing Arctic. Overview: Polar bears are a species of significance to Inuit culturally, spiritually, economically, and for subsistence. This makes including Inuit understandings of polar bear health under changing climatic conditions of great importance to the co-management of polar bears across the Canadian Arctic..

Topic: Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of A Community-based Water Exercise Transition Program for Individuals with Chronic Stroke. Overview: Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability in Canada. By designing a step-down exercise program to bridge the gap between formal rehabilitation and community exercise, I hope to demonstrate a feasible and acceptable option to manage and support chronic stroke survivors in our communities. 

Topic: How perceptions of Greco-Roman cults affected the development and use of music in Early Christianity Overview: Throughout my research, I hope to show a lineage of how trance and altered states of consciousness (ASCs) induced through music function within the religious experience of Dionysian rituals and how it leads to how early Christians either accepted or rejected specific musical practices throughout their own rituals and worship, especially surrounding percussive instruments and dance. 

Topic: Foreign Relations: Contemporary Travel Writing and the Unsettling Poetics of Foreign Space Overview: Robyn studies contemporary travel writing and how it shapes our ideas about what it means for a person, place, or thing to be ‘foreign’ in the world today. 

Topic: Celestial Bodies and Spiritual Possessions Overview: Jhordan's thesis explores the representation of religion and superstition in the work of two Jamaican novelists Kei Miller and Marlon James. Through that exploration he also uncovers new perspectives on the colonial and postcolonial histories of Jamaica that continue to shape ideas of race, gender, and violence throughout the  Caribbean Diaspora. In his research he reveals pathways to self-possession that complicate ideas of religious freedom, poetic faith, and the praxis of being human Volume 90%00:00

Topic: The cultural production of Muslim youth of the 1.5 and second generation Overview: My research is interested in the identity construction of Muslim youth who grew up in the shadow of 9/11 and more importantly the global war on terror. I examine art by and about Muslim youth to analyze how the ongoing social and political discussion around Islam and Muslims shaped the identity of young Muslims who have not known a world prior to the events of 9/11. 

Topic: Scholars of Colour in Watson Hall Overview: Join CJ the DJ for a conversation with Scholars of Colour at Watson Hall. Safa Moussoud, Jhordan Layne, Suyin Olguin (PhD English), & recent graduate Dr. Aprajita Sarcar (PhD History will be discussing their academic research and their experiences of being graduate students of colour at Queen's. Web page - https://scholarsofcolourwatsonhall.wordpress.com/ Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/2137437043038266/posts/3032486900199938/?vh=e&d=n

Topic: Land reconciliation, a new critical geography of peace in the Ecuadorian Amazon: Empowering Shuar resilience and resurgence through two-eyed learning. Overview: This research will work in collaboration with the Shuar community in Ecuador, specifically with the community of Chiriap, Shuar family lineage who are seeking to conserve and preserve both their ancestral knowledge and land against rising mining interests in their territory. For more information and to help this community go to the crowdfunding campaign 

Topic: The Emptiness of Ecological Loss and Extinction. Overview: The goal of my research is to rethink the notions of ecology and extinction so that we can better understand the connections they have to emptiness, as well as explore the ramifications of emptiness for both the human, and more-than-human, world. 

Topic: Examining bird habitat structure across space and over time using remote sensing data. Overview: My research will contribute to an enhanced understanding of habitat occupancy by using airborne laser scanning to describe and quantify relevant habitat structure. It will also make a methodological contribution to the emerging field of ecoacoustics by developing and testing a method for using bird recording data captured at survey points in the field.

Topic: Everything you wanted to know about MEERL! Overview: MEERL or Master of Earth and Energy Resources Leadership program. What is the significance of this program and how has it impacted industry?

 Topic: Experiences that inspires one to be an Environmentalist Overview: The purpose of this research is to explore environmentalists’ perceptions and sense of oneness with the natural world. By listening to the stories of environmentalists, this study will explore participants’ significant life experiences, and the everlasting sensory impression of those experiences on current understanding of their sense of oneness with the natural world. Lastly, this study will explore the significance of environmentalists’ in sharing their personal stories.

Topic: Cast Out Urbanites: A comparative history and geography of how cows disappeared from Kingston and Cape Town Overview: Today, while certainly not absent in all cities, cows are invisible as lively beings in many urban areas in which they once lived, illustrating the changing multi-species nature of urbanisation. Historically, cows were present in urban settlements and were used by humans as sources of milk, meat, leather, and labour. While humans continue to use cows for much the same, the spatiality and scale of these relations has undergone dramatic changes. In order to understand how urbanisation is shaped through processes of multi-species inclusion and exclusion, this research aims to unpack how cows became absent in two cities, Cape Town (South Africa) and Kingston (Canada).