Graduate Field Work Diaries

I was recently accepted for a post-doctoral position with the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity (CGSHE), an independent research centre at Providence Health Care whose mandate is to advance gender and sexual health equity for marginalized populations by informing policy and practice with the best available science. CGSHE is comprised of a diverse team of researchers from SFU and UBC, clinicians, and policy and community-based partners with diverse expertise in the areas of im/migrant health, HIV/STIs and clinical and community-based im/migrant support. My post-doc research is set to start this summer (2020) and will assess the experiences and perceptions of im/migrant women on access to HIV & STI services. The study will elucidate im/migration-related structural barriers and facilitators to inequities in navigating and accessing these services.  

- Germaine Tuyisenge, PhD Candidate, Health Geography

In early 2019, Dr. Hedley and I completed a research project with the Vancouver Aquarium and Ocean Wise, studying and designing new 3D data capture workflows for monitoring glass sponge ecosystem health in Howe Sound, BC.  Our comprehensive development and testing program, in both a dry-lab and wet-lab environment (also supported by a partnership with DFO), provided a rigorous assessment of Structure-from-Motion workflow performance prior to conducting a series of field surveys off the west coast of Bowen Island, BC.  The outcomes of this research - a new piece of seafloor monitoring gear called "HEXYZ-1", new SfM survey protocols, and new 3D spatial data science - that will support future efforts quantifying structural changes to glass sponges over time.

- Ian Lochhead, PhD Candidate, Spatial Interface Research Lab

I don’t really have a photograph of myself “in the field” partly because my field sites are archives. Combing through papers and reports is a solitary and visually unremarkable scene. During my MA research, I visited the Territorial Archives in Yellowknife to trace the polar bear conservation efforts of wildlife managers. In Churchill Manitoba, I read through the history of the town’s Polar Bear Alert Program, which has evolved from a volunteer-run Halloween night patrol to a sophisticated Provincially-coordinated surveillance system over the past several decades. In my doctoral work at SFU, I will be returning to the archives to explore the histories of wildlife translocation across Canada. (Photo from the Redpath Museum in Montreal).

- Liam Kennedy-Slaney, PhD Student, Human Geography

PhD candidate Tingan Li from the River Dynamics Lab surveys Alexandra Canyon of the Fraser River in the rain, February 2020.