Features

Offering “the gift of rest” to front-line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic is the goal of a novel fundraising project by University of Guelph students.

The One Bench One Tree project aims to install a park-style bench and a native tree at Canadian hospitals to provide a shady respite for nurses, doctors and other health-care workers, said Alli Neuhauser, a second-year master of landscape architecture (MLA) student and a member of the organizing committee.

Fernando Montaño Lopez is an international graduate student in the School of Environmental Science (SES). He is currently using digital soil mapping to research the effect of land conversion on soil carbon and nutrient dynamics in the Great Clay Belt of Northern Ontario.

Fernando’s family roots emerge from a Zapotec indigenous community, in a south rural area of Oaxaca in Mexico. His grandparents were dedicated to agriculture and Fernando developed his fascination with soil science at a young age. 

From growing up on a rural dairy farm, pursuing education in animal science, and giving back to the community, Vicki Brisson, a graduate student in the Department of Animal Biosciences, continues to improve life by creating connections and positive changes at local, regional and national levels.

A University of Guelph alumna and well-known advocate for Canadian food and farming has been named coordinator of Food Day Canada.

Crystal Mackay, B.Sc. (Agr.) ’93, will take on the role this month to lead planning of Canada’s largest culinary celebration.

Bee biodiversity and grassland management may not come to mind when you consider the regenerative agriculture movement, but Kyra Lightburn is changing that.

Dr. Jesse Popp holds the Chair in Indigenous Environmental Science in the School of Environmental Sciences. As the principal investigator, she leads Wildlife, Indigenous Science, Ecology Lab (WISE lab), a nationally recognized, multidisciplinary, and collaborative research program at the University of Guelph.

Weaving together Indigenous knowledge systems and Western science to protect the environment is what drives the research of Dr. Jesse Popp in the University of Guelph’s School of Environmental Sciences.

On a platform outside the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) sits a container holding a few hundred barley seeds that are part of a unique study led by University of Guelph researchers.

Ontario Genomics, Genome Canada, and Illumina are investing in a first-of-its-kind SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance initiative across Ontario. This cutting-edge project will enhance critical province-wide coordination and viral surveillance and support provincial and national efforts to understand how the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, is changing over time.

As we move into National Indigenous History Month, people across Canada continue to process the tragic loss of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School on Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc.

This recent announcement is a stark reminder of Canadians’ responsibility to learn about our history and the intergenerational effects of residential schools and our responsibility to continue to work toward reconciliation and decolonization.