Dr. Kim Hellemans
Friday April 28th – Time: 8:45 – 9:45 am
“Building Academic Resilience to Support Student Mental Health”
Dr. Kim Hellemans is an Assistant Professor in Neuroscience and Associate Dean of Science at Carleton University. She has received several prestigious teaching awards that recognize her passion and dedication to university teaching, including the Provost’s Fellowship in Teaching Award and, most recently, the OCUFA Provincial Teaching Award. Her current research is focused on student mental health, with a focus on how current life stressors, cannabis use, and social media among university students relate to mental health and academic outcomes. She is passionate about knowledge translation and knowledge mobilization and has created several freely available animations on the topic of neuroscience, addiction, and stigma. She is also the co-host of the award-winning podcast “Minding the Brain”.
Dr. Eugene Fletcher
R&D Lead (Escarpment Laboratories)
Thursday April 27th – Time: 1:30 – 2:30 pm
“Fostering a Resilient Bioeconomy through Research Collaborations”
Dr. Eugene Fletcher is the Research and Development (R&D) Lead at Escarpment Laboratories, a yeast company based in Guelph, Ontario. He joined the company in December 2020 to drive research and innovation at the company and help implement product development. At Escarpment Labs, he brings together his expertise in data analysis, biochemistry and microbial physiology to run an active research program aimed at developing yeast strains for the competitive craft brewing industry in Canada and abroad.
Eugene has a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where he developed synthetic biology tools to study microbial stress. Following his PhD in 2014, he received postdoctoral training at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg (Sweden), Technical University of Denmark and at the University of Ottawa.
Eugene has a 2023 US patent and is passionate about moving ideas from the lab bench to market.
Pub Talk Speaker
Prof. Emily M. Standen
Friday April 28th – PubTalk at Ollie’s 6 pm
“Finding Resilience in the World of Science”
Prof. Emily Standen is a member of the Comparative Physiology Group in the Biology Department here at uOttawa and runs the Comparative and Evolutionary Biomechanics Lab (CEBLab). Researchers in her lab use comparative biomechanics, histology and material properties testing to understand the flexibility of animal systems to changes in their environment. She collaborates with engineers combining computational and biorobotic approaches with biomechanics to understand how a single neurological control system can result in multiple locomotory gaits across aquatic and terrestrial habitats. The CEB Lab has expertise in motion analysis, hydrodynamic and terrestrial force production analysis, and in vivo and in vitro muscle physiological function analysis.