#laurenyee

Lauren Yee is a graduate student working with Dr. Colin Roberton in the Spatial Lab. This past June, she has attended an interesting workshop/field school in Montreal, Quebec for CoPEH Canada (Canadian Community of Practice in Ecosystem approaches to health).

In Montreal, graduate students, professionals and scholars came together to address the issues associated with the St. Lawrence River from a transdisciplinary and EcoHealth approach. Each day was filled with lectures, activities and collaborative work within small groups.

The whole concept of EcoHealth derives from the fact that most problems we face (especially in the realm of geography and environmental science) are extremely complex in nature. An EcoHealth approach attempts to understand or realize these complexities to a problem and address them. From CoPEH Canada’s website: “These approaches also encourage social and gender equity and participation, recognizing that improving health and well being requires sharing and exchange of different kinds of knowledge in order to enhance both integration and action.”

Lauren's thesis is focused on the determinants of wildlife health and disease, and of healthy ecosystems. She asks: what could serve as early indicators of disease to find gaps in existing surveillance data, and where should surveillance take place in Canada? Lauren's thesis relies on GIS, remote sensing, and programming. She is also working on a web-scraping project this summer that will compare alternative sources of information (blogs, mailing lists, local conservation authorities, etc) to more authoritative sources on wildlife health. Lauren's interests made her the perfect candidate for the CoPEH Canada workshop/field school in Montreal.

~ Above: “old port in Montreal” 

~ Above: “The boat ride to Lac Pierre.  The significance of Lake Saint-Pierre is that Lake Saint-Pierre as its part of the St. Lawrence seaway and has been dredged  to accommodate all the fishery and trade traffic. The wave action from all the boat traffic, recreational and leisurely, has eroded significant portions of the shoreline and protected areas. It's an area that has been polluted by effluents from industry as well as municipal waste. . It's also recognized as a nature reserve for migrating waterfowl. It's a very important area for nesting herons. It is prone to natural flooding so many houses are built on "stilts".

Below is a link to a song Lauren made for the course, which requires students to create an artistic representation of what they learned about EcoHealth and how it reflects on their research.

~ SONG --> https://soundcloud.com/laurenyee/nature-vs-industry

Throughout her experience in Montreal, the most meaningful was learning from peers from across the globe, from as far away as Africa and South America, and from elsewhere in Canada, coast to coast. As well as renewed confidence in herself, she came back with new ideas and methods she can use in her research (although she's already missing the culture of Montreal and the connections she made).