UPEI Hosts Atlantic Biology and Aquaculture Conference
This coming weekend, March 3to 5, over a hundred biology and aquaculture students will be on the UPEI campus to take part in their annual research conferences. The Atlantic Universities Undergraduate Biology Conference (AUUBC) and the Atlantic Universities Aquaculture Conference (AUAC) offer the opportunity for students to present their own scientific work as well as gain exposure to other areas of biology and aquaculture. These conferences are held jointly each year at a different university, under the Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences. They last took place at UPEI in 1994.
Events will take place in the newly renovated Duffy Science building and extension of the Wanda Wyatt Dining Hall which joins to the new residence on campus. The conferences will open on Saturday, March 4 at 9 a.m. and will include greetings from the province by Hon. Jamie Ballem, Minister of Environment, Energy, and Forestry as well as welcomes from Dr. Roger Gordon, Dean of Science, and Dr. Tim Ogilvie, Dean of the Atlantic Veterinary College.
The joint nature of the conference also allows for the co-ordination of keynote addresses, including three this year. On Saturday, March 4 at 10 am, Dr. Kelly Munkittrick from the Canadian Rivers Institute and UNB-SJ will be speaking on "Fish 'n Chips: the Impact of Potato Farming on Fish Populations". Later that day, at 1:20 pm, Dr. Franck Berthe of the Atlantic Veterinary College, UPEI, will be presenting "Desperate house clams: From the beauty of the bivalve immune response to challenges of laboratory models". Finally, on Sunday, March 5th at 10:30 am, Kira Salonius from Novartis Animal Health, Aqua Health Business will be speaking on "New approaches to aquaculture vaccine development".
The Aquaculture and Biology conferences are held concurrently, to showcase student research projects by undergraduate biology students and both undergraduate and graduate students with an aquaculture focus. Both oral and poster presentations will run throughout the day on Saturday and through Sunday morning, with the awards ceremony taking place at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
These student-centered conferences are also student co-ordinated. A committee of students has been working nearly a year to organize the event. Sarah Bradley, 4th year biology student and student coordinator of the joint conference, has learned a lot while putting this event together. "This has opened my eyes to the immense amount of hard work and organization that has to go into the planning of a conference of this status and size. It has also, however, inspired me to consider biological research in my future," says Bradley.
For a more detailed schedule of events, please visit the conferences websites at www.upei.ca/auubc06/.
