Get Ready for the 2022 Saint Mary's Research Expo

Written by Erin Stacey

Thumbnail Photo by Saint Mary’s University

Despite the winter term coming to an end, there is still plenty going on throughout Saint Mary’s University. If you are interested in the research going on at SMU, you have to pencil in the 2022 Research Expo that’s taking place tomorrow, Friday, April 29th. The Research Expo is hosted by the Office of Innovation and Community Engagement (OICE) at SMU in the spring every year, with last year being both the eleventh annual Expo, and the first virtual one. This year's Research Expo will be held from 1:00pm to 4:30pm in the Loyola conference hall.

Photo by Saint Mary’s University | 2021 virtual Research Expo screenshot.

The OICE acts as the initial contact for both faculty members at SMU and external parties looking to collaborate and develop a research relationship. They help to facilitate communication between faculty members and organizations like government departments, private companies, industrial associations, and even international agencies. On top of helping connect researchers to organizations to develop relationships, they also help with various components of performing research, such as establishing collaborations, contracts, and the communication and licensing of technology and knowledge. 

The Research Expo allows researchers to present their research in a quick 3-minute presentation – similar to the Three-minute Thesis Competition for graduate students. This role swap for the professors to now be giving presentations is an excellent opportunity for students to see what kind of research is taking place at SMU while seeing how to condense complicated research into a 3-minute presentation. This can be challenging to do since sometimes research projects have been ongoing for months or even years!

The Research Expo includes many faculties, from Psychology and Science to research in Modern Languages and Classics. Open to both the Saint Mary's community and the general public, the 2021 Expo had over 170 registered participants. For some idea of what the Research Expo typically has for content, here are some of the researchers and their research topics presented at the Expo last year:

Dr. Ivana Damjanov is a Canada Research Chair in Astronomy and Astrophysics. She is looking to help expand the spectroscopic and imaging surveys of galaxies so that high-quality data can be collected over a larger area of the sky. The title of her presentation was “Measuring the Invisible Universe: Dark Matter in Luminous Galaxies”, where Dr. Damjanov and her team analyzed datasets to learn more about both the nature and origin of the densest galaxies found in the universe. Furthermore, they hope to shed light on dark matter halos, like their shape and range and how the galaxy grows and the universe ages. Dr. Damjanov's presentation was centred around how we can use stars that are shining from other galaxies to learn more about the matter invisible to us that makes up our universe. 

Photo by Saint Mary’s University

Dr. Jacob Hanley is the Principle Researcher and Manager of the Mineral Exploration and Ore Fluids Laboratory here at SMU. The title of his presentation was “The Bay of Fundy region: a copper-producing center in pre-contact Maritime Basin History.” Dr. Hanley and his team looked to apply microanalytical techniques like fluid and melt inclusion methods to understand the formation of ore deposits in various gold settings. They are focusing on precious metals like platinum, palladium, iridium, and gold. The majority of their research is done in Canada, but they are also looking in South Africa, the United States, Australia, and Indonesia. In Dr. Hanley's presentation, he spoke about how the Bay of Fundy region is the most important copper-producing center in the pre-contact Maritime Basin history. Recently, he and his team have been collaborating with the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History and the Metepanagiag First Nation to learn how the Indigenous peoples in the northeastern North American region collected metals before having contact with Europeans. To do this, he is using new analytical techniques in archaeometry that he developed himself. 

Dr. Alison Barclay is an Assistant Professor of Ancient Studies in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Saint Mary's. Dr. Barclay focuses her research on Greek religion, iconography, and intercultural relations between Greece and Ancient Near East. Furthermore, she is branching into a new field of Classical Reception with a new project on Marian Maguire, a New Zealand artist. The title of her research is “Ancient Greek Heroes Meet the Maori: the Lithographs of Marian Maguire”, where Greek heroes from myth are introduced into new scenes. 

With all this fascinating research being done at SMU, it is no surprise that they want to showcase it. In addition to learning about the research going on at SMU, there is also a Q&A session after each presenter for any questions that may come up. So if research is your thing, register here for the 2022 SMU Research Expo!