Canada Research Chair, Tier 2 NSERC

Canada Research Chair in Watershed Modeling and Analysis
Dr. April James, Faculty of Arts & Science - Geography
 
Dr. April James received her Ph.D. in geography from McGill University and her MSc. from Clemson University in Earth Sciences.  Prior to being awarded a Research Chair in watershed modeling and analysis at Nipissing, Dr. James was an Assistant Professor in Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University.

 

As a Canadian Research Chair, Dr. April James with Nipissing University’s new Watershed Analysis Center aim at putting ‘Eyes on Our Watersheds’ in the study of how water moves through watersheds, from rainfall to streamflow, how long water resides in a watershed, and what flowpaths (e.g. surface and subsurface) water takes as it makes it journey.

This research has important applications for watershed health and management, in which knowledge of how watersheds process water is integrated with the transport and transformation of contaminants and nutrients impacting on water quality and ecological health.  Knowing how our watersheds function will allow improved evaluation and prediction of environmental impact due to landuse (urban development, agriculture, forestry, mining) and climate change, critical issues to the future of Canada’s and Ontario’s Near North water resources.
 
The Watershed Analysis Centre (WAC) is housing Dr. James ’s research and is located on the second floor of the new Research and Academic Wing.  The WAC will focus on research related to the biophysical and sociopolitical processes operating within watersheds. WAC is a unique science facility for multidisciplinary and collaborative research into the hydrological, geomorphological and biological systems operating within catchments and the policies affecting their management.

 

Canada Research Chair, Tier 2 SSHRC

Canada Research Chair in Environmental History
Dr. Dean Bavington, Assistant Professor, History Department
 

Dr. Dean Bavington is a Ph.D graduate of Geography and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.  Dr. Bavington was awarded a SSRCH Post-doctoral Fellowship and a second fellowship by the prestigious Michigan Society of Fellows. He is an adjunct professor with the School of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan.

 

Dr. Bavington’s research critically examines the history and consequences of managerial interventions into natural and human resources, environments, and systems.  Building upon the concepts of managerial ecology, as first proposed by environmental historian Carolyn Merchant, the meaning of policies of management are analyzed to provide concrete understanding of their consequences and what they look like when put into practice in real world settings.  Three regional areas (Lake Nipissing region, the Georgian Bay Littoral Biosphere Reserve and Algonquin First Nation land claim) will be covered by this study.  Case studies examining the management of freshwater and marine fisheries, and forests within the territories of the Nipissing, Dokis and Algonquin First Nations will focus the research and provide regional examples.  An interdisciplinary methodology is used to uncover how management comes to dominate responses to specific environmental issues, and the possibilities that exist for thinking and acting differently.

 

The Nipissing University Environmental History Research Lab (NUEHRL) will house Dr. Bavington’s research and be located on the second floor of the new Research and Academic Wing.  The NUEHRL will focus on digitizing environmental oral and archived histories, cataloguing and analyzing them, and making them available to others through an accessible website.  Pod-casts, streaming and archived audio/video lectures, manuscripts, and works in progress from Canada’s top environmental and geographical historians, are some of the long-term goals of Dr. Bavington’s research lab.

 

Dr. Bavington’s research website: www.deanbavington.org

 
 

FedNor – NOHFC Research Chair

 

Forest Bioproducts Research Chair
Dr. Jeff Dech, Assistant Professor, Biology Department

 

The five-year Forest Bioproducts Research Chair program is sponsored by Industry Canada (FedNor),  by the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation), and by Nipissing University and private sector partners under the Forest Research Partnership (FRP).

 

A major theme of Dr. Dech’s research at the Forest Resources Laboratory (FRL) relates to providing the scientific knowledge to support the sustainable development of new forest bioproducts in northern Ontario. He focuses on aspects of biology at the community, ecosystem and landscape levels of organization. Using the forests of the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence and northeastern Boreal regions of Ontario as our natural laboratory, Dr. Dech explores patterns in the distribution, composition and productivity of plant communities, and the ecological drivers that produce these patterns.

 

Dr. Dech’s research website: Forest Resources Laboratory

 

Elizabeth Thorn Institutional Chair

 

Elizabeth Thorn Chair in Literacy
Dr. David Booth, Faculty of Education

 

For more than 40 years, Dr. Booth has been involved in education, as a classroom teacher, consultant, professor, researcher, speaker and author.  He has authored many teacher reference books and textbooks in all areas of curriculum development and has written several guidelines in literacy and in the arts for the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat.  Dr. Booth received an honorary Doctor of Education from Nipissing University in 2008 and is the recipient of several awards in Canada and the United States for his classroom teaching, his contributions to language and literacy, the arts in education, and his picture books for young people.

 

Chairholder, Dr. Booth will work collaboratively with language arts professors in Nipissing’s faculty of education to create an international centre of research excellence in literacy.  The centre will connect with school districts throughout Ontario to promote and assist in the teaching of literacy.  Dr. Booth will also concentrate some of his work studying literacy issues among boys in school.