The Weston Family Foundation is honouring eight Wilfrid Laurier University graduate and postdoctoral researchers with 2024 Weston Family Awards in Northern Research. Weston Family Northern Scholars are encouraged to co-design their research with northern communities, with the goal of protecting and restoring biodiversity in Canada.

“The Weston Family Awards are among Canada’s most prestigious student prizes in the natural sciences,” says Jonathan Newman, vice-president: research. “Seeing eight Laurier winners, including six master’s students in a category of just 15 total awards, is an outstanding feat. This is a credit to Laurier’s strong northern research and our faculty supervisors who create exceptional training opportunities in the North.”

Master’s Scholars

Laurier’s six Weston Family Northern Scholars at the master’s level, listed below, were each awarded $20,000 toward their research:

Amber Buston-White, MSc student
Buston-White’s research explores how continual “press” disturbances, such as permafrost thaw, and rapid “pulse” disturbances, including fire, affect the storage and flux of water within boreal peatlands.

Katerina Coveny, MSc student
Coveny is studying how climate change is impacting caribou lichens, a ground-dwelling combination of fungus and algae found throughout the boreal forest that is an important food source for caribou.

Simon DePasquale, MSc student
DePasquale is identifying and comparing marine movement patterns and spawning locations of two fish species – Arctic char and Dolly Varden trout – near Kugluktuk, Nunavut.

Christine Dunbar, MSc student
Using animal imagery captured throughout the Northwest Territories, Dunbar is exploring how predation and food conditions may be contributing to shifting species distributions and responses to environmental change.

Jordan Jason-Byerley, MSc student 
Jason-Byerley is investigating how sea-run Dolly Varden fish may have altered their foraging habits over the last 10 years as the Arctic ecosystem changes.

Brian Newton, MSc student
To capture the effects of climate change, Newton is quantifying how frequently forest composition in the Northwest Territories has changed following wildfires since the mid-20th century.

Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scholars

Laurier also had winners in the doctoral and postdoctoral categories:

Alicia Pouw, PhD student
Pouw was awarded $120,000 over the next three years toward her research. She is investigating how seasonal snow changes affect lake ice conditions and consequently the safety of ice roads and winter recreational trails in northern communities.

Nick Luymes, postdoctoral fellow
As a Weston Family Northern Scholar, Luymes will receive $110,000 over the next two years. He is using data from GPS collars, cameras and aerial surveys to examine how habitats are overlapping between caribou and muskoxen in boreal forests.

Further Information

Read more about the 2024 Weston Family Award winners.