News

Last December, the Visualizing Climate Action team from the Climate Action Lab won second place at HUBBUB, a City Hall event where students share innovative ideas and solutions for city-building with City staff and elected officials.

Members of the team come from a variety of backgrounds; they include Nicholas Samuelson (Cellular, Anatomical, and Physiological Sciences), Rachel Habermehl (Geographical Sciences), Yeslie Lizarraga (Sociology), Joaquin Gutierrez (Integrated Sciences integrating Climate and Sustainability), and Kōlea Praywell (Environment and Sustainability).

The Visualizing Climate Action project uses displays to visualize climate action in Vancouver (see poster below; click to expand). The displays link climate change to meaningful places that people already treasure and care about. “We want to make climate change personal to people, so it's easier for them to act upon it,” said the team. “The bond people have with physical locations and resources allows them to tie their climate action into a concrete contextualized goal in a hopeful tone.”

It is with great sadness that we relay the passing of EOAS Professor Emeritus Dr. Al Lewis.

Growing up in California, Al worked on commercial fish boats during high school when he developed a curiosity about why organisms occur where they do and how they get there. He completed the B.Sc. in Zoology at the University of Miami and went on to complete an M.Sc. in Marine Science with Hilary Moore when he examined the roles of light and temperature in the vertical movement of copepod crustaceans. Al received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Zoology at the University of Hawaii where he worked on a dissertation entitled “Parasitic Copepods of Acanthurid Fishes (Surgeon Fishes) of the Hawaiian Islands”. Al collected samples with his wife Carolyn by spearfishing, working with a Hawaiian trap fisherman and the curator of a small aquarium in Honolulu. He also completed collections of copepods from elasmobranchs (sharks, rays) and other teleost (bony) fishes in Hawaii and at Enewetak Atoll (Marshall Islands). In working on the life history of one species of copepod with free-living dispersal stages that must ultimately find a host to complete their life cycle, Al became interested in the factors that affect the dispersal (i.e., ocean currents) and subsequent settling of the copepod on its host.

After three years as Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire, Al was recruited to UBC by zooplankton biologist Brian Barry. They worked at the UBC Institute of Oceanography with oceanographers from different fields to study factors affecting the distribution of plankton. Twenty-five students worked on their master’s and doctoral theses with Al Lewis. After thirty-five years at UBC, Al retired in July 1999 from the Institute and Department of Oceanography and the Departments of Zoology and Earth and Ocean Sciences.

After his retirement, Al worked as an Emeritus Professor of Oceanography. His interests continue to reflect earlier work on understanding the interactions between oceans and plankton, especially how initial dispersal and survival, water properties, food conditions and predator numbers influence zooplankton. He was especially interested in the functional morphology of copepods, which provides information on the dynamics of copepod populations and their role in food webs when combined with distribution patterns. Al also continued to serve his research field in many ways, for example, by providing great insights into ecological research when he was interviewed in the Old Ways New Waves series by Beaty Biodiversity Museum (https://beatymuseum.ubc.ca/2019/09/26/old-ways-new-waves/).

​https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/people/allewis
University of British Columbia, Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Alumni Newsletter, 1999-2000

On Saturday 26th November 2022, we held a Gala Dinner to celebrate (albeit a little late) the 25th anniversary of the UBC EOAS Department. This event has been over a year in the planning, organised by a driven group of graduate students from our Department: Ruth Moore, Eva Gnegy, Catriona Breasley, Sacchi Pillai and Cara James. With a turnout of around 200 people, including all five Heads of the department, a three-course dinner, celebration cake, speeches and dancing until late in the evening, the event was definitely one to remember. 

Last week, Professor and department head Philippe Tortell set sail for the Western Antarctic Peninsula aboard the M/V Magellan. Departing from the Falkland Islands, the ship will journey to South Georgia Island, a biodiversity hotspot rich with marine life including elephant seals and king penguins, before reaching the Antarctic Peninsula. 

The expedition, chartered by WorldWide Quests, is an alumni cruise primarily focused on education and adventure. Dr. Tortell is onboard as a Science Leader and Expert and will be delivering science lectures that focus on the interactions between the Southern Ocean and Earth’s climate. These discussions include topics such as the role that carbon uptake by marine photosynthesis plays in climate regulation, and the effects of dissolved greenhouse gasses in the ocean. 

In addition to his science communication and education position onboard, Dr. Tortell will monitor critical oceanographic variables, such as temperature, salinity, and surface water oxygen saturation. Temperature and salinity, measured with a Thermosalinograph (TSG) system, are used to track distinct water masses. The surface layer oxygen saturation, measured with an oxygen optode and Gas Tension Device, reveals the net photosynthetic productivity of the surface water. This is the first time such measurements will be made on the M/V Magellan, and may pave the way for future research opportunities onboard cruise vessels. 

Read more about Dr. Philippe Tortell’s trip here.

Watch our interview with Dr. Philippe Tortell:

This month, three EOAS faculty have embarked on separate expeditions in the Antarctic. 

Members of Professor Evgeny Pakhomov's lab are studying the influence of Salpa thompsoni, a gelatinous zooplankton, on the marine carbon cycle. These salps partake in one of the largest migrations on Earth as they traverse from the depths of the Southern Ocean to the surface to feed at night and return to the darker ocean layers each morning, transporting significant amounts of organic carbon with them to the deep ocean. Evgeny's team, including graduate students, Alexis Bahl and Florian Luskow, will use acoustic instruments and nets to monitor the migratory behavior of these zooplankton. Their work is sponsored by the National Geographic Society and will take place on the Alfred Wegner Institute research ship, the Polarstern. You can read more about their research here and in the Vancouver Sun. 

Assistant Professor Anais Orsi will be traveling with her team to some of the coldest and windiest locations on the planet–eastern Antarctica in the Adélie Land. Here, they will investigate how strong winds shape Antarctic ice sheets and collect ice cores to study the variability of these winds over the past 100 - 200 years. Following work in the Adélie Land, Dr. Orsi and her team will travel to a site known as ‘Little Dome C’ and join efforts to extract the oldest ice core to date, hopefully containing ice over one million years old. Atmospheric gasses, such as CO₂, trapped in the ice core provide a record of Earth’s climate and will be used to study shifts in the periodicity of Earth’s ice ages. Read more about their work here.

Department Head and Professor Philippe Tortell is headed to the Antarctic Peninsula by way of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island onboard the M/V Magellan. Onboard, Philippe will monitor the basic oceanographic features (i.e. temperature and salinity) of the surface water along the cruise track using a thermosalinograph (TSG). Philippe will deliver science lectures that focus on the interactions between the Southern Ocean and Earth’s climate, particularly as they relate to carbon uptake by marine photosynthesis and distributions of greenhouse gasses, methane and nitrous oxide, in the water column. This expedition is sponsored by WorldWide Quest and provides a unique opportunity to conduct oceanographic research  during an alumni cruise that is primarily focused on education and adventure. You can read more about his trip here

Meet Lindsay Nelson, our Earth Science Educational Field and Laboratory Coordinator! Lindsay started her position in September this year and we are excited to have her in our “New in EOAS” series.

Q: Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself?

LN: I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University. After that, I worked in mineral exploration in northern Canada for about 8 years. I’ve worked at many different sites for short term projects, but I also spent multiple years on one exploration property eventually doing work such as data integration and geological modeling. I watched the project change and grow to an advanced exploration stage, which was very interesting.

Q: What do you think is the most memorable experience in your career so far?

LN: One of my biggest takeaways from being a geologist is that there is a difference between what you learn about geology in field school or in class – where you are just with your peers – versus when you start working. There is a combination of very different people in a camp; you have not only geologists but also drillers, mechanics, cooks, archaeologists, biologists, and so on. Everyone has different backgrounds and experiences but need to find ways to collaborate and live together. I’ve been able to get to know people that I probably wouldn’t have met in my life outside of the field and you can learn a lot from each other while working together.

Lindsay collecting samples of glacial sediments in NWT

Q: What drew you to this position?

LN: I saw the position was related to student labs and field schools and was immediately interested. Earth Science training is very special to me because there are so many opportunities for hands-on experiential learning. Lab projects and field trips are what I still remember most about my time as a student, and I was excited about the chance to support students and instructors with these aspects of their programs.

Q: Do you expect that there might be some differences between this position and your previous experience in mineral exploration?

LN: Definitely. There are some transferable skills, such as organization, logistics, communication, data management, and sample collection. However, the university setting is very different from the industry setting. For example, I provided training to other geologists and technicians when I worked in mineral exploration, which is the closest I got to an “educational” experience, but that was usually for a specific job with people who already had a lot of Earth Science knowledge. In EOAS, there are students at many different stages in their education, and that are studying a wide range of subjects, not just geology.

Q: How do you view your role at EOAS?

LN: This is a new position in the department and a new role for me as well, so we are still in the process of figuring out what exactly it involves. It is exciting to figure out how I can best help in this position. I do not have a “typical” work day so far, but I am learning about, for example, what labs are happening this term and what kind of collections we have here. I am also talking with faculty about field trips they are planning and I am helping organize for that. It has been a fairly dynamic position, I would say, as it depends on what courses are running and what they need.

Q: What are you doing this term?

LN: This term my work is more related to the current courses with lab components, and learning about the department in general. I am making sure that the teaching assistants have what they need and that the equipment for labs is working, and tracking samples that are missing. In the longer term, I am planning to get more integration across different sample and equipment collections: find out what samples are available and help share them between courses, etc. I hope there will be more flexibility in the usage of the materials with my organization and coordination. So far, I am starting with basic inventories to familiarize myself with the available collections, since there is so much history and legacy here.

Q: That sounds cool! What is the oldest sample you can find you here?

LN: I do not know about the oldest here, but I found a sample that was collected in 1922. There are also handwritten index cards with all the sample information including sketched maps in some cases. Just recently, I found an Optical Mineralogy textbook from 1933 in one of our teaching labs. It is still kept in the prep room as a reference book because the basic information is still relevant. The collections we have here are amazing and some of them are irreplaceable!

Q: You mentioned organizing field schools in the near future. What do you plan to do?

LN: I’ve been helping with some of the logistics and safety aspects of trips. The field opportunities are so valuable but there is a lot of work to set them up. The professors and TAs are already very busy, so part of my role is to help facilitate field trips and field courses so that the students can get the most out of these experiences.

Q: What do you hope to achieve in the next few years at EOAS?

LN: One of my ultimate goals is to help students learn well by providing them with a lot of great samples. I want to make it easier for people to know what samples are available in the collections. For the fieldwork side, I want to bring my personal experience as a field geologist to the courses because there are key differences between learning about geology and being a working geologist. I am looking forward to joining the field trips because it is not only always a fun experience, but also an experience for me to keep learning too. Since most of my work was in northern Canada, there’s a lot I don’t know about the local geology here. I want to not only support these field projects but also learn more as well.

Q: What do you do on the weekend?

LN: I’m into gardening, mostly growing food and flowers. I like to grow plants for pollinators. I also have an interest in soil and soil science, so I’ve been using that knowledge to improve the soil in my garden. Last year I put in more perennials, as I knew I would be busy in the field during the summer and they’re less work than vegetables. That said, I did also grow a lot of different chilis– they did ok even with the cold spring this year!