Strategies for Success: Student workshop series

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Photo credit: Andrea Wishart
Mushrooms of the Alaskan temperate rainforest along the Battery Point trail in Haines, Alaska on a break from Yukon fieldwork.
Photo credit: Stephanie A. Rivest
Researchers record the behaviour of a Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) while it drinks nectar from the flowers of an Ocean Spray bush (Holodiscus discolor) in an oak savanna on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
Photo credit: Kennedy Zwarych
Red-backed salamander on a zebra mussel podium attached to a unionid mussel.
Photo credit: Simon Thibodeau
Leptodiaptomus minutus (a lacustrine calanoid copepod) at different life stages: nauplii (bottom left), copepodite (bottom right) and adults (top). The mature female (top left) is seen carrying eggs, while the male 5th leg (used for identification) is visible, and both adults show accumulation of lipid droplets.
Photo credit: Alex Windsor
Fox kits playing near Churchill Manitoba.
Photo credit: Raul Verdecia
A radiation of palms from the genus Copernicia in Cuba.
Photo credit: Andrea Wishart
Ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) in spring snow outside Saskatoon, SK. Taken on an off-season hike.
Photo credit: Kendra Morgan
MSc student Briar Hunter performing an ultrasound on an endangered Oregon Spotted Frog to measure its follicular development in British Columbia.
Photo credit: Ken A. Thompson
A photo of the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) species pair from Little Quarry Lake, British Columbia. A benthic female is above, and a limnetic female is below.
Photo credit: Justine Le Vaillant
Couple nicheur d'hirondelles bicolores (Tachycineta bicolor).
Photo credit: Victoria Marie Glynn
A shiver of whitetip reef sharks (Triaenodon obesus) in Coiba National Park, Panama.
Photo credit: Justine Le Vaillant
Suivi au nichoir : hirondelle bicolore - Tachycineta bicolor.
Photo credit: Kevin Bruce
A sea palm (Postelsia palmaeformis) on the western coast of Vancouver Island.
Photo credit: Julie Messier
Sampling black spruce twigs, Petawawa Research Forest, June 2022.
Photo credit: Lina Aragon Baquero
Measuring gas exchange on a beech sampling. UWaterloo Biology Greenhouse.
Photo credit: Nicolás Peñafiel Loaiza
Nicolás Peñafiel Loaiza, Biology Ph.D. candidate at Memorial University of Newfoundland, next to a Parajubaea sunkha palm in the surroundings of Vallegrande, Bolivia. 'Sunkha' palms are endemic to Bolivia, where they occupy an extremely limited range and face several threats. Picture taken during a field trip in 2019 to visit wild stands of the palm. Part of Nicol�s' research focuses on the conservation genomics of Parajubaea palms in Bolivia.
Photo credit: Stephanie A. Rivest
An Eastern Pheobe (Sayornis phoebe) gathers materials for its nest while researchers look on near Dalesville, Quebec.
Photo credit: Danny McIsaac
DeKay's Brownsnake, Storeria dekayi. Walking the trail at Tommy Thompson Park where I saw several of these small snakes laying in the middle of the trail amongst small sticks. This one was very curious about my camera.
Photo credit: See previous photo
A photo of the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) species pair from Paxton Lake, British Columbia. A benthic female is above, and a limnetic female is below.
Photo credit: Kevin Bruce
PhD student collecting data along the shoreline on the western coast of Vancouver Island.
Photo credit: Stephanie A. Rivest
A Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) caterpillar is spotted peaking over a Common Milkweed leaf (Asclepias syriaca) while researchers survey butterfly communities around Montreal, Quebec.
Photo credit: Victoria Marie Glynn
A close up shot of a cauliflower coral (Pocillopora spp.) from Coiba National Park, Panama. The coral's various polyps can be seen, emitting a blue-like fluorescence.
Photo credit: Cameron So
Imperilled Sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) growing on Rice Lake Plains in Ontario, Canada.
Photo credit: Cameron So
Sunset by Lake Michigan. photo taken at Indiana Dunes National Park, one of the US National Park Services' newest national parks (2019).
Photo credit: Kristina Tietjen
Professor Julia K. Baum takes a tissue sample of a brain coral (Platygyra spp.) on Kiritimati (Christmas Island, Kiribati).
Photo credit: Victoria Marie Glynn
A cauliflower coral (Pocillopora spp.) colony in the Gulf of Panama, Panama, being photographed for morphological analyses. The yellow tag is the colony's unique identifier, and the color card is used to color correct the photographs, as things tend to look bluer than they actually are given water's refractive properties.
Photo credit: Justine Le Vaillant
Hirondelle bicolore m�le (Tachycineta bicolor).
Photo credit: Andrea Wishart
A very hungry caterpillar (unknown species) munching on leaves of a plant in the family Gunneraceae in the cloud forest of Ecuador near Yanayacu, Napo Province. This was taken during an undergradaute field course put on by Western University for the Ontario University Biology Program.
Photo credit: Briar Hunter
Two Oregon Spotted Frogs in amplexus in one of the conservation breeding populations in Canada.
Photo credit: Stephanie A. Rivest
Bright autumn colours of deciduous forests in Gatineau, Quebec including mostly Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), White Oak (Quercus alba) and Red Oak (Quercus rubra).
Photo credit: Sarah H. D. Santos
A thinhorn sheep (Ovis dalli) and a ground squirrel (Spermophilus spp.) at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve.
Photo credit: Victoria Marie Glynn
Coral reef in Saboga Island in the Gulf of Panama, Panama. The reef is mostly composed of Pocillopora spp. colonies, commonly known as cauliflower corals.
Photo credit: Stephanie A. Rivest
Researchers surveying butterfly communities around Ottawa, Ontario spot a non-native European Skipper (Thymelicus lineola) perched on a piece of grass.
Photo credit: Andrea Wishart
Columbian ground squirrel (Urocitellus columbianus) in the alpine meadow of Ptarmigan Cirque, Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Alberta. These high-elevation rodents experience a very short active season and hibernate most of the year. Their ecophysiology is under study by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan.
Photo credit: Justin Benjamin
Monitoring Canada goose (Branta canadensis) nests in Wapusk National Park.
Photo credit: Julie Messier
A hand with spruce twigs painted on nails is holding a spruce twig.
Photo credit: Mathilde Salamon
Mathilde Salamon (PhD candidate, Derry lab at UQAM) is sampling zooplankton at the Station de biologie des Laurentides (Quebec) at the onset of winter. Calanoid copepods of the species Leptodiaptomus minutus were identified and their DNA extracted for genomic sequencing.
Photo credit: Danny McIsaac
Sudbury, Flower crab spider (Misumena vatia), Perched on a flower awaiting it's next bumblebee. University of Waterloo.
Photo credit: Justine Le Vaillant
Suivi des nichoirs d'hirondelles bicolores (Tachycineta bicolor) - champ agricole proche de Drummonville.

In 2014, 2015 and 2016 the CSEE student and postdoc representatives organized student workshops during the annual meeting, with the help of the local LOC students. The workshop took place in a pub during and evening. The event was structured as a number of tables with one topic addressed at each, such as:

Finding scholarship opportunities and writing scholarship applications,
Choosing where to do your MSc/PhD/PDF (what things to look for in a lab and a location),
Advice for students hoping to do a degree/post-doc abroad,
Academic job applications (research and teaching positions),
Careers in government/industry,
Tips for writing your MSc/PhD thesis,
Creating work/life balance,
How to juggle kids and academic careers

Between one and three faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, or people with non-academic positions were selected for each table. Workshop attendees then moved around the different topics that they are interested in. This workshop is designed to be a safe space where students and postdocs can ask questions and receive advice from experienced people in a relaxed ambience. This event has been a big success in the past, and a great opportunity for networking.

We are planning to organize a similar workshop for the 2017 meeting in Victoria. Stay tuned for more details and the list of topics/speakers!