Movers & Shakers
LATITUDE
THREE APEGA E.I.T.S RECEIVE VANIER SCHOLARSHIPS
interested in stem cell and tissue engineering and the ways it can improve lives. Cells experience many different forces as they interact with one another and travel through the human body. But when the same types of cells are grown in dishes in a lab, they aren’t subjected to the same external forces, making them a poor alternative for the real thing in studies and testing. The Vanier scholarship will support Ms. Borys’s thesis, focusing on finding a way to accurately simulate a cell’s environment outside of the body using stirred suspension reactors. Success will bring society closer to the effective use of stem cells in genetic studies, drug testing, and organ transplantation.
Three APEGA E.I.T.s are breathing a little easier after earning prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships, allowing them to focus on their research projects. The three PhD students, one from the University of Alberta and two from the University of Calgary, represent Alberta’s high-quality, skilled, and innovative new generation of engineering students. Passionate about geotechnical engineering, Haley Schafer, E.I.T. , holds an undergraduate degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in geoenvironmen- tal engineering. She’s working towards her PhD at the University of Alberta.
HARD WORK, GREAT
REWARDS (From left)
Haley Schafer, E.I.T., Breanna Borys, E.I.T., and Leanne Dawson, E.I.T., represent the future of engineering in this year’s Vanier scholarship pool.
With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, Leanne Dawson, E.I.T. , has been putting in the hours to get her PhD at the University of Calgary. She’s working towards finding low-cost solutions to bring renewable energy to consumers. Her research centres around using weather conditions to boost the capacity of existing power lines. The ability to use current lines to support new energy demands will decrease industry and customer costs and be better for the environment. The Vanier scholarship will support Ms. Dawson’s investigation of the risks and challenges in implementing such a meth- od, called dynamic line rating, in Alberta. Vanier Canada National Scholarships are awarded annually to doctoral students showing academic excellence, leadership, and research potential in the social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health. Recipients get $50,000 to support their academic endeavours.
“One of the things about geotechnical engineering is that it’s very unpredictable. What you have under the ground right here might be completely different from over there. It’s an interesting engineering prob- lem, and I really like that,” she says in a University of Alberta story. Ms. Schafer will use the scholarship to further her research and understanding of the long-term implications of the liquid waste created by mines, including the ones linked to Alberta’s oil sands. “Mines create liquid waste called tailings, which are contained in tailings dams. After a mine closes, these structures are left onsite forever. This is a problem because we don’t know how they behave long term.” The knowledge she gains from her research will go a long way in aiding tailings risk management. Breanna Borys, E.I.T. , is a biomedical engineering graduate student at the University of Calgary with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. She’s
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