Lakehead presents professors, students and partners with Year of Climate Action awards for research projects
Lakehead University has awarded seven research teams with Year of Climate Action awards worth $5,000 each, which they will use to explore various topics related to climate change.
The first team is looking at improving the role and organization of the Keewaytinook Okimakanak (KO) Tribal Council in wildfire evacuations, with a focus on supporting and advancing community self-care and selfdetermination.
The research team is gathering perspectives, experiences, and recommendations from KO service providers and community volunteers who played a role in the wildfire-driven evacuations of several KO communities in the summer of 2019 and 2021.
This will inform emergency management plans and help identify emergency management practices, policies, and systems that prioritize and honour First Nations self-care self-determination while fostering research partnerships between Lakehead University and Keewaytinook Okimakanak Tribal Council.
The research team is comprised of Dan Duckert, Keewaytinook Okimakanak Tribal Council/Lakehead University; Dr. Lindsay Galway, Department of Health Sciences at Lakehead Thunder Bay; Anjali Mago, Luke Smyk and Josh Taylor, all from Keewaytinook Okimakanak Tribal Council; and Donovan Parenteau, a Lakehead University student in the Faculty of Natural Resources Management.
Dr. Francisco Ramos-Pallares and his research team are looking into developing alternative low-carbon technologies to produce chemicals, which he said is paramount for minimizing the effects of climate change.
For instance, new bioprocesses have emerged to produce bio-based alcohols from biomass that significantly reduce carbon emissions compared to the traditional industrial processes based on the complex conversion of hydrocarbons.
“Currently, my research team and I are investigating the salting-out of alcohols from an aqueous solution. The underlying idea of salting-out is to separate alcohol from an aqueous liquid mixture by adding salt,” said Dr. Ramos-Pallares, Assistant Professor in
Chemical Engineering at Lakehead Thunder Bay.
The goal of this project is to understand the physics and chemistry of salting-out and to map the effect of the amount and type of salt added on the purity of the alcohol produced.
To do so, the research team is combining experimental data collection and simulation to shed light on the salting-out phenomenon. The expected outcome is to produce a physically sound model for salting-out-related calculations suitable for the design and simulation of alcohol purification operations in biorefineries.
Dr. Ellen Field, Assistant Professor in Education at Lakehead Orillia, is working with Dr. Muhammad Asaduzzaman, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, on a research project called Benchmarking Climate
Change Policies across Canadian School Boards.
The research project, which will run from January-September 2022, will involve developing a web scraping protocol to collect data on climate change policies from school board websites across Canada; quantifying the number of school boards that have developed climate change policies; and publishing a report on climate change policies across Canadian school boards.
Currently, there is limited data as to how the formal education system is responding to climate change, and Dr. Field notes that this study will determine existing policies within school boards.
“After analysis, the findings will indicate where gaps in policy exist both quantitatively, in terms of number of school boards with policies, and qualitatively, in terms of content in climate change policies for ensuring education systems are responsive to preparing young people for the rapid change and uncertainty they will face in the next 30 – 70-plus years,” she said.
Dr. Ahmed Elshaer, Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at Lakehead Thunder Bay, and his research team will develop tailored solutions to control the influence of climate change – particularly when it comes to the built environment.
“One of the expected impacts of climate change is strong wind events and harsher cold temperatures, which will affect various sectors of our community, such as the Indigenous regions and the mining industry,” Dr. Elshaer said.