SFU Graduate Studies

SFU’s Faculty of Environment has just posted a call for collaborative courses or activities that “enhance teaching and associated environmental education in the broadly defined area of environment.”

Projects must:

• involve tenured/tenured-track faculty or lecturers individually or in teams (may include staff)
• focus on the broadly defined area of environment including humanities, social sciences and natural sciences as well as sustainability
• support teaching or associated activities at either the undergraduate or graduate levels
• involve collaboration with FENV or FENV collaboration with other Faculties

Funding can include graduate student support and faculty buy-out/overload, and projects can be single-term or extended over multiple terms.

Projects will be accepted each term. The first proposal deadline is July 14, 2011. For more information, contact Dan Burns in FENV at dburns@sfu.ca or 778-782-9225.

—

Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]

Congratulations to the recipients of the first round of professional development grants awarded by SFU’s Graduate Student Society.

• Sarah Carr‐Locke, Archaeology
• Csilla Egri, Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology
• Ben Gehrels, English
• Jasmine Kastner, Health Sciences
• Helen Lalancette, Education
• Erica Olson, REM
• Kirk Plangger, Business
• Masha Tkatchouk, Criminology
• Cheng Zhang, Engineering

Students each received $500 to support their conference and research travel. See full press release.

SFU graduate students who are planning to travel for conferences or research between September 1 through December 31, 2011 are invited to apply for the next round of awards. For more information, see www.sfugradsociety.ca or email Sarah Chown, GSS Professional Development Coordinator, prof‐dev@sfugradsociety.ca.

Application deadline: August 2, 2011.

—

Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]

SFU’s graduate students and faculty member Ken Lertzman were mentioned in the Queen Charlotte Islands Observer as they finished up their three-week field course in Haida Gwaii. The paper noted that the group of sixteen students worked on “projects as far ranging as the growth patterns of monumental cedars to tourist profiles of hikers and Haida Gwaii visitors.”

Their work there was in collaboration with the Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society.

For more information on the field study, contact Dr. Ken Lertzman in the School of Resource and Environmental Management.

—

Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]

We’re pleased to announce the creation of two new private awards for SFU’s graduate students:

The University Women’s Club of Vancouver Annual Graduate Award in Business (PDF), provides financial support for female students who are pursuing, or intend to pursue a graduate degree in which women are under-represented in the Segal Graduate School of Business, Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. Nominations are made by the Associate Dean of the Beedie School of Business, and are due by June 30.

The Canadian Pacific/Teck Resources Award for Environmental Innovation (PDF) is to support graduate students in the Faculty of Environment who are pursuing or intend to pursue research that focuses on finding innovative solutions/approaches to environmental challenges and sustainability. Nominations are made by the Dean, Faculty of Environment, and are due by October 30.

—

Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]

The Association of Moving Image Archivists has announced two awards for graduate students.

1. 2011 Scholarship Program
   Four awards for students accepted into or enrolled in a full-time, graduate-level or other advanced program in film or television studies or production, library or information studies, archival administration, museum studies, or a related discipline.
   Value: $4000
   Downloadable application form | Application deadline: May 1, 2011
2. 2011 Kodak Fellowship in Film Preservation
   For students who are US citizens and who are accepted into or enrolled in a graduate-level or other advanced program in moving image studies or production, library or information studies, archival administration, museum studies, or a related discipline.
   Value: $4000, a conference, and an internship in Los Angeles
   Downloadable application form | Application Deadline: May 1, 2011

Specific eligibility requirements, selection criteria and applications are available on the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) website.

—

Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]

Derek Congram completed his PhD in archaeology at Simon Fraser University in 2010.

He writes:

Since 1999 I have been working as a forensic archaeologist and anthropologist. This has entailed the usually criminal investigation of crimes involving the disappearance and death of civilians, but also soldiers. I have worked for different groups including the United Nations, the US, Costa Rican and British Columbian legal authorities, non-governmental organizations and legal defence counsel.  I have conducted forensic work in about eight countries including Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq.

My work typically involves the search for and recovery of human remains (eg, excavation of mass graves) and their subsequent analysis.

My PhD research involved helping with the search for missing civilians from the Spanish Civil War — there are tens of thousands of them, mostly from 1936–1937. It’s a private, grass-roots initiative by families of victims, and the Spanish government, according to the United Nations, has shirked its legal responsibilities of investigating these missing civilians. In fact, a Spanish judge for whom I served briefly as an advisor is on trial for attempting to investigate the controversial issue.

To complicate matters further, an Argentine judge is investigating whether or not the Spanish government has been negligent in their failure to investigate. This is a result of Spanish families who fled the war, immigrated to Argentina and who have now petitioned the Argentine courts to act on their behalf investigating their missing family members. The surviving children of the victims are now very elderly and so attention to their cause is really quite urgent.

I am currently doing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s Central Identification Laboratory (JPAC-CIL), which is based in Hawai’i. JPAC is a branch of the US Navy that is tasked with the search, recovery, identification and repatriation of US personnel who have died in past conflicts overseas (mostly Korea, Vietnam, WWII).

• “Uncovering Trauma” article in Anthropology News
• Criminological and Criminalistic Research Opportunities in Spain on the Subject of the Spanish Civil War
• PhD Dissertation Abstract
• Derek Congram on LinkedIn
• SFU Archaeology graduate program

We hope our profiles give you a better idea of the work our graduate students are doing. We’d love to feature more of our graduate students and alumni: please share your story.

—

Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]

Jennifer Jones’  archaeology research examines material culture from an early British Columbia psychiatric hospital or “insane asylum” as it was called at the time.

She writes:

I’m trying to look at changes in daily life for patients and different treatment regimes used at the Public Hospital for the Insane in New Westminster, BC, as reflected in the material remains. This project will focus on the period from the opening of the institution in 1878 until the 1940s.

By looking at the objects of day-to-day life, such as the ceramics, cutlery, and clothing selected for patients, we can get a sense of these things were used to rehabilitate people and create “proper citizens.” We can also look at whether patients were allowed personal effects, the types of things they were eating, and how they were spending their time.

I’ll be using a variety of methods to explore some of these ideas, including archaeological excavations and archival research.

• SFU Archaeology graduate program
• Current archaeology graduate students

We hope our profiles give you a better idea of the work our graduate students are doing. We’d love to feature more of our graduate students and alumni: please share your story.

—

Update: This post is moving to a new home: [See our new website.]