The Department of Geography and Environmental Studies is proud to congratulate Professors Derek Mueller, Patricia Ballamingie, and Victor Konrad who have all been awarded a Research Time Release Award which includes a teaching release to allow for more time to work on their research.
Assistant Professor Derek Mueller
Dr. Mueller’s research involves ice islands (large tabular-shaped icebergs), which are becoming increasingly prevalent in the Arctic as a result of climate-induced changes in Arctic ice shelves and glaciers. Ice islands form when extensive coastal ice calves away from the shore creating large pieces of thick drifting ice that can break-up as they transit south. He will use this time to wrap up a project that will track ice islands in the Canadian Arctic using Radarsat imagery and he will also begin another project that seeks to model ice island deterioration and drift.
Associate Professor Patricia Ballamingie
Dr. Ballamingie is integrally involved in two well-funded collaborative research teams, one aimed at strengthening campus-community engagement (in this research, she serves as Academic Co-Lead of the Community Environmental Sustainability Hub of a SSHRC Partnership grant, Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement), and one aimed at building sustainable, local food systems (Nourishing Communities: Sustainable Local Food Systems Research Group, led by Dr. Alison Blay-Palmer at Wilfred Laurier). Dr. Ballamingie will use this Research Time Release to focus on knowledge mobilization related to these two areas of research. She hopes to generate 8-12 journal articles from rich primary data gathered these past couple of years.
Adjunct Research Professor Victor Konrad
Dr. Victor Konrad is co-director of the Borders in Globalization Project (BIG: http://www.biglobalization.org). BIG is a research, public policy and outreach Partnership Project funded by SSHRC and university, public and private sector partners in Canada, and border studies institutes around the world. The goals of the project are to enhance understanding of borders in globalization, develop Canadian leadership in this research and outreach, and build borders studies research capacity. Dr. Konrad will use the Research Time Release to support his substantial leadership and management commitments to the BIG Project, and to focus on initiation of the three books that he will edit for the project.