Student Bio
Kimberly Bernyk is originally from Chatham, ON. She has lived in many different places, which include Guelph, ON, Niagara, ON, Grand Manan, NB – where she lived on a fishing boat surrounded by whales – and now she lives in Ottawa, ON. She received her bachelor’s degree in Geography and Geomatics from the University of Guelph, and a post degree certification in GIS Spatial Management at Niagara College. She has had several unique career opportunities working as an Environmental Educational Instructor for a marine biology summer camp and research program. Here she studied whales and puffins in the Bay of Fundy, while educating high-school students on a variety of environmental subjects. After, she worked as a Junior GIS Technician for a utilities and engineering company. More recently, she worked at Bell Canada as a GIS Technician. Although these opportunities gave her a wealth of experience, she decided to go back to Carleton University as a Master of Science student.
Kimberly’s research aims to advance the science of invasive species distribution mapping and habitat modelling in wetland and peatland complexes across Ontario and Quebec. The focus will be on invasive species distribution in Lac-à-la-Tortue (Turtle lake) in Shawinigan, Quebec, in collaboration with Professor Julie Talbot at Université de Montréal. Using remotely piloted aircraft systems equipped with optical and multispectral cameras, high-resolution image analysis will be conducted to produce a species level classification of invasive plant species and ecosystem-scale mapping of their microhabitats.