Schedule

Fish is a source of low-calorie, highly proteinaceous food rich in essential vitamins and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), making it an essential component of a healthy diet. In recent years, the output from capture fishery has stagnated, making aquaculture the primary source of fish we eat. However, the fish from aquaculture comes at a higher cost than capture fishery, mainly due to expenses associated with fish feed, which contributes 50 – 60 % of the operational cost of an aquaculture farm. My lab integrates the concepts of animal physiology with nutritional biology to develop cost-effective feed for better growth and other functions such as colour enhancement, disease and stress mitigation. To this end, we are currently working on three major areas; i) development of functional feed, ii) replacement of costly feed ingredients with locally available cheaper ingredients, and iii) development of a vitamin-mineral mixture to increase the nutritional value and efficiency of farm-made fish diets. For the FULL ABSTRACT, go to the "Speakers" tab.

Student Speakers: Daria Taskina (9:40 - 9:55am, York University), Jordan VanderBurgt (9:55 - 10:10am, Western University), David Miller (10:10 - 10:25am, York University), and Caroline Maloney (10:25 - 10:40am, UOttawa) For detailed description of their exciting work, head over to the Abstracts tab and filter by Talks. Each talk will be 10 minutes followed by a 5 minute Q&A session. Remember to vote for your favourite speaker!

Do you have what it takes to impress these Lions? Try convincing them, in 90 seconds or less, that your research is the NEXT. BIG. THING. Rules: Present your research as you would to someone without a science background. You have 90 seconds to speak to your judges: A “Bay Street investment banker” and a “University President”. Slides are not allowed, props are welcomed.

With a degree in biology, the logical next step seems to be: enter academia or enter a research-based field. But the options don't have to end there, as you will learn in our career workshop. Join our panel of industry professionals who all started in biology but charted their own course and have become experts in their respective fields. You won't want to miss this very interesting career workshop to explore all the different career options possible for a biology graduate. Join Gino Di Censo, Safa Ahmad, and Isaac Kwong in this career changing workshop.

Student Speakers: Kyra Kerkhofs (12:15 - 12:30pm, York University), Pankaj Puar (12:30 - 12:45pm, York University), Farnaz Farahbakhsh (12:45 - 1:00pm, Ryerson University), Farnaz Mansouri-Noori (1:00 - 1:15pm, York University). For detailed description of their exciting work, head over to the Abstracts tab and filter by Talks. Each talk will be 10 minutes followed by a 5 minute Q&A session. Remember to vote for your favourite speaker!

Posters #2-15 will be presenting from 2-3pm. Posters #16-26 will be presenting from 3-4pm. To know your poster number, go to the "Abstracts" tab and filter by "Poster", the number beside your submission is your poster number. Judging will take place in the hour assigned to your poster. Judges will "call the presenter" when they have arrived to your virtual booth. Please remain signed in to your fourwaves account during this time.

Crickets use sound to find each other space over which potential mates can sense each other is determined by the loudness of song and the sensitivity of the auditory system. According to the textbooks, this space is enhanced purely ‘passively’ through morphology and mechanical resonance. Song producing wings and females' ears resonate at the same frequency enhancing the size of their acoustic space. But some crickets didn’t read the textbook. In this talk, I will present my research on Oecanthus henryi which is one such species. O. henryi is a tree cricket, and males of this species use an active behavioural strategy to make themselves louder. They manufacture an acoustic baffle, a tool that makes them louder. In fact, using a series of models and experiments, we showed that not only do they manufacture a tool, but they manufacture an optimal tool. Not to be outdone, we found that O. henryi females, have an active physiological amplification system in their ears. Using careful neurobiology we show that the amplifier doesn’t actually make them more sensitive than other crickets, as previously speculated. Rather, it allows them to change the frequency that they are sensitive to. Both findings underline the poverty of our descriptions of invertebrate behaviour and biophysics, and point to a wealth of innovations yet to be discovered even among these ‘simple’ organisms.

The past year has taken a toll on student mental health. Add the unique stressors that graduate students already face, the experience of burn-out, and poor mental health may be amplified for many. In this practical workshop participants will have an opportunity to: 1) Tuning into your unique stress responses 2) Reviewing well-being strategies for internalized stress and the role of health 3) Importance of self-care and practice for resiliency 4) Practice mindful movement through art-based exercise (bring your pastels/markers and paper!) 5) Learn about on and off-campus resources Led by Shaila Khan

In your career in science you will need to deal with data and (probably) analysis code. It’s easy to take shortcuts here, but there are common pitfalls such as losing your data that can end up being costly. We want to show it is also easy to improve your project management and prevent such disasters. We’ll go through a demo illustrating a few basic principles, and show you some tools, to help you on your way to become a professional project manager.