CPS Grad Spotlight - Minoli Dias
Name: Minoli Dias
MSc or PhD Candidate: PhD Candidate
Location of Undergraduate Education: BScH, Queen's University
Name of the Lab at CPS: Climate Geology Research Group with Prof. Jochen Halfar
Selected Awards: NSERC CGS D (2024-2026); Ontario Graduate Scholarship/Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology (2021-2024) & General Motors Women in Science and Mathematics Award (2022-2023).
Selected Research Contributions:
- McIlwraith, H., Dias, M., Orihel, D., M., Rennie, M., D., Harrison, A., L., Paterson, M., & Rochman, C. (2024). Tracking the plastic cycle: patterns of contamination in semi-remote boreal lakes. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5832
- Iyare, P., U., Vanderlip, H., Dias, M., Provencher, J., Zhou, S., Lougheed, S., de Groot, P., V., C., Whitelaw, G., Branigan, M., Dyck, M., & Orihel, D., M. O. (2024). An assessment of microplastics in fecal samples from polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in Canada’s North. Arctic Science. https://doi.org/10.1139/AS-2023-0060
- Doubleday, Z., Willoughby, J., Dias, M., Hosking, L., Leclerc, N., Nikolajew, S., B., Peharda, M., Tristão-Rézio, A., & Trueman, C. (in press). Capitalising on the wealth of chemical data in the accretionary tissues of lesser-known aquatic taxa: opportunities from across the tree of life. Limnology & Oceanography Letters.
Minoli, please tell us about yourself and your journey as a PhD Candidate!
How did you come to UTM? What interested you to join a lab here?
During my undergraduate degree, I participated and led several community conservation projects. As a student researcher and Contaminated Sites Officer at Environment and Climate Change Canada, I conducted environmental surveys of point source pollutants in Northern Ontario and Nunavut and assisted with remediation projects. While this work interested me, I wanted to contribute towards improving projections of pollution- and anthropogenic climate change-based impacts, particularly in the Arctic. Climate warming is amplified in the Arctic and as with most environmental pollution issues, marginalized communities, particularly Indigenous peoples, experience the disproportionate effects from sea-ice cover decline, glacier runoff and changing marine food webs. Understanding future change is crucial to mitigation and resilience planning.
My experience with environmental research during my undergraduate studies led me to Professor Jochen Halfar’s Climate Geology Group. This research group has been developing a species of coralline red algae, Clathromorphum compactum, as an environmental archive to extend marine climate records (e.g., temperature, nutrient dynamics, primary productivity, glacier runoff, salinity, etc.) over the past 1000+ years. Model projections of ocean conditions like sea ice cover often rely on satellite data that extends only up to 1979. This period is marked by anthropogenic climate change. C. compactum grows prolifically along Arctic coasts in seasonal growth layers of calcium carbonate uninterrupted for over 1,600 years. Once sectioned, we can analyze the width and chemical composition of these layers to reveal annual changes in ocean conditions over time. Developing this new record could be key to understanding the recent history of the ocean. Centuries of annual baseline data could also significantly improve the accuracy of environmental projections and by consequence our ability to mitigate and plan for environmental change. The potential impact of this research and the challenge of developing this archive greatly appealed to me so I made the jump from pollution research to paleoclimatology!
When did you realize that you wanted to pursue a graduate study?
I was privileged to be exposed to some welcoming professors, graduate students and researchers in limnology and Arctic sciences through courses, fieldwork and undergraduate research assistantships. Seeing how environmental research could result in positive impacts for communities experiencing the effects of pollution and climate change as well as drive policy changes led me to want to contribute to socially and environmentally responsible scientific research. After completing my undergraduate thesis studying microplastic pollution, I knew that I enjoyed the research process and was interested in pursuing scientific research as a potential career.
What are your research interests? Tell us few exciting things about your research.
Environmental pollution!! My current research looks at how our oceans have changed through recent geological time before and after colonial industrialization and overdevelopment*. I find it fascinating how marine and terrestrial organisms (e.g., algae assemblages in sediment cores, tree rings, coralline algae) can record what past climates looked like up to millions of years ago! I’m interested in understanding how we can use these organisms to develop more accurate records of natural climate variation and how our anthropogenic climate change signal is imprinted over this variation. I’m most excited to start my third project in which I will attempt to apply methods for developing tree-ring records to coralline algae proxy record development. Using this method, I may be able to generate the first 1000-year-long annual record of sea ice cover off the coast of Nunatsiavut (Labrador) using coralline algae.
*Overdevelopment refers to development that extracts natural resources beyond the carrying capacity of the environment and does so in a manner that marginalizes people of colour—particularly Black and Indigenous peoples—queer people, people with disabilities, and migrants among others. This development is rooted in colonialism (i.e., most commonly resource colonialism) and results in detrimental outcomes for marginalized or targeted populations in the form of housing insecurity, food insecurity, genocide and war.
What is your goal when you finish your degree?
As a woman of colour working in the field of Arctic research, I have observed the inequity that exists within the field of scientific research whereby we prioritize colonial, western ways of knowing generated at university or government-led institutions and dismiss or even worse discredit community and Indigenous knowledge. However, I have also been privileged to witness some wonderful reciprocal partnerships between researchers and communities, where academic scientists co-develop research questions with communities, center community knowledge and prioritize local research goals. My work with the Climate Geology Research Group has been instrumental in developing my skills in scientific research, including field research, data analysis and science communication. While I am undecided on whether I will continue in scientific research at an academic institution, in industry, government or through some other platform, I aspire to use the skills that I have developed to address issues of environmental health and racism caused by anthropogenic pollution through research.
What are some of your achievements you'd like to share?
One of my favourite aspects of the Earth Sciences field is the variability of our work and tasks. My most cherished memories and achievements as a graduate student are learning experiences that have helped build my self-confidence as a researcher. In the summer of 2023, I delivered my first oral presentation as a graduate student at the International Sclerochronology Conference in Tokyo, Japan. This was the first in-person conference I had ever attended! While I did not receive an award for my presentation, it was well-received with positive feedback from peers and senior researchers. I made some great friends and met respected senior colleagues with whom I have since been able to collaborate on research projects. This experience contributed to building my confidence in my academic skills. I also rediscovered my passion for science communication, which had been lost to virtual meetings during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic!
More recently, this summer, I had the opportunity to plan and run a fieldwork season from start to finish along the Nunatsiavut (Labrador) coast, just outside of Agvituk (Hopedale), Nunatsiavut. I organized all aspects of the project from securing grant funding and permits to executing the work in the field and sharing our research with the Agvituk community. The planning process took eight months and culminated in a two-week marine diving expedition in the Kingitok Islands with the Vagabond research vessel. The field season was successful in terms of our collection of coralline algae specimens (304 kg!!), our interactions with the community and our teamwork with collaborators in the field. While this was not a formally recognized award or achievement, it was the first time I conducted a marine field expedition as lead scientist! As a graduate student with imposter syndrome (a common ailment amongst us all), this past field season was an incredible learning experience and another significant building block in improving my confidence as an aspiring environmental scientist.
Do you have any advice for students considering to pursue graduate studies in research?
Don’t underestimate yourself! As an undergraduate student, I often did not see people like me—specifically, women of colour—reflected in the graduate student population as TAs or professors at my university. In my fourth year, I was keen to accept the first offer I received to complete an MSc. However, I was given valuable advice from a graduate student in the lab I hoped to work in. He reminded me to evaluate my decision more carefully and that as much as I was being assessed as a prospective graduate student, I should also scrutinize the lab and the supervisor with whom I wished to work. As a hard-working, high-achieving, or skilled student, remember that you are a potential asset to a research group! The key to a good graduate studies experience is finding research you are passionate about and a supportive supervisor. Perhaps the most important step in evaluating a research group you are interested in joining is speaking to multiple graduate students of said group to better understand the research, the work environment, and the management style of your potential supervisor. Your supervisory relationship will play a significant role in the quality of your graduate experience and in directing your future opportunities. It is important to ensure that both you and your supervisor are a good fit, can communicate openly, and meet each other’s expectations!