Kate Sherren

Landscapes - People - Global change

Tag: What I’m doing (Page 1 of 20)

Recent SRES visitors

April 9, 2025 /

External assessors Christopher Ling and Michelle Gray with me as they finish up their site visit to SRES.

We hosted some important visitors into the SRES suite last week. First, on April 1 and 2 we hosted Christopher Ling (of Royal Roads) and Michelle Gray (of UNB), who are the external assessors for SRES’ unit and program review this year. I’m not sure that it is supposed to be fun when your unit is being reviewed, but thanks to Drs Ling and Gray, ours really has been. We are looking forward to hearing what they have to say about SRES, MES and MREM after their 360-degree enquiries during their stay.

Federal Liberal candidate and 2004 MES alumnus, Shannon Miedema, visits the SRES suite, April 3, 2025

Also great fun was the visit of 2004 MES alumnus Shannon Miedema to the suite on April 3. She is the current Liberal candidate for Halifax, and visited the SRES student society’s coffee break. The students were interested to see her hard-bound MES thesis about her work in Palau, which seemed like an ancient document given they only submit online these days. Was glad to host, and ‘launch’ our new SRES stickers with her and the students. They went like hotcakes! Happily we’ll have to re-order soon.

Winter 2025 panels, presentations and events

March 25, 2025 /

Panelists and UNBSJ student organizers for the Climate Change Science and Action Panel on Mar 20 in Saint John.

On March 16th, this blog turned ten years old, and that feels like something to celebrate. But I’ve been a bit remiss on content so far this year. Last week’s visit to UNBSJ at the invitation of the Biological Sciences PhD student organization is a great prompt to remedy that. I joined a panel on Climate Change Science and Action with Moe Qureshi of the Conservation Council of NB and Helen Gurney-Smith of DFO in St. Andrews to talk across scales from global to local. The 2 hour discussion was followed up by a great networking event at the Haven Music Hall where I got to meet more of the students, some local partners and professors. Thanks to the organizers for the great event.

Earlier this term I also enjoyed meeting with the Local Government Group of the Green Shores program, a Maritimes outpost of the program originally developed by the Stewardship Council of BC run out of TransCoastal Adaptations at SMU. During that online presentation I learned that in December Green Shores developed an 8-page publication for the general public based on the final report from the NRCan project Making Room for Movement and the paper I led last year on Reimagining nature-based coastal adaptation using the 5Rs (reimagine, reserve, relocate, restore, reinforce), published in the Journal of Flood Risk Management. The policy brief, Green Shores and the 5Rs for Nature-based Coastal Adaptation , shows how Green Shores is operationalizing the framework we outlined. More recently I reprised my presentation to Green Shores  to the TransCoastal Adaptations Lesson of the Week group.

Presenting to the Green Shores Local Government Group on Jan 15, 2024.

Other key events in recent months have been profile-raising events for SRES within Dalhousie, including the Graduate Fair (in person and online) in early February, the Sustainable Development Goals Expo in early March, and today’s engagement event with Black and African Nova Scotian high schoolers.

Energy landscapes in Nevada

February 17, 2025 /

I’ve recently returned from a trip to Nevada, including side trips to Death Valley, California, and Grand Canyon West, on Hualapai land AZ. Some of that included views of large-scale renewable infrastructure. Above is a video (taken by Eleanor Couper, and including a Harry Styles soundtrack) of large-scale wind in western Arizona. But we also had a chance to visit the Hoover Dam (below), as well as the town that built it, lovely Boulder City (one of two municipalities in Nevada in which gambling is not legal). Alongside the freeway heading back to Las Vegas for the flight out we passed lots of large-scale solar installations, too. Without a cloud over four days travel there seems few better places for it.

Hoover Dam with a view of Lake Mead behind (photo: Eleanor Couper)

 

Eastern shore citizen science for TranSECT

January 2, 2025 /

Camilo Botero presents the project and preliminary results to the community at the Sheet Harbour Lion’s Club.

Thanks to Moira Donovan for the great article out on CBC today, Eastern Shore project harnesses community for climate science. The piece is about one of the 14 work packages within TranSECT, the large research project I co-lead out of the new CFREF project Transforming Climate Action. The Dal-based team for this work package about risk governance and citizen science comprises Camilo Botero, Ron Pelot and Floris Goerlandt, in partnership with Eastern Shore churches and schools. This article provides me a great excuse to post a few pictures from the end of November when TranSECT co-lead Ian Stewart and I attended an event in Sheet Harbour recognizing the end of the pilot phase of this innovative citizen science project.

The Bishop of the Anglican church diocese that is a key partner for the project reflects on what she has heard. 

On the return, Ian and I spied these across the inlet and went across to investigate: massive ‘transition pieces’ for offshore wind turbines, shipped there from Europe and awaiting further transportation to Martha’s Vineyard in the US). Soon I expect we’ll be seeing more of these arriving for use off Nova Scotia.

MREM class of 2024

December 11, 2024 /

Alex Legault and I at the mixer after day two of the MREM presentations, Dec 10, 2024.

I spent the last two days watching our 30 MREM students presenting their final projects to culminate their programs. It was an impressive showing, with students demonstrating hard work, care and rigour, as well as strong mentorship. It was also great to see the cohort showing up for one another, asking questions and cheering. Congratulations to my advisees, Alex, Bianca, Christie, Clara, Emily, and Maranda. I look forward to reading those final reports, and watching where your careers take you next!

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