Kate Sherren

Landscapes - People - Global change

Tag: What I’m doing (Page 1 of 21)

Fall 2025 lab fun

December 9, 2025 /

A few lab members, and hangers on, celebrating Alex’s (right) wedding at Ramblers back in October

More lab folks at Ramblers

This has been an active term in the Sherren lab, so this is an omnibus email to note a few things that have been going without mention so far. Some have been big events, like Alex’s wedding and wedding party (see above, right), and conference presentations at the Atlantic Canadian Association of Geographer’s meeting hosted online by SMU in November (Alex, Bethany, Anna).

We’ve had a great schedule of semi-weekly lab meetings where everyone has taken turns talking about their own academic journey to this point. An unanticipated delight has been the delight that has come with baby and childhood photos in those presentations. Midway through the term, Chris and Elson hosted a lab art event that repurposed an old Ikea poster we had lying around, and the result was stunning!

The lab visits St. Croix dykeland with Dr. Jeremy Lundholm.

Squinting into the sun at Grand Pre (missing Athena)

More recently we had a (cold) lab trip up to the dykelands with CBWES plant ecologist and ResNet colleague Jeremy Lundholm, and followed that up with a Christmas lunch at The Church in Wolfville. A full term! Thanks everyone for the enthusiasm and engagement!

Warming up at The Church in Wolfville

Portugal for REWRITE Annual Meeting

November 12, 2025 /

Sunset over the main canal in Aveiro, with the flat bottomed boats that used to gather seaweed for fertilizer or ship goods now used for tours.

My scenario team for the Global Multi-Actor Lab on day 2 of REWRITE

The end of October I visited lovely Aveiro, Portugal, as part of the Advisory Board/Stakeholder Steering Committee of the EU REWRITE project. As a member of the Advisory Board/Stakeholder Steering Committee I get invited to see what the team is doing and provide feedback, but this time we also got to be research participants ourselves. REWRITE features a series of Global and Local Multi-Actor Labs (MALs) that will help explore scenarios for intertidal soft sediment futures in Europe. My team (see below) comprised folks from Ireland (Pat), Portugal (Bruno) and Germany (Franz) and we had a great time envisioning community-led coastal restoration.

Looking over a salt pan (salinas), toward the University of Aveiro, with flamingos.

Exploring Aveiro and surrounds in the downtime (always sunset, it seemed) it was particularly special to visit salinas for the first time (salt pans), now largely abandoned and sites of restoration or other development such as oyster farming, but still producing some salt for educational and tourism.  I was especially excited to see flamingos prowling around the pans. My tour guide on one of the canal tours earlier in the week said that climate change had driven them north. Weather turned sour at the end of the trip but I still had a great time enjoying (indoor) Lisbon, especially the National Tile Museum and its display on the brilliant Querubim Lapa.

Danika and I in driving rain, after the REWRITE meeting in Lisbon.

 

 

A strange start to fall 2025

September 15, 2025 /

The Sherren lab, sans Sherren, fall 2025

Solidarity on the picket line

I was thrilled to have some of my lab members join the picket line today, after they had their own informal meet-and-greet at the Glitterbean Cafe (above). An extended lockout is not how any supervisor would like to start a new school year, but it is wonderful to see the fellowship and mentorship that can happen without a professor driving things, too. I finally got to meet Bethany and Anna in person, both new MES students (though I had also briefly met Bethany at CAG last year), and see Chris (new PhD) and Elson (new PDF) who I have already spent plenty of time with. Alex and Keahna, who set up the student meeting, also came along to the picket line. I also had a great chance to finally meet Maria in person: she is the Dal AC grad who is in transition to a PhD at the University of Tasmania and who has been providing research support on my Australian repeat photography dataset from last year.

Me and RA Maria post-picket

Seeing these young scholars is just another great reminder for all, hopefully including the Dalhousie Board, just what Dalhousie is for. I’m looking very forward to soon getting back to the work I love.

ResNet synthesis video filming

July 18, 2025 /

The dyke at the Wolfville Waterfront Park on Tuesday, with filming crew trying to stay out of the wind.

It has been an unusually hot week in Nova Scotia. Kudos to filmmaker Mark Wyatt, ResNet central team folks Elena Bennett (PI) and Morgan Jackson, and Ive Velikova from TransCoastal Adaptations at SMU for braving the conditions as they’ve been filming the Landscape 1 synthesis video around the Bay of Fundy dykeland system. My bits were filmed on Tuesday at the lovely Wolfville Waterfront Park. We had to film down on the foreshore to stay out of the wind. Heat notwithstanding, it was a lovely few hours alongside the marsh. Lots of human users–walkers on the dyke and fishers on the marsh–and birds such as goldfinches and a very patient bald eagle. I look so forward to seeing the finished product!

The filming team, sweltering.

Congratulations summer 2025 graduates

July 3, 2025 /

Me, Yan and Mike Smit after her IDPhD graduation in June, 2025.

Two weeks ago I enjoyed attending the ‘spring’ graduation (which happened very late this year) to watch our most recent MREM cohort cross the stage, and one MES (they tend to defend in the summer so attend the fall one). IDPhD graduate Dr. Yan Chen also received her degree, after deferring from the fall graduation, and her co-supervisor Mike Smit and I were both on the stage for the event. We also got to bring her back to sit with us for the rest of the ceremony. Another great thrill was having 2002 MES alumna Karen Hudson receive an Honorary Doctorate in the same ceremony, and give the address. We welcomed all the above graduates and their families back in the SRES suite for a reception after the event, sponsored by the Faculty of Science. Congratulations, all! And to those whose stage photos I ended up in, sorry for my tassel malfunction.  Outgoing FGS Dean Marty Leonard didn’t warn me she was going to call me up for official photobombing.  🙂

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