Bridging the Gap student conference
An inspiring day of learning and exploration at the Department of Geography's student conference
"Impressive, stimulating, captivating." "Utterly inspiring." The 2017 edition of Bridging the Gap on March 31st was a successful, engaging day of celebrating and sharing research. Participants presented their ideas and findings through posters, videos, presentations, and demonstrations. Organizers, students, and attendees created a positive environment of thoughtful knowledge exchange and proved how robust, inclusive, and wide-reaching geographical knowledge can be. A range of topics from a variety of areas of geography were explored, a reminder of just how diverse geographical research is.
Nalin Dhillon (BSc Honours student) presents "At the Heart of the Matter: Exploring Ischemic Heart Disease Trends in South Asian Populations"
I found [Bridging the Gap] to be a great and fun experience to learn about the fantastic work being done in our geography department by fellow students. Geography is so diverse, and I think it's great to see how the sub-disciplines blend together to create practical solutions to real-world problems. And it was great to practice presentation skills!
Nalin Dhillon
BSc Honours sudent
Trilby Buck (BSc student) presents "Safer Shredding: GIS and Longboarding Victoria"
Since the presentations were so varied, everyone got a chance to talk about something new and interesting to them [during the breaks between sessions]. It was easy to make connections using the topics, and I expanded my understanding of geography beyond the technical side. I had a really cool conversation with fellow student Dana Johnson and professor Teresa Dawson about social and financial barriers to being zero-waste. That's not what I'm studying, but I care about it, and that conversation wouldn't have happened without Bridging the Gap. Needless to say, it lived up to its name.
Trilby Buck
BSc sudent
Pei-Ling Wang (PhD student) presents "Modeling Human-Induced Soil Degradation and Global Water Balance"
The Department of Geography is very grateful to the principal organizers of this event - Simon Springer, Ken Josephson, Kinga Menu, Lauren Farmer, Jon Krugel, and Mark Flaherty - as well as to all of the participants, attendees, and other supporters for making Bridging the Gap so successful.
Many thanks to Trilby Buck, Denise Cloutier, Teresa Dawson, and Nalin Dhillon for their help in creating this article. All photos were taken by Ken Josephson and posted with permission of the subjects.