Coffee Hours

The BGSA strives to host monthly coffee hours for the biology department. It's a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues in other labs. Coffee hours are open to the entire department, and we encourage everyone to attend including staff and faculty members. The events are often held in the BIOL department lounge (ESC 352) but on Sept. 5th we held a special end-of-summer event on the EIT rooftop patio.

 

 

Stay tuned to our calendar for other get-togethers and academic events.

As always, we welcome suggestions or praise in the comments.

-- Ariana agmarcas@uwaterloo.ca

Seminar on publishing with Todd Holyoak

Hello Biology,

We hoped that you enjoyed this Winter term's Academic Event. Todd Holyoak, a member of our own Department of Biology, spoke to us based on his own experience as an editorial board member of JBC. Topics included: deciding where to submit, preparing a submission, common mistakes, writing a cover letter, as well as editing and typesetting.

Thank you to Todd for giving the very informative seminar, and for taking the time to answer the audience's many questions. Also, thank you to Marcie, our Academic Event Coordinator, for organizing this event. If you have any suggestions for future events of this kind, please leave us a comment!

Christmas door decorating contest results

Hello Biology!

Thank you to all who participated in the BGSA's holiday door decorating contest. The department looks very festive and we hope you had fun! The judges were impressed with all of the entries, however the top-rated doors were as follows:

• 3rd place: for their fisherman Santa is the Servos Lab
• 2nd place: for their holiday wish tree is the Moffatt Lab 
• 1st place: for their holiday fireplace scene is the Charles Lab. This door received perfect scores from all three of our judges!

For their winning door, Charles lab will receive a holiday treat basket, and the second and third place labs will each receive a box of chocolates. We'd like to say thank you to our judges and to everyone who participated, and congratulations to the winners! Check out the winning doors:

Seminar on career options: academia, industry, and government

Hello Biology!

We hoped your enjoyed the academic event that we organized for this Fall term. There was a great turn-out! Three individuals -- representing academia, industry, and government -- comprised our panel. These were:

• Moira Glerum, Ph.D. Professor at University of Waterloo
• Owen Ward, Ph.D. Founder of several companies involved in bioprocessing and bioremediation
• Mike Cassidy, Ph.D. Coordinator of the Food Safety Science Unit at the Ministry of Agriculture

Our panelists touched on many topics, including their own journey and career choices; they discussed how they try to balance family and work life; they also shared their opinions on finding a passion as well as rewarding social interactions/work environment.

We went a little over time, and there were still many questions that the audience had; in the future, we will likely lengthen the time allotted for this panel discussion! We'd like to thank you for coming out to the event, and to our three panelists who generously gave their time for the session. If you have any suggestions for future events of this kind (a panel for discussing career options), feel free to leave us a comment!