Happy New Year! We hope you had a nice holiday break and a good start to the Winter semester. Be sure to peruse this month's newsletter, as there are several upcoming deadlines for opportunities!
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McDonald Institute Student Awards!
The McDonald Institute would like to congratulate the 2021 McDonald Institute Student Achievement Award recipients! The awards recognize significant contributions in Equity Leadership, Outreach & Education and Research Contribution.
2021 McDonald Institute Equity Leadership Award - Ingrida Semenec (Queen's University)
2021 McDonald Institute Research Contribution Award - Daniel Durnford (University of Alberta)
2021 McDonald Institute Outreach & Education Award - Callan Jessiman (Carleton University)
Each year, the McDonald Institute takes a moment to celebrate student excellence. Awards are an occasion for our community to reflect on the contributions of hundreds of scientists-in-training. We thank the submission nominators, judges and most importantly, the outstanding work of those who went above and beyond to improve both our community and scientific excellence. The perseverance and curiosity of a student today is the innovation of tomorrow.
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HQP Pooled Resources Competition - LAST CALL |
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The McDonald Institute is still accepting applications for the HQP Pooled Resources Competition until January 24, 2022, at 4:00 pm EDT. This competition has been split into three streams. The graduate student and postdoctoral fellow stream require that you identify a specific candidate and highlight their potential. In comparison, the undergraduate stream allows applications to be submitted without an identified student.
This competition targets funding toward graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for a maximum of two years or undergraduate students for a four-month term (excluding scholarships or salaries gained through teaching and research assistant positions, etc.), with a start date no later than September 2022 (for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows). Funding is available to those pursuing astroparticle physics research in Canada aligned with the McDonald Institute Research Strategy.
This will be one of the last HQP Pooled Resources opportunities as the CFREF funded program comes to a close in August 2023, and all spending must be complete by August 2024.
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Calling all Graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career HQP! |
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A unique paid experience mentoring undergraduates during an (Un)Hackathon Event in 2022.
We are reaching out to all graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other early career HQP in the astroparticle physics network to offer a paid leadership opportunity. This opportunity has at least three (3) openings for mentors to assist in guiding undergraduate students through a complex, multistep, cross-disciplinary problem to assess downstream consequences and propose solutions.
The time commitment for mentors would be between 16 and 18 hours in total; 2 hours of training 1-2 weeks before the event and up to 16 hours during the event to attend workshops, meet with the teams, and participate in judging the solutions. You will be paid for your time preparing and participating in the event as a mentor through an honorarium of $325, and you will receive a certificate of leadership that you may add to your professional development portfolio.
To apply to be a mentor, please email CJ at [email protected] by January 10, 2022 with a 300-word maximum personal statement explaining why you are interested in being a mentor and highlighting any skills or relevant previous experience in similar mentoring scenarios. Before applying, please ensure that you will be available to participate remotely for all days between Feb 22 and Mar 3 2022.
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Experience Ventures (for Queen’s Undergraduate students 2nd year and above) |
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Deadline to apply: January 21, 2022
The McDonald Institute is pleased to partner with Experience Ventures for unique virtual student placements that focus on building innovation networks, future preparedness, and making an impact. This is a paid opportunity for up to 35 full- or part-time undergraduate students enrolled from 2nd year and above in any discipline at Queen’s University. Students will receive a $325 honorarium for their 16 hours of participation.
(Un)Hacking Downstream Consequences is a deconstruction of the typical hackathon. The event will occur online over 10 days between February 22, 2022 to March 3, 2022 with both synchronous and asynchronous pieces. The goal of the experience is to develop and apply entrepreneurial thinking and skillsets for resiliency, opportunity recognition, action orientation, risk management, systems thinking, and trans-disciplinary thinking. Computing experience and skills are not a requirement for this event, and students from all programs are encouraged to apply.
You can find more about the event here, and apply here.
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The Canadian Astroparticle Physics Summer School (CAPSS) is an intensive week-long undergraduate school that will introduce students to the current topics in the field of astroparticle physics at Queen’s University and SNOLAB. Please share this poster with students at your institution.
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Neutrinos : qu’ont-ils à cacher? |
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Québec Science's January-February magazine issue features an eight-page article by writer Marine Corinou detailing the current state of international neutrino physics with special attention to Canadian contributions. The feature article for public audiences details continuing work on neutrino oscillation, neutrinoless double-beta decay, and the implications of these research directions on key questions in cosmology. The French-language magazine feature is among the best published for public consumption recently in the Canadian media.
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The eight-page feature includes the main story by Marine Corinou and three sidebar stories on Dirac and Majorana hypothesis, KATRIN mass estimates and the chronology of major neutrino discoveries. |
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Note that Quebec Science is a premium science news publication and requires a subscription for individual access. Your institution may have access through PressReader.
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Want to see your research featured on our website? Have ideas for future articles? Contact CJ at [email protected] with your suggestions, and we will work with you to create the content you want to see.
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TeV Particle Astrophysics (TeVPA 2022) will take place at Queen's University, August 8-12 2022. TeVPA is a major international conference bringing together expertise around the terascale including cosmic rays, cosmology, dark matter, galactic and extragalactic sources, gamma rays, neutrinos and multimessenger physics.
The scientific programme and call for abstracts will be announced soon!
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Professional Development Opportunities -
2022 Winter Offerings
Join the next Professional Development Opportunities!
Next up: Version Control (pt. 3 of 3)
Wednesday, January 19, 2022, at 2:30 pm-4:00 pm EST
Science is always about reproducibility and is continually becoming more collaboration-focused. But how can we effectively store past and present versions of files, manuscripts, software, plotting scripts etc. while also allowing multiple members of a collaboration to simultaneously work together on these files? The answer is version control.
Version Control is now required by all aspects of scientific research, manuscript writing, and software development, and so if you aren't familiar with it, or are a bit rusty, then this Professional Development Opportunity series is for you. Over three sessions, Dr. Mark Richardson will use the Software Carpentry workshop on Version Control along with some of his experiences to give an in-depth overview of using version control (specifically the software git) in your own professional work.
The first two sessions, held in 2021, will be recorded and made available remotely. In the final session, I will focus on the ideas of open science, licensing, and where do go next with your file repositories.
Followed by:
The Professional Development Opportunities (PDO) program currently has three more upcoming sessions during the Winter Semester for community members, such as yourself. The PDO program aims to bolster your skillset while bringing together diverse groups within the McDonald Institute’s network professional development opportunities.
We encourage you to look at our offerings below and register early to confirm your space in the training sessions.
Finding a Post-Doctoral Position
February 2nd, 2022
Join Heather Merla from the School of Graduate Studies (Queen's University) and the McDonald Institute for a session exploring how to find, plan for, apply and thrive in a post-doctoral position.
Virtual Content Delivery 101: Open Broadcast Software (OBS)
February 16th, 2022
Join McDonald Institute Communications Officer, Zac Kenny, as he shares the ins and outs of producing live digital content using Open Broad Software (OBS).
Applying to Work in Industry
March 2nd, 2022
Join Josh Zettle from Career Services (Queen’s) to learn about applying to work in Industry. Further details forthcoming!
We look forward to your participation in our upcoming PDO sessions. Stay tuned for more updates and additional Winter PDO sessions to be added throughout the term!
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A reminder that the self-guided modules for enhancing your equity, diversity, inclusion and Indigenization (EDII) competencies are now available. These opportunities are open to students, staff, and faculty affiliated with the McDonald Institute. We thank our partners at the Human Rights and Equity Office (Queen’s University) for providing this training to the network!
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Cross-Disciplinary Internship (CDI) 2022 Application Open!
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The Cross-Disciplinary Internship (CDI) program provides a ($12,000 CAN) salary reimbursement for full- or part-time students registered in non-physics majors to participate in astroparticle physics research. Student applicants can be enrolled in any post-secondary level. This program links students with leading astroparticle physics researchers in Canada for opportunities to expand research collaborations, knowledge, and research-based skills. This year, we are also broadening the definition of “supervisor” to include opportunities for postdoctoral researchers to apply as supervisors to host a cross-disciplinary intern.
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There are two new facets of the program this year we would like to highlight. First, postdoctoral scholars can apply as supervisors to host a CDI student. This is a named opportunity for postdocs to develop and demonstrate supervisory skills that are evaluated in other grants (I.e., Discovery Grants for NSERC). Second, in addition to undergraduate and graduate students, CDI student applicants can come from the college-level (again, non-physics diploma programs) to add value and skills typically not seen in astroparticle physics research. We hope these new features of the program will inspire new types of research and collaborations!
Potential applicants and their supervisors must contact Dr. Alexandra Pedersen, the McDonald Institute’s Business Development Officer, at [email protected] prior to submitting an application to discuss the project. Please use “CDI Program – [LAST NAME]” as the subject line when reaching out.
The deadline to apply is January 21, 2022.
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Thank you for your support. If you would like to view past newsletters from the McDonald Institute, please visit the: Newsletter Archive.
Do you have a recent result or publication that you would like shared with the Canadian Astroparticle Physics network and beyond? Send your work to CJ ([email protected]) to have it featured in our Science News series!
Science News is intended for students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and research associates actively working in astroparticle physics to quickly digest updates and progress in areas that are not directly connected to their specific project(s).
The McDonald Institute at Queen’s University is situated in the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe & Haudenosaunee First Nations. The Institute is part of a national network of institutions and research centres, which operate in other traditional Indigenous territories. Visit www.whose.land to learn the traditional territories where astroparticle physicists are grateful to live and work across Canada.
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