The 3rd annual Land and Food Systems Graduate Student Conference went off without a hitch last Thursday, and I’d like to pass on some thanks to everyone that contributed.
First of all, a big thanks has to go to the planning committee members, Patricia Hingston, Karen Fong, and Kaiwen Mu. Our abstract reviewers, which allowed up to have a fair competition: Morgan Reid, and Drs. David Kitts, Siyun Wang, Judy Chan, Rebecca Meagher, and Joao Costa, as well as to our judges, who helped decide on our oral and poster competition winners: Drs. Jim Vercammen, Simone Castellarin, Candice Rideout, and Judy Chan. We had a great plenary talk by Dr. Loren Rieseberg from Botany on the lessons he’s learned from students over the years.
I also have to give thanks to all of our great volunteers who helped out with registration, the wine and cheese, chairing sessions, and set up and take down: Carrie (and husband), Usha, Yiqi, Liam, Lin, McCoy, Fion, Rebecca, Jenny, Justin, Andrew, Jay, Max, Abeer, Dr. Cerri, and even our dearest Dean, who tossed his coat to the side to help clean up the main hall before the wine and cheese.
The Learning Center helped provide us with all the A/V equipment for the day, and a special thanks there goes out to Duncan and Cyprien, who sat in on planning meetings as well as took pictures during the day; to Ethan, who helped us with the site; to Lia for circulating emails, and to Zhaoming and Rickey, who continually gave us their support.
Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who came out during the day to either give presentations, or to watch; it couldn’t have been such a success without all of you.
The conference also couldn’t have gone so smoothly without our sponsors: Agilent Technologies, PGX Supplements, Natural Factors, Choices Markets, the Graduate Student Society, and VWR.
Congratulations to our oral and poster presentation winners:
- 1st place oral: Jay Martiniuk
- 2nd place oral: Nicola Adderley
- 3rd place oral: Karen Fong
- 1st place poster: Aviva Rappaport
- 2nd place poster: Matthew Saunders
- 3rd place poster: Alejandra Wiedeman
Photos of the event are available for viewing on Flickr.
If you have any questions or comments about the conference, please feel free to email me at lfs.gsc@ubc.ca. We will be circulating an online feedback survey in the coming days, and your feedback is important to ensure the success of this event for years to come.
~John Dupuis, 2016 LFS GSC Planning Committee Chair