INSPIRE News
INSPIRE Fellows at Science Writers and Communications Conference
INSPIRE Fellows were invited to participate in the 2024 Science Writers and Communications Conference held in Saskatoon on May 4-7. Fellows were given the opportunity to present their synchrotron research with public outreach and lay communications in mind. Conference goers asked great questions and the students got great instruction and practical advice for the communication of science to a lay audience.
Thank you to the organizers of the 2024 SWCC for including us in your program!
INSPIRE Panalists at Western Canada Undergraduate Chemistry Conference
INSPIRE Fellows Iulia, Noah, Levi, and Grant and faculty member Lee Wilson participated in a panel discussion at the Western Canada Undergraduate Chemistry conference held at USask in early May. They each had an opportunity to present their research and the role of synchrotron science to an enthusiastic audience of undergraduate students who may consider a future with INSPIRE!
INSPIRE Newsletter #2
Thanks again to everyone who contributed to our 2nd INSPIRE Newsletter. Special thanks to the Newsletter team who worked to put this together!
INSPIRing Collaboration Workshop
The 2nd Annual INSPIRE Workshop, INSPIRing Collaboration was held on December 7th at Louis Loft on the USask Campus. A great group of 45 participants, fellows and their supervisors attended the sessions on collaboration in research and the afternoon poster session.
Congratulations to the Poster session awards (in no particular order):
Ardalan Hayatifar: Probing Interfacial Molybdate-Ferrihydrite Reactions Using Reactive Molecular Dynamics and Synchrotron X-ray Spectroscopy
Lindsay Loundagin: Glucocorticoids Inhibit Longitudinal Advance of Cortical Bone Basic Multicellular Units in Rabbits
Sakshi: The unmasking of the Graphitic structure using synchrotron and DFT technique
Xiaoman Duan: Tissue Scaffolds Characterization Using Synchrotron Radiation Micro-Computed Tomography
Congratulations to the Fellow Choice award:
Jaydeep Kumar: Unveiling the World of DNA Origami Through SAXS Insights
Finally congratulations to the winners of the Noah Atkinson Enthusiasm Award, Ardalan Hayatifar and Linda Vogt. They were recognized for their enormous contributions to the INSPIRE Program, from organizing this workshop, to participating on numerous committees to leading the drive to produce a Speaker Series and Newsletter. Thank you both for all you do!
INSPIRing group at CLS-AUM
The Canadian Light Source held its annual users meeting the week of October 28. Many INSPIRE Fellows participated in the poster session and the XAS Workshop. We also held a watch party for the Celebration of Science/Award Winners Showcase to celebrate the achievement of our program leader, Dr. Ingrid Pickering who was the winner of the 2022 Allen Pratt Memorial Award for Community Service.
Shout out to the poster award winners, who were all INSPIRE Fellows:
1st Prize: Xiao Fan Ding - "SSSSeg: An Automated Semantic Segmentation Strategy Using Synchrotron Radiation Based PBI-µCT"2nd Prize: Iulia Spataru - "Functionalized Nanodiamonds as Gene Delivery Agents"3rd Prize: Jessica Freese - "Depth resolved synchrotron analysis of samarium titanate thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy"
First INSPIRE Newsletter
We are excited to have published the first INSPIRE Newsletter. Thank you to Ardalan Hayatifar for the hard work and dedication to make his vision a reality.
2023 CLS-INSPIRE Undergraduate Poster Session
We ended the CLS-INSPIRE Undergraduate summer program with a poster session in AgBio. Congratulations to all how participated.
1st: Aaryan Patel: SPORTA - New Softward to Spot Detection and Screening of X-Ray Diffraction Images
2nd: Liam Elias: Probing the Elctronic Structure of MgWN2 and Mg3WN4 via Soft X-Ray Spectroscopy
3rd: Daniel Yu: Autmating Sample transfers for the CLS@APS (Sector 25-ID-C) Spectroscopy Beamlines
Spring Potluck
About 20 members of the INSPIRE community gathered in early April to celebrate the end of the semester, the start of spring and to welcome new Fellows. So much amazing food! It was great to see Leo and Yuzhou join the group.
Linda Vogt TedX Talk
INSPIRE Fellow Linda Vogt overcame a scary challenge to give a TedX talk at the first USask TedX event.
I was asked to be a speaker at the recent TEDxUSask event in January. This meant I spent a couple of months learning about how to put together a TEDx-style talk and working with the coaches and other speakers to assemble our scripts, and then stood on a big, fuzzy, red spot on a stage in front of a bunch of cameras and an audience to give said talk (while trying very hard to hide the fact that I was feeling like a very terrified puddle of goo). It was an interesting experience. There is now video evidence on the internet that I did it. Enjoy.
INSPIRE 1st annual Workshop
The first annual NSERC-CREATE to INSPIRE Workshop was held at USask November 7-8. It was wonderful to meet everyone, learn about the incredible research that is happening and practice many forms of Science Communication.
Congratulations to all the award winners.
Poster Presentations:
Presentations:
INSPIRE Call for Graduate Fellows
Graduate Fellow applications for MSc, PhD and PostDoctoral Fellows are due March 31st and October 1st of every year.
You can find more information about the application process in the training program tab.
Canadian Light Source Annual Users Meeting
Join the Canadian Light Source AUM October 6-7. Ingrid Pickering, NSERC-CREATE to INSPIRE Program Director will give the plenary talk on Wednesday October 6 at 2:30.
INSPIRE Summer Program Poster Session Winners
Congratulations to all the students who participated in the first annual Canadian Light Source/USask INSPIRE summer poster contest. The outstanding quality of all the presentations was impressive to all the faculty and CSL Staff who participated in voting. Here are your winners!
