Queen's University

Department News

Queen's researcher examines the evolution of flight

Research by post-doctoral fellow Alexander Dececchi challenges long-held hypotheses about how flight first developed in birds. Furthermore, his findings raise the question of why certain species developed wings long before they could fly.

Trade deal could negatively impact Canadian automotive industry, according to Queen’s researchers.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will negatively impact the Canadian automotive industry, according to a new study co-authored by Queen’s researchers John Holmes and Jeffrey Carey who are affiliated with the Automotive Policy Research Centre (APRC) at McMaster University.

The researchers argue that the TPP will undermine the competitiveness of Canadian assembly operations as well as small and medium-sized auto parts plants.

Economics department sweeps best paper awards

Faculty and students from Queen's Economics Department have swept the top prizes given out by the Canadian Journal of Economics.

Queen's researcher finds truth to age-old maxim 'work hard, play hard'

Queen’s University biology professor Lonnie Aarssen has published a study that, for the first time, provides strong empirical support for a correlation between a motivation to seek accomplishment and an attraction to leisure.

“I’ve been interested for quite a while in two motivations that people seem to display – one I call legacy drive and one I call leisure drive,” says Dr. Aarssen. 

Queen's researcher forms international partnership with Australian firm

Researcher Richard Oleschuk and Trajan Scientific and Medical (Trajan) in Australia are collaborating on the development of the next generation of biochemical instrumentation that will improve the detection of diseases such as cancer.

Dr. Oleschuk (Chemistry) has developed a microscopic straw-shaped glass instrument that can efficiently generate and spray nanometer-sized droplets into spectrometers capable of analyzing biomarkers.

The power of cinema

Piers Handling (Arts’71) is rather blunt about his Queen’s experience: “It changed my life.”

On Monday, the director and CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) returned to the university to receive an honorary degree.

Handling first arrived at Queen’s in 1967 to study history but by the time he graduated in 1971, he knew that he had found his calling in film.

Read the full story in the Queen's Gazette.

From PhD dissertation to award-winning book

My book, Queenship and Revolution in Early Modern Europe: Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette examines the debate surrounding these two controversial queens consort as wives, mothers and mistresses of royal households during the years preceding the English Civil Wars of the 1640s and the French Revolution in the late-18th century, respectively. The book manuscript developed from research undertaken over the course of my MA and PhD in the Department of History at Queen’s University.

New Queen's research study measures the positive benefits of spiritual health

Queen’s University post doctoral fellow Valerie Michaelson is exploring research around adolescents and spiritual health.  While spiritual health has long been recognized as important to health and well-being, there has been renewed interest in understanding what it is, and how it relates to the health of young people.

In a cross-national analysis, her team found that the importance of spiritual health decreases as children age, but for those who maintain its importance, the strong and positive health benefits are very provocative.

A new Queen's study shows warmer temperatures are affecting lakes in the oilsands region

A recent collaborative research project between scientists from academia and government agencies has identified climate warming as the dominant driver of an increase in algal growth in the Athabasca oilsands region of northern Alberta.

Researchers used dated lake sediment cores to reconstruct past algal production and industrial impact at 23 remote, helicopter-accessed lakes in the oilsands region. Snowpack samples were also used to determine the nutrient deposition across the landscape.

The Biggest, Deepest Questions

The questions don’t get any bigger than the ones probed by faculty and students in Stirling Hall:

  • Where do we come from?
  • How did the universe evolve?
  • What is it made of?
  • And why, according to the laws of physics, does the world work the way it does?

Read more on Mauel and Chen in The ongoing neutrino puzzle

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