The Art of Research
The 2019 Art of Research photo contest is an opportunity for Queen’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni to showcase their research, scholarly, and artistic work. The competition is aimed at providing a creative and accessible method of sharing and celebrating the ground-breaking research being done by current and past Queen’s community members.
The act of research is a beauteous endeavor whether in a group or solitary, or whether you are working in the lab, field, studio, or archives. The subject of the photograph or images is limited only by your imagination. Capture a moment under the microscope, in the lab or on your computer. Go out in the community and explore human dimensions and the beauty of nature. Be global …
Contest Winners and Top Entries from 2016 – 2019
Love Under the Microscope
Dalila Villalobos
As pathologists in training, we are constantly reminded that both human cellular responses and the most deadly medical conditions can be unexpectedly beautiful under the microscope.
We are trained to be detail oriented and to understand disease in all its forms because abnormalities will only present to the eye that knows what to look for.
This photo captures a normal prostatic gland with its characteristic double layer and irregular branching.
The moment we diagnose a benign condition in a patient that is anxiously awaiting results is always rewarding. But, if, on top of that, we see heart-shape glands, it is inspiration.
Location of photograph:
Kingston Health Sciences Centre
Affiliation:
MD, Resident, Anatomical Pathology
Submission Year:
2018-19
Keep Cool Boy - The Jets Aloft in West Side Story
Tim Fort
In a rare moment, before a Franz Kline-inspired setting, the Jets achieve a perfectly synchronized lift-off in this production of West Side Story mounted in celebration of Leonard Bernstein's 100th birthday. After forty-six seasons at the Weston Playhouse in Vermont, this production also represented my 60th (and final) happy entanglement directing mostly musical theatre works on the playhouse's historical stage. Twenty-seven performers – from newly minted conservatory graduates to Broadway veterans – enabled this epic work to fly.
Location of photograph:
Weston Playhouse, Vermont
Affiliation:
Faculty, Dan School of Drama and Music
Submission Year:
2018-19
Nano-dendrite Collision
Hannah Dies
This scanning electron microscopy image depicts branched gold nanostructures (“nano-dendrites”) growing from planar microelectrode tips and crashing halfway, buckling upwards to create a third dimension of nano-features. The structures assemble from gold nanoparticles under the influence of an applied electric field, similar to how iron filings assemble under the influence of a magnetic field. The gold nanoparticle building blocks are 50nm in diameter – about 5000 times smaller than a human hair. The branched network formed by these nanostructures promotes incredible sensitivity for small molecule detection by means of Raman spectroscopy. At the QuSENS laboratory, and with the startup company Spectra Plasmonics Inc., we use these nanostructures to detect illicit drugs, pesticides, and explosives at ultralow and societally relevant concentrations.
Location of photograph:
Dupuis Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
MD/PhD Student, Chemical Engineering
Submission Year:
2018-19
A New Light
Robert Cichocki
Tired of seeing roads being dug up to replace aging pipe infrastructure? Civil engineering research at Queen’s is bringing a new light to innovative, no-dig rehabilitation techniques. In this image, a UV light train is being prepared to help rehabilitate the adjacent corrugated steel pipe. The inside of the pipe has been lined with a fabric fibreglass tube embedded with UV cure resin. When the light train passes through the tube, the UV cures the resin solid and transforms the fabric tube into a solid liner. The new liner and pipe will further undergo buried experiments that will bring new insight into the structural behaviour of these systems.
Location of photograph:
GeoEngineering lab, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Civil Engineering
Submission Year:
2018-19
Learning to Live (Not Walking in Line)
Theodore Christou
The history of research and scholarship in education is a record of our efforts to make sense of the world.
How ought we to live? What should we learn, embrace, and resist?
From antiquity to anarchism, or, from Aristotle to Pink Floyd, we have known that we should never confuse schooling with education. Schools, whether they are traditional, progressive, colonial, or transgressive, have all been instruments of oppression as well as resistance.
Location of photograph:
Wall graffiti in Thessaloniki, Greece
Affiliation:
Faculty, Faculty of Education (Cross-appointment, History)
Submission Year:
2018-19
Lights, Camera, Action: Wolfie's Story
Marian Luctkar-Flude
"Lights, Camera, Action: Wolfie's Story" is a photo depicting the filming of a virtual simulation game about an older gay man grieving the loss of his partner of over 30 years. The game is part of the "Make it Better for All" Developing and Evaluating Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Nursing Virtual Simulation Games project, led by Dr. Marian Luctkar-Flude, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing. This innovative CIHR-funded research project aims to develop and evaluate a series of virtual simulation games to provide education for nurses and nursing students on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI). Four full games and four mini-games will be hosted on the SOGI-Nursing website along with other resources to promote cultural humility in nursing interactions with LGBTQI2S persons. The research project will evaluate the pedagogical value of using virtual simulation games to educate nurses and nursing students.
Location of photograph:
Glaxo Wellcome Clinical Education Centre, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Faculty, School of Nursing
Submission Year:
2018-19
First Emergence
Ivana Schoepf
My research focuses on the effects that avian malarial parasites have on female reproductive success and offspring quality. To assess how malarial infection affects mothers and their offspring, I spent the spring and summer in the field at the Queen's University Biological Station catching female, adult red-winged blackbirds and treating them with either an antimalarial medication or a control solution. Female reproductive success was determined by looking at a variety of parameters, including incubation behaviour, which was measured using I-buttons (as seen in the photo). If experimental reduction of infection leads to higher reproductive success in females, I expected to find medicated females to be able to spend more time incubating their eggs. Our preliminary analysis shows that this is indeed the case.
Location of photograph:
Queen's University Biological Station
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Biology
Submission Year:
2018-19
Women in Mathematics
Stefanie Knebel
Mathematical thinking is about finding patterns and structure. As a woman in the mathematics PhD program, I hope to inspire young women to follow their passion and find beauty in mathematics. At Queen’s, we offer the MathQuest camp for high school girls. As captured in the photo, I am brainstorming ways to teach game theory and linear algebra. This is also a part of my research with Dr. Peter Taylor, working with teachers across Ontario to look for innovative ways to incorporate mathematical thinking in education. We hope to change the math curriculum by making it a more engaging, positive, and memorable experience.
Location of photograph:
Jeffrey Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Mathematics and Statistics
Submission Year:
2018-19
Biomimetic Scaffolds
Fei Chen
The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) of the knee joint, one of the strongest ligaments of the body, is also the target of traumatic injuries. Once injured, its healing potential is limited. The ACL mainly consists of packed and thick collagen fibres oriented along the long axis in a wavy pattern, and this unique wavy pattern is essential for providing load-bearing protection to the knee joint. This SEM image shows a bioengineered fibrous scaffold made from synthetic biomaterials with a wavy pattern, with amplitudes and wavelengths similar to the collagen fibers present in a native ACL.
Location of photograph:
Dupuis Hall, Queen’s University
Affiliation:
Staff, Chemical Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
Unspooling Vermeer
Stephanie Dickey
Wherever I go, I look for evidence of how the historical art I study impacts visual culture today. In “After Vermeer 2,” an installation from 2006 by New York artist Devorah Sperber, 5024 spools of thread strung on steel chains recreate, upside down, the famous “Girl with a Pearl Earring” painted by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer around 1665. My photo captures the viewer’s experience of looking through a glass sphere in which the image rights itself. Vermeer, whose paintings explored both optics and female experience, would surely have appreciated this perceptive transformation of his art.
Location of photograph:
Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, USA
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2017-18
Window on a Window to the Universe
Mark Chen
An underwater camera mounted in the SNO+ (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory) neutrino detector captures a snapshot image when the 12-metre diameter acrylic sphere is 85% full. Viewed from below, ropes are seen crisscrossing the top of the sphere extending down (foreground), and each of the shiny cells that are visible is a 20-cm diameter super-sensitive light detector. The water-air interface inside and outside the acrylic spherical tank creates visual distortions as light refracts at the optical boundary. Once full, the upgraded detector turns on in Fall 2016, ten years after the original SNO detector completed its Nobel-prize winning studies.
Location of photograph:
SNOLAB, Sudbury, Ontario
Affiliation:
Faculty, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Submission Year:
2016-17
Santa Fina
Una D’Elia
Pietro Torrigiani, a competitor of Michelangelo, carved this bust of a saint out of marble and then painted it so that blood seems to run in this determined young girl's veins. This lively piece, made over five hundred years ago, is an example of the kind of naturalistic sculptures that have been little studied, as most scholars focus on monochrome "high art" statuary. The sculptures I am studying were not confined to museums, but were a part of the social lives of Italian men and women, who talked to, touched, kissed, worshipped, attacked, and dressed sometimes uncannily realistic coloured sculptures.
Location of photograph:
Musei Civici, San Gimignano, Italy
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2015-16
“Non-wetting” Water
Timothy Hutama
This drop sits on a super-hydrophobic surface that is unable to become wet because its affinity to water is less than what water has for itself. Therefore, water forms small, easily movable drops on the surface rather than a single puddle. While these surfaces have been used to keep cities free from graffiti, the Oleschuk group’s research involves using these surfaces in creative ways, such as the determination of beer’s alcohol content or to provide a platform that uniquely manipulates drops using magnets to miniaturize analytical chemical methods.
Location of photograph:
Chernoff Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Chemistry
Submission Year:
2016-17
Magdalene
Una D’Elia
For over 550 years, the passionate Magdalene has been running with her veil streaming behind, screaming, to the body of Jesus, dead on the ground. This life-size statue, originally painted to mimic flesh and clothes, pushes the limits of the medium, terracotta. Renaissance men and women could walk among Niccolo dell’Arca’s sculptures, feeling as if they were present at this terrible moment in Christian history. Dr. Una D’Elia’s research focuses on such living sculptures, stories of statues coming to life, and people touching, dressing, attacking, and generally treating sculptures as if they were alive.
Location of photograph:
Church of Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2016-17
Amphibian from the Inside
Rute Clemente Carvalho
The evolutionary process called miniaturization can lead to morphological changes in body structures. The internal morphology of tiny specimens can be seen/observed using a special staining technique. This method digests the muscles, making them transparent, and colours the bones and cartilages. In the case of this froglet, it has a body size of around 18mm, and features like osteoderms in the skin and hyperossification on the skeleton can be observed. The knowledge of morphological structures can help researchers understand the evolution of the species’ behaviour and ecology of the species, and its phylogenetic relationships with related species.
Location of photograph:
Zeiss stereomicroscope in the laboratory
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Biology
Submission Year:
2016-17
5000m High Sunset in the Andes
Chris Grooms
Lake Sibinacocha is the 22nd highest lake in the world. Storms from the Amazon push up over the mountains, depositing snow on icecaps feeding high elevation lakes. Andean societies are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climatic change on freshwater systems. Climate change will exacerbate water quality and quantity problems affecting millions of people. Warming in the Andes is occurring at rates nearly twice the global average. The effects on Andean lakes and ecosystems remain largely unknown, despite their importance to people and biodiversity. The objective of Grooms’s research is to assess the impacts of climate change on lakes.
Location of photograph:
Lake Sibinacocha, Cusco, Peru
Affiliation:
Staff, Biology
Submission Year:
2016-17
Tulugak on the Crucifix
Norman Vorano
Dr. Norman Vorano was conducting historical research with Inuit elders in Nunavut in April and May of 2016. One woman recounted the loss of cultural traditions as a result of the changes that happened during the twentieth century, particularly from residential schools, the missionaries, and the waves of southerners who flooded into the Arctic after the Second World War. After they broke for lunch, Vorano stepped outside. The white sky was indistinguishable from the ground. He walked past a towering crucifix erected behind the Catholic Church, on an imposing hill overlooking the community. A raven flew down from the ethereal sky, perched on the Crucifix, and began vocalizing. For Western culture, the raven is a harbinger of death. For Inuit culture, tulugak – raven – is a tricky fellow that symbolizes creation.
Location of photograph:
Pond Inlet, Nunavut
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2016-17
Aldonza
Tim Fort
This moment arrives at the end of the staging for the musical number "Aldonza" from The Man of La Mancha – one of two musicals Dr. Tim Fort directed at the Weston Playhouse in Vermont in the summer of 2016. Many of the show's creative team are Broadway veterans, including the designer and the performer playing Aldonza – whose character is pictured ignoring the aggressions of the muleteers as they sing to her in this musical version of the Don Quixote story. Dr. Fort’s research interests lie in lighting and staging, and he has been a producing director at the Weston Playhouse for the past 30 years.
Location of photograph:
Mainstage, Weston Playhouse, Vermont
Affiliation:
Faculty, Dan School of Drama and Music
Submission Year:
2016-17
Perfusion of Light
Raymond Sturgeon
This perfusion array allows quick changing of solutions. Solutions with different drugs are applied while recording the bioelectrical activity of nerve cells. The handmade array, roughly the size of a matchbook and very fragile, is essential for determining drug effectiveness at the level of a single protein’s function. I used a dual-light source to construct it using fine tubing, super-glue, wax, and half-millimetre glass barrels.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Evelyn Mitchell and her “Burler”
Laura Murray
Through oral history and archival research, the Swamp Ward and Inner Harbour History Project is revealing the twentieth-century history of two of the oldest neighbourhoods in Kingston, Ontario. Evelyn Mitchell worked at Hield Brothers Woolen Mill in the 1950s when she first arrived in Kingston from Yorkshire. In her interview, she describes in great detail the process by which she did “invisible mending” on the cloth coming out of the looms, picking out and pushing through loose threads. Here she displays the tool she used, a “burler,” which she has saved to this day.
Location of photograph:
Kingston, Ontario
Affiliation:
Faculty, English Language and Literature (Affiliated with Cultural Studies)
Submission Year:
2016-17
Phantasie Ist Alles
Julia Partington
Although I am an English major, I also study other languages and was fascinated by this piece of graffiti that I found on Museum Island in Berlin. Translated from German to English, it says, “Imagination is everything, it is the preview to the coming events of life.” This was said by Albert Einstein, and while his discipline is physics, different from mine, we both see the beauty of creativity. His creativity is in the stars, and mine is in language and literature. Arts and science are bound together in this short expression. A treasure waiting on Museum Island for me to embrace and understand.
Location of photograph:
Museum Island, Berlin, Germany
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, English Language and Literature
Submission Year:
2016-17
Polypyrrole
Danesh Roudini
The film morphology of electrochemically synthesized conducting polymers is widely dependent on electropolymerisation conditions. Some factors, like type of anions, solvent, and deposition rate, have a great influence on the final polymer quality and morphology. The SEM image shows electrochemically synthesized polypyrrole film on platinum electrode. Polypyrrole has high electrical conductivity and good environmental stability and has potential applications such as sensors, electrodes for rechargeable batteries, corrosion-protecting materials, electrochromic devices, and membranes.
Location of photograph:
Kingston University, UK
Affiliation:
Faculty, Bader International Study Centre - BISC
Submission Year:
2016-17
Gemini Mirror Reflections
Stéphane Courteau
The Gemini telescope and dome are ablaze in the setting sun's golden light. The reflections on the 8-m monolithic primary mirror are especially intricate and distorted. The shadow of the extinct 4200m Mauna Kea volcano can also be seen in the background upon a sea of clouds over the city of Hilo. The vertical shutters around the dome are usually opened at sunset to ensure that the inside and outside temperatures are the same throughout the night for greater image stability. Dr. Courteau has made extensive use of this telescope, and its twin in Chile, since his arrival at Queen's in 2004.
Location of photograph:
Mauna Kea, Hawaii
Affiliation:
Faculty, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Submission Year:
2015-16
In Search of Byzantium
Theodore Christou
As an educational historian, my search for Byzantium (330-1453) led me to the remote monastic communities of Mount Athos. Since the 9th century, 20 Orthodox Christian communities have developed and currently reside there. These monasteries have preserved libraries, with holdings between 15,000 and 60,000 monographs. While access to Athos is highly restricted, typically to four days, I spent 12 days here working in five monastic libraries. I held and photographed several dozen texts that were otherwise ‘lost to the world’, and I lived the monastic life throughout my time spent there. Here is the monastery of Simonopetra. The library is in the lower level, near the promontory’s edge.
Location of photograph:
Simonopetra Monastery, Mount Athos
Affiliation:
Faculty, Faculty of Education (Cross-Appointment, History)
Submission Year:
2015-16
At a Snail’s Pace
Alamjeet Kaur Chauhan
This is a picture of the sea snail, Aplysia californica or California sea hare, which is widely used to examine how the activity of nerve cells evokes fundamental behaviours. I study how cation channels, which are specialized proteins that form pores allowing charged molecules in and out of the nerve cell, influence cellular activity. I use electrophysiology and molecular biology to study the reproductive behavior of Aplysia. My research is focused on studying the effects of reactive oxygen species on cation channels, which dictate reproduction in bag cell neurons of the snail.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
The Last Tree
Courtenay Jacklin
CCNF15: Clear Creek North Forest #15, otherwise known as the last tree. After three summers of field work and countless hours spent hiking to various study sites situated in the Kluane Region of the Yukon, Katherine finally takes the last tree core she will need to complete her project analyzing alpine vegetation dynamics. Using an increment borer to drill a small hole near the base of each tree, Katherine extracts a core which we store inside straws until returning to the lab. The annual growth rings along each core can be measured to gather information on growth and climate.
Location of photograph:
Southwest Yukon
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, Biology
Submission Year:
2015-16
Buried Alive
Melanie Jansen
This photo was taken during my fieldwork, 2.5km underground in a platinum mine owned by Impala Platinum in Rustenburg, South Africa. Rather than a unique depiction, this photo is representative of the industry as a whole. It demonstrates the harsh realities mine workers face, subject to social, environmental, and economic challenges. Day-shift workers may spend up to six months at a time without ever seeing sunlight, their lives literally passing them by. Few opportunities exist for these men and women to break free of the dark, unforgiving platinum industry. The “X” is symbolic of this eventual cause of death, either directly or indirectly.
Location of photograph:
Impala Platinum Mine, Shaft #14, Rustenburg, South Africa
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, School of Environmental Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
Inside Concord Floral
Naseem Loloie
Under the heat of the lights, covered in a stranger’s clothes, surrounded by the sights and sounds of the stage – this is when the actor’s transformation comes to life. During Theatre Kingston’s production of Jordan Tannahill’s Concord Floral, the audience and actors are seated inside an abandoned greenhouse – or at least, a stage mimicking a greenhouse through set design by Sean Mulcahy and lighting by Jennifer Lennon. As both an actor and an assistant director in this production, Naseem’s research focuses on costume, lighting, set and staging, and their transformative effects on the actor’s experience as they become a character.
Location of photograph:
Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, Dan School of Drama and Music
Submission Year:
2017-18
Landscapes of Resistance
Alexandra Pedersen
As a feminist/activist geographer, much of my doctoral research has concentrated on Indigenous and non-Indigenous communal experiences of violent development in Guatemala. An emblematic case of community conflict with, and resistance to, transnational corporate interests comes from the remote community of Lote Ocho. There, Irma Yolanda Choc Cac (pictured here) is one of eleven Indigenous Q’eqchi’ Maya women pursuing a civil court case against the Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals for sexual assaults allegedly committed during a violent eviction of her community from their ancestral lands in 2007.
Location of photograph:
Lote Ocho, Izabal, Guatemala
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Geography and Planning
Submission Year:
2017-18
Platinum Surface Electrochemistry
Derek Esau
The single crystal of platinum gently hangs atop an electrolyte surface. Electrochemistry is a surface-sensitive field of research, as the composition and atomic arrangement of the electrode drastically affect its properties. Atoms in a single crystal are highly ordered, and we are able to cut and polish a crystal in such a way that we only expose one of the many possible surface arrangements. The single crystal electrode is balanced on the surface of the electrolyte to ensure that only the polished surface is exposed. These experiments give us fundamental information about electrochemical reactions, which are integral to the field of clean energy.
Location of photograph:
Department of Chemistry, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Chemistry
Submission Year:
2017-18
Exploring Worlds at Home
James Xie
The Queen's Space Engineering Team constructs a Mars rover each year to compete at the international University Rover Challenge in Utah. QSET brings together over 40 students from engineering, science, commerce, and the arts to design, build, and operate the rover. The rover can autonomously navigate treacherous landscapes, collect geological data, analyze samples, and remotely operate machinery. It can be seen here gazing out into the Utah desert. The rover is a culmination of countless hours of volunteer work and generous support from both Queen’s and industry partners. The team was proud to be the top team in Canada at the 2017 competition.
Location of photograph:
Mars Desert Research Station, Utah
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, Engineering Chemistry
Submission Year:
2017-18
Coded, I Am
Stéfy McKnight
"Coded, I Am" is part of a larger research creation project that looks at preemptive surveillance strategies in North America. It is a self-portrait of an artist immersed in tattoo QR codes. The QR codes – when scanned – direct the viewer to Google Earth images of CSIS and NSA intelligence sites. The photograph not only shows an artist absorbed by her research, but it is a representation of how users rely on third party sites such as Google Earth in their everyday lives, regardless of the risk of data mining and surveillance. The codes shift the surveillance gaze by giving viewers the tools to look at the institutions that are normally doing the ‘surveilling’.
Location of photograph:
Kingston, Ontario
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Cultural Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
Borders. What borders?
John McGarry
The iconic Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, once remarked that “the only thing Cypriot is the donkey”. He wanted to underline that Cyprus was permanently divided between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. He was wrong of course, as this photo from Cyprus’s Apostolos Andreas Monastery shows. There are also 'lots' of Cypriot cats who can wander freely between the Turkish and Greek zones in spite of the barbed wire and thousands of armed soldiers. These are “vanguard felines”. My work on power-sharing in Cyprus is aimed at helping their two-legged counterparts to follow in their wake.
Location of photograph:
Apostolos Andreas Monastery, North-east Cyprus
Affiliation:
Faculty, Political Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
Leaving home
Eric Y Lian
My focus is cancer cell invasion and migration. This spheroid of cells is embedded in a 3D protein matrix and fluorescently stained for 3 proteins. Individual cells can be seen radiating away on all sides. The cells use integrin (red) and actin (green) to pull on the protein matrix and move, while cadherin (blue), binds and holds cells together within the spheroid. Cadherin normally holds clumps of cells together and allows them to form structures such as tissues and organs. This picture shows how invading cells lose their cadherin and express large amounts of integrin and actin, and it demonstrates some of the protein expression changes that cancer cells undergo which allow them to invade away from a tumour.
Location of photograph:
A microscope slide
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Pathology and Molecular Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
A Musical High Point
Tim Fort
In my thirtieth summer as a producing director at the Weston Playhouse in Vermont, we chose to open the season with the Tony Award winning musical “Once” – a show set in a Dublin pub in which the actors also serve as the musicians. In this moment, one of the actor-musicians became airborne doing his pre-show warm-up in front of the audience and cast.
Location of photograph:
Weston Playhouse, Vermont
Affiliation:
Faculty, Dan School of Drama and Music
Submission Year:
2017-18
Still-life painting alight with UV-radiation
Courtney Books
Art conservation uses Ultra-violet lighting in a similar way that a detective uses a black light to inspect a crime scene. Awash with the electromagnetic radiation, i.e. light in the form of wavelengths, the painting's secrets are revealed; artist materials fluoresce distinct colours in the visible spectrum depending on the age and type of material present. A conservator is able to approximate the age of a painting (e.g. the milky green-yellow glow of varnish intensifies with time) and discern what is original, artist applied material versus those subsequently added to the painting, such as a restorer or conservator's touch.
Location of photograph:
Madrid, Spain
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2017-18
There is a highway in the lab?!
Dustin Brennan
A major innovation is happening in the structures laboratory at the Department of Civil Engineering at Queen’s University. The first ever Rolling Load Simulator – R●LS in Canada for testing highway bridges is making a big impact in the lab. This machine is capable of delivering tens of years’ worth of heavy truck loading, simulating the long service life of a highway bridge at full scale. Bridges are the ultimate expression of art and science in structural engineering. Results from further tests in this machine will advance our understanding of the complex behavior of bridges under realistic loading conditions.
Location of photograph:
Civil Engineering Department, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Civil Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
Artful Arterial Artificers
Jonah Burke-Kleinman
Unlocking the secrets of cells from a human artery, grown in culture. We can stain components of cells to study where and how they work! Blue stain is the cell nucleus (DAPI), red is actin (phalloidin). Green stain is a protein called PDE3B we study in the lab, seen here under 40x magnification.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2017-18
Hope in Uncertain Times
Theodore Christou
My research concerns the history of education with a particular emphasis on curriculum crises. More recently, I have been examining how schools evolved throughout the Byzantine, or Late Roman, period. I have travelled to archives in Istanbul, Mount Athos, Rome, Venice, and the Vatican to retrieve primary sources too long-forgotten or remote to be common in western historical narratives. In the midst of medieval archives and ancient art, I stumbled upon this contemporary work of art. Raising my eyes to see it in the midst of one of Athens’ most economically depressed squares, I found the transcendent.
Location of photograph:
Omonoia, Athens, Greece
Affiliation:
Faculty, Faculty of Education (Cross-Affiliated, History)
Submission Year:
2017-18
Starch Nanoparticles as Sustainable Emulsifiers
Joe Glasing
This image shows a polystyrene particle with a diameter approximately 5000 times smaller than a pinhead. It is armored with starch nanoparticles that sit on the surface and stabilize the oil medium in water (emulsify). We investigate how natural compounds such as starch or cellulose behave at the oil-water interface. Issues arising with petroleum-derived emulsifiers such as high carbon footprint and ecotoxicity could potentially be addressed through the adoption of polysaccharide-based emulsions in industry. To record this micrograph, I prepared a stable oil-in-water emulsion using styrene as the oil phase and then polymerized the styrene oil droplets.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Chemical Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
Using Fire to Create Order
Gregory Jerkiewicz
The air is often thought to be benign and, of course, we need it to breathe. However, on an atomic scale and under certain conditions, the air can be damaging. Electrochemical reactions can be susceptible to trace contamination and electrochemistry experiments often require atomically ordered electrode surfaces. Oxygen in the air can destroy atomic order and contaminate electrodes through the formation of oxides. The image shows a platinum single crystal being annealed using a hydrogen flame, which reorders the surface atoms and decomposes contaminants. Hydrogen flames are often used when cleanliness is important, as they leave no residues.
Location of photograph:
Department of Chemistry, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Faculty, Chemistry
Submission Year:
2017-18
Sunrise from the 9th Station
Stefany Li
An attractive volcano, mountain, and hike, Mt. Fuji is elevated at over 3700m and is popular for hiking over night to catch the sunrise. This moment arrives after hiking for over 8 hours with friends made the first hour. By the 7th hour, the sky begins to change colours and hikers are surrounded by the clouds. A gradient from pitch black to blues, reds, oranges occurs and suddenly everything is golden. Hikers are not sure if their tears are from the view or the long night but their gratitude to those who supported them the entire way remains certain.
Location of photograph:
Mount Fuji, Japan
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2017-18
Research-Creation is?
Stéfy McKnight
14 steps to research-creation:
1. Create proposal/draft ideas
2. Read, research, write, and sketch
3. Apply for funding
4. Produce, fail, produce some more, make more mistakes, produce
5. Question your work’s value entirely
6. My creative research is important because…
7. Find confidence in the importance and value of your research and creative practice
8. Produce more
9. Thank your colleagues for their input, support, and for moving heavy objects with you
10. Install and exhibit
11. Write and reflect
12. Share with communities, friends, colleagues, and pets
13. Document/photograph exhibition for future inspiration
14. Create proposal/ draft ideas
Location of photograph:
Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Cultural Studies
Submission Year:
2017-18
Medical history, lost and found
Allison Morehead
While conducting research for an exhibition on Edvard Munch and medicine, I was rummaging around in boxes recently transferred from the state hospital (Rikshospitalet) to the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology (Teknisk Museum) when I came across this collection of historical surgical instruments. The tags indicate that they were part of a teaching collection, but the objects appear to have been hastily boxed up and are now detached from their inventory. A poetic jumble of objects, they speak of a medical past that is in danger of being lost as medical collections are consolidated, dispersed, and even destroyed.
Location of photograph:
Oslo, Norway
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2017-18
Reflection of the World
Seyed Mohammad Sadegh Mousavi
I used to live and study in Italy, as a result my family came to Italy in Summer 2015 and we went to Florence (Firenze). I took this photo when I was in the Lungarno Generale Diaz St. and in front of Museo Galileo which is very close to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. There is no effect and filter in this photo. If we believe that the creation of the world was based on the order and the balance, then this photo indicates the reflection of the world very well.
Location of photograph:
Florence, Italy
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Civil Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
3D printed Al alloy
Hong Qin
The un-uniform cells are aluminum grains. Aluminum grains grow eptaxially towards to the heat flow direction forming fan shaped melt pools during selective laser melting (SLM) process. Half of the grains in red indicate a preferential growth along the laser beam direction due to directional solidification. The grains in blue and green are those located at the melt pool boundaries or where the direction of heat flow with a deviation from the laser beam direction. Fine equiaxed grains nucleated at the melt pool boundary because of the high solidification rate. These complex grains comprise a beautiful fan shaped microstructure of 3D printed aluminum.
Location of photograph:
Reactor Materials Testing Laboratory, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
Colours in the lab
Chúk Odenigbo
I am currently researching a more sensitive analytical method to detect a cancer-causing compound that features commonly in certain workplaces with the aim of creating industry exposure standards specific to this compound. We are using human urine from people who have been occupationally exposed. This picture shows the urine of each worker concentrated, cleaned out to reduce impurities, and dissolved in methanol, which allows for really beautiful red-orange colours.
Location of photograph:
Montreal, Quebec
Affiliation:
Alumni, School of Environmental Studies
Submission Year:
2017-18
Measuring the Invisible Wake of a 500 million-year-old Swimmer
David Rival
With this perspective we see the tail-fin model of Anomalocaris Canadensis, a 500 million-year-old predator from the Burgess Shale, as it passes through the high-speed laser sheet. Not visible on either side are high-speed cameras that capture the motion of millions of tiny silver-coated, hollow-glass spheres that track the flow. By tracking the motion of these tiny spheres we reconstruct the otherwise invisible wake of this ancient swimmer. This fin shape is unique from that period but may serve as a good model for high-performance aerodynamic control surfaces today.
Location of photograph:
OTTER lab, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Faculty, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
Pushing Limits
Madison Robertson
Research can be hard, exhausting even. It can push us to our limits. Mike Del Giudice is working hard on the VO2max test, which gives researchers insight into the health and wellness of participants. Whether you are trying to establish baseline characteristics of an individual, or monitor their changes in cardio respiratory fitness over the course of an intervention, VO2max testing is the gold standard of fitness testing in the field of exercise physiology.
Location of photograph:
School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Kinesiology and Health Studies
Submission Year:
2017-18
Art Meets Science Under Polarising Microscopy
Danesh Roudini
Liquid crystals have been commercially important for several decades, especially for applications in electronic displays and TV screens. They can exhibit well-known liquid crystalline mesophases in which the molecules are very responsive to applied electric or magnetic fields. When studied under polarising microscopy they can produce artistic textures, which exhibits the beauty and fascination of liquid crystals.
Location of photograph:
Kingston University, UK
Affiliation:
Faculty, Bader International Study Centre - BISC
Submission Year:
2017-18
Cormorant Fishing on Erhai Lake, China
John Smol
As part of our global program determining how lake ecosystems are changing in response to natural and human stressors, we have been visiting lakes around the world. One of the three major lakes in the Yunnan area of China is Erhai Lake, a high elevation fault lake, which is also known for its fishers who use trained cormorants to catch fish. Here you see a fisherman retrieving a fish caught by one of his birds.
Location of photograph:
Erhai Lake, Dali, China
Affiliation:
Faculty, Biology
Submission Year:
2017-18
Coral Reef in a Pyrex Flask
Marshall Timmermans
Pseudoalteromonas bacteria are expert chemists that often live symbiotically with corals, sponges, and other ocean inhabitants. They will pump out dozens bioactive molecules to protect themselves and their hosts in exchange for shelter from the harsh conditions of the open ocean. We are studying Pseudoalteromonas to discover new antibiotics and other medicinal natural products. Here we see Pseudoalteromonas piscicida growing on cotton balls in a liquid medium. Much like coral, the balls allow the bacteria to attach to a solid surface and stimulate the production of very interesting natural products, such as the vibrant orange pigment seen in this photo.
Location of photograph:
Chernoff Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Chemistry
Submission Year:
2017-18
DEAP Dreams
Connor Stone
During my Undergraduate and Master’s program I was heavily involved in the construction and analysis for DEAP-3600 (dark matter experiment). Featured is the detector nearly completed construction. The copper cylinders conduct heat to keep the light sensors warm, as the liquid argon is around -200 Celsius! Between the copper cylinders are white plastic blocks that are insulation and shielding from background radiation that might masquerade as dark matter. The three stylized images are generated using a neural network that takes a style from another painting. The most recognizable one is in the style of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Location of photograph:
SNOLAB, Sudbury ON
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Submission Year:
2017-18
Home Sweet Home
Zoe Walter
Across the animal kingdom, mothers must raise offspring in the face of significant challenges, including limited resources, predation, and disease. A staggering 90% of the red-winged blackbird population of QUBS carries a chronic infection of avian malaria, but the effects of this disease on mothers and their offspring is not well understood. An innovative pilot study by Dr. Bonier’s lab medicated wild moms with antimalarial medication and raised their young in captivity, to elucidate the nature of maternal infection status on offspring fitness. Here, an exhausted hatchling takes a well-deserved rest after successfully breaking free of its egg.
Location of photograph:
Biosciences Complex, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, Biology
Submission Year:
2017-18
(re)Constructing Nicosia’s Past and Present
Samantha Twietmeyer
Taken while conducting field research on the peace negotiations in Cyprus, Summer 2017. The mural, by local artist Farhad O’Neil, sits in an area undergoing renovation near the UN-patrolled “Green Line” vacated after the 1970s when the threat of conflict drove many Greek Cypriots out of the inner city. Titled “Constructing the Past,” it features the ubiquitous Venetian walls of Nicosia’s old city, the arrow-shaped gates interspersed with representations of the civilizations and peoples who have contributed to the architecture and culture. Both the Greek and the Ottoman heritages are represented and while the image features the dividing line, the central circle is undivided, signifying both a historical and future unity.
Location of photograph:
Thisseos St, Nicosia, Cyprus
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Political Studies
Submission Year:
2017-18
Love to Eat Oil
Saeed Rismani Yazdi
Oil spills are a significant threat to marine wildlife and human health. Nature has evolved an effective way to rectify this problem using indigenous bacteria to clean up the oil contaminants. My research focuses on studying the microscale interaction of bacteria with oil droplets to better understand the mechanisms of oil degradation by the bacteria. The picture shows oil-degrading bacteria (gray) finding an oil droplet (orange), forming biofilms around it (green), and eventually breaking it down into harmless compounds.
Location of photograph:
Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Chemical Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
Coral
Wenxia Zhou
This photo was taken in the process of underpotential deposition of copper on gold surface. The anode is gold/silica, cathode is copper wire, and electrolyte is 0.5M CuSO4 solution. I have never expected this result. Ideally, the copper monolayer should be deposited on gold surface instead of grown copper branches with certain amount H2 gas evolving.
Location of photograph:
44°13'29.3"N 76°29'55.7"W
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Chemistry
Submission Year:
2017-18
Old is Gold
Alamjeet Kaur Chauhan
The multifunction nerve stimulator S8 was invented in the mid-20th century. It was commonly used to inject current into muscles and cardiac cells to elicit a response. Using frog muscles and hearts, an Italian physician, Luigi Galvani, showed that electricity was inherent in organic tissue. Over the last fifty years or so electro-therapy has shown a very rapid development. This equipment is still functional. I am using the stimulator to send electrical impulses into neurons and record subsequent changes in nerve activity characterized by the movement of charged molecules across the cell membrane.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2016-17
Antiquity, Austerity, Democracy
Theodore Christou
June 25, 2015. A referendum is scheduled for Greeks to decide if they will accept the economic bailout conditions imposed by its creditors. Banks have been shuttered. Cash withdrawals have been limited for weeks. Tired of austerity, the citizenry votes 61% in favour of rejecting bailout conditions. In short order, the Greek government signs a new memorandum accepting more austerity measures. In the foreground, a Roman-era administrative block. In the background, a protest and blockade. The protesters chant: “If we act, speak, and think as they wish, we are condemned to live as they demand. Live chaotically.”
Location of photograph:
Thessaloniki, Greece
Affiliation:
Faculty, Faculty of Education (Cross-Appointment, History)
Submission Year:
2016-17
A Sensing Micro-Christmas Tree
Hannah Dies
My research is focused on using electric fields to assemble nanoparticles into micro-sized structures to enhance detection through surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. In the image shown, silver nanoparticles have been assembled into a Christmas tree like structure. The structure offers greater than a million times enhancement of the original Raman signal and can be used to detect analytes such as bacteria, illicit drugs, and proteins as parts per billion concentrations. The assembly process occurs in minutes and requires little training to perform. The process is inexpensive and a patent for the process has recently been filed on this revolutionary technique.
Location of photograph:
Queen’s University's Facility for Isotope Research-ESEM
Affiliation:
PhD/MD Student, Chemical Engineering
Submission Year:
2016-17
Mesas, ridges and pits on a copper surface
Benedict Drevniok
The image was taken with a scanning tunneling microscope that was built by Benedict Drevniok in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy at Queen’s University. It depicts a copper surface that had been bombarded with Argon atoms. This creates a surface that is pitted (dark blue color). The originally flat surface ends up with this interesting structure. Material is displaced from the pits, creating mesas and ridges (gold color). The steps on the surface are only one atom in height. The image shows a region that is approximately one micrometre in width and height.
Location of photograph:
Stirling Hall, Queen’s University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Submission Year:
2016-17
Delta Wing Approach
Joshua Galler
In this image a flat-plate delta wing is approaching a laser sheet shining through lenses below. The wing was mounted in a water tank and is being towed at approximately 1 m/s. The water has been seeded with tiny reflective particles so that as the wing passes through the laser sheet, a camera can film the motion of these particles and later process them to determine the velocity field of the trailing wake. This is called particle image velocimetry, or PIV. Understanding the behaviour of the wake can shed light on delta wing performance in other situations.
Location of photograph:
McLaughlin Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2016-17
Hunter
Stéfy McKnight
This photograph is an image of a hunting camera used by rural landowners to protect their property from human and non-human trespassers. This photograph proves that citizens are repurposing surveillance technologies for their own security and usage. The research that contextualizes this photograph argues that CCTV cameras and contemporary surveillance practices have inspired citizens to use unique methods of surveillance for their own needs.
Location of photograph:
Markstay, Ontario
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Cultural Studies
Submission Year:
2016-17
Christ in Majesty, Hereford Choir Screen, George Gilbert Scott 1862
Matthew Reeve
I was recently invited to participate in a collaborative project with the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Paul Mellon Centre to publish the first account of the great screen by Scott and Skidmore (now in the V&A). After presenting our preliminary work in summer 2016, a handful of experts were allowed unprecedented access to the screen. Standing precariously on a chair with one leg and leaning on my colleague from Berkeley, this photo of the central Christ in Majesty was a lucky shot captured with my iPhone.
Location of photograph:
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2016-17
Collateral research
Joan Schwartz
A walk through the MET is an exercise in experiential learning, no matter what one’s area of interest. Every visit to New York, I make my pilgrimage to the great 19th century painting Heart of the Andes by Frederic Edwin Church in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year, I strode past the large-scale medieval sculptures, altarpieces, tapestries, and furniture on my way to the Robert Lehman Collection, but then Ack! the Collection was temporarily closed! Disheartened, I turned around and started back through the Medieval Gallery when I was struck by this sculpture in raking light.
Location of photograph:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2016-17
Wonky Air Bubbles
Frank Secretain
This mosaic features air bubbles (2-2.5 mm in radii) rising through water and sequences of others in the background. Bubbles pass through a sound field whose waves cause non-linear interactions between the air-water interface, which produce surface irregularities and pinch-off smaller bubbles. From the bottom to the top of the photograph bubbles are formed, rise, oscillate, and breakup into smaller bubbles (time differences between consecutive vertical images is 5.5 ms). The breakup is efficacious for minimizing potential air emboli during open-heart surgery.
Location of photograph:
Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Queen’s University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2016-17
Heart in a cubic
Hongbing Yu
Second phase particles in alloys are important for the properties of metallic materials. The morphology and chemical composition of the particles are critical for researchers to understand the natures and the roles of these particles. With cutting-edge electron microscope, we can map the distribution of the alloying elements over a particle. A very beautiful particle was observed in a special steel during an experiment which made it appear like a little heart of zirconium was enclosed in a vanadium cubic box.
Location of photograph:
Reactor Material Testing Lab, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2016-17
The Immune System and Pregnancy: An Advantageous Relationship
Allison Felker
The immune system typically protects our bodies from infection and illness by fending off foreign invaders. During pregnancy, however, the mother’s immune system works in an unusual manner to support the health and development of the baby. One particularly important role for cells of the immune system during pregnancy is to promote the growth of the mother’s blood vessels, which provide the growing baby with nutrients. This image of a mouse uterus captured early in pregnancy shows a large number of immune cells interacting with the mother’s blood vessels to facilitate vessel growth and nurture a healthy pregnancy.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City
Ana Ruiz Aguirre
The Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City was designed by internationally renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán. I visited this impressive architectural feat during my ongoing MITACS-funded trip to Mexico City, undertaken with the objective to access archival collections regarding exhibitions of Cuban visual art displayed in Mexico. The Centro Nacional houses not only arts schools, but also national archival collections and research centres. The exhibition files held in these collections are central to the development of my doctoral research project at Queen's, entitled "Twenty Years of Cultural Diplomacy: Cuban Visual Art Exhibitions in North America, 1989-2014."
Location of photograph:
Mexico City, Mexico
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Cultural Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
Improper Storage of von Willebrand Factor in an Endothelial Cell
Lara Casey
This is an endothelial cell, the cell type that lines your blood vessels. This cell is neat because we grew it from a routine blood sample of a person with a common bleeding disorder, von Willebrand disease (VWD), and used it to figure out how their genetic mutation lead to a deficiency of von Willebrand factor (VWF), a vital clotting protein. VWF (green) is supposed to be stored in rod-shaped packets, but we found that proper storage was eliminated in this cell. Likely, the VWF is trapped, and cannot escape the cell to help with clotting.
Location of photograph:
Molecular Hemostasis Laboratory, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Pathology and Molecular Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
How to Clean a Neutrino Detector
Mark Chen
Research Associate and adjunct faculty member Dr. Peter Skensved is the only person to ever access the top of the Acrylic Vessel of the SNO+ neutrino detector, the upgraded Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. He performed a small modification and is seen in the photo polishing the surface. To reach this location required him to be first lowered onto the back of the structure (not visible) which supports the thousands of light sensors seen behind him in the photo, and then to squeeze through a narrow opening to be further lowered onto the transparent 12-metre diameter acrylic sphere.
Location of photograph:
SNOLAB, Sudbury, Ontario
Affiliation:
Faculty, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Submission Year:
2015-16
Wrinkled Flame
Gabriel Ciccarelli
This a photo taken of a flame propagating (left to right) through a blockage in a square cross-section area channel filled with a mixture of hydrogen-air. The photo is captured using planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) that makes the combustion products visible (gray area). The flame surface resembles the topology of a human brain. The photo was taken using a state-of-the-art Princeton intensified-camera.
Location of photograph:
Combustion Lab, McLaughlin Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Faculty, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
Mitochondrial Mysteries
Kimberly Dunham-Snary
Standard confocal versus super-resolution confocal microscopy of rat pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. The ‘question mark’ mitochondria seen at the centre of the left image is actually three separate organelles. We are characterizing the mitochondrial network of various cell types and determining how this network is related to sensing changes in oxygen levels.
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
The Road to Taste
Hisham S. Elbatarny
This image is captured from a histology slide for a section of the human tongue showing a number of taste buds; the gustatory receptors responsible for taste. The road that cuts in the middle of the picture is a groove that extends from the surface of the tongue and runs deeply within the tissue and is called “crypt”. This image is one of a large collection of slides for different body tissues captured as a part of an educational research project which aimed to improve students' learning and understanding of histology through building up an in-house histology atlas.
Location of photograph:
Histology Lab, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Faculty, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Mapping Mitochondrial Complex I
Zhigang Hong
Super-resolution confocal microscopy of rat pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells showing a network of mitochondria (green) and the location of mitochondrial Complex I (red). We are investigating differences in Complex I in various cell types as it relates to pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
Affiliation:
Staff, Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
GAITway to Namaste
Laura Hutchinson
This photo demonstrates the collaborative nature of the Human Mobility Research Lab (HMRL) by showcasing the interactions of sport and science, research and practice, and researchers with each other. Yoga is widely practiced for health benefits and focuses on connecting your mind and body. This photo draws parallels between mind and body, and science and reality. The lab and the practice of yoga share a common goal of helping people maintain active, healthy lives for longer. The strength of humans both physically and mentally is at the forefront of this photo and the HMRL.
Location of photograph:
Human Mobility Research Lab (HMRL), Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
MoS2
Soran Jahangiri
This picture shows the potential energy surface between layers of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) obtained from quantum chemical calculations. MoS2 is a layered material with a low friction coefficient and is widely used as a solid lubricant. We use the information obtained from this potential energy surface to relate the frictional behaviour of MoS2 to its atomic-level surface properties. The blue spots in this picture represent low-energy structures and the yellow, orange, and red regions correspond to high-energy structures.
Location of photograph:
Queen's University
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Chemistry
Submission Year:
2015-16
Start Counting! - A Microscopic View of Algae
Michael Jessop
This photo was taken with a cell phone camera through a microscopic lens. The picture is a result of a summer undergraduate research project involving growth optimization of algae grown in wastewater. Growing algae on wastewater can remove many chemicals responsible for the pollution of our local water columns. The algae can then be harvested and extracted for oils that can subsequently be converted into a directly usable diesel fuel. Unfortunately, these algae require regular counting in order to determine how well they are growing.
Location of photograph:
Biosciences Complex, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Staff, Civil Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
Maternal-fetal interaction during pregnancy
Nathalia Azevedo Portilho
The placenta is a highly specialized organ essential for normal fetal development and mother well-being during mammalian pregnancy. It is composed of maternal and zygote derived cells which interact to allow exchange of gases, nutrients and wastes, to promote immune protection of the fetus and also to produce pregnancy-associated hormones and growth factors. Abnormalities of these functions are associated with a wide range of pregnancy and postpartum complications. Due analogies, mouse placenta has been intensively studied.
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Clearing the Way
Laura Swystun
The plasma coagulation factor VIII (FVIII) is synthesized and secreted, and then cleared by endothelial cells. Cells expressing the endocytic clearance receptor CLEC4M (red) bind and internalize FVIII (green).
Location of photograph:
Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Pathology and Molecular Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
Rupture of 5 mm steel bar due to corrosion
Nathan Teixeira
A 5mm diameter steel shear connector in a concrete sandwich panel ruptured due to excessive corrosion. The expanded polystyrene around the connector was removed to expose the rupture. These connectors transfer shear forces between multiple layers of concrete in a sandwich panel.
Location of photograph:
Structures Lab, Ellis Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Civil Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
As Far as Possible, No Salmon
Scott Thompson
This metal tag and list of conditions formed the foundation for the surveillance and management of First Nations fishing practices in 1920s British Columbia. Scott Thompson, a Banting postdoctoral fellow in the Surveillance Studies Centre, is researching how surveillance technologies, like this one, that were designed and implemented by the Canadian government, not only asserted a particular vision of how First Nations peoples ought to behave and enforced this vision, but in doing so, also contributed to the establishment of hurtful “Indian” stereotypes that are still with us today.
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Sociology
Submission Year:
2015-16
The Inca fortress of Saqsaywaman
W. George Lovell
As a historical geographer absorbed by what took place in Latin America during colonial times, most of my work, to date, has concentrated on Central America, Guatemala in particular. There the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado played a leading role in the subjugation of Indigenous Maya peoples. Alvarado also headed an ill-fated venture to muscle in on the conquest of Peru, attempting to wrest control from rival strongmen Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. A new research project will see me focus attention on this little-known episode, in which Alvarado came in contact with the Incas, who in the fifteenth century constructed the awesome citadel of Saqsaywaman above their capital, Cuzco. Not even its mighty hand-hewn walls, however, could hold off the Spanish advance.
Location of photograph:
Cuzco, Peru
Affiliation:
Faculty, Geography and Planning
Submission Year:
2016-17
Salt Cavern Luminescence
D. Jean Hutchinson
In this photo, summer student Katy is LiDAR scanning an underground salt cavern at 975 feet depth. The laser scans create an accurate and highly detailed 3D model of the surface of the object being scanned. Scans taken before and after a blast are compared to evaluate the volume of material removed, the blast induced fracture pattern, and the extent of influence of each blast. Comparing change detection data, and the detailed fracture pattern from different experiments, permits us to improve blasting. This is a collaborative project with the full support of Morton Salt for Master's candidate Jonathan Aubertin.
Location of photograph:
Ojibway Mine, Windsor Salt, Windsor, Ontario
Affiliation:
Faculty, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
Searching for early life
Leandro DaSilva
The ripple marks in the first plane are geological features forming now in the desert by the action of wind over sand. The actual sediments derived from old sedimentary rocks that forms the landscape. In the background, geologists are looking for features in the rocks that can help decipher the environmental conditions in which life on Earth evolved from microbes to multicellular organisms. This happened around 540 million years ago, when this area was still an ocean. The hammer serves as a scale and is the iconic tool used by field geologists to collect samples for further analysis.
Location of photograph:
Duqm, Sultanate of Oman
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
Twitter description:
Queen's Art of Research photo contest is an opportunity for Queen’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni to showcase their research, scholarly, and artistic work.
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The act of research is a beauteous endeavor whether in a group or solitary, or whether you are working in the lab, field, studio, or archives. Queen's Art of Research photo contest is an opportunity for Queen’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni to showcase their research, scholarly, and artistic work.
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![[research image]](https://www.queensu.ca/research/sites/all/modules/contrib/lazyloader/image_placeholder.gif "[The Art of research Photo Contest]")