Spotlight on Science: Undergraduate Research at Lakehead
Highlighting one student’s experience with undergraduate research
Small class sizes, scenic hiking trails, and ample outdoor activities are all features that make Lakehead University great- but for students like Emma Pineau it is Lakehead’s sterling reputation in the field of undergraduate research that puts our school above the rest. As part of the Argus initiative to spotlight the amazing research done by our talented undergraduates here at Lakehead, we sat down recently with Emma Pineau, a third year student in the physics department who is doing research with Dr. Alla Reznik.
Emma is the child of two teachers and from an early age has wanted to go into academics: first as a teacher and later, after discovering a passion for the sciences in high school, as a researcher/professor. When choosing a university, she chose Lakehead for it’s “strength in undergrad research [....] I liked the idea of being able to get into research early.” Between 2015 and 2019, Lakehead University was ranked the top undergraduate research university in Canada (according to Research Infosource) based on a combination of factors including undergraduate research funding, number of publications, and publication impact factor. Each year undergraduate students in fields such as biology, physics, psychology, etc. can apply to volunteer or work in research labs run by Lakehead faculty. But how exactly can you get involved?
After her first year, Emma began her journey in research by reaching out to the chair of her department. She explains, “He listened to the kind of research I thought I was interested in and recommended me to Dr. Reznik [who] agreed to have me work in her lab for that summer.” Emma also believes that her good grades and her small program size helped her to make this valuable connection. We also recommend that students looking to get involved in undergraduate research get to know their professors and the research they are doing. Show up to class, visit professors’ websites or read their publications, and attend the lectures and seminars put on by the faculty to find opportunities in your field.
For the past two years, Emma has worked with Dr. Reznik (who is a Canada Research Chair in Physics of Molecular Imaging and Senior Scientist in Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute) conducting experiments and assisting honours and masters students with projects in the field of material science solid state physics. As Emma puts it, “We are looking for a new material to use in X-ray detectors which is more sensitive so that it can be more efficient, and potentially safer and more effective in diagnosing cancers.” In the summer, she applied for and received an NSERC research grant and has continued working for Dr. Reznik between classes during the school term these past two years. She feels fortunate to get to work on the same project she did during the summer, although her specific duties are different during the school year to accommodate her busy class schedule: “During the summer I ran more of my own experiments. I would run them [on the computer] overnight, come in, analyze the data and see what needed to be adjusted. [....] During the school year what I do tends to be more helping grad students with analyses they do.” Emma’s talent in writing has also afforded her the opportunity to edit many of the papers coming out of the lab, which she hopes will soon allow her to have her name included in published research papers. She plans to continue her career in material science, and is currently working on developing a project for her honours thesis next year.
When asked if she had any tips for students who are interested in doing what she did and starting their research careers early, Emma urges students to “not be afraid to ask about opportunities, even if you don’t think you’re entirely qualified for them, because you never know what opportunities might get presented to you, or what things you might be able to contribute.” Emma recommended that students not stress too much about understanding every tiny detail, but rather that they be constantly open to learning new things and working through the steep learning curve. When starting out, she recommends students “be open minded and ready to learn, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be leading a project. That’s the reason why you do undergrad research: to learn from people who have more experience than you.”
Thank you to Emma Pineau for sharing her experiences and advice, and to Dr. Alla Reznik for giving her consent for this article to be published. We at the Argus are excited to see what breakthroughs both teacher and student make in the future.