Awards and Grants

Luana Almeida (Ph.D. Candidate) Graduate Student Representative, Maritime Risk and Safety Research Group (MARS), Department of Industrial Engineering

Luana Almeida is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Industrial Engineering. She completed her undergraduate studies at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, and joined the Master of Applied Science program at Dalhousie University in 2018. In 2019, Luana received a MITACS Globalink Research Award and had the opportunity to visit the ANT/OR research group for three months at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. Considering the complexity of her research and her excellent progress and achievements, Luana was granted permission to transfer to the doctoral program in 2020. Her research interests are centred on humanitarian logistics with a focus on metaheuristic models designed to optimize the multi-modal distribution of relief supplies to affected communities following a natural disaster. She develops network optimization methods building on Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure and Ant Colony Optimization approaches. Applications focus on humanitarian logistics in earthquake scenarios on Canada’s West Coast. In addition to her research, Luana also takes a leadership role as Graduate Student Representative for the Department of Industrial Engineering. Luana worked as a Teaching Assistant for Operations Research: Linear Models (IENG 3344) and Engineering Risk Management (IENG4567). Among her students, she has a reputation for being always well prepared for her duties, for her patience, for creating a safe environment to address complex problems, and for being committed to share her knowledge during one-on-one and tutorial sessions.

Reem Karaballi (Ph.D. Student) Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science

Reem Karaballi completed her BSc. (Honors) and M.Sc. at Saint Mary’s University.  Reem is currently finishing her PhD studies in chemistry at Dalhousie University, which is supported by NSERC funding. Her research focuses on exploring new plasmonic transition metal nitride nanomaterials which can be potentially used in catalysis, photothermal therapy, and solar-driven water evaporation. Along with her research work, Reem is heavily involved in teaching and extracurricular activities at Dalhousie University. She has been involved in many teaching positions in the department of chemistry including laboratory teaching assistant, laboratory senior teaching assistant, and part-time lecture instructor. Reem has been part of the first-year team which was recently awarded the National D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning. Along with that, she was part of the Dalhousie Studying for Success program where she provided workshops and worked with students one-on-one. Additionally, she has been an active member of different societies including the Chemistry Graduate Student Society, Green Chemistry Initiative, and the Clean Technologies Research Institute. Reem has also co-founded the first WIC “Working for Inclusivity in Chemical Sciences” Chapter in the Maritimes. She has attended the teaching and learning conferences at Dalhousie University, and successfully fulfilled the requirements of the Certificate in University Teaching and Learning. Reem is looking forward to finishing her PhD studies and starting a new chapter in her life.

Nick Roberts (Undergraduate TA) Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science

Nick is currently a fourth-year undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Science with an honours in Chemistry and a minor in Neuroscience at Dalhousie University. Nick has been active in research since his first year of university, focusing primarily on main group inorganic synthetic chemistry and density functional theory. His efforts have led to two publications, one in Chemistry: A European Journal and the other more recently in Angewandte.

Outside of his interest in inorganic chemistry, Nick has taken much pride in his teaching at Dalhousie. Nick joined the First Year Chemistry Laboratory Teaching Team in Fall 2019, where his ongoing commitment to improving his teaching and the student experience led to his recruitment to the Online Laboratory Development Team in Summer 2020. Within this team, Nick spoke fully of his ideas to improve course content whilst initiating and championing design ideas that ensured the preservation of in-person laboratory hallmarks, such as choice in experimental path, opportunities to make/learn from experimental mistakes, and establishing chemistry community, despite the 2020/2021 fully online laboratory delivery. As a Senior Teaching Assistant, he independently implemented new tutorials into the laboratory program to support students on tricky topics. Nick is currently a co-investigator/grant holder on several teaching research projects, including a colour vision deficiency (CVD) accessibility support project, an investigative project into online learning and discussion forums and a project investigating the effectiveness of new tutorial series in the First Year Chemistry Laboratory.

As acting President of the Dalhousie University Undergraduate Chemistry Society (DUUCS), Nick is committed to creating community among undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty. As well, he provides honest/critical feedback about his experiences as a chemistry student, and ensures his fellow students are informed of and connected to opportunities to get more involved in chemistry, science and campus life.

Tareq Yousef (Ph.D. Candidate) Medical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine

Tareq Yousef completed his BSc at Dalhousie University. As of the summer of 2022, he is completing his PhD in Medical Neuroscience at Dalhousie University under the supervision of Dr. William Baldridge, investigating the role of nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in adjusting the retina to changing levels of light. Tareq has been a TA at Dalhousie since his undergraduate degree where he received his Certificate in Science Leadership and Communication. In Dalhousie’s psychology department, he worked as a Teaching Assistant for first-year laboratories and upper year psychology courses such as the Behavioural Neuroscience Laboratory and Advanced General Psychology. During his graduate degree he has focussed his contributions on to Human Neuroanatomy, acting as a lecturer, TA, and Lab Instructor for the undergraduate, graduate, medical, dentistry, and health professions students. Recently, Tareq successfully received Dalhousie’s Certificate in University Teaching and Learning and was hired as a Lecturer in Psychology, moving west for the job later this season.