HALIFAX: Earlier this month Kathryn Smith, a PhD candidate in Dalhousie University’s Coastal Hydrology Lab, presented her findings on salmon cooling stations at a conference in Pittsburgh and an hour later she found herself on the phone with TIME Magazine.
A former resident of Newton, Inverness County, Smith said it was while attending SAERC her interest in the environment and the natural systems really took off.
“I had an amazing mentor at SAERC, Dion Samson, who encouraged me to go into engineering at StFX,” she said. “And it was at StFX where I found my interest for civil and environmental engineering.”
Smith’s PhD research is largely focused on studying coastal river water temperatures and how groundwater plays a role in creating thermal diversity within these zones.
Through her work Smith has identified cold water habitats for the Chéticamp River Salmon Association, which involved taking a drone and using thermal imagery to identify thermal refuge.
This past summer, the Town of Antigonish allowed the team from Dalhousie to pump ground water into rivers for their studies.
“So that worked great because they allowed us to pump ground water from their wells for 14 days for one study,” Smith said. “And then I think five days for the next study in July and August.”
As a student representative for a division of the Geological Society of America, Smith had the opportunity to travel to a conference in Pittsburgh, where on Oct. 17, she was able to present her research.
“It was great. They were very interested with the approach,” Smith said. “And the idea of taking the actual initiative approach with it and doing some targeted cooling of the river during the summer when you [see] those extremely hot periods, where those cold-water species are particularly stressed. They were really interested in how they can apply that, so they seemed pretty excited about that.”
An hour after her presentation, Smith was contacted by Time Magazine. At first, she thought it must be someone playing a trick.
“It was really exciting. Obviously, I was nervous, but it was really cool to see some of that global recognition for some of the research we are doing here,” Smith said, noting the impact engineering has on the society and the environment is important.
Some students in high school, she said, may not be familiar with the opportunities that STEM and more specifically engineering has on the society and environment.
“I’ve taken part in Dalhousie’s SuperNOVA Science Camps in the past,” Smith said. “And it’s always awesome to see younger minds think about world problems, and how they can play a role in addressing and fixing them.”
And while her work is specific, she says it’s great to see her work get noticed by colleagues around the world.
“It has real world applications, and it is fulfilling to see some of my work have positive impacts, not only on the cold-water aquatic species, but also those individuals that their protection directly impacts.”