The following story, written by Denis Armstrong, was originally published in Carleton Now. Susan Richardson graduated from Carleton last week.
Most students hope they’ll produce a thesis that is insightful, intellectually challenging and original, but for her final year at Carleton, Susan Richardson’s goal was to save millions of hectares of Canada’s remaining white pine forests from extinction.
And for that reason, Richardson graduated from Carleton this month with a M.Sc. with distinction, an honour fewer than one per cent of graduating science students receive.
Breakthrough research that Richardson contributed to her academic advisor David Miller’s work into endophytes, a fungus that resides in the needles and leaves of trees that produces a powerful anti-fungal which forms a defence against blister rust, an infectious disease that has decimated conifer forests in western Canada and is currently threatening to do the same across eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S., is significant enough that Natural Resources Canada, the province of New Brunswick and forestry giant J.R. Irving have partnered to build a 7,000 square foot, $3.2 million research facility in Sussex, New Brunswick.
Scheduled to open in May, the laboratory will produce four million white pine seedlings resistant to white pine blister rust and spruce budworm annually.
In 2009, blister rust and the spruce budworm defoliated 15.2 million hectares of Canadian forests, an area roughly three times the size of New Brunswick. To date, more than 68 per cent of Quebec’s conifer forests are already infected. But now, thanks to Miller and Richardson’s research, there is reason to be optimistic about the future of the Acadian forests.
“This is huge,” says Miller, who works in Environmental Chemistry and is the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Fungal Toxins and Allergens. “She’s done exceptional work, work that’s made an exceptional impact on the immediate outcome of the environment. This is work that we see only one out of every 100 students.”
These comrades in intellectual and environmental arms joined forces in 2006 when Richardson, then working as a restaurant chef, decided to take a year of general arts courses at Carleton, which included an introduction to chemistry course.
“I wasn’t sure about what my career was because I didn’t feel challenged. I would get bored quickly. The problem was finding something that could hold my attention,” Richardson recalls. “I found chemistry a good fit. I understood it quickly and found it easy to work hard at.”
She transferred from general arts to sciences after that first year. In her third year, she met Miller, who was teaching Chemistry of Environmental Pollutants. He agreed to become Richardson’s academic advisor after she presented her undergrad honour’s thesis, isolating secondary metabolites found in the mould in damp Canadian buildings.
“I saw her drive and passion to do the work necessary,” says Miller. “She’s done exceptional work, work that’s made an exceptional impact, and she did because she worked hard to change careers and get a master’s degree.”
Happy for her success, Richardson is leaving Carleton with mixed emotions. Of course, she is sad to leave Carleton, where she found her life’s calling. Currently working at Environment Canada, her long-term plan is to find a research position either in Canada or abroad. However, if she had her choice, she would stay at Carleton in a New York minute.
“It feels strange to me that school is over. Carleton took over every aspect of my life. I spent many nights and weekends there, and now it’s over. It’s hard to leave a place you love.”
Wednesday, June 4, 2014 in Grad Student Research, News
Share: Twitter, Facebook
