OFI welcomes first cohort of the TCA International Postdoctoral Fellowship

OFI is pleased to welcome 29 fellows in the first cohort of the TCA International Postdoctoral Fellowship (IPDF) Program to Dalhousie University.

The program offers early career PhD holders opportunities to conduct innovative, full-time, and collaborative research in cooperation with international institutions. The program’s key goals are to support these fellows in achieving international exposure through collaboration and travel and to help build lasting relationships between co-supervising institutions.

The visiting fellows are conducting research at the following host institutions:

Dalhousie University

Fellow: Alexis Berger

• Focus: microbial ecology
• Project: Deep water mixing influence on ammonia oxidizing archaea and bacteria competition
• Partner Institution: Carnegie Science

Fellow: Elisabeth Boles

• Focus: impact of physical processes like waves, currents, and groundwater flows on nearshore ecosystems and communities
• Project: Surface wave - groundwater interactions on winter beaches
• Partner Institution: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Fellow: Emily Chua

• Focus: heavily human-impact salt marshes and how metabolism metrics can support monitoring and verification for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR)
• Project: A low-cost, floating chamber for measuring coastal air–sea CO₂ fluxes to support mCDR monitoring
• Partner Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Fellow: Benjamin Granzow

• Focus: dissolved organic matter in the ocean and how it persists despite microbial degradation processes
• Project: Metabolomic Transformation and Microbial Succession on Sinking Particles Control Carbon Export in Highly Productive Ecosystems
• Partner Institution: University of California San Diego (Scripps)

Fellow: Kathryn Halloran

• Focus: microbial carbon cycling in the ocean
• Project: Exometabolomics of Arctic and sub-Arctic marine ecosystems
• Partner Institution: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Fellow: Manon Laget

• Focus: the role of plankton and marine particles in oceanic biogeochemical cycles
• Project: PhaeoCarb: Linking Phaeocystis blooms and distribution to the oceanic carbon cycle
• Partner Institution: Alfred Wegener Institute

Fellow: Andres Posada

• Focus: the effects of sediment heating on ice-covered lakes
• Project: Fate of mineral particles on beaches with application to marine carbon dioxide removal
• Partner Institution: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Fellow: Kharis Scharge

• Focus: invertebrate ecology and their contribution to ecosystem functioning
• Project: Investigating the impacts of kelp deposition on invertebrate dispersal and sequestration to enhance sustainable mCDR efforts in Atlantic Canada
• Partner Institution: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Fellow: Navya Vikraman Nair (co-supervised with Memorial University)

• Focus: how coastal communities adapt to climate and ecological change.
• Project: Community-Led Seagrass Stewardship and Restoration for Climate Resilience Across Canada and India
• Partner Institution: Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology

Fellow: Tingwei Yang

• Focus: OBS data analysis, crust–mantle structure imaging, and seismic–oceanographic coupling
• Project: Integrating Seafloor Seismology with Offshore Wind Development in Nova Scotia
• Partner Institution: GEOMAR

Fellow: Lauren Zane

• Focus: investigating the metabolic response of temperate and tropical corals to environmental stress
• Project: linking surface production of sterols and fatty acids to nutritional physiology of deep-sea corals in the Northwest Atlantic
• Partner Institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Université du Québec à Rimouski

Fellow: Guillame Bridier

• Focus: ecophysiology of marine invertebrates, benthic food webs, and organic matter dynamics in cold and Arctic coastal ecosystems
• Project: Uncovering the role of organic carbon sequestration by benthic communities in Greenland fjord sediment (CARBON-CORES)
• Partner Institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Fellow: Jerome Castant

• Focus: how plankton communities respond to environmental variability and climate change
• Project: A Depth-Explicit Framework for the Long-Term Assessment of Plankton Vertical Distribution and Carbon-Sequestration Efficiency in Subpolar and Arctic Waters
• Partner Institution: GEOMAR

Fellow: Julie Delannoy

• Focus: coastal areas in the context of climate change
• Project: Comprendre l'attachement au lieu et le désir de rivage des résident·es côtier·ères pour une adaptation transformationnelle concertée
• Partner Institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Fellow: Eva Ferreira (co-supervised with Dalhousie University)

• Focus: benthic mechanisms impacting coastal acidification and deoxygenation
• Project: Développement et standardisation d’une méthode de quantification de l’alcalinité organique : application aux sédiments côtiers canadiens et évaluations mCDR
• Partner Institution: Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Science at the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

Fellow: Marijo Gauthier-Bérubé

• Focus: maritime and underwater archaeology
• Project:  Savoirs de navigation et résilience environnementale dans le Saint-Laurent préindustriel
• Partner Institution: Université Bretagne Sud

Fellow: Loic Jacquemont (co-supervised with Memorial University)

• Focus: how marine organisms adapt to changing environments
• Project: Coupling environmental DNA with bioacoustics: Toward quantifying borealization impact on the Arctic twilight zone
• Partner Institution: University of Bremen (Alfred Wegener Institute)

Fellow: Olujumoke Ogunrayi

• Focus: climate vulnerability, adaptation, and the resilience of coastal communities
• Project: Science Diplomacy for Sustainable Coastal Governance: Strengthening Evidence-to-Policy Pathways in Small Pelagic Fisheries in Eastern Canada and Nigeria.
• Partner Institution: University of Liverpool

Fellow: Olorunfemi (Femi) Omonigbehin

• Focus: the mechanisms of coastal permafrost erosion
• Project: Hydromorphodynamic Modelling of Cobble Beach in Canada's High Arctic: Towards an Efficient Climate Adaptation in Grise Fiord (TECAGrise)
• Partner Institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Fellow: Antoine Police

• Focus: the political dimension of climate change adaptation in the Gaspé Peninsula
• Project: Adapter les régimes territoriaux au changement climatique : une comparaison en régions maritimes en bretagne et au québec
• Partner Institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Université Laval

Fellow: Charlotte Begouen Demeaux

• Focus: ocean optics and bio-optical interactions
• Project: Impacts of under-ice light regimes on ice-algal export and zooplankton grazing in the Bay of Baffin
• Partner Institution: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Fellow: Élodie Bracquart

• Focus: reconstructing the sedimentary dynamics and glacial history of Arctic fjords
• Project: Paléo-environnements et évolution glaciaire dans les fjords de l'est du Parc National d'Auyuittuq, sud-est de l'île de Baffin, Arctique canadien
• Partner Institution: Université de Strasbourg

Fellow: Maeva Geeson

• Focus: the role of carbon export, particle properties, and fragmentation processes in marine biogeochemical cycles
• Project: Sinking Particles and Influence of Composition in Exopolymer on carbon Storage (SPICES)
• Partner Institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Fellow: Natasha Leclerc (co-supervised with Université du Québec à Rimouski)

• Focus: long-term human–environment interactions in coastal regions
• Project: Reconstructing historical sub-annual primary producer dynamics in coastal Baffin Bay with high-resolution sclerochronology
• Partner Institutions: Université de Bretagne Occidentale and University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Fellow: Laure Vilgrain

• Focus: connectivity between Atlantic and Arctic zooplankton communities in the Labrador Sea
• Project: Appendicularians-mediated carbon export and bentho-pelagic coupling from the Labrador Sea to the Arctic Ocean (55-82°N)
• Partner Institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Memorial University

Fellow: Héloïg Barbel Le Page

• Focus: research framework that mobilizes capabilities and methods to develop programs with and for first-concerned people
• Project: (Re)connecting past, present and future: engaging with a community-based archaeology of care as a way to counter Nunatsiavummiut heritage loss
• Partner Institution: Université Paris 8 (AKA University of Vincennes Saint Denis)

Fellow: Xin Qiao

• Focus: artificial intelligence for ocean remote sensing
• Project: Explainable AI for hyperspectral ocean color–based phytoplankton community composition monitoring under climate change
• Partner Institution: Kiel University

Fellow: Sepideh Rajeziesfahani

• Focus: occupational social dimensions of health
• Project: Transforming Workplace Health Amid Ocean-Based Climate Change: Co-Developing Digital Tools and Community-based Pathways for Equity and Adaptation
• Partner Institutions: World Maritime University and University of Tromsø

Fellow: Zheng Wang

• Focus: the fate, transport, and remediation of emerging pollutants in complex natural environments
• Project: Microalgae aided marine carbon dioxide reduction: Impact of ocean nanobubbles, pollution stress and climate change
• Partner Institution: University of Surrey