Graduate Student News

Upcoming Deadlines

For the complete list of dates and deadlines, please bookmark and refer to the Registrar's Office Academic Dates page.

March 15

• Last day for academic withdrawal from full winter, late winter, and fall/winter courses.
• Last day to request Formal Examination Accommodations for April full winter, late winter, and fall/winter final examinations from the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities. 

March 19
Carleton Central opens for Summer Term registration for graduate students.

April 1

• Last day for graduate students to submit their supervisor-approved thesis, in examinable form to the department.
• Last day for receipt of applications from potential spring (June) graduates.

April 3
Statutory holiday. University closed.

Graduate Students' Association (GSA Carleton)

GSA Carleton is hosting the following events open to and intended for the entire graduate student community, welcoming students from all programs, backgrounds, and cultural communities:

• Nowruz Celebration on March 17 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Mike's Place. The GSA will host a Nowruz celebration to mark the Persian New Year, offering students an opportunity to experience and celebrate one of the world’s oldest cultural traditions together.
• End of Year Celebration on April 16 in the GSA Lounge located at 600 Nideyinàn. This event will celebrate the conclusion of the academic year, recognize departing student leaders, and welcome incoming members while strengthening connections within the graduate student community.

Follow @gsacarleton on Instagram

Carleton Research Will Lead to More Resilient Buildings

Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural disasters on the planet. They typically happen when the tectonic plates that form the Earth’s outer shell, which are in constant motion, get stuck against each other. Pressure builds where these massive slabs of rock meet until it becomes too intense and the plates slip, releasing a massive amount of energy that creates seismic waves.Every year, tens of thousands of people die in earthquakes around the world and the estimated cost of responding and rebuilding accounts for roughly one-quarter of annual global natural disaster losses, which ranges from $200 to $300 billion USD. And while public concern about the next Big One in North America is often focused on the west coast, the more populated eastern side of the continent faces similar seismic threats.

All of this is the backdrop to work underway by a team of Carleton's Civil and Environmental Engineering researchers conducting tests to better understand how buildings and their internal components respond to intense shaking—and, ultimately, how they can be designed differently to minimize injuries and damage.

“Mostly what we do here is try to break things,” says Prof. Jeffrey Erochko, who is using new state-of-the-art earthquake simulation technology in a project with Prof. David Lau and PhD student Cameron Flude to investigate what happens to suspended ceilings during earthquakes.

Protecting Canadians from Mosquito-Borne Diseases

It’s a sound Canadians know all too well: the high-pitch whine of a mosquito buzzing past your ear. Beyond annoyance and itchy bites, the emergence of clouds of these insects every spring also brings the risk of mosquito-borne diseases.

In this part of the world, two of the most common concerns are West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis virus. Although asymptomatic cases and minor reactions are the norm, both can cause severe neurological illness and even death.

People can protect themselves by covering their skin or using repellent, but warmer temperatures caused by climate change and more standing water from heavy rain could increase the amount of habitat and facilitate the northward migration of new species into Canada.

In other words, disease dynamics are changing, and keeping humans and other animals safe from potentially dangerous illnesses is an increasingly complex puzzle. Which is why PhD candidate Marc Avramov is zooming in to develop a more detailed picture of where and when transmission occurs—and, ultimately, how to mitigate this risk.

“We’re trying to increase the resolution at which we track these diseases,” says Avramov, a member of Carleton biologist Catherine Cullingham’s Genomics of Plants, Pests and Populations research group.