Media Releases

700 researchers to gather at UofT for Great Lakes Research Conference

May 11, 2010

President Obama’s special advisor among the speakers

Toron­to, ON – Inva­sive species, tox­ic chem­i­cal con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and the safe­ty of eat­ing Great Lakes fish are some of the chal­lenges being addressed by researchers and gov­ern­ment at a major con­fer­ence on Great Lakes research being held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to from Mon­day, May 17 to Fri­day, May 21. 

Among the speak­ers is Cameron Davis, Senior Advi­sor on the Great Lakes to U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency Admin­is­tra­tor Lisa P. Jack­son. U.S. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion has com­mit­ted $2 bil­lion to Great Lakes restora­tion and Davis will dis­cuss how Cana­da and the Unit­ed States can work togeth­er to achieve this com­mon goal. 

Mur­ray Charl­ton, a for­mer senior research sci­en­tist and pol­i­cy advi­sor at Envi­ron­ment Cana­da will dis­cuss lake eutroph­i­ca­tion — what hap­pens to lakes when exces­sive nutri­ents such as algae choke our beach­es – and John Smol, Cana­da Research Chair in Envi­ron­men­tal Change at Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty, will dis­cuss the impact of long-term envi­ron­men­tal change on lakes.

Sci­en­tif­ic pre­sen­ta­tions through­out the week will address a wide range of top­ics includ­ing the fate and effects of cur­rent­ly used pes­ti­cides, the impact of cli­mate change on envi­ron­ment and ecosys­tems of the Great Lake regions and source water pol­lu­tion.

WHAT:          53rd Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Great Lakes Research Con­fer­ence

WHEN:          May 17 – 21

WHERE:       Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, var­i­ous build­ings clus­tered around Med­ical Sci­ences Build­ing, 1 King’s Col­lege Cir­cle.

Details about the full pro­gram, includ­ing speak­er biogra­phies and a full sched­ule of sci­en­tif­ic pre­sen­ta­tions is avail­able at http://www.iaglr.org/conference/index.php

IMPORTANT NOTE TO MEDIA: Seat­ing is lim­it­ed in some ses­sions.  Please con­tact kim.luke@utoronto.ca or 416–978-4352 to con­firm atten­dance.

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MEDIA CONTACTS:

Kim Luke
Fac­ul­ty of Arts & Sci­ence Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
kim.luke@utoronto.ca
416–978-4352

Frank R. Lichtkoppler4Extension Spe­cial­ist, Sea Grant
Pro­fes­sor, Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty Exten­sion
Frank.lichtkoppler@lakecountyohio.gov
440–350-2267
Cell:  440 / 364‑5946

John Poulopou­los
Depart­ment of Biol­o­gy
Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty
Out­reach Coor­di­na­tor, IAGLR
5jp37@queensu.ca