The Art of Research: Photo Gallery 2015 – 16
The Art of Research photo contest is an opportunity for Queen’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni to showcase their research, scholarly, and artistic work. The competition is aimed at providing a creative and accessible method of sharing and celebrating the ground-breaking research being done by current and past Queen’s community members.
Santa Fina
Una D’Elia
Pietro Torrigiani, a competitor of Michelangelo, carved this bust of a saint out of marble and then painted it so that blood seems to run in this determined young girl's veins. This lively piece, made over five hundred years ago, is an example of the kind of naturalistic sculptures that have been little studied, as most scholars focus on monochrome "high art" statuary. The sculptures I am studying were not confined to museums, but were a part of the social lives of Italian men and women, who talked to, touched, kissed, worshipped, attacked, and dressed sometimes uncannily realistic coloured sculptures.
Location of photograph:
Musei Civici, San Gimignano, Italy
Affiliation:
Faculty, Art History and Art Conservation
Submission Year:
2015-16
Perfusion of Light
Raymond Sturgeon
This perfusion array allows quick changing of solutions. Solutions with different drugs are applied while recording the bioelectrical activity of nerve cells. The handmade array, roughly the size of a matchbook and very fragile, is essential for determining drug effectiveness at the level of a single protein’s function. I used a dual-light source to construct it using fine tubing, super-glue, wax, and half-millimetre glass barrels.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Gemini Mirror Reflections
Stéphane Courteau
The Gemini telescope and dome are ablaze in the setting sun's golden light. The reflections on the 8-m monolithic primary mirror are especially intricate and distorted. The shadow of the extinct 4200m Mauna Kea volcano can also be seen in the background upon a sea of clouds over the city of Hilo. The vertical shutters around the dome are usually opened at sunset to ensure that the inside and outside temperatures are the same throughout the night for greater image stability. Dr. Courteau has made extensive use of this telescope, and its twin in Chile, since his arrival at Queen's in 2004.
Location of photograph:
Mauna Kea, Hawaii
Affiliation:
Faculty, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Submission Year:
2015-16
In Search of Byzantium
Theodore Christou
As an educational historian, my search for Byzantium (330-1453) led me to the remote monastic communities of Mount Athos. Since the 9th century, 20 Orthodox Christian communities have developed and currently reside there. These monasteries have preserved libraries, with holdings between 15,000 and 60,000 monographs. While access to Athos is highly restricted, typically to four days, I spent 12 days here working in five monastic libraries. I held and photographed several dozen texts that were otherwise ‘lost to the world’, and I lived the monastic life throughout my time spent there. Here is the monastery of Simonopetra. The library is in the lower level, near the promontory’s edge.
Location of photograph:
Simonopetra Monastery, Mount Athos
Affiliation:
Faculty, Faculty of Education (Cross-Appointment, History)
Submission Year:
2015-16
At a Snail’s Pace
Alamjeet Kaur Chauhan
This is a picture of the sea snail, Aplysia californica or California sea hare, which is widely used to examine how the activity of nerve cells evokes fundamental behaviours. I study how cation channels, which are specialized proteins that form pores allowing charged molecules in and out of the nerve cell, influence cellular activity. I use electrophysiology and molecular biology to study the reproductive behavior of Aplysia. My research is focused on studying the effects of reactive oxygen species on cation channels, which dictate reproduction in bag cell neurons of the snail.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
The Last Tree
Courtenay Jacklin
CCNF15: Clear Creek North Forest #15, otherwise known as the last tree. After three summers of field work and countless hours spent hiking to various study sites situated in the Kluane Region of the Yukon, Katherine finally takes the last tree core she will need to complete her project analyzing alpine vegetation dynamics. Using an increment borer to drill a small hole near the base of each tree, Katherine extracts a core which we store inside straws until returning to the lab. The annual growth rings along each core can be measured to gather information on growth and climate.
Location of photograph:
Southwest Yukon
Affiliation:
Undergraduate Student, Biology
Submission Year:
2015-16
Buried Alive
Melanie Jansen
This photo was taken during my fieldwork, 2.5km underground in a platinum mine owned by Impala Platinum in Rustenburg, South Africa. Rather than a unique depiction, this photo is representative of the industry as a whole. It demonstrates the harsh realities mine workers face, subject to social, environmental, and economic challenges. Day-shift workers may spend up to six months at a time without ever seeing sunlight, their lives literally passing them by. Few opportunities exist for these men and women to break free of the dark, unforgiving platinum industry. The “X” is symbolic of this eventual cause of death, either directly or indirectly.
Location of photograph:
Impala Platinum Mine, Shaft #14, Rustenburg, South Africa
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, School of Environmental Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
Coded, I Am
Stéfy McKnight
"Coded, I Am" is part of a larger research creation project that looks at preemptive surveillance strategies in North America. It is a self-portrait of an artist immersed in tattoo QR codes. The QR codes – when scanned – direct the viewer to Google Earth images of CSIS and NSA intelligence sites. The photograph not only shows an artist absorbed by her research, but it is a representation of how users rely on third party sites such as Google Earth in their everyday lives, regardless of the risk of data mining and surveillance. The codes shift the surveillance gaze by giving viewers the tools to look at the institutions that are normally doing the ‘surveilling’.
Location of photograph:
Kingston, Ontario
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Cultural Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
Borders. What borders?
John McGarry
The iconic Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, once remarked that “the only thing Cypriot is the donkey”. He wanted to underline that Cyprus was permanently divided between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. He was wrong of course, as this photo from Cyprus’s Apostolos Andreas Monastery shows. There are also 'lots' of Cypriot cats who can wander freely between the Turkish and Greek zones in spite of the barbed wire and thousands of armed soldiers. These are “vanguard felines”. My work on power-sharing in Cyprus is aimed at helping their two-legged counterparts to follow in their wake.
Location of photograph:
Apostolos Andreas Monastery, North-east Cyprus
Affiliation:
Faculty, Political Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
Leaving home
Eric Y Lian
My focus is cancer cell invasion and migration. This spheroid of cells is embedded in a 3D protein matrix and fluorescently stained for 3 proteins. Individual cells can be seen radiating away on all sides. The cells use integrin (red) and actin (green) to pull on the protein matrix and move, while cadherin (blue), binds and holds cells together within the spheroid. Cadherin normally holds clumps of cells together and allows them to form structures such as tissues and organs. This picture shows how invading cells lose their cadherin and express large amounts of integrin and actin, and it demonstrates some of the protein expression changes that cancer cells undergo which allow them to invade away from a tumour.
Location of photograph:
A microscope slide
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Pathology and Molecular Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City
Ana Ruiz Aguirre
The Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City was designed by internationally renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán. I visited this impressive architectural feat during my ongoing MITACS-funded trip to Mexico City, undertaken with the objective to access archival collections regarding exhibitions of Cuban visual art displayed in Mexico. The Centro Nacional houses not only arts schools, but also national archival collections and research centres. The exhibition files held in these collections are central to the development of my doctoral research project at Queen's, entitled "Twenty Years of Cultural Diplomacy: Cuban Visual Art Exhibitions in North America, 1989-2014."
Location of photograph:
Mexico City, Mexico
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Cultural Studies
Submission Year:
2015-16
The Immune System and Pregnancy: An Advantageous Relationship
Allison Felker
The immune system typically protects our bodies from infection and illness by fending off foreign invaders. During pregnancy, however, the mother’s immune system works in an unusual manner to support the health and development of the baby. One particularly important role for cells of the immune system during pregnancy is to promote the growth of the mother’s blood vessels, which provide the growing baby with nutrients. This image of a mouse uterus captured early in pregnancy shows a large number of immune cells interacting with the mother’s blood vessels to facilitate vessel growth and nurture a healthy pregnancy.
Location of photograph:
Botterell Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Improper Storage of von Willebrand Factor in an Endothelial Cell
Lara Casey
This is an endothelial cell, the cell type that lines your blood vessels. This cell is neat because we grew it from a routine blood sample of a person with a common bleeding disorder, von Willebrand disease (VWD), and used it to figure out how their genetic mutation lead to a deficiency of von Willebrand factor (VWF), a vital clotting protein. VWF (green) is supposed to be stored in rod-shaped packets, but we found that proper storage was eliminated in this cell. Likely, the VWF is trapped, and cannot escape the cell to help with clotting.
Location of photograph:
Molecular Hemostasis Laboratory, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Pathology and Molecular Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
How to Clean a Neutrino Detector
Mark Chen
Research Associate and adjunct faculty member Dr. Peter Skensved is the only person to ever access the top of the Acrylic Vessel of the SNO+ neutrino detector, the upgraded Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. He performed a small modification and is seen in the photo polishing the surface. To reach this location required him to be first lowered onto the back of the structure (not visible) which supports the thousands of light sensors seen behind him in the photo, and then to squeeze through a narrow opening to be further lowered onto the transparent 12-metre diameter acrylic sphere.
Location of photograph:
SNOLAB, Sudbury, Ontario
Affiliation:
Faculty, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy
Submission Year:
2015-16
Wrinkled Flame
Gabriel Ciccarelli
This a photo taken of a flame propagating (left to right) through a blockage in a square cross-section area channel filled with a mixture of hydrogen-air. The photo is captured using planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) that makes the combustion products visible (gray area). The flame surface resembles the topology of a human brain. The photo was taken using a state-of-the-art Princeton intensified-camera.
Location of photograph:
Combustion Lab, McLaughlin Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Faculty, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
Mitochondrial Mysteries
Kimberly Dunham-Snary
Standard confocal versus super-resolution confocal microscopy of rat pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. The ‘question mark’ mitochondria seen at the centre of the left image is actually three separate organelles. We are characterizing the mitochondrial network of various cell types and determining how this network is related to sensing changes in oxygen levels.
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
The Road to Taste
Hisham S. Elbatarny
This image is captured from a histology slide for a section of the human tongue showing a number of taste buds; the gustatory receptors responsible for taste. The road that cuts in the middle of the picture is a groove that extends from the surface of the tongue and runs deeply within the tissue and is called “crypt”. This image is one of a large collection of slides for different body tissues captured as a part of an educational research project which aimed to improve students' learning and understanding of histology through building up an in-house histology atlas.
Location of photograph:
Histology Lab, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Faculty, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Mapping Mitochondrial Complex I
Zhigang Hong
Super-resolution confocal microscopy of rat pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells showing a network of mitochondria (green) and the location of mitochondrial Complex I (red). We are investigating differences in Complex I in various cell types as it relates to pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
Affiliation:
Staff, Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
GAITway to Namaste
Laura Hutchinson
This photo demonstrates the collaborative nature of the Human Mobility Research Lab (HMRL) by showcasing the interactions of sport and science, research and practice, and researchers with each other. Yoga is widely practiced for health benefits and focuses on connecting your mind and body. This photo draws parallels between mind and body, and science and reality. The lab and the practice of yoga share a common goal of helping people maintain active, healthy lives for longer. The strength of humans both physically and mentally is at the forefront of this photo and the HMRL.
Location of photograph:
Human Mobility Research Lab (HMRL), Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
MoS2
Soran Jahangiri
This picture shows the potential energy surface between layers of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) obtained from quantum chemical calculations. MoS2 is a layered material with a low friction coefficient and is widely used as a solid lubricant. We use the information obtained from this potential energy surface to relate the frictional behaviour of MoS2 to its atomic-level surface properties. The blue spots in this picture represent low-energy structures and the yellow, orange, and red regions correspond to high-energy structures.
Location of photograph:
Queen's University
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Chemistry
Submission Year:
2015-16
Start Counting! - A Microscopic View of Algae
Michael Jessop
This photo was taken with a cell phone camera through a microscopic lens. The picture is a result of a summer undergraduate research project involving growth optimization of algae grown in wastewater. Growing algae on wastewater can remove many chemicals responsible for the pollution of our local water columns. The algae can then be harvested and extracted for oils that can subsequently be converted into a directly usable diesel fuel. Unfortunately, these algae require regular counting in order to determine how well they are growing.
Location of photograph:
Biosciences Complex, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Staff, Civil Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
Maternal-fetal interaction during pregnancy
Nathalia Azevedo Portilho
The placenta is a highly specialized organ essential for normal fetal development and mother well-being during mammalian pregnancy. It is composed of maternal and zygote derived cells which interact to allow exchange of gases, nutrients and wastes, to promote immune protection of the fetus and also to produce pregnancy-associated hormones and growth factors. Abnormalities of these functions are associated with a wide range of pregnancy and postpartum complications. Due analogies, mouse placenta has been intensively studied.
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences
Submission Year:
2015-16
Clearing the Way
Laura Swystun
The plasma coagulation factor VIII (FVIII) is synthesized and secreted, and then cleared by endothelial cells. Cells expressing the endocytic clearance receptor CLEC4M (red) bind and internalize FVIII (green).
Location of photograph:
Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Pathology and Molecular Medicine
Submission Year:
2015-16
Rupture of 5 mm steel bar due to corrosion
Nathan Teixeira
A 5mm diameter steel shear connector in a concrete sandwich panel ruptured due to excessive corrosion. The expanded polystyrene around the connector was removed to expose the rupture. These connectors transfer shear forces between multiple layers of concrete in a sandwich panel.
Location of photograph:
Structures Lab, Ellis Hall, Queen's University
Affiliation:
Graduate Student, Civil Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
As Far as Possible, No Salmon
Scott Thompson
This metal tag and list of conditions formed the foundation for the surveillance and management of First Nations fishing practices in 1920s British Columbia. Scott Thompson, a Banting postdoctoral fellow in the Surveillance Studies Centre, is researching how surveillance technologies, like this one, that were designed and implemented by the Canadian government, not only asserted a particular vision of how First Nations peoples ought to behave and enforced this vision, but in doing so, also contributed to the establishment of hurtful “Indian” stereotypes that are still with us today.
Affiliation:
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Sociology
Submission Year:
2015-16
The Inca fortress of Saqsaywaman
W. George Lovell
As a historical geographer absorbed by what took place in Latin America during colonial times, most of my work, to date, has concentrated on Central America, Guatemala in particular. There the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado played a leading role in the subjugation of Indigenous Maya peoples. Alvarado also headed an ill-fated venture to muscle in on the conquest of Peru, attempting to wrest control from rival strongmen Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. A new research project will see me focus attention on this little-known episode, in which Alvarado came in contact with the Incas, who in the fifteenth century constructed the awesome citadel of Saqsaywaman above their capital, Cuzco. Not even its mighty hand-hewn walls, however, could hold off the Spanish advance.
Location of photograph:
Cuzco, Peru
Affiliation:
Faculty, Geography and Planning
Submission Year:
2016-17
Salt Cavern Luminescence
D. Jean Hutchinson
In this photo, summer student Katy is LiDAR scanning an underground salt cavern at 975 feet depth. The laser scans create an accurate and highly detailed 3D model of the surface of the object being scanned. Scans taken before and after a blast are compared to evaluate the volume of material removed, the blast induced fracture pattern, and the extent of influence of each blast. Comparing change detection data, and the detailed fracture pattern from different experiments, permits us to improve blasting. This is a collaborative project with the full support of Morton Salt for Master's candidate Jonathan Aubertin.
Location of photograph:
Ojibway Mine, Windsor Salt, Windsor, Ontario
Affiliation:
Faculty, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
Submission Year:
2015-16
Searching for early life
Leandro DaSilva
The ripple marks in the first plane are geological features forming now in the desert by the action of wind over sand. The actual sediments derived from old sedimentary rocks that forms the landscape. In the background, geologists are looking for features in the rocks that can help decipher the environmental conditions in which life on Earth evolved from microbes to multicellular organisms. This happened around 540 million years ago, when this area was still an ocean. The hammer serves as a scale and is the iconic tool used by field geologists to collect samples for further analysis.
Location of photograph:
Duqm, Sultanate of Oman
Affiliation:
PhD Student, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
Submission Year:
2017-18
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Queen's Art of Research photo contest is an opportunity for Queen’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni to showcase their research, scholarly, and artistic work.
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Queen's Art of Research photo contest is an opportunity for Queen’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni to showcase their research, scholarly, and artistic work.
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![[Art of Research Photo Contest: Winning submission by Una D'Elia]](https://www.queensu.ca/research/sites/all/modules/contrib/lazyloader/image_placeholder.gif "Santa Fina by Una D'Elia")