Undergraduate students Jennifer Brown, Elizabeth Walden and Katie Horlock-Roberts were recipients of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Awards that funded them to work in the labs of Dr. Janet Yee and her collaborator, Dr. Steve Rafferty.

The students have been studying proteins from Giardia lamblia, a protozoan parasite often found in freshwaters worldwide, and the subject of Professor Yee’s ongoing research. Prof. Yee is interested in learning more about the basic biology of this parasite in order to find better treatments and develop more sensitive detection methods. The students in the lab have been determining the properties of Giardia proteins by using UV-visible spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and high-performance liquid chromatography or, as the students casually refer to it, “HPLC”. “We get to use ALL the instruments,” vouched Ms. Brown, clearly impressed by the array of technology surrounding them in the crowded lab.

While the students may count themselves lucky, there is no doubt about their qualifications. “These are some of my top students,” Prof. Yee noted. “Getting them into the lab early on is mutually beneficial … they bring with them a curiosity and enthusiasm that you can see in their eyes as they prepare their first gel, or successfully extract DNA for the first time. It brings you back to why this work is so exciting.”

Prof. Yee’s enthusiasm for her students is palpable. Sitting in her office late on a Friday afternoon, she may be preparing to leave for a conference, but quickly becomes immersed in describing her students’ accomplishments: recounting in detail their individual academic achievements and aspirations, pulling previously published theses of past students from her bookshelf to demonstrate the high quality of their work, and rifling through her inbox for the letters that former students still send her. “I feel a very strong connection to my students,” she said.

Prof. Yee’s dedication and enthusiasm for her students translates into an extraordinary number of what NSERC calls “HQP” or “Highly Qualified Personnel”. These are students who go on to present at conferences and publish original research that adds to the field, as Prof. Yee’s students frequently do. The development of HQP is a key criterion of NSERC’s Discovery Grant Program, for which Prof. Yee has received her second renewal for a full five-year term. As Isabelle Blain, vice-president of Research Grants & Scholarships at NSERC explained: “Training HQP has always been an important element in NSERC's assessment of the merit of an application because NSERC understands that these trainees will make important contributions to research and innovation as they go on to careers in academia or the public or private sectors.”

“Janet's NSERC record is impressive in that she initially got her first Discovery Grant as a contract employee based on her exceptional high impact research productivity,” adds Neil Emery, Trent’s Vice President of Research & International. “She retained that grant through two more cycles and now has cranked it up to one of the highest NSERC Discovery Grants at Trent.”