Three Arbour Foundation scholarship winners at INRS
This year, three students at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) have won scholarships from our partner, the Arbour Foundation. Ablema Sephora Tanoe won for the second year running, while Carlos Miguel Rosas Garcia and Camille Kouessi Dagbo won for the first time this year. All three share $80,000 in scholarship funding. Get to know these remarkable members of our student community.
Ablema Sephora Tanoe, PhD student in Water Sciences
How has your research evolved since you were awarded the Arbour Scholarship last year?
I'm enjoying decontaminating vegetable washing water. The results are very promising. For example, electrocoagulation, applied at laboratory and pre-industrial scales, has enabled us to meet environmental discharge standards for this type of wastewater.
What does winning this scholarship for the second time mean to you?
I'm grateful and proud to be part of the Arbour community. Beyond the money, receiving the Arbour Foundation bursary is a recognition of my efforts and academic results: it's precious and very encouraging. In addition to the networking events that enable us to connect with and develop our professional network, the mentoring offered by the Arbour Foundation provides an invaluable source of support.
I'd also like to thank my colleague Héla Rekik, who introduced me to the Arbour Fellowship competition last year and encouraged me to apply.
What new goals or projects do you have in mind for your future career?
I'd like to use the skills I acquired during my studies at INRS. So, I'm looking for a student internship in wastewater treatment and related fields to put my skills to good use and learn even more.
Carlos Miguel Rosas Garcia, Doctoral student in energy and materials science
What brought you to INRS?
In the summer of 2017, I had the opportunity to participate in the MITACS Globalink research internship program. During this internship, I learned about the fundamental theory and experimental work of the interaction of terahertz (THz) radiation with matter. Working on this interesting new area of research motivates me to return and collaborate in Professor Tsuneyuki Ozaki's research group at INRS's Centre Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications. Then, in 2019, I had the opportunity to join Professor Ozaki's research team as a master's student and then, in 2021, as a PhD student.
Can you describe the challenge and impact of your doctoral research project?
As a researcher in training, one of my career objectives is to understand, explain and resolve the crucial nonlinear terahertz effects that are generated by an intense THz pulse of a few cycles in semiconductors, in particular indium antimonide (InSb) and indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs). Understanding the fundamental process of carrier dynamics that is induced in these semiconductors is important for the further development of technological applications. In addition, studies on the interaction of intense elliptically and circularly polarized THz pulses with matter constitute the current frontier of THz nonlinear optics. Only limited experimental and theoretical work has been carried out on the dynamics of carriers driven by these polarized rotating THz field vectors.
What does winning this scholarship mean to you?
As an international student, I don't have access to most of the scholarships offered here in Canada. That's why I'm very honoured and proud to have won one of the most competitive scholarships: the doctoral scholarship sponsored by the Arbour Foundation. The Foundation's generosity will help me complete my doctorate and work hard to contribute to the realization of Mr. Pierre Arbour's vision.
How do you see the future?
My career as a PhD student has clearly shown that I am passionate about pursuing a life dedicated to the discovery, advancement and sharing of scientific knowledge.
Camille Kouessi Dagbo
What brought you to INRS? What do you retain from your experience?
INRS is a very attractive structure for scientific research and graduate training, thanks to its serene environment, its network, the density of its scientific publications, and a wealth of human resources skills. My experience with INRS began with a successful summer internship, after which I was awarded a Foundation scholarship. The concentration of laboratories offering rapid services, the availability of researchers and the many presentations were all elements that quickly won my heart.
Can you describe the challenge and impact of your doctoral research project?
Global warming is a multifactorial process that affects all living things on a planetary scale. Diseases that were once endemic in tropical countries are now increasingly prevalent in colder climates. Such is the case with leptospirosis, a neglected animal and human zoonosis whose diagnostic and epidemiological surveillance methods require optimal tools in the light of technological advances. Our project entitled: “Automating the identification of the serovar of pathogenic leptospires via genomics”, based on supervised and unsupervised machine learning models, is a proof of concept for predicting the pathogenicity of bacteria in order to promote rapid decision-making.
What does winning this scholarship mean to you?
As a Fondation Arbour Scholar, my motivation to succeed in scientific research has reached an exponential level, to go from excellence to excellence in order to better achieve my projects and make my contribution to the building and influence of Quebec.
How do you see the future?
The success of our project will be validated biologically in the Pasteur Network, so that it can be applied to other pathogenic bacteria.
The success of our project will be validated biologically in the Pasteur Network, with a view to its generalization to other pathogenic bacteria.
Congratulations to our three winners, whose passion, perseverance and ambition have been recognized. These students are a source of inspiration for the entire INRS community, and we are proud to support them in their training and career paths.
We would like to express our gratitude to the Fondation Arbour for its essential support of our student community, and to the INRS Graduate Studies and Student Success team for administering the competition.