This text is part of the special International Women’s Day booklet
The brand new Fund for Women in Science at UQAM recently awarded a first series of scholarships to exceptional female graduate students. Portraits of three scholarship recipients who stand out for their leadership, ambition and perseverance.
Mylene Arbor
Commitment, lever of change
Mylène Arbor enrolled in a bachelor’s degree in nutrition at the Université de Montréal to combine her two passions: science and the environment. Her studies completed, she knows that her university career is not over. “I felt that I still had scientific curiosity to deepen,” she says, and these are the research of her future thesis supervisor, René Audet, holder of the Research Chair in Ecological Transition at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), which propelled her towards a master’s degree in environmental sciences.
Since then, she has been interested in the socio-ecological transition of the food system in Montreal. “I wonder how we can find ways to accelerate the transition to a food system that is greener, fairer and more respectful of the environment, all of this in the context of adapting to climate change,” explains Mylène Arbour.
The student’s research-action project is part of the participatory evaluation process of the food component of Montréal en commun, a city program that describes itself as an “innovation community that experiments with concrete solutions to mobility problems. , food and municipal regulations”.
The projects are numerous, concrete and articulated around real needs on the ground: urban greenhouses, establishment of food hubs, pooling of food resources… A concept of prepaid card makes it possible to go and buy fresh and local food in solidarity markets, for example. “We wonder if these projects allow organizations to be sustainable, and if that gives some leverage to the socio-ecological transition of the City”, specifies Mme Arbour.
Through her university projects, the student is not idle: she spends a lot of time with Cyclistes solidaires, an organization that delivers food by bicycle to beneficiaries with reduced mobility, among others, in addition to being committed in his student association and give rock climbing lessons.
But the most important thing for her is to find the balance between all these projects. “What I want to show from my journey is that commitment is a lever for well-being and gratification,” she adds.
And the future, in all this? “I want to continue to be an agent of change in food systems. It is essential for me. »
Rivellie Aimée Tchuisseu Tchepnkep
For a place for women in agriculture
To say that Rivellie Tchuisseu is a overachiever is an understatement. Mother of five children, this daughter of a farmer born in Cameroon obtained a baccalaureate in mathematics, physics and computer science before obtaining an agricultural engineering degree in her native country.
During her studies, she founded a non-profit association, Carefade, still active today, dedicated to supporting rural populations on sustainable agricultural techniques. However, quickly, Mme Tchuisseu understands that things are not moving as she would like. “The political situation hampered the work of supporting the populations on the ground. I had no opportunities, ”she explains from the outset.
Scholarship in hand, she then flew to Europe, where she followed a master’s degree which took her to Slovakia, Italy, the Netherlands and France, where her family settled for a few years. Then in charge of research for the National Institute of Agronomic Research in Paris, she focused on the reduction of pesticides, one of her specialties. She then moved to Canada, where she founded Seedcha, her consulting business, during a maternity leave that she wanted to “occupy as much as possible”.
Now a doctoral student in environmental sciences at UQAM, Mme Tchuisseu continues his part-time work. As part of her thesis, she is working on the place of women in the agricultural sector — a surprisingly innovative subject.
“I will probably be the first person to publish, on a global scientific level, a document on the place of women in decision-making processes in agri-environment and agriculture,” she says. “Wherever I have been, women are invisible in the decision-making process. And if there are no women in these structures, what becomes of women farmers? These are things that must be named in the scientific field for it to change in practice, ”she underlines.
At the end of this diploma, Rivellie Tchuisseu hopes to hold an applied research chair that would work on women’s issues in agro-environmental issues. If things don’t take off, she’s ready to leave Canada to join a team of researchers who have the same interests as her.
“I am a citizen of the world,” she says. I am open to going somewhere where things are happening to contribute. »
Elise Bouchard
Democratize the forest from here
Passionate about the outdoors and science, Élise Bouchard is starting a bachelor’s degree in forest management and environment in order to pursue her two passions. After professional internships, she embarked on graduate studies to get things done and deploy new technologies in forestry. “I wanted to be part of the people creating the concepts rather than just applying them,” she says.
She defends a master’s thesis in biogeography which leads her to study the forests of Canada, Panama, Colombia, Germany and Austria to better understand the global distribution of trees. During this study, she is looking at the strategies used by species to grow where they do.
It was on arriving at the doctorate that Mme Bouchard decides to cast a much narrower net by focusing on a single species: the sugar maple. Why do some maple trees produce more sap than others? Why do some have sweeter water than others? To understand this emblematic tree, Élise Bouchard works in physiology to follow the anatomy of the wood, the movement of water inside the tree or the temperatures of the trunk.
By studying individuals for several months, one observation emerges: “Trees are a bit like human beings: we all have our personality traits,” she says. While some take more risks to grow faster, others are more cautious and prefer to invest more resources to heal their wounds — those inflicted by the maple sap gash, for example — and ensure a longer lifespan.
Alongside her research in the boreal forest, Ms.me Bouchard strives to popularize science with elementary and high school students as well as at the microphone of Search engine, on Radio-Canada. The key, for her, is to promote knowledge and communicate it in simple words to counter the sometimes dry side of research.
“What I hope is that people, with this knowledge, have a relationship that is different with their environment and the trees around them. All this without neglecting research, his first love. “I’m really happy to have found a job that I love so much,” she rejoices.