Past Lab News
Sept 2022: Excited to announce another publication on the microbes of the Bedford Basin Monitoring Program, this time focusing on seasonal bacterial niche structures and chemolithoautotrophic ecotypes. Written by former postdoc (now Research Officer at Minderoo Foundation) Dr. Eric Raes.
Sept 2022: Welcome Aboard! New lab members Shannon Myles and Ella Kantor join the LaRoche Lab--both will be starting exciting MSc research projects.
May 2022: Congrats to Becca who successfully completed the Admission to Candidacy exam!
Apr 2022: Congrats to Brent Robicheau, who's first thesis chapter on phytoplankton in the Bedford Basin compared to the Scotian Shelf is now availalble at ISME Communications. Read more on this project at CBC News: Bedford Basin perfect to monitor coastal climate change, scientists say.
Nov 2021: LaRoche Lab members, Shannon Myles and Liam MacNeil, win data contest for their creative ideas on data collection onboard a future Bedford Ferry in Halifax, NS.
Sept 2021: Dr. LaRoche and Dr. Worm of the Dalhousie Biology Department are elected as Royal Society of Canada (RSC) Fellows.
July 2021: The Bedford Basin's Oxygen levels is a hot topic in a recent CBC article.
June 2021: Congratulations to Liam who successfully defended his Master's thesis this month! Read more about Liam's MSc research on phytoplankton classification via holographic microscopy in his recently published article at BMC Ecology and Evolution. :)
June 20, 2021: The LaRoche Lab participates in Ocean Sampling Day!
April 2021: The wonders of nitrification decoupling via biomass dilutionare explored in our latest co-authored PNAS paper featuring sampling from the Bedford Basin Time Series. This research was a collaboration between the LaRoche, Wallace, and Algar labs at Dalhousie and ft. PhD students Sebastian Haas, Brent Robicheau, and Subhadeep Rakshit.
March 2021: Congrats to Connor who successfully defended her Master's thesis. Yay! Connor's MSc research was also recently profiled in The Journal of Ocean Technology.
February 2021: Congrats to previous lab member, Dr. Joerg Behnke, who's recent paper on N-linked glycosylation enzymes in Thalassiosira oceanica was published in Scientific Reports.
July 2020: Congratulations to three of our grad students, Liam, Martha, and Diana who successfully passed their Admission to Candidacy exams in the spring/summer.
May 2020: Congratulations to MSc candidate Liam MacNeil for being awarded an NSERC CGS-M Scholarship.
December 2019: LaRoche Lab member Joerg Behnke successfully defends his PhD Thesis!!! Well done Joerg.
Nov/Dec 2019: MSc Student, Liam, embarks on month long research expedition along coasts & continental shelves of Newfoundland and Labrador (Northwest Atlantic). Probing the sunlit layers of the ocean, Liam and Cat (Bertrand Lab PhD Student) collected samples for characterizing microbes, the macromolecules they generate, the vitamins and nutrients essential for their growth, and took direct observations of cells using holographic imagery. Our research aims to deepen our understanding of how and why some of the most fascinating microorganism fluctuate in the ocean. We also hope to deepen our understanding of how and why some of the most fascinating microorganism fluctuate in the ocean.
August 2019: Graduate students Sonja, Connor, Liam, and Brent travel to Fredericton, NB to present at the Canadian Society for Ecology & Evolution yearly meeting.
August 2019: New LaRoche Lab publication featuring co-authors Ciara Willis (previous honours student) published at FEMS Microbiology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1093/femsle/fnz152
May 2019: MSc Candidates, Sonja Rose and Connor Mackie, successfully pass their Admission to Candidacy Exams! Congrats.
April 2019: MSc student Connor Mackie wins best poster at the Biology Department’s Graduate Student Lett Symposium.
Feb 2019: New LaRoche Lab publication featuring co-authors Jackie Zorz (previous MSc student) and Ciara Willis (previous honours student) published at Frontiers in Microbiology. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00281
June 2018: Dr. Julie LaRoche and PhD Student Brent Robicheau facilitate a Metagenomics Workshop in Mindelo, Cabo Verde (Africa) as part of the TOSST-HOSST Summer School and at the Universidade de Cabo Verde. Included a hike to the active stratovolcano Pico do Fogo!
July 2018 - Dr. Julie LaRoche and PhD student Brent Robicheau attend the Gordon Research Conference, Marine Microbes in Tuscany, Italy
June 2018 - LaRoche participates in Ocean Sampling Day 2018
February 2018 - Dr. Julie LaRoche attends the Reef Microbiome Workshop at the Bellairs Research Institute in Holetown, Barbados.
November 2017 - Lab members Jennifer Tolman and Ian Luddington participate in the Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program research expedition to the Scotian Shelf aboard the RV Endeavor
October 2017 - Dr. Julie LaRoche is featured on the Canada 150 C3 Facebook page for her contribution to the Science team. You can view the post here
September 2017 - Dr. Julie LaRoche is aboard the Canada 150 C3 Cruise. You can follow their updates on their website
July 4 2017 - Lab visit to the Polar Prince during it's stay in Halifax as part of the Canada 150 C3 Cruise