Huge congratulations to Olivia Di Biase for winning 2nd Place (Tie) in the Director’s Awards – Oral Presentation at CSPB Waterloo 2025! Her talk on “photosynthetic and anatomical trait responses to incremental drought and recovery in white pine and white spruce” was outstanding, we’re so proud of you, Olivia! Congratulations to all our presenters: So proud […]
Ensminger Lab Research Highlights from CSPB 2025 Read More »
This week, the Ensminger Lab collaborated with members of the Flight Systems and Control Lab (Dr. Hugh Liu, UTIAS), Longhao Qian, Kevin Ji-Tong Chen, and Enoch Lo, for an exciting Alta X drone test flight at the Koffler Scientific Reserve (KSR). Our goal was to execute a full flight mission while tracking drone logs to record performance data. We also installed a dummy payload to simulate sensor weight and
Flying High at KSR – Preparing the Alta X for new Missions Read More »
We are delighted that Anchalya Balasubramaniam presented her poster at the European Plant Phenomics Conference 2025 in Bonn (September 16–19). Her work, titled “Divergent Photoprotective Strategies in White Pine and White Spruce Under Moderate Drought,” showcases how these two conifers adopt distinct mechanisms to safeguard photosynthesis under water stress. This contribution highlights the innovative research from our team and underlines the
Showcasing Our Research in Germany: Anchalya Balasubramaniam at EPPC 2025 Read More »
The Ensminger Lab was proud to see our ROP students present their research at Summer Research Day 2025. A special congratulations to Aimun Malik, who received an Honourable Mention for her oral presentation. We are very proud of all three students for their hard work and excellent contributions this summer!
From Climate Drivers to LiDAR: Ensminger Lab ROP Projects at Summer Research Day 2025 Read More »
🏆 Congratulations to Grace Vera Cheng, Winner of the 2025–2026 Seminar Series T-Shirt Design Contest at UTM! We are proud to share that our M.Sc. student Grace Vera Cheng has won the 2025–2026 Seminar Series T-Shirt Design Contest! 🎉
Celebrating Grace Cheng’s Winning Seminar Series T-Shirt Design Read More »
From August 9–12, members of the Ensminger Lab travelled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to participate in the Canadian Society for Plant Biologists’ CSPB 2025 Conference. This annual meeting brings together plant scientists from across Canada and beyond to share cutting-edge research, network, and explore the latest advances in plant biology. Nova Scotia’s capital, Halifax, provided a beautiful
Ensminger Lab at CSPB 2025 in Halifax, Nova Scotia 🌲🐋 Read More »
We’re excited to share that Bridget K. Murphy, PhD student in the Ensminger Lab, has just published her first first-authored paper in Plant Physiology! Her work, titled “Contrasting effects of warming and drought on autumn phenology of photosynthesis and growth in white spruce,” investigates how climate change-related stresses impact photosynthetic activity and growth timing in white spruce seedlings. 👏 Congrats, Bridget,
Congratulations to Bridget K. Murphy on Her First First-Author Publication! Read More »
This summer, our team launched a field campaign to collect high-precision GPS data and manual tree height measurements at the Pickering experimental site — a critical step toward understanding how microsite variability influences white spruce performance. The campaign was led by Emilie Isasa (Postdoctoral researcher), with fantastic support from Grace (MSc student), and Adam and Tianqi (ROP students). Thanks to their hard work, we’re building a robust
High-Precision GPS & Tree Height Measurements at the Pickering Field Site Read More »
Bridget, Anchalya and Noelle, rolled up their sleeves for a big spring reset at the site. The mission? Carefully removing the spruce seedlings from the Spruce Up project to clear the way for exciting new experiments. Armed with gloves, tools, and plenty of good spirit, they tackled the task under the spring sun, because before
It’s cleanup time at the KSR site! Read More »
With longer days and warmer temperatures, we’re excited to launch our next round of experiments. The team is getting ready to head back into the field and the greenhouse to continue exploring plant growth, physiology, and resilience in changing environments.🌳🌳 Stay tuned, new data, discoveries, and updates are on the way as the season unfolds!
Spring has finally arrived in Toronto! Read More »
