By Jiyuan Li
The 4th Agricultural Life and Environmental Sciences (ALES) Graduate Research Symposium was held at the UAlberta on March 13, 2020. The event was sponsored by Gentec and others. This annual event is designed to provide students with the opportunity to showcase and share their research results, improve upon their public speaking skills, and enhance communication among the graduate students.
The symposium was divided into poster presentations and oral presentations. In the poster session, 21 students from the departments of Agricultural Food and Nutritional Science, Renewable Resources, Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology and Human Ecology shared their research progress. The posters covered a wide range of fields, such as food science, plant science, and human nutrition. During the session, presenters and listeners were engaged in high-quality communication and heated discussion.
The oral presentation session followed, at which 12 students showcased their research. Mohsen Hashemiranjbar Sharifabad, a Master’s student from Livestock Gentec, gave an excellent presentation on metabolomics and feed efficiency in dairy cows. He demonstrated the potential of metabolites as biomarkers for predicting feed efficiency, and introduced predictive models for dairy cows. He identified that his research benefited from the help of his supervisor, Gentec CEO Graham Plastow, and committee member Dr. Dagnachew Hailemariam. He also thanked his colleagues Anahid Hosseini, Janelle Jimenez, Xuechun Bai and me for attending the event and supporting him. After the presentation, Mohsen expressed how great it was to get feedback and comments from people with different scientific backgrounds. When asked what he learned from the event, he said that learning from the speech styles and content of others helped increase his knowledge.
Xuechun Bai and I attended the whole event, and engaged in interesting discussions with the presenters during the poster sessions. Attending the symposium is a great opportunity to learn and provides valuable networking opportunities for the students.