CSC President’s Event

The President’s Event at CSC 2023 in Vancouver will be held on Monday, Jun. 5 from 12:30 – 1:45 PM PT in West Meeting Room 14 at the Vancouver Convention Centre West. This event is open to all registered attendees; registration for this event is required.

The event will feature a panel discussion on “Accessibility in the Laboratory and Classroom”. The event will be hosted and moderated by Jennifer Love.

The panelists are: Maria Matlinska, Sarah Styler, and Tanja Tajmel.

Special thanks to Josephine Tsang, Belinda Heyne, and Stephanie MacQuarrie for their efforts to develop the program for the President’s event.

Host and Moderator:

• Jennifer Love, FCIC, President of the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC); University of Calgary

Panelists:  

• Sarah Styler  Assistant Professor (Environmental Chemistry), Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University
  Sarah A. Styler obtained her BSc, MSc, and PhD from the University of Toronto and conducted postdoctoral research at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig, Germany. In 2015, she joined the University of Alberta as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Chemistry; in Summer 2020, she moved east to McMaster University, where she is currently an Assistant Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry. At McMaster, she leads the P.A.R.T.I.C.L.E.S. (pesticides, art, road dust, traffic, interdisciplinary, combustion, light, equity, surfaces) research group, which consists of a stellar group of trainees working together to learn about the air quality, climate, and health impacts of chemical reactions at environmental interfaces.                            
• Maria Matlinska, MSc. (she/her)
  

  Maria is a materials chemist, NMR spectroscopist, and accessibility advocate. She has recently graduated with Masters in Science degree from the University of Alberta’s Chemistry Department. Since her early undergraduate research years, Maria has been passionate about the applications of techniques offered by solid-state NMR to study a wide variety of substances, including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), polymorphs of natural products, and the characterization of hydrogen bonding in the solid state. Maria is a member of the CSC WIDE committee and leads the Ableism Fighters subcommittee, addressing accessibility challenges faced by scientists with disabilities. She promotes the use of the term “diverse-ability spectrum” instead of “disability”. In her free time, Maria trains in military combat and enjoys practicing chokes, gun, and knife disarms. At the moment, she is seeking exciting chemistry job opportunities.

• Dr. Tanja Tajmel, Concordia University, Montreal (CA)
  

  Dr. Tajmel is Associate Professor at the Centre for Engineering in Society, Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, and Special Advisor to the Dean, EDI (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion). She holds a Concordia University Research Chair (Tier 2) in “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)” and is leading the EDI Research Lab. Dr. Tajmel earned her Doctorate in Didactics of Physics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany) and a M.Sc. in Physics and Philosophy, Karl-Franzens-University Graz (Austria). Since many years, Dr. Tajmel has been internationally engaged in developing and implementing non-discriminatory and inclusive principles in STEM fields. Her work focusses on studying the politics of science and technology through a hegemony-critical lens and on developing frameworks for socially equitable and responsible STEM research and education. Dr. Tajmel has been leading several inter- and transdisciplinary projects on international level, amongst them a think tank project to advance the understanding of STEM education as a human right, published in the book “The Human Rights-Based Approach to STEM Education” (Tajmel, T., Starl, K. and Spintig, S. (eds.) 2021).