Co-creation approaches: towards a more applicable science
Nicolas is about to complete his PhD at the Université du Québec À Montréal (UQAM) and will be beginning his postdoctoral fellow shortly. During his PhD, Nicolas worked on questions related to the effect of mining activities on the functional structure of planktonic communities and on how community structure and zooplankton productivity are linked in boreal lakes. Nicolas is also interested in ways to facilitate interactions between scientists, multidisciplinary experts and various stakeholder communities in order to create integrative knowledge products applicable to stakeholder needs based on the best available science. He is interested in exploring innovative communications tools and techniques to help facilitate this process.
Career path and other interests
Nicolas completed a biology major and a computer science minor at McGill university. To improve his skills in both biology and coding Nicolas also completed an internship in theoretical ecology with Claire de Mazancourt. During his time at McGill, Nicolas also had the opportunity to study in Panama for one semester, where he did an internship with the parquet Natural Metropolitano where he improved his Spanish while working on creating a self-guided interpretive trail for the park. Similarly, during his PhD at UQAM, Nicolas also completed an internship with a mining company in Yellowknife (DDEC), in which he applied the knowledge and techniques developed during his PhD in functional ecology to better assess the impact of mining activities on downstream lakes.
Publications
St-Gelais, NF, AR Sastri, PA del Giorgio, BE Beisner. In press. Magnitude and regulation of zooplankton community production across boreal lakes. L&O letters.
Vogt, RJ, NF St-Gelais, MJ Bogard, BE Beisner, PA del Giorgio. Accepted. Surface water CO2 concentration influences phytoplankton production but not community composition across boreal lakes. Ecology Letters.
St-Gelais, NF, A Jokela, BE Beisner. 2017. Limited functional responses of plankton food webs in northern lakes following diamond mining. CJFAS.
Bogard, MJ, D Vachon, NF St-Gelais, PA del Giorgio. 2017. Using oxygen stable isotopes to quantify ecosystem metabolism in northern lakes. Biogeochemistry.
Berggren, M, SE Ziegler, NF St-Gelais, BE Beisner, PA del Giorgio. 2014. Contrasting patterns of allochthony among three major groups of crustacean zooplankton in boreal and temperate lakes. Ecology. 95(7):1947-1959.