Lab culture
Members of the Willick Lab care about our well-being, embrace diversity in all its forms and respect that we all have lives outside of work.
We aim to conduct quality work that adds value to our field and conduct research with the highest ethical standards. As individuals, we recognize the importance of asking for help and are prepared to admit mistakes when they occur. This is an important part of research and learning.
Our goal is to encourage curiosity and camaraderie. We encourage conversation and debate, are generous with our expertise and express gratitude when others share their time with us.
Lab members
Current team
Emma Rand: 2023 - Technician. Plant physiology and remote sensing.
Hope Mailman: 2025 - Summer student.
Taylor Cahill: 2025 - Summer student. Honours Thesis Student co-supervised with Zoë Migicovsky (Acadia). Project: Influence of bioavailable Si on strawberry drought tolerance.
Former members
Aisling O'Neill: 2025. CO-OP student at Acadia University. Project: Terpene analysis of Si-treated grapevines.
Mike Jordan: 2024-2025. Technician. Fruit quality and chemical analysis of volatiles.
Erin Frankland: 2023-2025. Summer student (2023-2024). Research topics student (2024-2025). Project: Using infrared thermography to detect apple maggot in Honeycrisp apples. Co-supervised by Suzie Blatt (AAFC) and Laura Ferguson (Acadia University).
Grace Hennebery-McNeil: 2023-2024. Summer student.
Rachel Turner: 2024. Summer student.
Natalie Sheiring: 2022. Summer student.
About me
My research combines manipulative experiments to understand how plants tolerate or avoid injury in current and future environments. Much of my work focuses on understanding the physiological mechanisms underpinning how a plant responds to low temperatures, but my long-term goal is to understand in cool climates the interplay between warming and water stress on plant physiology. I am also interested in how far and for how long you can stress a plant before the stress is lethal. Under these conditions, what is the critical mechanism underlying mortality and what promotes recovery at sub-lethal stresses? These questions provide crucial information on thresholds that must be avoided and provide meaningful traits to target for crop improvement.