Western Biology professor Irena Creed has been selected by Sweden’s Umeå University as one of the institution’s Female Guest Professorships.
Creed will spend up to nine months in Sweden over the next three years strengthening research collaborations with Swedish academics and developing curriculum materials for the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences. She will instill her work on watersheds, wetlands and water resources under a changing global climate into the curriculum and in the advancement of senior undergraduate and graduate students.
The program is part of an initiative to increase the proportion of female professors at Umeå. She joins 10 other international academics from a variety of disciplines that will be hosted by a faculty member. Creed will be hosted by Ann-Kristin Bergström, lecturer and docent in the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and expert on pelagic food webs in freshwater ecosystems.
The professorship includes $150,000 funds to cover living expenses as well as research and teaching activities and hopes to provide a lasting collaboration between Umeå and Western – universities with a long-standing partnership through the Biotron, Western’s climate change research facility. Creed will develop a new course on Ecosystem Sciences that will invite world-class female researchers to each lead an interactive showcase on the state of the art in ecosystem science. Other activities will include research seminars, student and faculty mentoring, guest lectures, and networking sessions.
Creed, a Canada Research Chair in Watershed Sciences, will also provide leadership in Umeå’s strategic investment in Ecosystem Change Research Initiative.