Q&A with Dr. Chris Glover

B.Sc. (Hons) in Animal Physiology, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; M.S. in Biology, University of Kentucky, USA; Ph.D. in Environmental Science, University of London, U.K.

October 2015

I was appointed to the position from outside AU, so it worked much like a normal faculty recruitment. You know, trying to convince a group of people what you do is worthwhile and that you are a normal person, and hoping they don’t discover the truth. Once hired, the chair component was relatively simple, involving a written proposal that had to be sent away for approval by a secret cabal of cloaked strangers.

To conduct research which is aligned to provincial priorities within the broad area of “water.”

I examine the effects of the environment (both natural and anthropogenic—influenced by human—components) on the health of aquatic organisms.

I’ve always been interested in how animals work. So, I guess this kind of fascination either ends up with a physiologist or a serial killer. In my graduate career, I became particularly interested in the effects of contamination in aquatic systems, and so my current work mostly focuses on understanding how aquatic animals deal with, and are affected by, natural and human-induced variations in their environments.

Knowledge of how environmental variables affect biological function is key for understanding how organisms, and by extrapolation entire ecosystems, respond to environmental change. Such knowledge therefore allows us to make predictions about what impact changes may have and extrapolate backwards to ensure that we have regulatory limits which protect the integrity of these systems and the organisms therein.

At the moment, I am spending most of my time in the aquatics facility at the University of Alberta, running my own experiments and assisting students and post-doctoral fellows with their research. Outside of this, I write manuscripts, edit student work, write grant applications and reports, review manuscripts, and conduct the various other tasks associated with being an academic.

We are currently conducting a number of distinct projects, all of which have the end goal of producing data of value for predicting the effects of environmental stressors on animal health, and as such, contribute towards sustainability of aquatic ecosystems.

Although the work we do is a small cog in a much larger wheel, the end goal of sustainable aquatic ecosystems is one that most Canadians would agree is worthwhile.

By definition, the CAIP Chair should address provincial priorities, but the work we are doing does have applications for aquatic systems worldwide. Because we are interested in mechanisms (how does a given environmental factor alter the biology of a given aquatic organism), this allows our research findings to be extrapolated between different environments and species, and thus have a more global impact.

Instead of juggling research with teaching and administrative duties, being a chair allows me to devote most of my energies towards research. In addition, the funding associated with the position allows us to recruit high-quality researchers to contribute their expertise towards our goals. And as the chair funds are flexible, it also means we can be more responsive to new and emerging areas of concern associated with water quality than we otherwise could through traditional targeted funding schemes.