Prepared and presented by McGill scientists, the following Science Outreach talks are suitable for high-school or college (CEGEP) level audiences. They are listed by department and reflect a wide range of topics. Talks are given in English unless noted otherwise. These connect the public with McGill scientists for them to share their research and cultivate an appreciation for science concepts, concerns, and issues.
If you would like to host a Science Outreach talk at a Montreal school, for a public event or for alumni, please consult the list, pick a scientist, and contact:
Ingrid Birker
Science Outreach Coordinator
Tel.: 514-398-4094
[ ingrid [dot] birker [at] mcgill [dot] ca (Email) ]
Hot Science / Cool Talks are available to venues within the greater Montreal area. Hosting venues are responsible for the speaker's transportation costs.
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Department of
Dr. Daniel Kirshbaum
- Convective storms, mountain flows and numerical weather prediction. (English only)
Dr. Lawrence Mysak
- Climate Change: From Here to Eternity
Biology, Department of
Dr. Hans Larsson, expert on Vertebrate Evolution
- Dinosaurs
- Dinosaurs of Canada
- Origin of Birds
- Comparative anatomy
- Vertebrates
- Morphology
- Vertebrate Embryology
Dr. Louis Lefebvre
- Tools and Brains in Birds
Dr. Anthony Ricciardi
- Global Swarming: How Invasive Species are Changing the Planet
Dr. Andrew Hendry
- Evolution in action
Dr. Irene Gregory-Eaves
- Fishy waters: Pacific salmon deliver nutrients and contaminants to lakes and rivers
- Lake mud: a natural archive of environmental and ecological change
Dr. Andy Gonzalez
- The Causes and Consequences of Biodiversity Loss under Global Change (English/French)
Cancer Research Centre (The Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre)
(The Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre (GCRC) is affiliated with McGill University's Faculty of Medicine.)
Dr. Morag Park
- The breast tumor microenvironment - friends or foes?
Chemistry, Department of
Dr. Mark Andrews
- Image is Everything! Bending the Rules for Plastic Displays
- How Molecules Make Light Work
Dr. Parisa Ariya (English or French)
- Air pollution and Climate Change: What a Canadian Progressive Plan Should Include?
- The Ozone Hole and Its Ongoing Evolution: A Great Example of a Human-made Problem, and potential solutions
Dr. Karine Auclair (English or French)
- Mechanisms of Antibiotic Resistance
- Herbal or Synthetic Medicines
- Drug Interactions
Dr. Christopher Barrett
- The Global Energy Balance: Fossil Fuels and Surface Warming.
- Carbon Dioxide: Sources, Effects, and Alternatives.
- Alternative Energy Sources: The Facts Beyond Fossil Fuels.
- Civilization's History of Materials: From Bronze Age to Space Age.
Dr. Ian Butler
- Nuclear Radiation and Nuclear Energy
- Materials at High-Pressures - A New Alchemy
Dr. Scott Bohle
- Reactive Molecules in the Trenches of the Immune System
Dr. Gonzalo Cosa (English or Spanish)
- Solar Energy Utilization: May We Learn from Nature to Provide Sustainable Energy for Human Use?
- Being One on One with Molecules: How Single Molecule Experiments Teach Us about Complex Chemical Reactions
Dr. Masad Damha (English or Spanish)
- Laboratory synthesis of DNA (Gene Machines)
- The Amazing RNA Molecules
- Designing Antiviral and Anticancer Drugs
Dr. Ariel Fenster (English or French)
- Crime and Detection: The Story of Forensic Science
- Food of the Gods - The Science and Lore of Chocolate
- Cheers! The Chemistry of Wine
- The Chemistry of Love
- Science and Art: Facts and Fakes
- The Colors of Art: History and Properties of Artists' Pigments
- The History and Science of Money - Real and Counterfeit
- Did You Know That... The Science Behind Everyday Life
- Science and the Paranormal
- Explosives: Production and Detection
- Pesticides: Public Perception and Reality
- Miracle Materials: The World of Plastics
- Genetically Modified Food - Boon or Bane?
- Nuclear Power: Boon or Boom?
- Fats and Flab: The Science of Weight Control
- Science and Beauty: The World of Cosmetics
- Antibiotics and Superbugs: The End of Miracle Drugs?
- The Human Side of Scientists
- Global Warming: Beyond the Headlines
- The ABC's of Vitamins
- Keep Smiling: Teeth and Chemistry
- Take Two Aspirins: Pain and Chemistry
- Drugs and Disease: Discovery and Marketing
- Hold that Smoke: Tobacco and Health
- Photography: History, Chemistry and Applications
- Sweet Chemistry: From Sugar Cane to Aspartame
- The Smells of Chemistry: Perfumes and Sex Attractants
- The Air We Breathe
- Homeopathy: Dilution or Delusion?
- Gemstones: Nature's Beauty
- Fascinating Demonstrations ... with Explanations
Dr. Derek Gray
- Paper
- Cellulose
Dr. David Harpp
- Visual Aspects of Symmetry
- Crime in the Classroom - Copying Problems with Solutions
- The Story of Polymers - from Cellulose to Composites and Everything In-between
- Chemistry for the Public - The Final Frontier
- Sweeteners - Natural and Synthetic
- Lecture Retrieval on the Web - COOL - CoursesOnLine
- Sulfur in Nature - From Brimstone and Skunks to Diatomic Sulfur
- A Perfect Red - The Story of Cochineal - A Special Dye
- Diet and Cancer
- Scientific Publishing - How it Works
- Biotechnology - From Cheese to the Gene Machine
- The History of Computers and Counting Machines
- Merde - A Social and Scientific History
Dr. Ashok Kakkar
- Art of Drug Design: How to Assemble a Tablet That Can Cure You and NOT Make You More Sick?
- Molecular Containers: Let us Store Molecules and Carry Them as Luggage
Dr. Bruce Lennox
- Nano: the opportunities and the risks
- Chemistry as the Central Science?
Dr. C.-J. Li
- Green Chemistry: Our Future Challenges in the Production of Chemicals
Dr. H.-W. Li
- Single-Molecule Revolution in the Life Sciences
Dr. Jean-Philip Lumb
- Doing Chemistry Nature's Way
Dr. Anthony Mittermaier
- The Hidden Life of Proteins: How We Can Harness Nature's Machines
Dr. Nicolas Moitessier (English or French)
- Chemistry from the Lab to the Office
- Molecules from the Flask to the Screen
- Virtual Chemistry, A Safer, Cheaper and Cleaner Chemistry
Dr. Joe Schwarcz
- Hey! There Are Cockroaches in My Chocolate Ice Cream!
- Eating-Is There a Solution to the Confusion?
- Herbs, Hype and Hope
- The Age of Anxiety
- Aging: Fact and Fancy
- Chemistry and Dentistry
- Have you Ever Wondered...?
- Humor, Magic and Medicine
- Science and the Paranormal
- The Chemistry of Love
- Health, Hype and Hope
- The Cholesterol Controversy: Beyond Oat Bran
- Fats and Flab: The Science of Weight Control
- Conjurers, Charlatans and Science
- Science and the Media
- Crime and Detection: The Story of Forensic Science
Dr. Hanadi Sleiman (English or French)
- Nanoscience and Biotechnology
Dr. Paul Wiseman
- Biophysical Chemistry - New Science at the Interface Between Chemistry and Biology
Computer Science, School of
Dr. Hans Vangheluwe
- Modelling and Simulation
- (Model Based) Software Design
Dr. Tim Merrett
- Computing for Science
Dr. Kaleem Siddiqi
- Medical Image Analysis
Dr. Patrick Hayden
- Quantum Information and Quantum Computing
Dr. Claude Crépeau
- Cryptography (Français/English)
Earth and Planetary Sciences, Department of
Dr. Don Baker
- How and why volcanoes erupt
- Volcanoes and climate
- Indoor geology: simulating the earth in a teacup
- Origin of our solar system
Dr. Sarah Hall
- Tropical glacier fluctuations in the Peruvian Andes
Dr. Jeff McKenzie
- The impact of melting tropical glaciers on global water resources
Dr. William Minarik
- Older than the hills: the mantle under the northern Appalachian mountains
- The consequences of a 1000-km deep magma ocean over Earth history, deduced from tiny, brief experiments
- Trace element clues and forensic geology
Dr. Alfonso Mucci
- Oxygen depletion (hypoxia) in the bottom waters of the St. Lawrence Estuary: history, origin and impacts
- A trip through the northwest passage from Quebec City to the Beaufort Sea: response of the Arctic Ocean to climate change
Dr. John Stix
- Supervolcanoes
Dr. Boswell Wing
- The Breath of Life: A Natural History of Earth's Atmosphere
- Out of Gaia's Grasp: Human Control of the Global Sulfur Cycle and Implications for Global Warming
Environment, McGill School of
Note: There are also environmental researchers in many other departments listed on this page.
Dr. Greg Mikkelson
- Economic equality and biological diversity
Geography, Department of
Dr. Lea Berrang-Ford
- Global environmental change and infectious disease
Dr. Gail Chmura
- Biogeography, paleo-ecology and wetland dynamics
- What does climate change mean to us in Quebec?
Dr. Oliver Coomes
- Making a living in the Amazon
Dr. Michel Lapointe
- Fluvial geomorphology
- Sediment transport mechanics in rivers
Dr. Thom Meredith
- Environmental management
- Impact assessment procedures, especially in cross-cultural situations
- Environmental conflict resolution in Canada
Dr. Ludger Müller-Wille
- Modern reindeer herding, regional identities, and toponymies in northernmost Europe and in arctic Canada
Dr. Garry Peterson
- Human well-being and earth's ecosystems: past, present, and future
Dr. Wayne Pollard
- Permafrost and periglacial geomorphology.
Dr. Navin Ramankutty
- Putting food on the table: Environmental consequences of the global food system.
Dr. Nancy Ross
- Medical and urban geography
Dr. Nigel T. Roulet
- How humans are changing the planet: climate, water and chemical cycles
- Climate change: how warm is warm?
- Wetlands: great places even if you are not a bug!
- The global carbon cycle
Dr. Raja Sengupta
- Geographic Information Science (including GIS)
- Spatial Decision Support Systems
Dr. Renee Sieber
- Use and value of information technology by marginalized communities, commmunity based organizations, and social movement groups
- Public participation GIS
- Use of GIS in the environmental movement
- Development of e-commerce tools for use in marginalized communities
Dr. Jon Unruh
- Human geography and international development - focus on Africa
- Postwar land tenure and environmental change
Mathematics and Statistics, Department of
Dr. Henri Darmon
- La théorie des nombres et ses applications
- The equations of number theory: from Fermat to Wiles
Mr. Matthew de Courcy-Ireland
- How I Became A Math Student
Dr. Eyal Goren
- Building a Perfect Internet: some Mathematical Aspects
Dr. Niky Kamran
- Courbure et topologie des surfaces
- Equations aux derives partielles et géométrie des surfaces
Natural Resource Sciences, Department of
(The Department of Natural Resource Sciences is part of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
Dr. Elena Bennett
- Ecosystems and human well-being: how does the state of the environment affect our lives?
- Pea Soup: Human impact on the phosphorus cycle and eutrophication
Pharmacology and Therapeutics
(The Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics is part of the Faculty of Medicine.)
Dr. Paul Clarke
- Nicotine and tobacco addiction
Physics, Department of
Astrophysics
Dr. Robert Brandenberger
- Was there a Big Bang?
- Origin of Structure in the Universe
Dr. Matt Dobbs
- Cosmology - understanding the universe we live in
Dr. Keshav DasGupta
- Cosmology and early universe
- Black holes and their mysteries
Dr. David Hanna
- Particle Astrophysics - A New View of the Universe
Dr. Gil Holder
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- Dark Matter, Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe
- The State of the Universe
Dr. Victoria Kaspi
- Neutron Stars
- The Violent High Energy Universe
Dr. Ken Ragan
- The New Starry Messengers
Dr. Tracy Webb
- More colours than the eye can see: astronomy from X-ray to radio wavelengths
- Everything you ever wanted to know about galaxies!
- A rough guide to the Universe: what we know, how we know it, and what we'd like to find out
Condensed Matter Physics
Dr. Peter Grütter
- Nanotechnology: there is plenty of room at the bottom
Dr. Michael Hilke
- New quantum and nano-materials (Français/English/Deutsch)
Dr. Mark Sutton
- Using x-rays to see atoms
Dr. Paul Wiseman
- Physics at the interface with Biology... What is Biophysics?
- Physics inside living Cells... How do Cells Move?
Subatomic Physics
Dr. Jean Barrette
- Rutherford at McGill; the Early Days of Nuclear Physics (English)
- Rutherford À McGill ou les débuts de la physique nucléaire (Français)
- From Atoms to Quarks: On the Basic Constituents of the Universe (English)
- Des atomes aux quarks ou sur les constituants fondamentaux de l'Univers (Français)
- From Quarks to Galaxies: The Construction of our Universe (English)
- Des quarks aux galaxies ou comment l'univers s'est construit (Français)
Dr. François Corriveau
- A Matter of Scale: Small, Smaller, Smallest? (English)
- Une Question d'échelle: minuscule ou infinitésimal? (Français)
- A Puzzle: the Nature of the Photon (English)
- L'énigme de la nature du photon (Français)
- Particle Colliders: circular or linear? (English)
- Collisionneurs de particules: circulaires ou linéaires? (Français)
Dr. Keshav DasGupta
- Atoms and atomic structure
- Aspects of string theory
Dr. Charles Gale
- Chauds les noyaux! La matière nucléaire dans tous ses états (Français/English)
Dr. Sangyong Jeon
- Creating a Little Big Bang
Dr. Steve Robertson
- Beauty and the Beast: a tale of B mesons and the BABAR experiment
Dr. Brigitte Vachon
- What does a particle physicist do all day?
- Dan Brown's Angels and Demons: Facts and Fiction (Français/English)
- The Top Quark (Français/English)
Dr. Andreas Warburton
- What Can the Smallest Particles tell Us about the Biggest Questions in Science?
- High-Energy Subatomic Physics: Smashing Matter at the Very Highest Energies
Physics
Dr. Jean Barrette
- The Newtonian revolution and how his discovery changed our philosophy of science (English)
- Newton: Une première révolution en science (Français)
- On the strange Quantum Physics (English)
- La physique quantique: la révolution de l'étrange (Français)
- How Einstein Revolutionized Physics (English)
- En quoi Einstein changea notre vision de l'espace et du temps (Français)
Dr. Keshav DasGupta
- Newton's laws and gravitation
- Einstein Theory
- Quantum mechanics
Dr. Richard (dik) Harris
- What is it like to be a physicist?
Dr. Michael Hilke
- Quantum Computing (English)
- Ordinateurs quantiques (Français)
- Quantencomputer (Deutsch)
Dr. Shaun Lovejoy
- When size doesn't matter: our multifractal world
Plant Sciences, Department of
(The Department of Plant Sciences is part of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
Dr. Danielle Donnelly
- Biotechnology for potato production and improvement
Dr. Martina Stromvik
- Superfood or Frankenfood: the story of GMOs
Psychology, Department of
Dr. Richard Koestner
- Motivation, self control, and self regulation.
Dr. David Ostry
- Sensory plasticity and motor learning.
Dr. Jon Lydon
- Social psychology of friendship and romantic relationships
Dr. Jeff Mogil
- Psychology and genetics of pain
- Analgesia
Dr. Karim Nader
- The modifiability of memory and reconsolidation of memory, potential treatments for post traumatic anxiety
Dr. Caroline Palmer
- Memory and music performance
Dr. Don Taylor
- Social psychology of intergroup relations, justice, native peoples, and immigrants
Dr. Debra Titone
- Language and cognition in schizophrenia
Redpath Museum
Mr. Anthony Howell
- Human Anthropology
Other Redpath Museum presenters are listed under this page's Biology section.