How a McGill undergrad’s summer research project became a paper in a prestigious journal
When then-McGill undergraduate Maya Willard-Stepan cold-emailed a professor asking to help with their research, she didn’t expect the project to end up in the Nature-partner journal npj Urban Sustainability.
“I really wanted to get involved in research early,” said Willard-Stepan, who had come to McGill from a small town on Vancouver Island.
Her interest in research, plus her love of the outdoors and early fascination with climate science, led Willard-Stepan to reach out to Prof. Eric Galbraith in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. She joined his lab through McGill’s Science Undergraduate Research Award, which funds students to work alongside professors during the summer.
“Summer funding and other scholarships from McGill gave me the space to focus on science full-time without having to juggle other jobs,” she said.