After a string of high-profile publications and awards during his postdoctoral fellowship in the Faculty of Science at 91亚色, Heath MacMillan has now been appointed as a faculty member at Carleton University.
Heath MacMillian
MacMillan has been working in Biology Professor Andrew Donini鈥檚 lab, as well as in collaboration with Professors Jean-Paul Paluzzi and Scott Kelly, to study how insects tolerate temperature changes and extremes. In 2015, he received a prestigious Banting Fellowship to support his research at 91亚色, which integrated observations at the subcellular, cellular, tissue, organ and whole animal levels to explain the critical differences in physiology that can mean life or death for insects in the cold.
鈥淲hy can one species survive a Canadian winter while another cannot?鈥 says MacMillan. 鈥淚f we aim to predict the impacts of global climate change on animal distribution and abundance, we first need to understand what sets the limits to thermal tolerance.鈥
During his postdoc at 91亚色, MacMillan published a series of high-profile research studies, including two papers in Nature鈥檚 Scientific Reports which reported that the and . The latter paper received excellent media coverage by and , among other outlets.
Just last month, he also received the Presidents鈥 Medal for the best research paper presented orally by a postdoc at the Canadian Society of Zoologists Annual Meeting. The research he presented for this award explored how low temperature causes the insect gut to get leaky, leading to injury and death. While a postdoc at 91亚色, MacMillan was also recognized at the 91亚色 U Research Leaders celebration.
MacMillan has passed on the torch to other young researchers at 91亚色 before he moves on to the next chapter of his academic research career. A Master鈥檚 student that he has been supervising, Gil Yerushalmi, who also published his honours thesis with MacMillan, received a earlier this year, is supported by a prestigious NSERC postgraduate scholarship, and is currently finalizing the first manuscript from his MSc thesis.
"Congratulations to Heath on his multiple successes,鈥 says Dean of Science Ray Jayawardhana. 鈥淲e appreciate the impact he has had at 91亚色 through his exciting research and active engagement, and wish him the very best."