Milissa Elliott

Milissa (Missy) Elliott graduate from York University with Bachelor’s of Environmental Studies in 2007. She has a Minor in Biology and a Certificate in Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing. In May 2007 she joined the IPY GAPS research project as a Master’s student in Biology at York.

The proposed Mackenzie Valley Oil and Gas pipeline is set to have a major impact on the economic, social, and environmental conditions of communities across the Western Canadian Arctic. Missy’s research examines some of the impacts on natural ecosystems. The Mackenzie River is an important transport route for people and wildlife. Modern roads and pipelines along this ancient biological corridor provide a corridor for the movement of both native and introduced species. In 2008, Missy will study plant communities in four communities in the Northwest Territories: Fort Simpson, Norman Wells, Fort Good Hope, and Inuvik. These communities have different combinations of pipelines and roads and are expected to have different levels of introduced plants. Missy will also be having conversations with elders in the communities, youth and everyone interested in plants and how things may be changing.

On entering the Biology programme, Missy received an NSERC Northern Research Internship, and she spent the summer of 2007 in Nunavut, in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Arviat, and Baker Lake, learning both to identify plants and about Arctic communities. This fieldwork was essential in helping her to develop her research project which involves mapping plant communities and gradients in the presence of non-indigenous species.

Missy’s husband Andrew, is also a Biology Graduate student at York, where he is carrying out his PhD research in aquatic ecology and long-term climate change in the Canadian Arctic.

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