Dr. Lauchlan Fraser

Professor
Natural Resource Sciences

Dr. Fraser is NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Ecosystem Reclamation at TRU.

Dr. Fraser is a community and ecosystem ecologist who is at the forefront of research that aids in the recovery of disturbed ecosystems. Dr. Fraser has led teams of national and international researchers on reclamation research relating to soil amendments, biodiversity and climate change, with a particular focus on the Southern Interior of BC.His expertise is in grassland and wetland ecosystems, with a focus on ecosystem reclamation, biodiversity, range management, climate change, and food web theory. He is the Associate Editor of two academic journals (Applied Vegetation Science and Plant Ecology) and chair of HerbDivNet, an international network of over 60 scientists united to explore the drivers controlling herbaceous plant diversity.

Research Focus: testing the theories of community ecology, especially community composition, coexistence, complexity and species diversity.

Dr. Naowarat (Ann) Cheeptham

Professor
Biological Sciences

Dr. Cheeptham's research interest and focus has included cave microbiomes/new drug discovery, white-nose syndrome in bats, and alternative treatment tools against multidrug resistant infections. Dr. Cheeptham’s work has been featured on the New York Times, Bloomberg TV network’s Spark series, Al Jazeera TV, the CBC’s Nature of Things (The Antibiotic Hunters episode), Global TV (Global 16x9 and Global Health), Knowledge Network, CBC radio (Daybreak) and in a number of International and Canadian magazines. Recently, she chief-edited and co-authored a book entitled Cave Microbiomes: A Novel Resource for Drug Discovery, published by Springer. In 2009 she was selected as one of the biology research residency scholars in the ASM/NSF Biology Research Residency Scholars Program and participated in an NSF-sponsored residency in Washington, DC.

Research Focus: microbial diversity and the search for useful natural and biochemical products, with an emphasis on antibacterial and antifungal compounds.

Dr. Kingsley Donkor

Professor
Chemistry

Dr. Kingsley Donkor was awarded $350,000 in 2018 for his research program designed to turn waste into fertilizer. This was the first Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Collaborative Research and Development Grant (CRD) ever awarded to a TRU researcher.Donkor, a professor in chemistry, is investigating whether the waste from biomass generators can be converted into an effective fertilizer, with the goal of diverting material from the landfill, while also creating a product that has benefit to industry and to society as a whole.

An NSERC CRD requires industrial partners, in this case Louisiana-Pacific, which provides the fly ash from its biomass plant, and Kingsclere Ranch, which has offered up to 400-acres. Both partners are based in Golden, BC.

Research Focus: the study of binding characteristics of metal-lantibiotic complexes and the application of chemometric techniques in identifying sources of pollution.