A special centennial project at Memorial captured some of the experts, experiments and moments illuminating the university’s broad research activities in photos.
Picture Us: A Research at Memorial Event is a gallery exhibition organized and hosted by the Office of the Vice-President (Research and Innovation).
As one of the university’s 100th Anniversary Funded Projects, the project showcased 100 researchers and research teams over 10 months, from March 2025-March 2026. Every gallery featured 10 unique photos, with submissions from across the university, including a strong focus on student researchers.
One of the goals of the initiative was to bring research teams together, which was evident during the last gallery opening.
“Picture Us gave us a platform outside of our usual circles, bringing us into conversations with researchers from across Memorial,” said Deepal Deshpande, a master’s student with Dr. Andrew Lang’s lab in the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science.
He and his colleagues, Tori Cable, an honours student, and Yvonne He, a PhD candidate, were featured in the photo, All In a Day’s Work.
“It gave us a space to share ideas with people beyond our field and build connections across disciplines, and it made our work as students feel more connected to the larger research community at Memorial,” said Mr. Deshpande.
For Dr. Chinelo Ezenwa, an assistant professor in the Department of English and Communications and Media Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the gallery exhibition was a chance for her to meet colleagues from other disciplines. She joined Memorial in December 2024.
“Picture Us offered a unique chance for me and our community to explore the transformative and impactful research at Memorial University and reflect on its influence locally, nationally and globally,” she said. Her photo, What Has Black Hair Got to Do With It!!, was part of the latest gallery.
“Personally, submitting a picture pushed me to rethink how I present my research to a broader audience, plus seeing my work up on the wall was really cool!”
Picture Us is currently on display within the Office of the Vice-President (Research and Innovation), suite IIC-3003, Bruneau Centre for Research and Innovation, St. John’s campus.
See below for the researchers featured in the 10th and final exhibition.
1/ A Sapphire's Journey, 2026
From host rock to rushing rivers, many gems follow this well-worn path – and become worn themselves. Sapphire deposits are valuable but poorly understood and primarily discovered by chance. The research team of C. Jayamali Maha Kumarage (PhD candidate), Dr. Philippe Belley and Dr. David Lowe (co-supervisors in Earth Sciences) is studying sapphire from their source rock to the environments in which they concentrate and are deposited, paving the way towards new predictive mapping methods that could be applied around the world in search of these rare gems.
2/ Painting with Light: The Porcine Pax7 Portrait, 2024
What looks like a luminous phenomenon is actually the inner workings of the Pax7 transcription factor in porcine myoblasts. Pax7 is upregulated in proliferating myoblasts but is downregulated as myoblasts differentiate and fuse into multinucleated skeletal muscle myotubes. The green colour shows the downregulation of Pax7 as the myoblasts fuse to become multinucleated myotubes. The nucleus is stained red with DAPI. Submitted by Adar Buxton, research assistant with Drs. Robert Bertolo and Janet Brunton’s research group, Department of Human Biosciences, Faculty of Science, Memorial University, St. John’s campus
3/ All In a Day’s Work, 2026
Researchers standing alongside plates to study gene transfer agents (GTAs) and viruses. GTAs are phage-like particles produced by some bacteria and archaea that transfer cellular genetic material between cells using phage-like capsids. The team focuses on how these particles evolved from their bacteriophage counterpart, gaining insight into how evolutionary pressure and cellular signalling maintains microbial genomes.
4/ Investigating Microplastics in the Dust Bunnies of the Ocean, 2025
Researcher Jack de Swart categorizes the microplastics that were combined with lab-made marine snow (ocean dust bunnies). Scientists are finding microplastics at the bottom of the ocean. This happens through different methods, one of them being their incorporation into marine snow. By simulating this in the lab, researchers can learn how often microplastic gets incorporated and how fast they sink once incorporated.
5/ What Has Black Hair Got to Do With It!!, 2026
The collage denotes diverse Black hair and identities and the intertextual connections between them as part of the research project, Reading Intersectionally: Reading Oprah’s OWN Hair Tales through Other Feminist Eyes. The research critiques Oprah’s Hair Tales for focusing exclusively on wealthy celebrities, while excluding everyday Black women and hair stylists. Using decolonial and intersectional methods, it challenges the universalization of experiences and emphasizes the diversity of Black women’s identities and their right to their own hair choices.
6/ Bermuda Sculpture Commemorates Legacy of Emancipation, 2025
Chesley Trott’s “We Arrive” symbolizes the 72 enslaved Americans liberated in Bermuda in 1835. As part of the project, Revisiting the Slave Ship Enterprise in Post-Emancipation Bermuda, this research explored how an 1835 freedom moment became central to two competing narratives of Black history and racial inequality in Bermuda. The popular site anchors the African Diaspora Heritage Trail, and remains a frequent symbol for current social justice movements in Bermuda. This research was published in Slavery and Abolition 46, 4 (2025).
7/ From Algae Oil to Fantastic Plastic, 2026
Degradable plastic films can be made from algae oil, CO2 and compounds from waste cashew shells. Pictured is Padmapriya Srinivasan, PhD student, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science. This research is part of the project, Life in Plastic: Can it be Fantastic? Researchers are studying the conversion of waste marine biomass (waste fish and algae oil) into value-added materials such as films and foams. Aquaculture growth means a rise in waste from that industry that is unfit for use as food, so can we use it to make materials such as plastics that are biodegradable and economically viable?
8/ Nutritional and Microbial Metabolomics Lab, 2026
Profiling Beneficial Microbial Metabolites Using High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry. Metabolic Dysfunction–Associated Steatotic Liver Disease has limited treatment options. The disease disrupts gut nutrient–microbe–host interactions that are essential for maintaining metabolic homeostasis. This project investigates whether dietary nutrients, bioactive molecules, and beneficial microbes can restore these interactions and improve liver health.
9/ From Salmon Waste to Salmon Oil, 2025
Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development (CASD) engineer setting up a new pilot-scale process for extracting marine oil from salmon byproduct in the CASD Bioprocessing Pilot Plant in St. John’s. Processing steps: 1. grinding, 2. pumping the ground material, 3. heating, 4. 1,000 L jacketed mix tank, 5. pumping to the separator, 6. three-phase separator, 7. oil collection tank, 8. pumping to the mix tank, 9. 1,000 L jacketed mix tank, 10. pumping oil to the centrifuge (not delivered yet).
10/ Robots Forming “MUN", 2026
A swarm of five simulated robots form “MUN” by pushing pucks into the shapes of the three letters. This research project aims to equip robot swarms with the ability to manipulate their environments, moving objects into desired shapes for potential applications in cleaning, manufacturing, recycling and construction.
