Welcome to our new full-time Faculty of Science hires!

The Faculty of Science would like to welcome our new full time hires! Although some of their faces are familiar, they bring with them many years of expertise!

Department of Biology

Jennifer Barrett
Lab Instructor

Jennifer has been a long term Sessional and LTA in the Department of Biology and brings with her years of expertise.

Her research background is in wildlife ecology and includes studies of habitat selection, migration and movement patterns, population dynamics and distributions, and species interactions, using large ecological datasets and telemetry data.

Jennifer will be teaching various sections of BIO 111 Introductory Biology I labs this fall

Dr. Yvonne Dzal
Assistant Professor

Yvonne is an ecologist with interests in conservation and sustainability. Most of her research is in the field. She also has expertise in bats and white-nose fungal disease.

Yvonne will be teaching BIO 111 Introductory Biology I this fall in addition to BIO 305 Anatomy of Vertebrates

Dr. Mitra Tabatabaee
Assistant Professor

Mitra joins the Department of Biology as Assistant Professor.

Her research focuses on Environmental Microbiology and Neurobiology which explores the interconnection between the microscopic world of microbes and the complexity of neural networks within the brain.

Mitra will be teaching BIO 309 Microbiology I and BIO 407 Applied Biotechnology this fall.

Dr. Marina Tourlakis
Assistant Professor

Marina joins the Department of Biology as Assistant Professor.

Her research focuses on how ribosome malfunction causes disease, especially inherited paediatric syndromes called ribosomopathies, and cancer. She also conducts research on teaching & learning molecular genetics and genomics

Marina will be teaching BIO 111 Introductory Biology I and BIO 220 Genetics this fall.

Dr. Natallia Varankovich
Lab Instructor

Natallia’s research background is in microbiology, specifically on studying the effects of probiotic bacteria on gastrointestinal system. Her research interests are currently focused on isolation and characterization of bacteriophages.

Natallia will be teaching various sections of BIO 111 Introductory Biology I labs this fall

Mathematics & Statistics

Dr. Almaz Butaev
Assistant Professor

Almaz joins the Department of Mathematics and Statistics as Assistant Professor. He graduated with his PhD in Mathematics from Concordia University in Montreal.

His teaching philosophy: To be a good mathematician, it is enough to know one way to solve a problem. To be a good educator, one needs to know all ways to do it, and be able to select a method that would suit the student’s knowledge and background best.

Almaz will be teaching various sections of MATH 111 Calculus I this fall.

Dr. Serhii Myroshnychenko
Assistant Professor

Serhii joins the Department of Mathematics and Statistics as Assistant Professor. He graduated with his PhD in Pure Math from Kent State University, USA in 2017.

His research interests lie mainly in Convex and Discrete Geometry, Geometric Functional Analysis with related topics of Probability Theory, Harmonic Analysis, and Information Theory.

Serhii will be teaching MATH 345 Modern Geometries this fall.