About Us
Our CommitteeThe WatIF organizing committee is comprised of approximately 20 passionate, driven, and like-minded graduate students from a wide variety of disciplines mostly at Queen’s University that volunteer their time to help run WatIF for other graduate students. This unique team is given the opportunity to learn not only the ins and outs of conference organization, but also how to lead their peers, foster collaborative relationships, and communicate across disciplines. Each and every member from the committee brings a unique experience and perspective to the WatIF conference.
To join WatIF 2016 today please click here! To check out our WatIF 2016 team click here! |
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OUR THREE PILLARS
COMMUNITYWatIF strives to create a community of early water leaders that come from diverse disciplines and geographical locations from around the globe.
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EDUCATIONWatIF will provide its delegates an opportunity to engage in peer-to-peer learning through innovative activities and interactions designed to encourage collaboration across disciplines.
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EMPOWERMENTWatIF inspires the leaders of tomorrow to passionately pursue water-related careers.
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Our Story
The seeds of an idea were planted: WatIF was inspired by a local symposium held in 2013 at Queen’s University in Kingston. The Water Research Centre (WRC) at Queen’s University hosted an annual local graduate student symposium between Queen’s University and the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) to showcase research across the two campuses. The 4th Annual Water Research Centre Graduate Student Symposium was the first organized by graduate students, including WatIF co-founders Donya Danesh and Sarah Thompson, WatIF2014 committee member Dan Lamhonwah, and a graduate student volunteer. After seeing the breadth and depth of water research simply within RMC and Queen’s, this initial team of students realized how isolated they felt to their individual research and how disconnected they were from the early water research community as a whole (across Canada). Ms. Danesh, Ms. Thompson and Mr. Lamhonwah aspired to share the sense of community, unity, and inspiration they gained from this local symposium with other graduate students across Canada. The team also felt that an opportunity was needed for graduate students across Canada to share their water research across disciplines, so they decided to create a unique platform tailored specifically to students.
The seeds were given water to grow: In May 2014, a multidisciplinary group of 131 graduate students and 55 professionals from all provinces across Canada joined together at Queen's University to discuss challenges, solutions and opportunities for the future of Canada's water. Graduate students represented research from 23 Universities across all provinces across Canada. Non-student attendees represented industry, government, not-for-profits, NGOs, and academics. The outcome of WatIF 2014 was greater than the organizing committee could have ever hoped for and for more information please check out the WatIF 2014 report (to be published Sept 2015).
The fruits of WatIF labour: After the great success of WatIF 2014 (a national multidisciplinary conference), and the recruitment of an amazing new team, the returning WatIF chair (Donya Danesh) decided that it was time to push through the boundaries of comfort, past familiarity and into a place of the unknown: making WatIF 2016 the first international graduate student conference of its kind.
We are excited to embark on this new journey and see where the next year takes the WatIF! (Check out our blog for posts from the committee regarding our journey!)
The seeds were given water to grow: In May 2014, a multidisciplinary group of 131 graduate students and 55 professionals from all provinces across Canada joined together at Queen's University to discuss challenges, solutions and opportunities for the future of Canada's water. Graduate students represented research from 23 Universities across all provinces across Canada. Non-student attendees represented industry, government, not-for-profits, NGOs, and academics. The outcome of WatIF 2014 was greater than the organizing committee could have ever hoped for and for more information please check out the WatIF 2014 report (to be published Sept 2015).
The fruits of WatIF labour: After the great success of WatIF 2014 (a national multidisciplinary conference), and the recruitment of an amazing new team, the returning WatIF chair (Donya Danesh) decided that it was time to push through the boundaries of comfort, past familiarity and into a place of the unknown: making WatIF 2016 the first international graduate student conference of its kind.
We are excited to embark on this new journey and see where the next year takes the WatIF! (Check out our blog for posts from the committee regarding our journey!)
