Fall 2022

Tuesday, September 27 at 7:30 PM, online

Alexa Ruel

Effects of Aging on Learning and Decision-Making Abilities

Decision-making abilities vary substantially across the human lifespan.
The underlying psychological mechanisms are poorly understood.
Research will be presented on age differences in decision-making and will provide an outlook on potential applications in the educational and health sectors.

ALEXA RUEL is a doctoral candidate in experimental psychology at Concordia University. Her current research examines how and why decision-making strategies change across the human lifespan. Her work aims at understanding the neural mechanisms behind these changes in order to support the more complex strategies in the elderly.

Tuesday, October 25 at 5:30 PM, online

Jennifer Carruthers

Wine Tasting

Not only is Pinot Noir one of the most romanticized grapes in the wine world, it is also a grape variety found in nearly every wine-producing country on the planet. Pinot Noir is also a grape that lends itself to different styles and expressions of terroir and winemaking, which is what we’ll be diving into while discussing “new” and “old world” wines.

If you have any questions about wine/wine selection ahead of the event, please feel free to contact Jennifer directly. She’s more than happy to assist our group – jennifer@jcselectwines.com.

Once a civil engineer, JENNIFER CARRUTHERS stumbled into the wine industry during her move from Canada to California. She started out on the broker/distributor side of the business over ten years ago, and co-founded a brokerage. She is always passionate about the lesser-known, fantastic wineries and their products.
In 2019, she launched her dream business, JC Select Wines® to bring her favourite wines directly into the hands of those in search of the great gems available out there.

Tuesday, November 8 at 7:30 PM, online

Nathalie Ouellette

The Wonders of the Webb Telescope in Space

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the successor of the famous
Hubble Space Telescope, has finally launched and is ready for science!
The Webb Telescope, a 6.5m infrared telescope, is without a doubt one of the most complex machines ever built by humanity and the largest telescope ever sent to space. Thanks to Webb, we will have the capacity to see farther than ever in our Universe, peer through the cosmic dust sprinkled throughout galaxies and discover and study new alien worlds.
This project is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. In addition to contributing the FGS/NIRISS instrument, Canada and its astronomers are poised to be some of the first to use the telescope and produce ground-breaking science thanks to its revolutionary data.
As the first few images and bits of data start trickling in, you will get a preview of some of the awesome discoveries we are anticipating, and what Webb means for the future of space astronomy.

DR. NATHALIE MGUYEN-QUOC OUELLETTE is an astrophysicist, science communicator and lifetime lover of all things space! She obtained her Ph.D. in Physics & Astronomy at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in 2016. Her research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution, particularly those found in clusters.
Nathalie is currently the Coordinator of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) at the University of Montréal and is also the Outreach Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope in Canada collaborating with the Canadian Space Agency. She is a frequent contributor and analyst in Canadian media on everything related to space.
She also organises and participates in science outreach events from local to international scales to encourage the interest and participation of youth and the
general public in space science and to increase scientific literacy in Canada.

Tuesday, November 22 at 7:30 PM, online

Professor Antonio Zadra

What Dreams Are Made of: The New Science of Why and How We Dream

The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.

Sigmund Freud

Questions on the origins and meaning of dreams are as old as humankind and as confounding and exciting today as when nineteenth-century scientists first attempted to unravel them. This talk will explore what the new science of sleep and dreams tells us about these age-old questions of how and why we dream.

ANTONIO ZADRA, PhD, is a full professor of psychology at the Université de Montréal and a researcher at the Centre for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine.
Dr. Zadra has published over 150 articles on the science of sleep and dreams and is the co-author of the recent book When Brains Dream: Understanding the Science and Mystery of Our Dreaming Minds.
His work has been featured in dozens of media, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Boston Globe, The Times and The Wall Street Journal.