Laurier PhD student Amber Buston-White awarded prestigious Weston Family Award in Northern Research

Amber completed her undergraduate degree in Geography
in 2023 and is now a PhD student at Wilfrid Laurier
University, working under the guidance of Dr. William
Quinton in the Scotty Creek Research group. Amber
began working as a research assistant at the Scotty Creek
Research Station in 2022. The following spring and summer,
she interned with the Łı́ ı́ dl̨ı̨ı Kų́ ę́ First Nation in Fort
Simpson, Northwest Territories, where she collaborated
with the Chief and Lands and Resources managers to
co-develop a research project that was based around
community concerns.

She began an MSc exploring how wildfires impact wetland
capture and subsequent movement of water. In 2024,
shortly before being fast-tracked into the doctoral program,
she received the Weston Family Awards in Northern
Research at the master’s level.

Amber’s doctoral research expands on this work by
investigating how wildfires impact both energy and
hydrological regimes, two interconnected systems critical
to understanding landscape-scale responses to wildfire
events in the north.