Yifeng Wang

2022 Weston Family Awards in Northern Research recipient

PhD candidate
Queen’s University

Communities in Labrador regularly frequent permafrost landscapes for cultural activities including berry-picking, trapping and hunting. However, relatively little research has been conducted on permafrost conditions in the region.

Yifeng is a PhD candidate in the department of geography and planning at Queen’s University. She is a member of the Northern Environmental Geoscience Laboratory and studies the distribution and sensitivity of peatland permafrost in coastal Labrador.

Yifeng is using a combination of field investigations, remote sensing and thermal modelling to understand where peatland permafrost is found, how it has changed and how it might continue to change in the future.
Peatland permafrost landforms’ sensitivity to climate and ecosystem-related change has implications for local wildlife habitat and cultural activities, as well as for regional infrastructure development and global carbon cycling.

Learn more about the Weston Family Awards in Northern Research.