Keynote Speakers
Vince Palace
International Institute for Sustainable Development
Vince Palace is the Head Research Scientist at the IISD-ELA, the Experimental Lakes Area. Vince is an aquatic toxicologist with 25 years of experience in determining exposure and evaluating potential impacts and mitigation strategies related to chemical and non-chemical aquatic stressors. His keynote address will discuss the ELA, a natural freshwater laboratory comprised of 58 small lakes and their watersheds, set aside for scientific research. The ELA is in Northern Ontario, Canada, and has produced pivotal data on the effects of water pollution using whole lake manipulations.
Matt Vijayan
University of Calgary
Matt Vijayan is a Professor and Canada Research Chair 1 in Environmental Physiology and Toxicology in the Department of Biological Sciences. Matt's research focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in stress tolerance in fish. He has made significant contributions to understanding the regulatory roles of corticosteroid pathways in fish. His keynote address will discuss his research on endocrine disruption of the stress axis.
1. Fate and Effects of PFAS Pollution
Chairs: Rosa Freitas & Diana Aga
This session focuses on the environmental fate, distribution, and biological effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. To understand their effects on aquatic species and ecosystems, as well as pathways of PFAS persistence and transport in the environment.
2. Chemical Toxicity in Climate-Altered Environments
Chairs: Andrew Thompson & Benjamin Barst
This session examines how climate change-related stressors such as temperature, salinity, oxygen availability, pH, and CO2 influence chemical toxicity. Emphasis is placed on understanding toxicity under environmentally realistic and future climate scenarios.
3. New Approach Methodologies to Assess Pollutant Toxicity
Chairs: Erin Ussery & Jack Salole
This session highlights innovative methodologies for assessing chemical and effluent toxicity, including in silico, in vitro, and alternative species approaches. Contributions addressing assay development, test adaptation, and strategies aligned with the 3Rs (reducing, refining, and/or replacing vertebrate animal testing) are encouraged.
4. Particles, Fibres, Plastics and Their Additives
Chairs: Corina Ciocan & Karen Kidd
This session explores the sources, date, and biological effects of microplastics, nanoplastics, fibres, and other particulate pollutants in aquatic systems. Special attention is given to plastic-associated chemicals and their impacts on aquatic organisms.
5. Biotransformation Pathways and Modes of Action of Chemical Pollutants
Chairs: Dan Schlenk & Marcus Brinkmann
This session focuses on the metabolic pathways, transport mechanisms, and molecular modes of action underlying chemical toxicity. Topics include chemical defensome regulation, pollutant metabolism, and mechanistic links to adverse outcomes.
6. Mixture Effects of Pollutants
Chairs: Malin Celander & Francesco Regoli
This session addresses the complexity of real-world chemical exposures involving multiple pollutants. Topics include additive, synergistic, and antagonistic interactions, mechanistic drives of non-additivity, and modelling approaches for mixture toxicity.
7. Biomonitoring and Integrative Assessment Approaches
Chairs: Ibon Canio & Afonso Bainy
This session focues on the development and application of biomonitoring tools to assess chemical impoacts in aquatic ecosystems. Topics include novel assessment frameworks and monitoring prgrams across species, locations, and temporal scales.
8. Epigenetics and Mechanisms of Adaptation to Chemical Stress
Chairs: Ramji Bhandari & Som Niyogi
This session explores how organisms acclimate and adapt to chemical stress through epigenetic and other mechanisms. Emphasis is placed on chronic, multi-generational, and life-cycle effects of chemical exposures.
9. Emerging Contaminants in the Aquatic Environment
Chairs: Margaret James & Glen Van Der Kraak
This session examines the occurrence, fate, and effects of emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, electronic waste chemicals, and novel flame retardants. Studies addressing new or poorly characterized contaminants are encouraged.
10. Oil and Gas Pollution in Marine and Freshwater Systems
Chairs: Kristin Nielsen & Vince Palace
This session focuses on the fate and biological effects of chemicals associated with oil and gas extraction, transport, and spills. Emphasis is placed on impacts across aquatic species and ecosystems.
11. Aquatic Toxicology in Urban Environments
Chairs: Marie De Lorenzo & Alex Little
This session explores chemical toxicity in urban aquatic environments, with a focus on the combined effects of multiple urban stressors on aquatic organisms. Topics include emerging contaminants such as PPD quinone and tire and road wear particles, and their impacts on ecosystem health.
12. General Aquatic Toxicology
Chairs: Anders Goksoyr & Lars Forlin
This session serves as a broad forum for aquatic toxicology research that does not fit within other thematic sessions. It provides space for interdisciplinary, emerging, or cross-cutting studies.
Platform Instructions
Platform presentations have a maximum of 20 minutes for each presentation, including time for questions. It is strongly recommended that you aim to present for 15 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions and for people to move between sessions. PRIMO session chairs will be instructed to stick firmly to the allocated time slots so that participants can attend presentations across concurrent sessions.
Key Platform Guidelines
- aspect ratio of 16:9
- presentations must be a maximum of 15 minutes long
- presenters are required to save their PowerPoint presentation on the computer in their session room at least 30 minutes before the session begins
Poster Instructions
Posters will remain on display throughout the conference. Presenters should have their posters on display before the Wednesday morning opening session.
Presenters will be able to discuss their posters with conference participants in one of two poster sessions. Authors have been assigned to one session and should stand by their poster during their assigned times so that conference participants can discuss the presentation. All posters should be taken down by 5 pm on the last day of the conference (June 5).
Posters should be a maximum of 4 ft high by 3 ft wide (121.9 cm x 91.4 cm),to fit the dimensions of the poster board. Each poster board will display 2 posters on each side, please be mindful of the space needs for the other poster on your board. A common size for posters that fit the poster board well is A0 (118.9 cm x 84.1 cm) in portrait orientation.
We recommend that you bring business cards to hand out during the poster sessions, paper-sized copies of your poster and/or place a QR code on the poster. Please include contact information and social media accounts on your poster. '
Velcro microdots or pins will be provided. Each poster panel will be marked with the appropriate poster number, please put your poster up on the panel with the correct number assigned to your presentation.
Key Poster Guidelines
- posters should be a maximum of 4 ft high by 3 ft wide (121.9 cm x 91.4 cm)
- posters should be made in portrait orientation
Optional for presenters who do not wish the content of their presentations (platform or poster) to be photographed, please include the symbol below (or similar) on your presentations:
Useful Resources for Creating Presentations
- Science communication toolkit by Aditi Gupta; Katie Harding; and Sree Gayathri Talluri. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/scicommtoolkit/chapter/writing-basics/
- Presentation and publication skills by Nathan Davies et al. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240545772400202X
- Ten Simple rules for effective presentations slides by Kristen Naegle. https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554
Building Authorship Skills and Demystifying the Publishing Process
Dr. Natalie Sopinka, PhD, Canadian Science Publishing
13:00-15:00 on June 2nd, 2026 in PGCLL M22
Led by Canadian Science Publishing, this short course is aimed at students and early career researchers. Scientific publishing can be a challenging process for early career researchers but is an essential part of communicating research results. While you may be aware of some aspects - from selecting a journal and submitting a manuscript to responding to peer review comments - much of the publishing process happens behind the scenes. This short course gives participants insight into the whole process, enabling a clearer understanding of the manuscript’s journey as well as tips to manage the writing, submission, and revision of manuscripts to scientific journals. We will end with an open discussion and Q&A with journal editors from the PRIMO community including Dan Schlenk, Erin Ussery, Karen Kidd and Ramji Bhandari. Join us to learn more about scientific publishing.
Natalie is a Journal Development Specialist at Canadian Science Publishing (CSP), an independent not-for-profit publisher of scientific journals. As a fish biologist turned publishing professional, she spends her days connecting with aquatic science communities to learn about their work and help share their research. She completed her BSc and MSc at McMaster University studying the behaviour of invasive round goby and sperm quality of plainfin midshipman in contaminated environments. Her PhD at UBC focused on maternal cortisol and its effects on offspring in sockeye salmon. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor, Natalie joined CSP and helps manage the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Environmental Reviews, and Contaminants, Environment, and Society.
