Once a year Dawn has an ego trip and performs her “State-of-the-lab” address. September (the beginning of the year for anyone who has been in academia as long as we all have) is a time to reflect on the year’s successes, challenges for the upcoming year and bottlenecks to productivity. This year’s chat focussed heavily on opportunities for trainees and career development. Every year Dawn issues a “Grand Challenge” which the lab may or may not take and this years was a challenge to become better science citizens and communicators. Stay posted as there may be some very interesting follow up if this year’s challenge is accepted by the team!

The team at Quatrefoil Restaurant in Dundas Ontario. Back row: Mike Dorrington, Kyle Novakowski, Dr. Chris Verschoor. Middle row: Zhongyuan Tu, Julie Kaiser, Mark McDermott, Keith Lee. Front row: Netusha Thevaranjan, Dawn Bowdish, Charles Yin, Dr. Preethi Jayanth, Michelle Pinto