From studying how zebrafish respond to everything from stranger danger to environmental toxins and even illicit drugs, Dr. Trevor Hamilton’s research has taken some interesting turns since he arrived at MacEwan in 2009. Thanks to additional funding and time that were part of his 2024 Chancellor’s Research Chair position and Distinguished Research Award, he has engaged even more students in his work over the past year.

He also dug into the additional student research projects he’s been able to work on thanks to some extra time the Chancellor’s Research Chair position created for him. 

In addition to several psychology honours students and research assistants, five independent research students are currently working on three projects in Dr. Hamilton’s lab that could have big implications. Here’s a quick run-down of their studies. 

Siddharth Annadurai is working on a group intruder paradigm that looks at what happens when researchers introduce an intruder to a group of fish. Figuring out whether that changes the way the fish behave could result in a model for testing increased stress. 

Madison Mrazik and Gary Rosastik are working on a project that gives fish of varying ages different doses of nicotine to see if there are differential effects. Dr. Hamilton told Research Recast(ed) host Kelsie Howlett that it’s exciting work that’s never been done before. 

Ahanavi Habib-Mohammed and Alex Mattar are working with a new system that allows them to study the effects of different opioid-like drugs on larval fish behaviour, 24 fish at a time. This project is a partnership with a researcher at the Marie Curie Institute in Poland. 

“MacEwan has fantastic students, and a lot of students have the opportunity to perform real scientific research,” said Dr. Hamilton. “I don’t expect all of my students to become zebrafish researchers. But it helps them with the next stage of their career – whether in medicine, dentistry, law or psychology.”

When it comes to his own future, he’d love to look more into what is happening in the brains of fish on a neuronal level. 

“That requires some very expensive equipment, so we’ll see, but there are a lot of great opportunities on the horizon,” he said. “But what keeps me going is how excited students are about doing research.”

He will see more of that excitement firsthand when he takes several students to the Canadian Association for Neuroscience Conference in Toronto to present their work, meet other researchers and collaborate – something he knows to be critical in this field.

“The research chair position has also given me time to work with my collaborators at the University of California, San Diego, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography,” he said. “We were recently awarded a pretty sizable grant to study the neurobiology of changing oceans. We’re looking at hypoxia – lowered oxygen levels, increased temperatures and increased CO2 causing ocean acidification.”