Dr. Stephanie MacQuarrie and The Death Coast

Well-known and beloved within the CBU community, Dr. Stephanie MacQuarrie, Dean of the School of Science and Technology and Professor of Chemistry, will be making her television debut in the inaugural season of the Nova Scotia-based series The Death Coast. The show premieres on Tuesday, April 8, on USA Network with each episode streaming the next day on Crave. Throughout the series, Dr. MacQuarrie can be seen working in the labs and presenting the findings of her colleagues, Dr. Marzieh Baneshi and Dr. Raj Kaliaperumal, to the cast, crew and viewers at home.

“I felt like a fish out of water,” exclaims Dr. MacQuarrie. “I was comfortable doing the research, analyzing the data and explaining it, but I am no actress! I was nervous and had to run scenes many times; there was a lot more to the filming than I thought there would be. Thankfully, the cast and crew were amazing, accommodating and reassuring.”

Dr. MacQuarrie is no stranger to research, having obtained her BSc from Mount Allison University in 1996 before continuing on to pursue chemistry in graduate school at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Here, she earned her PhD under the supervision of Professor Paul Carlier in organic chemistry in 2005, the same year she accepted a postdoctoral position in Professor Cathleen Crudden’s group at Queen’s University.

In 2009, Dr. MacQuarrie started at Cape Breton University as an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry before eventually transitioning to her current role. Dr. MacQuarrie leads the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the New Frontiers of Research Fund (NFRF) and an industry-funded research group that focuses on addressing challenges related to wasted resources and the depletion of carbon-based resources locally, nationally and globally. She is known for her work in the thermochemical conversion and characterization of various agricultural feedstocks into value-added materials, including forest residues and seafood waste. Dr. MacQuarrie is also one of three NSERC Chairs for Inclusion in Science and Engineering in the Atlantic Region and enjoys many avenues of service in science outreach and promotion, particularly for under-represented groups.

The Death Coast follows Cape Breton’s own, Captain Jeff MacKinnon, a third-generation treasure hunter who was fulfilling his family’s legacy as the top shipwreck salvager in North America until the Nova Scotian government banned all wreckage recovery in 2010. Now, Captain Jeff has been granted the exclusive right to dive and salvage from the thousands of shipwrecks in the dangerous waters of Nova Scotia’s infamous “Death Coast.” This treacherous stretch of the North Atlantic was given this name thanks to its staggering estimate of 25,000 shipwrecks, the highest concentration in North and South America.

After joining his father’s team at the age of 14, Jeff now runs his own elite team of ex-FBI, military and police divers who risk everything to uncover lost artifacts and hidden treasure beneath the rough waters of the North Atlantic. Over the years, Jeff and his father have discovered several of Cape Breton’s most profitable treasure shipwrecks and recovered from them coins as valuable as $200,000 USD each, as well as artifacts which can be seen in museums across the world.

With access to 5,000 recorded wrecks in the Marine Heritage Database, the premiere episode follows Jeff and his team as they set their sights on Le Chameau, an 18th-century French cargo ship rumored to have sunk with a fortune of rare coins on board. Armed with a 300-year-old map, they race against time and the ocean’s unforgiving elements to uncover its long-lost treasure before another storm buries it forever. All artifacts recovered during the filming of the series are returned to the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage, Special Places Protection. 

“I’ve had a research relationship with Captain Jeff MacKinnon for years, looking at the value of rock weed as a fertilizer and other interesting projects,” says Dr. MacQuarrie. “When he started working on this project and questions came up about the composition of some of the pieces they recovered, he came to me and asked if our lab could do some studies and figure out what was present. Jeff’s creativity is inspiring, and it’s exciting to watch his ideas come to life like this! I am really excited and nervous to watch.”

Thanks to CBU’s state-of-the-art instrumentation and technology, the University is able to stay actively involved in projects like this one and many other community-centric ventures. We invite you to tune in to The Death Coast, premiering Tuesday, April 8 to see Captain Jeff and Dr. MacQuarrie in action. The docuseries seamlessly blends history and science into a highly dangerous, but incredibly rewarding adventure, sure to entertain Nova Scotians and those around the world.