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York satellites headed to space

Satellite in space

By Alexander Huls, deputy editor, YFile

One CubeSat – a square-shaped satellite the size of a Rubik’s cube – created by York University students, and another with hardware supplied by students, will launch from the Kennedy Space Center and be placed in orbit by International Space Station astronauts.

Zheng Hong (George) Zhu
George Zhu

Funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), since 2017 the Canadian CubeSat Project (CCP) has provided the opportunity for students to gain greater access and experiential learning to better prepare for careers in the aerospace industry by designing and building their own satellites.

“In the past, students who wanted to learn the design of space instruments and satellite technology never had the hands-on opportunity to build, launch and operate their own. Everything was on paper. This gives them opportunities,” explains Zheng Hong (George) Zhu, director of the Space Engineering Design Laboratory at York’s Lassonde School of Engineering.

Zhu led the team of students who created an entirely York-made satellite set to enter space this summer. The Educational Space Science and Engineering CubeSat Experiment (ESSENCE) is the first satellite to be designed and built mainly by undergraduate students across engineering programs at Lassonde. A previous York-made satellite was launched in 2020, but was designed, built, integrated and tested by graduate students led by Zhu.

The ESSENCE carries two science payloads expected to contribute to understanding of the effects of climate change, aligning the project with the York University Academic Plan 2020 – 2025, and the School’s dedication to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

The first payload is a high-resolution 360 degree by 187 degree fisheye camera which will be used to capture images of Canada’s Arctic Region from a height of 400 km to monitor the thawing of permafrost and Arctic ices. The camera can also capture images of stars and space debris. The team will collaborate with scientists at Defense Research and Development Canada to observe and monitor space debris with these images. The second payload is a proton detector, developed by the University of Sydney in Australia, which will collect data on energetic solar protons from solar storms in low Earth orbit, providing insights into the impact of climate change on Earth.

The ESSENCE was a collaborative effort between students, four co-investigators from Lassonde (Franz Newlands, Mike Daly, Andrew Maxwell and Alexsander Czekanski), as well as strategic partnerships with the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), which provided novel attitude control algorithms to point the camera in desired directions.

The ESSENCE Satellite team
The ESSENCE CubeSat team saying goodbye to their satellite before it was shipped off for launch preparation

The second CubeSat to be launched into space this summer, thanks to York students, is also a product of an external partnership. However, while the ESSENCE was a York-led satellite relying on hardware from other institutions, a University of Manitoba-led CubeSat project draws on innovative hardware provided by Lassonde students.

Supervised by Regina Lee, professor of space engineering, a team of students was asked by the University of Manitoba CubeSat team – who named their satellite “IRIS” – to create a critical component to help realize the partner school’s CubeSat goal of consistently exposing geological samples to solar radiation in space and study the effects.

Regina Lee
Regina Lee

“Our job was to design the subsystem to go into their satellite that would figure out which direction it’s pointing in within space, and make sure it’s pointing to the sun,” explains Ryan Clark, who worked on the project, and is a former member of the Nanosatellite Research Laboratory at York.

“They set a general guideline for the hardware component development, and our contribution was the sun sensor, magnetorquers and then the board that contains the full Attitude Determination and Control System that fits on the CubeSat,” says Peter Keum, who was part of the team.

Lastly: “We were focused on testing, calibrating and – once we were done – shipping it off,” says Gabriel Chianelli, the remaining member of the team, who is part of the Nanosatellite Search Group at York.

The two CubeSats – the ESSENCE and IRIS – are now being readied for their space-bound journey, and both teams are preparing to see them launched this summer. Zhu and 20 of his students are planning to travel to the Kennedy Space Station Center to witness the launch, some of them from within a NASA VIP room that is only five kilometers away from the launch pad. Others, like Lee’s team, will eagerly be watching via YouTube livestreams.

For both professors behind the work on the two satellites, the launch will mark the fruition of a desire to see their students work on something that won’t just make it to space, but impact their futures. “My goal was to make sure that my students have hands-on experience so they can graduate and do well in their career,” Lee says. Zhu shares that sentiment. “I have a passionate love for space engineering, and I like my students to have the same life experience I do,” he says.

Projects like the ESSENCE might be the first satellite to be designed and built mainly by undergraduate students at York, but it’s unlikely to be the last. “When I was an undergrad, starting to 2014, there were no internships or placements for undergrad space students,” Clark says. “Now, there are so many more placements, so many opportunities available, it seems like just the barriers to entry are coming down, and a lot more people are getting into space.”

Centre for Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation hosts garden party for World Bee Day

Macro photo of green metallic sweat bee perched on a yellow flower

The Centre for Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (BEEc) will once again mark the annual United Nations World Bee Day with new events designed to promote the health of local pollinators.

This year, for the first time, BEEc and the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) welcome all members of the University community to the EUC Native Plant Garden party on May 16 from 2:30 to 5 p.m.

World Bee Day, led internationally by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is dedicated to acknowledging and spreading awareness of the plethora of vital environmental processes that depend on the often underappreciated work of Earth’s busy bees.

“Bees are one of the most important groups of pollinators in the world, yet most people are unaware that we have at least 350 species in the GTA alone,” explains BEEc Coordinator Victoria MacPhail. “The EUC Native Plant Garden is an oasis for them on a campus full of concrete and buildings, providing food, shelter and nesting sites throughout the year.”

Observed around the world on Saturday, May 20, this year World Bee Day will arrive early at York in order to allow for the participation of as many interested community members as possible.

“We’re excited to celebrate World Bee Day a few days early with the whole York University community, to take this opportunity to share our love and knowledge of bees with others,” MacPhail says. “We have a wealth of free resources and are happy to chat with people about what they can do to help pollinators, from planting native flowers to advocating for increased protections.”

A lush planter box full of a variety of species of wild flowers
One of the EUC native species planter boxes to be maintained for World Bee Day

The featured garden party event is sponsored in part by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada and is open to all staff, students and faculty, as well as members of the public from outside of the University. Attendees will learn from York’s expert mellitologists, as well as free handouts, pinned insect displays, example bee nests and more, about the highly diverse bee species indigenous to Toronto and Southern Ontario at large, as well as the local flora that they depend on for sustenance. As a part of this hands-on learning experience, guests will be able to contribute to the University’s floral biodiversity by planting new native species in the EUC garden and removing invasive species that are less conducive to the health of local pollinators.

“We’re so thrilled to invigorate our relationship and stewardship of this wonderful garden started by [Professors] Gerde Werkerle and Leesa Fawcett, among others, with the partnership of BEEc. Hundreds of students pass by or attend summer classes in this rooftop garden sitting atop lecture halls and we want them to come to know this lively oasis of over 40 species – some of them edible. May 16 will be a great start to what we anticipate will be an amazing season,” says Phyllis Novak, director of the EUC Maloca Community and Native Plant Gardens.

York community members who intend to join in the gardening are asked to RSVP here by Friday, May 12. Members of the public are encouraged to drop in to this event and are not required to register. No prior experience or personal equipment is required to join in the gardening. Participants are encouraged to dress for the elements as this event will run rain or shine.

MacPhail says gardening volunteers can expect to “see examples of bee species – from tiny, smooth, black solitary bees that are only a few millimeters long and can be mistaken for flies or ants, to the large, fuzzy bumblebees that can be up to a couple centimeters in size, and whose queens are easily seen this time of year.

“Toronto’s official bee, the green metallic sweat bee – or Agapostemon virescens – has already been seen nesting in the garden, and we are confident that the upcoming garden party will help to improve the habitat for it and many other wildlife species,” she adds.

Additional BEEc-hosted events will run following the garden party and in the lead up to the official World Bee Day, including a cocktail fundraiser to help endow a fund for EUC graduate students studying bees on May 17 in Markham, as well as a Scholars’ Hub virtual seminar on May 18 detailing the leading-edge research on bees being carried out at York.

For more information on these supplemental Bee Day events, contact beec@yorku.ca or see the BEEc news and social media page.

Visiting artist Zeelie Brown to celebrate Black, queer ecologies through quilt-making

quilt patches
quilt patches

The Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) welcomes visiting Artist-in-Residence Zeelie Brown from May 11 to 19.

Artist Zeelie Brown holding cello under dramatic teal lighting
Zeelie Brown

Brown’s artistry stems from her upbringing in rural Alabama. She creates Black and queer refuges called “soulscapes” – blending sound, performance, installation, wilderness and more to provide solace and challenge systemic oppression.

Hosted by EUC Professor Andil Gosine, Brown will collaborate with the Faculty to create a quilt, exploring the intersections of Black and queer identities and nature, which will be shared at Gosine’s keynote lecture at the Sexuality Studies Association conference as part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences on May 29.

Staff, students and faculty are encouraged to attend a meet-and-greet with Brown on May 18 at 10:30 a.m. in HNES 138.

Brown met with graduate student researcher Danielle Legault to talk about her upcoming visit.

Q: Can you please share a bit about who Zeelie Brown is?

A: Well, I am an installation artist, cellist and butcher. I am from the woods of Alabama and San Antonio, Texas, where I grew up going back and forth between both places. In my practice I am very much concerned with environment and space. I’m concerned with the ideas of wilderness, Black people’s experience of wilderness, the idea of wilderness as a constructed place, and how queerness, humanity and grace intersect in order to envision and build a more sustainable future.

Q: Can you describe what goals you have for your visit to Toronto and York University?

A: I’m only here for a week, so I’m excited to engage in the exploration of art, craft and culture and to share my perspective, the place I come from and the struggles of that place. These include struggles around adequately weatherproofed housing, the continued colonial legacy of environmental racism, the racism embedded within the landscape architecture of the American project – America being considered a continent and not just a country here – and struggles around place building and the intersections of Blackness, queerness and different identities. And more than all of that, the ability to create from, and beyond, those places.

I’m also excited to learn more about Canada and about Toronto. I’ve met other queer activists through work that I’ve done in the past that I’m interested in following up with. I’m excited to see where our struggles can meet one another and support one another.

Q: You will be working on a project with Professor Andil Gosine while you are here. Can you share some details about that?

A: I’ll be making a collaborative community quilt with York University students and Professor Gosine, centered around ideas contained within his book, Nature’s Wild. The quilt will be a meditation on the intersection of the students’ own personal expressions of their identities and their own interfaces with nature and the ideas of Blackness, wilderness and being from the margin. So, we’re making a quilt, but I’m really interested in pushing the boundaries and exploring what form the quilt will take.

Q: Can you speak about the significance of quilting and how it can push boundaries?

A: In Alabama, we’re world-renowned for our quilting tradition. But to me, quilting is about taking the things that are left over and making art of the discards. It comes from a very long African tradition of abhorring waste. Lots of traditions have this, where “waste not, want not” is traditionally part of the culture.

I think often art is seen as a solitary exercise and not as a means of holding and tying together a community. But what did those quilts in Alabama do? They reminded people of their lost loved ones. They kept people warm. They have a very practical function. And in a situation of enforced dearth, where a Black rural culture that has given everything to the American project is being inhaled, robbed and tied to a racist myth constructed to keep the plantation class rich in their culture and power. The community takes its scraps and makes art and warmth, and joy and love.

Q: Is there anything you would like to share with the York community before your arrival?

A: I want to thank Toronto, York and Professor Gosine for having me here. I would like to emphasize thinking about the folks back home in the Black Belt who, due to the soil tectonics of that region, which were very conducive to growing cotton, have limited, if any, access to adequate sewage and are penalized by the state for the state’s failure. I want to uplift the work of Black folks in rural America.

When we slow down and take time for the rituals, like quilting, cooking, care, cultivating – when we start viewing these acts as important as profit, things start coming together and problems start getting solved. But when everybody’s after a quick buck, there’s often only so many quick bucks to be had.

Going back to what the goal of my time at York is; the goal of my project is to slow down, to create community and to revive traditions that are nearly lost because they don’t make money fast, yet have kept folks alive through some of the most harrowing and wretched treatment that humans have ever inflicted upon each other.

New resources support community learning during Emergency Preparedness Week

Go safe team

Do you know what to do in the case of an emergency? Resources developed by the Community Safety Department at York provide information, helpful tips and guided learning to help keep the University community safe.

For the last 25 years, Public Safety Canada has supported a National Emergency Preparedness Week (EP Week) to educate Canadians about how to protect themselves, their families and their community during an emergency. At York, the Community Safety Department is encouraging community members to utilize new and existing resources for learning during EP Week to assist in prevention, planning, response and mitigation of emergencies. While emergency planning is done institutionally, preparedness requires a degree of individual responsibility to ensure collective success.

Safety app
York’s Safety App is available for the University community

In partnership with Organizational Learning and People Excellence (OLPE), the Community Safety Department has developed a self-paced course on local emergency preparedness that is available through YU Learn. The Local Emergency Preparedness Course helps York community members understand how to respond to potential local emergencies. This includes information about potential hazards, how to avoid emergencies by being proactive and how to respond to specific hazards and local emergencies, including evacuation procedures, shelter-in-place and lockdown drills. The course material also includes the vast resources that York’s community safety team has developed to ensure students, faculty, staff and guests are safe on York’s campuses, including the Safety App and the campus fire safety systems.

“In recent years, we’ve seen the importance of emergency planning and preparedness rise to the forefront, especially as we navigated new waters with the COVID-19 pandemic and developed new strategies to keep each other safe,” said Orville Wallace, York’s new executive director, Community Safety. “I encourage all members of the community to take the time to review the emergency preparedness resources available and ensure they understand what responsibility they have in both individual and institutional safety.”

In addition to the local emergency preparedness course, there is a variety of materials available on the community safety website, such as information about the emergency notification system, emergency assembly points and an emergency response guide. For those seeking emergency preparedness information while physically on campus, there are over 8,000 posters with safety information, emergency procedures and contact information across both Keele and Glendon campuses. Community members who do not have an emergency poster in their workplace, or who would like to add an additional poster, can contact the Office of Emergency Management.

Beyond preparation, EP Week is an opportunity to put learning into action. All departments are currently seeking full-time University employees to join their Emergency Response Warden Program to help ensure the safety of the community. Wardens assist in the evacuation of buildings in the case of an emergency, provide valuable information to building occupants and first responders and support staff by promoting a culture of emergency preparedness at York.

All information related to emergency planning and preparedness at York can be found here.

Meet York University’s latest commercialization Fellows

man using tablet with graphic image of lightbulb

Four budding researchers completed York University’s Commercialization Fellowship program – now in its second year – at the end of April.  

The Commercialization Fellowship program is funded by the innovation arm of the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation at York. The program runs from January to April and provides graduate students and postdoctoral Fellows support and assistance to develop their academic research into a commercially viable product.   

The Fellows receive $7,500 as stipend, with a quarter of the funds earmarked for research activities like prototype testing, proof of concept projects, or validation studies. They also participate in workshops and seminars that focus on various topics related to commercialization, including design thinking, intellectual property, licensing, and partnerships. Additionally, Fellows work at and receive advice on patent searching, industry outreach, and pitching.  

“The fellowship provides a valuable opportunity to support and train the next generation of innovators and supports them on their entrepreneurial journey,” said Suraj Shah, associate director, commercialization and strategic partnerships.  

Aspire spoke with the four Fellows about the fellowship program and their products.

Kajanan Kanathipan
Kajanan Kanathipan

Kajanan Kanathipan, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Project title: Modular single-stage step-up photovoltaic (PV) converter with integrated power balancing feature 

Kanathipan’s doctoral research focuses on the development of new extraction techniques for renewable energy, particularly solar power. Solar energy can be tricky to harness for power due to varying atmospheric conditions, like cloud cover.  

Kanathipan is determined to find a way to circumvent this issue and build a device that not only streamlines the conversion process, but can maximize power extraction under all operating conditions. 

Solar energy starts with sunlight, which is made up of photons. Photovoltaic (PV) panels convert the sunlight into electrical currents. This is then converted to electricity that supplies power for machines, homes and buildings to run on. It’s a two-step process involving different converters. 

Kanathipan’s idea would reduce the power conversion to a single step, using the same converter. This converter would also be able to better balance and store power from the PV panels to not stress or drain one converter more than the others.  

The invention would allow the entire conversion system to safely operate under different weather conditions. This would reduce equipment costs and produce a greater amount of energy for PV plants.  

“We are looking to design and control photovoltaic conversion well enough that it provides an innovative solution in the solar technology industry,” says Kanathipan, who works out of the Advanced Power Electronics Laboratory for Sustainable Energy Research (PELSER) and is supervised by John Lam, associate professor at the Lassonde School of Engineering.  

Kanathipan says the fellowship program has provided education and training not found in the lab, like the workshops on how to protect your intellectual property, build business partnerships, or how to determine a potential customer.   

Right now, Kanathipan is working on a scaled down prototype, a key component of his dissertation.   

Kanathipan is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering.

Stephanie Cheung
Stephanie Cheung

Stephanie Cheung, Faculty of Education
Project title: VoteBetter 

Cheung created the VoteBetter app, a SaaS (software as a service) product, which aims to drive civic engagement in student politics. The application operates as a virtual election space for post-secondary student constituents, candidates and incumbents, and provides a central source for locating, contributing to and comparing campaign priorities. Users can view candidates’ profiles, submit questions, and view, rank and comment on crowd-sourced campus issues. Once the election is over, the app tracks the campaign promises of elected representatives and serves as a community forum.  

Under the supervision of Natalia Balyasnikova, assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, Cheung’s master’s research examines contemporary trends in political participation on diverse campuses in the Greater Toronto Area and explores how undergraduate student election voter engagement and turnout might be improved. The idea for the app was inspired by her research and Cheung’s own experience in student politics, in addition to a former role as a public servant with the provincial government.  

“VoteBetter can be used as a tool for students to deepen dialogue and focus more on the substantive issues their communities face than surface-level politics,” Cheung says. “Student groups can wield hefty budgets and their constituents deserve well-informed leaders who understand pertinent issues and are equipped to pursue sustainable change.”  

Cheung says the fellowship program has offered structure and guidance as she works through her research and development phase. She says she is interested in the commercialization of her master’s research not for profit, but to extend the impact of her academic work.   

“I am often asking myself how research can live off the page,” she says. “And I’m interested in my work facilitating opportunities for co-constructing knowledge and bridging theory to practice.”  

Currently, Cheung’s VoteBetter app is being validated with end users.  

Cheung is a part-time master’s student in the Faculty of Education and full-time staff at York where she works as manager, student success and stakeholder engagement at Calumet and Stong Colleges in the Faculty of Health.

Mehran Sepah Mansoor
Mehran Sepah Mansoor

Mehran Sepah Mansoor, Mechanical Engineering
Project title: A method of fabricating one-dimensional photonic crystal optical filters  

Mansoor works out of York University’s Advanced Materials for Sustainable Energy Technologies Laboratory. His research at the AM-SET Lab has led to him inventing a novel fabrication method for a photonic crystal optical filter, which can transmit sunlight over a broad range of wavelengths.  

Mansoor, under the supervision of AM-SET Lab’s founder Paul G. O’Brian at the Lassonde School of Engineering, believes the invention could have several applications, but it could be particularly useful to improve thermal energy storage systems, particularly those that store solar thermal energy.   

Thermal energy storage involves preventing losses via heat conduction, convection, and radiation. Mansoor’s photonic crystal filter more effectively controls solar radiation and thermal losses simultaneously and can transmit sunlight to be absorbed and converted to heat in a thermal storage medium.  

The filter can also reflect radiative heat from the medium, which has longer wavelengths than sunlight, minimizing heat losses. The stored energy can then act as a power source later when sunlight is no longer available.  

“The innovation is the way the materials in the photonic crystal filters have been fabricated and the treatment applied to them to achieve the optical properties needed to refract or bend light in a desired manner, as well as the way we have been able to stack all of the materials together,” said Mansoor. “Our method eliminates unwanted energy absorption in the photonic crystal while improving the energy transmission of the filter.”  

Mansoor cites the program’s design thinking workshop as a highlight of his time as a Fellow. He says the fellowship also provided him a greater understanding of how to patent technology. This invention marks his first patent.  

So far, Mansoor has completed simulations of the invention and has some preliminary results. He is in the early stages of creating a prototype.  

Mansoor is a second-year master’s student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering.

Abbas Panahi
Abbas Panahi

Abbas Panahi, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Project title: A novel portable platform based on field-effect transistor integrated with microfluidics for biosensing applications 

Panahi’s academic work studying biosensors – a device to detect and target molecules – grew stronger after a PhD internship at Mitacs. Now in his fourth year as a PhD student and under the supervision of Professor Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh at the Lassonde School of Engineering, Panahi has invented a new biosensing platform that can detect disease.  

The platform uses sensor technology that can be used on a portable device, like a smartphone, to analyze the specific concentration of RNA or any biomarker in a saliva sample.   

“This technology has huge potential for medical application,” Panahi says. “The device could be used in hospitals for non-expert users to run clinical tests and help detect viruses quickly and easily.”  

The portable sensor was developed entirely at York University’s Biologically Inspired Sensors and Actuators (BioSA) Laboratory – from the testing and modelling, to all the engineering – by a team of students and research associates under the direction, guidance and conceptualization of Ghafar-Zadeh. The development process involved a variety of tasks, including in-house testing, modelling and engineering design. 

For Panahi, the fellowship program gave him a complete education for what it takes to start a science-based venture. He says the fellowship allowed him to fully consider every aspect of the commercialization process and develop a strong business model. He also says the program’s teachings on how to match the technology with market needs was invaluable.  

Currently, Panahi is working on technology market matching, and readying the device to undergo clinical tests in the next year.   

Panahi is a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering.  

Student-led waste diversion project celebrates first compost harvest

Hands holding seeds and soil

By Alexander Huls, deputy editor, YFile

The Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom (C4) student-led project to create a full-cycle composing system at York University will soon distribute a metric ton of compost across the Keele campus, fulfilling its goal to divert organic waste from selected vendors at York.

The project creates a closed-loop system by turning the waste that would otherwise go to landfill into useful compost that can be used on campus.

Danielle Robinson
Danielle Robinson

The upcoming harvest, which began with the 2019 revitalization of the decaying three-tier composting systems in the Maloca Community Garden, is the result of woodchips received from the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, fruit and food from Grocery Checkout in York Lanes, as well as coffee grounds and more from the two Starbucks locations on campus. Partnerships with the businesses, and transportation of the waste to the Maloca composting system with a push cart, was all hands-on experience initiated by the students themselves – a significant objective for C4.

“Our approach to experiential education keeps students in the driver’s seat,” says Danielle Robinson, co-lead of C4. “The more that we let them take the lead, the more it shows them that we believe in them, that we think they have valuable skills and knowledges, and that they can do things in the world that matter.”

Ronan Smith
Ronan Smith

Changing the world, and righting the future, is especially important to the C4 initiative, which aligns its offerings with York’s dedication to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). “We organize all of our projects by SDGs at C4 because it helps students channel their efforts directly towards specific kinds of impacts outside the classroom,” says Robinson.

The C4 students’ composting system will also have a significant impact on campus. “Our whole idea is to keep this closed loop system where we’re getting our waste from campus and then we’re giving it back to campus in one way or another,” says Ronan Smith, a student who has been with the project since it started. Once the compost from the harvest is tested to see how nutrient rich it is, it will be distributed to several nearby recipients such as the community farmers at Maloca Community Gardens and Many Green Hand, a student club. Smith also hopes to have a seed a drive to get interested students set up with pots, plants and soil. Anything left over, would be distributed to different grounds across York, such as garden beds like those outside the Health, Nursing and Environmental Studies building.

From there, the group’s ambitions turn towards the future, Smith says. They want to scale up by exploring row composting or worm bins to create a greater diversity of compost sources, as well as processing more waste with composting hubs around the University in high density spots – like Central Square – to streamline the process. Generating more awareness will also be a goal, not only to draw in new students and volunteers, but illustrate the composting system’s success. “Our goal is showing that this can work, like how in just under a year we can process over a metric ton of waste,” Smith says.

They don’t need to show it can work to Robinson, however, who has been impressed by the efforts of Smith and his fellow compost collaborators. “I am constantly blown away by what our students can do, what they dream up, and the drive they have to create change in the world,” she says.

York Lions football captain drafted by CFL’s Roughriders

Matt Dean and his teammates at a 2022 York Lions football game

Matt Dean – a Lions football linebacker, captain through the 2022 season and graduate student at York University – was selected by the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League (CFL) 2023 draft.

Matt Dean close-up portrait
Matt Dean

Dean garnered no shortage of attention throughout the Lions’ most recent season, having topped the majority of the team’s defensive statistics this year. Dean led the team in tackles, including 41 solo and an additional 13 assisted, for a total of 47.5. During the Lions’ mid-October bout with the Ottawa Gee Gees, Dean posted a season-high of 11 tackles – 10 solo and two assists. He earned 115 all-time tackles with the Lions – 90 solo and 53 assists. Dean also secured both of the Lions’ interceptions this season and averaged 5.9 tackles per game for a total of four yards lost.

Dean started in all eight of the Lion’s games this year and, for his impressive display throughout, was recognized as the latest Lions football MVP at York’s 54th annual Varsity Athletics Banquet in April.

Having ended his time with the Lions on what is arguably his best season to date, Dean had previously earned himself a variety of coveted accolades during his undergraduate and even high school football careers.

The six-foot-two, 220-pound, Oshawa, Ont. local joined the Lions for the 2018 season, during which he blocked a would-be game-winning field goal attempt to secure a victory against Waterloo. He was also named to the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) 2018 all-rookie team. In 2019, Dean started for all eight games and led the team in tackles for yards lost at 5.5. In 2021, he started for five games and led the Lions for total tackles at 23 – 18 solo and 10 assists. At Monsignor Paul Dwyer Catholic High School, Dean earned consecutive Lake Ontario Secondary School Athletics (LOSSA) gold medals in 2015 and 2016, as well as the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) Eastern Bowl title in 2015.

Dean was selected in the second round of the latest CFL draft, going 21st overall. His newest team – the Saskatchewan Roughriders – are one of the CFL’s preeminent franchises, having won four Grey Cups throughout their history in 1966, 1989, 2007 and most recently in 2013.

This marks the sixth consecutive year that a York Lions footballer has been drafted into the CFL, with Dean being the 10th drafted Lion in that timeframe.

To view the York Lions football schedule for the upcoming season, click here.

York student seeks to improve lives of refugees

By Elaine Smith

After graduating from York this spring, Tegan Hadisi, the daughter of Iranian refugees, will apply what she learned at the University to further study and assist migrants, contributing to a better future for them.

Hadisi’s academic pursuit of refugee studies is inspired, in part, by personal experience. She was born stateless in Turkey, after her parents left Iran, and came to Canada as a toddler. Growing up, she observed the challenges her parents faced learning a new language, finding employment and gaining financial security before finding their feet.

Tegan Hadisi
Tegan Hadisi

“I can only imagine what it is like to be successful in your own country, then be unable to translate your skills when you come somewhere new due to language and finances,” said Hadisi, who heads to the University of Oxford this fall.

Hadisi also struggled. Like many children of the diaspora, she felt stuck between two worlds, never feeling 100 per cent part of the community where she lived, and longing for her parents’ home country even though she never really knew it.

While earning her undergraduate degree at Western University in art history and museum studies, Hadisi’s understanding of the refugee experience led her to serve as president of Western’s chapter of World University Services Canada, an organization that provides refugee students scholarships to attend university in Canada. During the Syrian refugee crisis, “We had an influx of refugees to campus in one year. It was a really unique opportunity to connect to other lived histories,” she said.

“I realized the importance of higher education and access for historically oppressed and minoritized people. I thought about what I could do with this experience.”

Hadisi chose to enroll in York’s Centre for Refugee Studies, which, since its inception in 1988, has been recognized as an international leader in the creation, mobilization, and dissemination of new knowledge that addresses forced migration issues in local, national and global contexts. There she worked towards her second bachelor’s degree, with an honours specialization in human rights and equity studies and a certificate in migration and refugee studies.

During that time, Hadisi volunteered at Matthew House, an organization that offers a range of support services to help refugee claimants establish new lives in Canada. She supervised mock refugee hearings, preparing claimants for the experience. Her ultimate goal was to attend graduate school somewhere with a centre for refugee and migration studies that published solid research. Yvonne Su, an assistant professor in the Department of Equity Studies, encouraged her to apply to the University of Oxford to earn her MPhil in development studies, confident Hadisi would excel there.

“Tegan shows tremendous potential as a scholar,” said Su. “She has exemplary interdisciplinary research skills, strong critical thinking skills and strong academic writing capabilities. In addition, she is passionate about studying topics of displacement and refuge. She has what it takes to succeed at Oxford and I look forward to seeing where her studies will take her.”

Hadisi applied. “Sometimes, you need someone else to tell you just how capable you are,” she said.

While taking a morning walk in early March, she decided to take a quick look at her phone while standing at a street corner and noticed one from Oxford. She assumed it was simply spam until she opened it to find an acceptance letter.

“I was stunned,” Hadisi said. “It must have showed on my face, because a passerby came up to ask me if I was all right.”

Her two-year program at Oxford will begin with courses, followed by research and a thesis. Hadisi is not quite sure where she’s headed, but she is confident that she’ll discover many options. She loves research, but “My goal is to stay connected with the actual experiences of migrants and refugees, not to just sit behind a desk.”

One thing of which Hadisi is certain is that she’s committed to aiding refugees and migrants. Her passion reflects York’s vision of building a better future and creating positive change, as set forth in the University Academic Plan, along with its commitment to advancing global engagement.

“Refugees are so deeply connected to my own identity, and the work feels so important,” Hadisi said. “If I don’t do this, who will? Who is prioritizing these people? All the dehumanizing rhetoric is so inhumane and I can’t stand by and watch it happen.”

“Working with migrants and refugees is a mutual relationship and I feel so fortunate to be part of the process. What we get in return is just as important as what we give, and we have so much to learn from people who continue to be oppressed.”

As for her time at York, Hadisi is grateful. “York offered a fantastic opportunity to pursue the things I cared about and I knew I needed to take the leap,” she said. “I blinked and two years went by because I had such an incredible time at York. I made good friends and had incredibly inspiring professors; York will always have a special place in my heart.”

CJS event explores research gaps in study of Canadian Jewish life

orthodox Jewish men walking through a park

Questions, not answers, about the lives of contemporary Jewish Canadians will be the topic of conversation for an esteemed guest panel at “What We Don’t Know About Canadian Jewish Life,” hosted by York University’s Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies (CJS) on Wednesday, May 17.

What don’t we know about Jewish religious observance habits or changing attitudes toward ideological and political issues? What don’t we know about coast-to-coast-to-coast social and demographic detail or issues of aging, housing, marriage or leisure? What are the known-unknowns and what unknown-unknowns might we uncover for the benefit of deeper understanding and useful knowledge? These are some of the questions pondered by researchers at York’s CJS and beyond.

“Though Canada is home to the fourth largest Jewish population in the world, there’s surprisingly little scholarly research on it. It’s a remarkably diverse, ever-changing and living community,” says David S. Koffman, J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry, acting director at the CJS and moderator of the upcoming event.

This event will examine how Jewish Canadians, their families, institutions and communities are changing: this sizeable and dynamic diaspora is constantly in flux, yet Jewish Canada remains glaringly understudied. The topics of this event consider the state of both academic and applied social research on contemporary Jewish life in Canada.

“Virtually all scholarly events focus on the things we’ve just learned – they’re about sharing new knowledge. This event is unusual in that it’ll try to map what we don’t yet know. The right questions are, in a sense, harder than the answers,” says Koffman.

What we don't know about Canadian Jewish life vector art poster

“Facilitating this sort of program and hosting the globe’s foremost leaders fits right into the sweet spot for me as the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry,” he adds. “These aren’t the questions I normally focus on as a historian, so bringing together social scientists and community policy and planning leaders is really important.”

The panel of leading researchers of Canadian Jewry features: Robert Brym, S. D. Clark Chair in sociology at the University of Toronto; Daniel Held, York alum and chief program officer at the United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto; Randal Schnoor, author, researcher and lecturer at York University; and Morton Weinfeld, Chair in Canadian Ethnic Studies at McGill University’s department of sociology.

This roundtable discussion will be led by Koffman and introduced by fellow social researcher of Canada’s Jews, York University President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton.

Koffman says “The Centre for Jewish Studies is very pleased with our current standing as a true centre for meaningful intellectual engagement about Canada-wide Jewish life, literature, scholarship, culture and politics.

“There are some great academic Jewish studies programs in Canada,” he adds. “But I think we’re the only centre that is trying to curate a platform for the whole nation.”

To register for this free virtual event, click here.

Centre for Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion launches new REDDI series

Equity, diversity, inclusion

In view of the upcoming launch of York University’s Decolonizing, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (DEDI) Strategy, the Centre for Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion (REI) is offering a curated list of summer REDDI sessions, covering a wide range of topics to ensure University community members are prepared to address systemic inequities.

In furthering the goals of the York University Academic Plan and the DEDI Strategy, the Rights, Equity, Diversity, Decolonization & Inclusion (REDDI) certificate workshop sessions are designed to provide opportunities for community members to learn, reflect upon and discuss ways to contribute to an equitable academic environment. Each session will run for approximately 90 minutes and will be offered virtually, to facilitate the attendance of participants on and off campus.

All students, staff and faculty are invited to attend REDDI workshops running from the beginning of June to mid-August. The series will kick off Pride month with a session on building positive spaces on campus and in the workplace. Sessions on bias, microaggressions, organizational change and employment equity will be offered for those interested in completing a full-length certificate, and the popular mini-series workshops will also be offered, which cover topics including challenging ableism, addressing racism and dialogues across difference. The series also features a new French session on ableism called “Démanteler le capacitisme : Briser les barrières à l’accès et l’inclusion.”

Participants who complete three full-length workshops will receive a REDDI series certificate. The 2023 summer workshops are also an opportunity for participants to attend and add on to their requirements for the REDDI mini-series certificates.

REDDI mini-series workshops also offer certificates of completion. For certificates to be awarded following a mini-series, three mini-series workshops plus one full-length workshop must be attended.

Registration for these workshops is required and can be accessed through the YULearn Learning Opportunities website. To learn more about York’s new DEDI strategy, click here.