Books illustrate thought leadership in Indigenous-formed and -led research

Indigenous feathers

In the coming years, Indigenous leadership in York’s collaborative, socially engaged research will create a unique space to support contributions to Indigenous knowledges within and beyond the academy.

In articulating this research opportunity, York affirms a commitment to respectful, relevant, Indigenous-formed and -led research, scholarship and related creative activity. This research promises positive and critically needed change to policy, practice, community and cultural life and ultimately, relationships among us all.

Deborah McGregor

One way to create this space is through publications that help to shape the research discussion and add to our understanding of this vital area of study. Two professors at Osgoode Hall Law School have done precisely that.

Karen Drake
Karen Drake

Professor Deborah McGregor, also in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, has edited a collection with Jean-Paul Restoule (University of Victoria) and Rochelle Johnston (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto): Indigenous Research: Theories, Practices, and Relationships (Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2018).

Professor Karen Drake has edited a new book with Brenda Gunn (University of Manitoba): Renewing Relationships: Indigenous Peoples and Canada (Wiyasiwewin Mikiwahp Native Law Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 2019).

McGregor shines a light on how Indigenous approaches to research are carried out in practice

McGregor, who is Anishinaabe from Whitefish River First Nation, Birch Island, Ontario, is a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice. Her research program seeks to develop a distinctive environmental justice framework based on Indigenous knowledge systems and the lived experience of Indigenous peoples. Her work provides a much deeper understanding of environmental injustices facing Indigenous peoples, and even more importantly, leads to viable approaches to addressing such challenges.

Deborah McGregor’s new book, Indigenous Research. Image reproduced with permission of the publisher.

McGregor’s new collection, Indigenous Research, makes a unique contribution to the literature because it moves beyond asking what Indigenous research is, and examines how Indigenous approaches to research are carried out in practice.

Contributors to this 17-chapter volume share their personal experiences of conducting research within an academic setting in collaboration with their communities and with guidance from Elders and other traditional knowledge keepers.

Topics include healing and transformative learning through Indigenous methodologies, conducting community-based research in First Nation Communities, storytelling in narrative inquiry, and research within relations of violence.

“These stories are linked to current discussions and debates, and their unique journeys reflect the diversity of Indigenous languages, knowledges and approaches to inquiry,” says McGregor.

Drake considers renewing relationships between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state

Drake is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario whose research interests include Canadian law as it affects Indigenous peoples, Anishinaabe law, Métis law, property law and dispute resolution. Her work addresses the relationship between liberalism and Aboriginal rights, and the role of Aboriginal rights and legal education in promoting reconciliation. She previously served as a commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, on the Board of Directors of the Indigenous Bar Association, and on the Thunder Bay Métis Council.

Karen Drake’s new book, Renewing Relationships. Image reproduced with permission of the publisher.

Her recent publication, Renewing Relationships, consists of a series of compelling essays by Indigenous legal academics about revitalizing relationships between Canada and Indigenous people. Importantly, it reflects the many differing viewpoints from across the nation. “Some Indigenous nations might embrace principles of reconciliation, while others reject the concept of reconciliation and advocate for resistance or decolonization,” Drake explains.

This book, which features contributions by McGregor, Professor Signa Daum Shanks and doctoral student Robert Clifford, builds on existing literature about Indigenous-Crown relationships that addresses issues such as the inclusion of Indigenous laws, self-determination and the role of the constitution.

The chapters pose vital questions, such as:

  • What is the role of Indigenous law in renewing the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada?
  • What does the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples contribute to an understanding of a renewed relationship?
  • What shifts must occur within Canadian institutions to move away from the current colonial relationship?

To learn more about McGregor, visit her profile page. To learn more about her new book, visit the publisher’s website. To learn more about Drake, visit her profile page. To learn more about her new collection, visit the publisher’s website.

To learn more about Research & Innovation at York, follow us at @YUResearch; watch our new animated video, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the snapshot infographic, a glimpse of the year’s successes.

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, Research Communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, York University, muellerm@yorku.ca

Vision researchers undertake cutting-edge work on perception, orientation

FEATURED_vision
vision

Everyday activities that we take for granted, such walking, riding a bike or even sitting still, depend on our sense of equilibrium. Gravity provides an ever-present downward pull that we need to sense in order to balance effectively. Visual cues, such as knowing a tree trunk is rooted in the ground, assist in this process.

Gravity provides an ever-present downward pull that we need to sense in order to balance effectively
Pearl Guterman

Pearl Guterman (BSc ’05, BA ’06, MA ’09, PhD ’16) a grad student at the time of the research, and Lassonde School of Engineering Professor Robert Allison made an important discovery in the field of vision and perception: they confirmed the A-effect, the phenomenon of perceiving a vertical line as tilted towards the body when tilting your head sideways in the dark, and showed that a similar misperception applied to perceived direction of visual motion. They also found that the A-effect is stronger when people feel like they’re moving compared to when they see this motion as coming from the external world.

Robert Allison

The findings were published in Vision (2019). The research was funded by National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency.

Allison is a core member of the Vision: Science to Application (VISTA) program, associate director of the Centre for Vision Research (CVR) and a York Research Chair in Stereoscopic Vision and Depth Perception. Guterman, now a PhD, is a principal in Applied Intelligence at Accenture.

The two researchers sat down with Brainstorm to talk about the significance of this work.

Q: What were the objectives of this study?

PG: We wanted to see whether the A-effect occurs when scene motion shown to stationary observers generated a compelling illusion of self-motion (such as walking or driving) called vection. Vection is similar to the feeling of motion that you experience when sitting in a stationary train and viewing another train moving on an adjacent track: you feel like you’re moving as well.

What’s interesting about vection is that it occurs despite a conflict between what you are seeing and what your inner ear is sensing.

Vection is the compelling illusion of self-motion

RA: With the A-effect, if you tilt to one side, something that’s vertical appears to tilt with you. So you might think that you misestimated how much your body is tilted. The interesting thing about vection is that it’s very body centric. You feel like you’re moving, but it’s an external vision signal.

“The CRV is a world-renowned research leader in biological and machine vision research.” – Robert Allison

Q: Please describe the experiment.  

Apparatus for the upright and tilted posture used in the experiment

PG: We conducted two experiments where participants (from the York community) in various postures viewed a line or dot motion scene that was vertical or tilted (from vertical relative to gravity). The motion was either in 2D, and it looked like a dotted wallpaper, or in 3D, which was more consistent with real self-motion.

In this experiment, participants only had to do one thing: indicate whether the line or scene appeared to be tilted clockwise or counterclockwise from vertical.

In the first experiment, with 20 participants, we just wanted to see whether there was an A-effect for motion in general. In the second experiment, with eight participants, we were interested in whether this effect also occurred when you felt like you were moving (experiencing vection), so we compared 3D motion of short and long duration.

Q: What was the key finding?

PG: We found that the A-effect is stronger when people felt like they were moving compared to when they saw this motion as coming from the external world. This makes sense because vection already involves a conflict in terms of what you’re seeing versus what you’re experiencing.

“The highly interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of research at the CVR, along with leading-edge facilities, has made it a font of scientific discoveries and technological innovations.” – Pearl Guterman

Q: Did anything surprise you?

RA: This vection result did surprise us as we had made the opposite hypothesis. We have an explanation for the results, but it wasn’t what we expected.

PG: What also surprised us was that the vection tilt judgments were more precise and consistently so. This suggests that a different strategy (involving other transformations in the brain) is being used to determine the tilt, when you feel like you’re moving, in estimating self-motion direction than for motion in general.

In this experiment, the motion was either in 2D, and it looked like a dotted wallpaper, or in 3D which was more consistent with real self-motion

Q: Is this original work?

RA: Yes. Only one other group has ever looked at motion, and no one has ever considered self-motion.

Q: How could this research be applied?

PG: This has many applications, particularly operating in space, which is why this work was supported by the Canadian Space Agency. For instance, it could be applied to remotely operating robotics since the operator’s moving view could potentially cause them to misinterpret the direction of their device or other objects.

The findings of this study could also help us to better understand why the perception of vertical tends to be misjudged in a wide range of neurological conditions.

Q: What can you say about York’s leadership in vision research?

RA: York has a long history, stretching back to the 1970s, of expertise in this particular area. We’ve got unique facilities like the tumbling room. We’ve got people like myself, Laurence Harris, Michael Jenkin and the late Ian Howard, the founder of the CVR, who have looked at this specific issue of orientation with respect to gravity.

This centre is a world-renowned research leader in biological and machine vision research, consisting of researchers from all disciplines including the sciences and media arts.

PG: The highly interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of research at the CVR, along with leading-edge facilities, has made it a fount of scientific discoveries and technological innovations.

RA: York’s research on vection is continuing in space with ongoing experiments on self-motion perception in astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

To read the article in Vision (2019), visit the website. To learn more about Allison, visit the lab website.

To learn more about Research & Innovation at York, follow us at @YUResearch; watch our new animated video, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the snapshot infographic, a glimpse of the year’s successes.

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, Research Communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, York University, muellerm@yorku.ca

Virtual Reality assists those with dementia, original research proves

VR FEATURED new
A patient at Runnymede Healthcare Centre tries VRx. Image reproduced with permission

Virtual Reality (VR), borne out of the gaming and electronics world, provides an otherworldly escape. It can transport participants far away from stressful, or seemingly hopeless, environments. Older adults living in long-term care and seniors’ residences often experience reduced mobility, which can lead to their being confined indoors and isolated, and this can trigger depression, anxiety and loneliness.

Faculty of Health Professor Lora Appel suspected that VR could enable these older adults to escape from their restricted physical realities and be transported to stimulating and calming places. To prove this, she launched a feasibility study that investigated the idea of using VR to help those with dementia: PrescribingVR (VRx). She led a team from OpenLab, University Health Network, the University of Toronto, Ryerson University and KITE (Toronto Rehabilitation Institute).

This was a first: “There haven’t been any rigorous evaluations of VR with the subset of seniors who are frail and have cognitive, mobility and sensory impairment. Often, these are individuals living with dementia,” Appel says.

Lora Appel
Lora Appel

“It’s noteworthy that this niche population is growing. This is a major concern and challenge for Canada,” she adds. Dementia is a major cause of disability and dependency among older people worldwide. More than half a million Canadians live with dementia.

The results of Appel’s study were resoundingly positive. Eighty per cent of participants wanted to try again. “Being exposed to immersive VR is a feasible, safe approach to providing beneficial experiences to frail older adults with mobility, sensory and/or cognitive impairments,” Appel concludes.

The study was funded by the Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, part of University Health Network (UHN), the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI), powered by Baycrest, and Spark, powered by CABHI. The findings were published in Geriatric Medicine (2020).

An example of what VRx looks like to viewers. The otherworldly escape is truly immersive.

Appel’s work bridges health innovation, technology and design thinking

Appel is the lead investigator at UHN’s OpenLab, an innovation centre dedicated to finding creative solutions that transform the way healthcare is delivered and experienced.

Her research focuses on VR interventions for healthcare consumers and providers including caregivers, as well as educational tools for patients and caregivers navigating the healthcare system.

Study undertaken to evaluate immersive VR technology as therapy

The goal of Appel’s study was to establish whether it is feasible to use immersive VR technology as therapy for frail older adults living in long-term care who may be experiencing age-related health conditions including reduced mobility and/or impaired cognition.

Appel presented VRx at Harvard Medical School in 2018. She also presented to The Royal College of Physicians in London, England.

Researcher recruited 66 frail older adults with varying cognitive abilities

Appel recruited 66 frail older adults, with an average age of 81 and varying ranges of cognitive abilities. Nearly half of participants were in a wheelchair, 39 had limited body mobility and 15 had limited head mobility.

VRx was invited to Baycrest for the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation’s Showcase. This woman gives it a try.

The study took place in four sites across Canada:

  • a mental health day clinic for older adults living with complex medical and psycho-social issues;
  • a rehabilitation and complex continuing care hospital;
  • a long-term care facility for people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementias; and
  • a day center for adults with memory loss due to mild to moderate dementia.

Each participant viewed a 360-degree VR-footage of nature scenes for five to 20 minutes using Samsung GearVR Head Mounted Display (HMD). After this, information was gained from participants in three ways: (1) a survey before and after they watched the VR footage; (2) standardized observations conducted by two research assistants during the VR watching; and (3) a semi-structured interview after watching the video that included custom-developed questions and open-ended questions regarding the VR experience.

Feedback was positive; most participants reported feeling more relaxed

More than three-quarters of the study participants experienced at least one full round of VR (six minutes). All participants reported no negative side effects, such as nausea, dizziness, disorientation or interference with/by hearing aids. They tolerated the VR headset very well. Some said they forgot they had it on and others reported “it was worth the mild discomfort.”

A patient at Runnymede Healthcare Centre tries VRx. Image reproduced with permission.

Most participants reported feeling more relaxed and adventurous and 80 per cent wanted to try VR again. “The majority of participants reported positive emotional changes following the intervention, were enthusiastic about trying VR again and would recommend the experience to others,” Appel explains.

Application in variety of other settings

Appel sees this as just the beginning. She pushes for further research to evaluate the potential psychological and bio-physiological benefits of longer-term use of VR and optimizing/customizing VR experiences for this user population. To pursue this, she has received additional funding and is currently running trials at Perley Rideau Veterans Health Centre in Ottawa and Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto.

This work could point the way to future studies in different types of healthcare institutions and community care, from acute care hospitals to private homes. Appel is also studying the potential benefits of VR in alleviating hospital staff burnout and nursing and allied health professional training.

Additionally, she sees VR’s application in palliative care, during lengthy dialysis treatments, and for those with autism.

To read the article, “Older adults with cognitive and/or physical impairments can benefit from immersive Virtual Reality experiences: a feasibility study,” in Geriatric Medicine, visit the website.

To learn more about Appel, visit her faculty profile page. To read more about this project, visit the website. To watch CBC coverage of this project, visit the website. To watch Global News coverage of this research, visit the website.

To learn more about Research & Innovation at York, follow us at @YUResearch; watch our new animated video, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the snapshot infographic, a glimpse of the year’s successes.

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, Research Communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, York University, muellerm@yorku.ca

Four Indigenous scholars gauge progress in respecting culture, scholarship

Artwork by Métis (Otipemisiwak) artist Christi Belcourt

Feb. 10, 2020. On the seventh floor of York University’s Kaneff Tower, people are taking their seats. It’s lunchtime and the host of the upcoming workshop, Professor Deborah McGregor, has arranged for shawarmas and veggies.

Two posters, taped to the wall, read: “Wet’suwet’en Supporter Toolkit,” with a website address, and “TODAY Emergency Action 3 – 7pm Eglinton Park.”

Deborah McGregor

McGregor, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice, has asked four youth and students to reflect upon the most prominent Indigenous environmental justice occurring in Canada today in panel titled “The Wet’suwet’en and the Canadian State.”

By the time McGregor rises to introduce the panel, the audience has swelled to more than 50 people.

McGregor is jointly appointed at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, but she believes that being outside these offices, with groups like this, is precisely where she needs to be. She seeks to help grassroots people voice their feelings and deliver their knowledge about Indigenous law and beliefs, especially as those laws and beliefs relate to non-Indigenous laws.

McGregor, who is Anishinaabe, sustains a dizzying schedule of speaking engagements. Over the past four years, she has given more than 160 presentations.

She and her team at the Indigenous Environmental Justice Project (IEJ) devote a huge amount of energy to creating opportunities for Indigenous people to speak and be heard.

“The knowledge is being generated from the Indigenous community. We’re trying to mobilize. They have something to say. They don’t have the same opportunities I have as an academic. So, we create tools (such as the IEJ website) and events to give them an opportunity to have that voice. My job…is to bring their voices forward for other people to try to understand and consider, and say, ‘Oh well, I’ve never thought about that before.’”

McGregor is part of a growing scholarly community at York focused on infusing the University with eons of Indigenous wisdom that were dismissed and discarded through colonization.

An important step in building this pan-university Indigenous programming came with York’s Indigenous Framework in 2017. “This makes an important contribution to our shared commitment to reconciliation and to fostering stronger connections and support for the Indigenous community at York and beyond,” said York University President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton, at the time of the launch.

The Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies has an Indigenous Studies program and the Faculty of Education now offers a BEd, Waaban Indigenous Teacher Education, with a focus on Indigenous worldviews. Faculty of Education Associate Professor Susan Dion was instrumental in developing the program. She is also heading a PhD cohort in Indigenous education.

Ruth Koleszar-Green

York’s Indigenous Framework also included the appointment of Professor Ruth Koleszar-Green as special advisor to the president on Indigenous initiatives.

Koleszar-Green, from the Mohawk Nation and a member of the Turtle Clan, is pleased with the progress York is making in the Indigenization of the University. “I’ve been here for six years. When I stepped into the role of co-Chair of the York Indigenous Council in 2015, we had six or seven Indigenous scholars. Now we’ve almost tripled that number.”

She believes fervently in the value of education and the research being conducted at York University. “The research being done by my Indigenous colleagues and non-Indigenous allies has been phenomenal. The research projects I’ve been privy to are about Indigenous communities advancing themselves, about Indigenous knowledge being central, they’re about how Indigenous artists are leading. […] We may not be able to change everything immediately, but we’re impacting the next generation.”

Koleszar-Green, in the School of Social Work, believes the most important quality of Indigenous research at York is that “it’s Indigenous-led. This work is not studies being done on Indigenous people, it’s Indigenous people having sovereignty and having conversations about who we are.”

Following on the Indigenous Framework, the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation (VPRI), incorporated “Indigenous Futurities” as one of five priority research opportunities in its Strategic Research Plan (2018-2023).

As stated in the plan, “This acknowledges the power of research that embraces future potential and past reality as integral to sound contemporary work. In the coming years, Indigenous leadership in York’s research will creative a unique space to support contributions to Indigenous knowledges within and beyond the academy.”

In addition, VPRI has developed (in consultation with Koleszar-Green) and delivered a series of five workshops by staff for staff to help participants understand colonization and decolonization, and create opportunities to reflect on how their professional roles and practices might serve as barriers to Indigenous research and Indigenous researchers.

Portrait of Sheila Cote-Meek, York University's inaugural VP Equity
Shelia Cote-Meek

Another thought leader is Professor Sheila Cote-Meek, who joined York in 2019 as the University’s first vice-president, equity, people and culture. She is Anishnaabe from the Teme-Augama Anishnabai.

Cote-Meek is pleased with what she sees as progress in non-Indigenous Canadians understanding the culture, history and current challenges of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people. “Yes, we’ve moved to a better understanding. I wish I could say that includes everyone, but it doesn’t. In the university system, there’s a better understanding of the needs of Indigenous learners and scholars. But there are still a lot of preconceived ideas and stereotypes. We have to deconstruct those stereotypes.”

Cote-Meet’s book Colonized Classrooms: Racism, Trauma and Resistance in Post-Secondary Education was a seminal publication. “The book was published in 2014, but it’s still relevant in 2020. We’re making headway, but there’s still a lot of work to do to dismantle systemic barriers that exist.”

Professor Michael Greyeyes, in the School of Arts, Media Performance & Design, believes theatre can help to break those stereotypes. He is Plains Cree from the Muskeg Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan.

A graduate of the National Ballet School and Kent State University’s School of Theatre and Dance, Greyeyes has built a successful career in dance, film, television and theatre.

Michael Greyeyes. Credit: Jeremy Mimnaugh

But it was education, he says, that made a huge difference to his career. “By the time I reached my mid-career, I’d been performing, choreographing and directing. But I always felt a call to higher learning. So, in my 30s, I went back to get my master’s. I knew my work as a director and artist would be informed by research. What surprised me is that the research fed so directly into the elevation of my artistic work.”

He feels there’s a solid connection between his identity as an Indigenous person and his role as a scholar. “I have a privilege as a professor and a responsibility as an Indigenous voice. My focus as a researcher is how Indigenous ontologies reflect back on Canadian and international audiences, and how our work, our history, our physical bodies are absent from larger discourses.”

To that end, Greyeyes has been “an activist for expanding the theatrical canon to include Indigenous perspectives and voices.”

He notes that when he was graduate program director for the Masters of Fine Arts program, he lobbied for an entire season to be dedicated to Indigenous research. During that time, the York theatre department hired Yvette Nolan as the program’s first outside Indigenous director. Nolan wrote an adaptation of the classical Greek play by Aristophanes, The Birds.

“It’s important to know that Indigenous scholars, by our networks and our research focus, always invite the larger academic apparatus to include our voices in setting curricula and setting the table for subsequent discourse,” Greyeyes says.

He is also founder and artistic director of Toronto’s Signal Theatre, which has presented two Indigenous-language operas.

Does he think Canada is at a turning point in respecting Indigenous culture?

“We’re waiting for the turning point. I think a lot more people are woke and listening … But all you have to do is turn on the news and look at the raids on the west coast camps and think, ‘This is business as usual.’ Will there be outrage? There’s outrage in my community. Will that be shared?”

For more on McGregor, visit her faculty profile page or the IEJ Project website. To learn more about Cote-Meek, see the YFile story about her appointment. To know more about Koleszar-Green, visit her faculty profile page. For more on Greyeyes, visit his faculty profile page.

To learn more about Research & Innovation at York, follow us at @YUResearch; watch our new animated video, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the snapshot infographic, a glimpse of the year’s successes.

Paul Fraumeni is an award-winning freelance writer who has specialized in covering university research for more than 20 years. To learn more, visit his website. He is non-Indigenous.

Blending art and science, bioart project infuses poetry into plant’s genome

Daniel Ocampo / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
FEATURED image for the BioART story

Humans often introduce toxic elements into the environment; researchers then try to mitigate the damage. A refreshing and highly original project from the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) introduces a new paradigm altogether by offering something prolific or life affirming.

Joel Ong

Terra Et Venti, by AMPD professor and interim director of Sensorium Joel Ong, infuses plant microbial DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule that contains the genetic code of organisms) with poetry and thereby engenders this literary art form into the plant’s genome. Curiously, this venture is borne of the fusion of two seemingly disparate fields: science and art or, more specifically, plant biology and poetry.

Ong is a media artist and serial collaborator whose work connects scientific and artistic approaches to the environment. He sits down with Brainstorm to discuss the evolution of his bioart and Terra Et Venti.

Q: How did you first become interested in bioart?

A: I was a budding ecologist. A lot of my notable memories were outdoors and sensorially oriented – visual, tactile or sound-based. These set the framework for a more creative way of thinking about the sciences.

Bioart is typically hard to define but it’s a creative strategy for making living art, and a speculative practice that presents views of a biotechnological future that may be considered controversial, chipping away at the essence of what we know or recognize as life. Bioart creates an aesthetic language for us.

Q: One of the tenets of bioart is that the environment is active.

A: Through my graduate work in nanotechology and sound, it became apparent how active the environment is. I was inspired by early visions of the atmosphere as an infinite and everlasting repository of our actions and utterances. This is something computing pioneer Charles Babbage (1791-1871) spoke of.

I wondered about encoding information into the wind or listening to what is airborne. Following some experiments in sonification and poetic impressions of the wind, I began focusing on the genetic materials of airborne particles.

Q: Tell us about your first work that looked at ecological cycles in this way.

A: We flew weather balloons holding petri dishes and aerial monitoring equipment to observe bacteria in the air. We found highly mobile bacteria Pseudomonas syringae (P.syringae) that are best known as plant pathogens, but they also ride the water cycle to transition between soil, plants and air.

We learned that P.syringae also catalyzes ice formation. And so, it is implicated in the next frontier of climate change action as one particle that could be used in solar geoengineering.

Setting up weather balloons for observation of aerial microbes. From left Kieran Maraj, Mick Lorusso, Cheng Shao and Joel Ong.

There are related, controversial experiments, backed by investors like Bill Gates, which aim to reflect the sun’s radiation away from the earth through increasing cloud cover in the stratosphere. Naturally, there are ethical considerations because the atmosphere has less obvious boundaries and such actions may cause profound changes in weather patterns.

Q: What is the Terra Et Venti project?

A: Terra Et Venti is a research-creation project that aims to develop a multi-species empathy towards the organisms in the air. My work with P.syringae, and the common weed Arabidopsis Thaliana, is conducted at the Guttman Laboratory (University of Toronto).

I introduced poetry into its genome, imagining the bacteria would ride on the plant’s respiration cycles into the atmosphere and form clouds. The clouds would make rain, which would contain the bacteria. So, we would get poetry embedded in rain.

<Caption> Terra Et Venti: Sculpting a Cloud
Terra Et Venti: Sculpting a Cloud

Q: On a microbiological level, describe the process of creating genetic poetry.

A: Through standard lab techniques, you can customize what strand of DNA you want, have it made and inserted into the bacteria.

In this case, a list of possible phrases was generated by a machine-learning algorithm trained on the works of Argentinian writer/poet/philosopher Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) who conceptualized the universe as a vast library.

I used a cipher to re-code each letter of the text into DNA bases, then these were run through a lab program to determine which DNA fragments would be least obstructive for the bacteria.

I ended up with “Terra et Venti,” which means “between the air and wind.”

Q: What is the message you would like to convey?

A: Existing avenues of research in climate geoengineering are dominated by a desire for control. This underlying philosophy concerns me. I am interested in ways to soften this approach. I’m currently working on theoretical ideas around queering the atmosphere, and how computational creativity can promote a “strangeness” in this new cultural frontier of the atmosphere. Working with microorganisms is an important backdrop to discuss how we can be better stewards of our environment.

Q: Where has Terra Et Venti been exhibited?

A: It has been shown at the Kittredge Gallery in Washington’s University of Puget Sound (2018). It is currently in the exhibition “Art’s work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping our Genetic Futures” at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Terra Et Venti will also be featured in “Life Studies” at OCAD University in October 2020.

To learn more about Sensorium, visit the website. For more about Ong, visit his faculty profile page.

To learn more about Research & Innovation at York, follow us at @YUResearch; watch our new animated video, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the snapshot infographic, a glimpse of the year’s successes.

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, Research Communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, York University, muellerm@yorku.ca

Research partnership with police and child welfare yields data and tools to protect local girls

York University researchers have conducted a first-of-its-kind study involving sex trafficking of girls with child welfare involvement in York Region. In a unique partnership with York Regional Police and York Region Children’s Aid Society (CAS), the team used police case files and child welfare involvement information as data to help understand the warning signs and elevated risk status of child welfare involved youth who are victimized by sex traffickers, explore their routes into trafficking and begin developing tools to identify and ultimately prevent high-risk youth from being trafficked.

Despite being under reported, sex trafficking is a widespread and growing crime in Canada, with most victims being children and youth, some as young as 14. Young people involved with child welfare systems, especially girls, are vastly over represented among trafficking victims and are often targeted through recruitment and grooming strategies.

Jennifer Connolly
Jennifer Connolly

“Trafficking is happening in our own backyard,” said Jennifer Connolly, Chair of York’s Psychology Department and head of the Teen Relationships Lab at the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research. “Sometimes we think from TV that this is something that happens to women and girls in foreign countries, but our research says that it’s happening right here in Ontario.”

Connolly, along with graduate students Kyla Baird and Kyla McDonald, were invited to conduct this research by York Regional Police, in collaboration with the York Region CAS, out of the agencies’ deep concern for how trafficking is affecting girls in their community. While the police had a dedicated unit committed to tackling the issue, they sought a better understanding of the problem and how to both address and prevent it.

In their study titled “Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls in a Southern Ontario Region: Police File Review Exploring Victim Characteristics, Trafficking Experiences, and the Intersection With Child Welfare,” published in the most recent volume of the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, the researchers gathered much-needed data for a local Canadian perspective on a topic that has previously depended on American data and definitions.

“Contrary to what we see in the media, girls aren’t being recruited elsewhere and brought here from another country,” explained Baird, the study’s author, noting that the files the team reviewed primarily involved girls from York Region being trafficked around the Greater Toronto Area.

Kyla Baird
Kyla Baird

Data in this area has been lacking in part due to underreporting, often a result of the complex nature of relationships trafficked women and girls find themselves in. These relationships are exploitative with identifiable power imbalances and victims commonly experience violence and manipulative control. However, the relationships are often complicated by a victim’s romantic attachment to their trafficker, making them similar to a romantic relationship with intimate partner violence. This may prevent a woman or girl from seeing themselves as a victim of a crime and from wanting to testify against their trafficker.

This new study provided valuable insight into these relationships, as well as into the online methods modern traffickers used to recruit and groom young women. “They’re targeting locations where young people are spending the majority of their time,” explained Baird, who received a 2017 Nelson Mandela human rights Canada Graduate Scholarship for her work in this area. “Historical data shows recruitment taking place in locations such as malls. More and more it’s happening online where youth are spending more of their unmonitored time. Traffickers are just keeping up to date with the times and going where the kids are.”

Research suggests early identification of high-risk status youth should be a priority for child welfare agencies, and that professionals working with youth should be knowledgeable about risk, recruitment by traffickers and warning signs of victimization.

The study is already gathering attention in the youth-serving community. Baird was recently invited by Practice and Research Together (PART) – a Canadian organization whose mandate is to disseminate research to child welfare workers across the country – to present a webinar on the risk factors of child welfare involved youth, warning signs of exploitation and how agencies can identify and support at-risk and victimized youth in care.

“Often times as researchers we are disseminating our findings to other researchers,” said Baird. “We’re not often given the opportunity to present our findings to the people we’re doing the research for.”

The York researchers have also explored the unique ways in which child welfare-involved youth are recruited within the child protection system, in settings like group homes and foster homes, and are working with York Region CAS and Simcoe-Muskoka Family Connections to assist in developing therapeutic foster homes for underage girls who have been trafficked. PART has expressed interest in future seminars based on this research.

York University’s ELLA program kicks off in advance of International Women’s Day

FEATURED Ella
From left: Nicole Troster, Jenise Lee (Ella participant), Rhonda lenton, minister ng and Sarah Howe

An accelerator program supporting 54 women entrepreneurs from York Region and the Greater Toronto Area was unveiled at a launch event March 3, which featured Canada’s International Trade Minister Mary Ng.

ELLA (Entrepreneurial Leadership & Learning Alliance) – a program created by women, for women – starts just days before International Women’s Day on March 8.

Federal Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade and Member of Parliament for Markham–Thornhill, Mary Ng, spoke at the event, along with York University President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton and Jenise Lee, founder of PurPicks and CertClean who is a York alumna.

From left: Nicole Troster, manager of the Ella Accelerator; Jenise Lee, founder of PurPicks and Certclean and a York alumna; York President and Vice-Chancellor  Rhonda L. Lenton, Federal Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade Mary Ng; and Sarah Howe, director of Innovation York

Many of the 54 women entrepreneurs in ELLA attended the kick-off event for the program, which supports existing women entrepreneurs by providing them with one-on-one mentoring with top entrepreneurs, hands-on workshops, leadership training, and a community of experts, peers and supporters.

The federal government is providing $1.8 million in funding for ELLA, which is led by York’s Innovation York, in partnership with the small business enterprise centres of Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and York Region. The program will also have several corporate partners; Shopify has signed on as the premier partner in support of ELLA.

Mary Ng

“Initiatives like York University’s ELLA program help women entrepreneurs gain the knowledge, tools, and connections they need to start and grow their businesses,” said Ng. “Our government is also working to advance these goals through Canada’s first-ever Women Entrepreneurship Strategy. Together, we will ensure women-led businesses in the York region – and across the country – have access to the supports they need to start up, scale up, and access new markets.” 

Launching ELLA during the same week as International Women’s Day is fitting, given the global need for opportunities and conditions for women to thrive and succeed.    

“The ELLA program for women business owners is an example of York University’s focus on new educational approaches – like entrepreneurship and work-integrated learning – that equip our graduates to thrive in the competitive global knowledge economy,” said Lenton. “It is especially important that we give women access to the skills, supports and tools needed to build their businesses as part of our work to build a more gender-equal world.”

The 10-month training and support program is tailored to help the 54 women who are participating to accelerate their business growth. They will be given access to a network of other women founders, top experts, mentors and supporters. Tuesday evening’s event marks the first time that the participants are in one room, along with supporters.

Sarah Howe

In Canada, women entrepreneurs account for only 16 per cent of business owners. For Sarah Howe, director of Innovation York, the statistics are evidence that women business owners need to be supported. ELLA is especially targeted to women entrepreneurs in York Region because the community is considered underserved, given the region’s large geographically-disbursed population, with some rural and remote areas.

Each of the 54 women entrepreneurs owns 50 per cent or more of their business, has a business with sales and initial traction, and lives in York Region or can travel to York Region for the training and workshops.  

This program is meant for women founders who are ready to hustle and grow their business,” explained Howe. “These women will get access to a community of other women founders, mentor and experts who can give them solid business advice and more connections, everyone from better suppliers to more investors.”

When York University alumna Stephanie Florio and her brother realized that students were still applying to jobs by printing a stack of resumes and walking around the mall to hand them out store by store, it sparked an idea.

Florio co-founded Swob Inc., a mobile recruitment app believed to be the first-of-its-kind to help students find part-time, seasonal and entry-level jobs more easily. It also makes the hiring process more efficient for employers.

“The app has similar functionality to Tinder. Once job seekers create their profiles, they swipe right to apply to jobs and swipe left to ignore jobs,” said Florio, a 30-year-old Woodbridge resident. “I joined ELLA to continue to learn and grow my business.”

Another participant is Zuly Matallana, owner of TIARA Bliss Inc. The Vaughan woman created TIARA Shower Cap, a reinvented, patented shower cap that blocks water and humidity. She’s had a successful pitch on CBC’s Dragon’s Den, was chosen as a 2019 gift pick by Good Morning America and is currently developing new products.

Cherrie-Marie Chiu is the executive director of ALS Double Play whose not-for-profit foundation was born after her brother Christopher was diagnosed with ALS. An ELLA participant from Markham, Chiu’s charity raises awareness and funds to support ALS research to find a cure.

Administrative changes in the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation

Vari Hall in the winter
Vari Hall in the winter

Interim Vice-President Research & Innovation (VPRI) Rui Wang is pleased to announce that David Phipps and Sarah Howe will take on the roles of assistant vice-president, Research Strategy & Impact, and assistant vice-president, Innovation & Research Partnerships, respectively. These appointments took effect March 1 and are a result of the review of their current roles and responsibilities.

“The proposed changes will benefit the University in research intensification and the expansion of our innovation ecosystem facilitating the fulfillment of the Strategic Research Plan (SRP) and the new University Academic Plan (in development) as well as enhancing research services,” said Wang.

The assistant vice-president positions will enable the University to enhance York’s innovation and knowledge transfer landscape, identify and support increased research partnerships with industry, governments and private sector, and continue to scale up administrative support to the University’s researchers so they can focus on increasing their research activities.

David Phipps

David Phipps is promoted to assistant vice-president, Research Strategy & Impact. Reporting to the VPRI, Phipps will be responsible for the strategic planning, implementing and evaluating pan-University research services, including internal and external research grants, strategic and institutional research initiatives, research impact and international research to increase York’s research performance. His work will focus on: development, delivery, evaluation and impact of research services as assessed by research participation, research income and research impact; enhancing institutional reputation and ranking; and increasing the number of prestigious, team-based research grants. Phipps will act as the principal University liaison for all major provincial and national research funding organizations and research collaboration with international organizations for the purpose of research services.

Sarah Howe

Sarah Howe is promoted to assistant vice-president, Innovation & Research Partnerships. Reporting to the VPRI, Howe will be responsible for strategic direction, objectives, growth and operational and financial performance of innovation activities through Innovation York. She will ensure innovation opportunities are available for undergraduates, graduates, post docs, researchers and faculty members. Howe’s other responsibilities include working with academic leaders to develop strategic plans and grow campus-wide innovation and entrepreneurship, and business development and research partnerships with industry and other public and private sectors, focusing on increasing industry research income for the University.

Accessibility workshop for researchers will take place March 3 at the Keele Campus

Mahadeo A. Sukhai

Mahadeo A. Sukhai, head of Research and the Chief Accessibility Officer at Canadian National Institute for the Blind, will be presenting an accessibility workshop at York University. Titled “Our Voices, Our Experiences: Innovation Through Inclusion in the Sciences,” the workshop will focus on the history of disability in STEM, the stigma and barriers associated with that lived experience, and on a vision for inclusion in the STEM training and research environment.

It will take place on Tuesday, March, 3 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. (noon) in room 306, Lumbers Building at the Keele Campus. Those interested in attending this informative workshop are asked to RSVP using this form.

Sukhai is Canada’s only congenitally blind biomedical research scientist. He is an accomplished researcher and scientist, and the leader of national projects to understand the impact of vision loss on social determinants of health, as well as in the context of accessibility and inclusion in employment and education, with a particular focus on STEM.

Click here for full details about the workshop.

Toughest global health challenges will be tackled by Distinguished Research Chair at York University

FEATURED Global Health

A new research chair at York University will tackle the toughest global health challenges by studying the impact that policies and laws have on health.

Steven Hoffman

York University Professor Steven J. Hoffman has been named inaugural holder of the Dahdaleh Distinguished Chair in Global Governance & Legal Epidemiology. Made possible by long-time York University donor Victor Phillip Dahdaleh, through his support of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, it is the first endowed Chair in the world to focus on legal epidemiology.

This unique research Chair will bring scientific rigour and a social justice lens to seemingly intractable global health issues. Legal epidemiology uses a range of methods from epidemiology to study laws, policies and institutions, to improve health outcomes. The research Chair will provide flexible research funding and time to allow Hoffman to address the most pressing needs of the day, whether caused by a disease pandemic or misinformation being transmitted through social media.

Hoffman is appointed to the Faculty of Health, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Graduate Program in Political Science. He also leads York’s Global Strategy Lab, an interdisciplinary research platform that leverages the full range of social sciences to tackle global health challenges. The lab’s 20-person team advises the world’s governments and public health organizations on how to design laws, policies and institutions to address transnational health threats. The team focuses its efforts in three research program areas: global legal epidemiology; global governance of antimicrobial resistance; and public health institutions.

“We’re trying to work differently,” Hoffman explains. “Most global policymakers and diplomats think that the design of international laws and global governance structures is an art. We think this art is done best when informed by social science. We’re essentially trying to create a science focused on the design of institutions that can address the really tough global health challenges the world faces.”

“With Mr. Dahdaleh’s investment, the new Chair is a signal to the world that York University is fully behind Professor Hoffman in his fight for global health,” said Rhonda L. Lenton, president and vice-chancellor of York University. “Universities play a vital role in bringing together experts, government, business and community organizations to tackle complex global challenges that no single actor could address alone. Today’s appointment will allow Professor Hoffman to expand his important work and create a positive impact in the local and global communities we serve.”

Three recent examples of this work stand out:

  • Two articles by Hoffman’s team in the British Medical Journal (May 2019) detail an impact evaluation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The most rigorous impact evaluation of an international treaty ever conducted, it has created a new gold standard and elevated the science of treaty design in the process.
  • Hoffman conceived and developed a proposal for an international agreement on antimicrobial resistance, under active consideration by the United Nations and its 193 member states. This research continues through projects with colleagues at leading universities including Cambridge, Copenhagen, Harvard and Oxford.
  • Hoffman recently convened nearly all of the world’s public international law scholars who specialize in global health to achieve a juridical consensus on what countries may legally do to each other during infectious disease outbreaks. This consensus has proved extremely helpful during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and was summarized in The Lancet to guide countries’ decisions and hold those breaking international law accountable.

Hoffman’s work has addressed pressing health issues such as access to medicines, antimicrobial resistance, cannabis regulation, health misinformation, health worker shortages, pandemics and tobacco control.

“The sharp focus of the team on policy and social impact is key. The Chair will give us more flexibility to quickly shift our attention to where it’s urgently needed. Last year that was cannabis legalization. This year it’s COVID-19. Next year? Who knows. That’s part of the excitement, but it’s also why flexible resources like this endowed chair can have transformative effects,” said Hoffman. “I try to focus on the hard stuff.”