Welcome to the inaugural issue of ‘ASPIRE’

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“ASPIRE” is a special edition of YFile publishing on select Fridays during the academic year. It showcases research and innovation at York University. “ASPIRE” offers compelling and accessible stories about the world-leading and policy-relevant work of changemakers in all Faculties and professional schools across York and encompasses both discovery and applied research. “ASPIRE” replaces the previous special issue “Brainstorm.”

In this issue

Research supports development of inclusive technologies to enhance quality of living
York design Professor Shital Desai combines her expertise in robotics with product design to create innovative solutions that are both inclusive and inspired.

COVID-19: Social networks helped spread fear among investors
Schulich Professor Ming Dong, whose research specializes in examining in behavioural and social finance, worked with two former PhD students to research the role that social networks played in emotional decision making among mutual fund managers in five hot spot cities in the United States.

York startup provides real-time medical expertise in Ukraine
A YSpace venture is using their innovative telehealth technology to pair Canadian health care expertise to local doctors in Ukraine.

Biologist finds hope for critically endangered species
Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux, a Glendon biology course director, is working to save the pancake tortoise that is native to some areas of Africa and assessing what it will take to develop a community-based conservancy plan.

Book offers exploration of sugar, power and politics
Glendon associate professor of history Gillian A. McGillivray delves into Latin America’s past through the lens of sugar. The result is her book Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959.