Tag: Experiential education

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Work-integrated learning for Black students in health breaks down barriers

Health care student Black woman Nurse doctor

This summer, 18 Black undergraduate students from three units in the Faculty of Health (Psychology, Global Health and Kinesiology) will participate in work-integrated learning opportunities across six health-sector organizations, where they will support diverse programs, services, research and other organizational priorities.

Funded by a Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning (CEWIL) Canada iHub grant, this initiative helps students gain real-world experience in their field of interest and develop knowledge and skills to support their academic and professional journeys. It is uniquely positioned to address notable gaps in representation among Black professionals in the health sector – a vision that is shared by the placement organizations. “These future leaders will be poised to improve research and service delivery for Black communities overall,” said Monique Herbert, associate professor of psychology.

Integrating culturally relevant training

Before students set off on their placements, they participated in preparatory workshops focused on skill-building for a successful experience. A highlight of this process was a workshop with a special focus on navigating the workplace as a Black individual, which was developed and conducted by two guest facilitators, Karlyn Percil-Mercieca of KDPM Consulting Group and York alum Shereen Ashman of SACCAE Social Innovation Studio.

“The presenters applied a holistic lens to the discussion of professionalism skills, allowing both culture and race to infuse the conversation in a meaningful and tangible way. Grounding ‘professionalism’ in this context allows students to adopt a strength-based approach to their field placements,” said Paola Calderon-Valdivia, experiential education co-ordinator, Faculty of Health.

“Students were encouraged to draw wisdom from their lived experiences, to embrace their collective truth and to rely on their racial heritage as a source of empowerment – reminding them of their inherent value and the meaningful contributions they would be making to their host organizations; a message that was well received by the students.”

It is this type of culturally relevant training that is very much needed because representation matters, added Herbert. “Seeing, hearing and learning from someone who looks like you makes it more tangible, more achievable. We need more of this; it empowers our students,” said Herbert.

Focusing on a well-rounded support system for students

During their 100-hour placement in a health-related setting, students will be supervised by a placement supervisor and benefit from networking and relationship-building opportunities with health professionals and mentors in the field. Alongside work experience, students will receive academic oversight and learning guidance from volunteer faculty advisors from each unit. Calderon-Valdivia will offer ongoing support, guidance and troubleshooting to students, faculty and placement organizations. Three student mentors who previously participated in the initiative will also offer peer-informed support to students throughout the experience.

A further source of support for students will be a stipend offered through the CEWIL iHub grant, which will offset any associated costs for their participation in the initiative, such as transportation, time away from jobs and more. This aligns with the University Academic Plan in providing experiential learning opportunities and offering supports for students who face systemic barriers.

Building on the legacy of student-led advocacy

Black student advocacy around systemic barriers led to the development of the Summer 2022 pilot phase of this initiative in the Department of Psychology. Two Black student-led groups (Black Students in Psychology and the Black Students Mentorship Program) with missions to address the lack of representation of Black professionals and academics in health-related fields spearheaded a collaboration between the Department of Psychology and the experiential education (EE) team in the Faculty of Health, led by Anda Petro.

Celebrating successful completion of Summer 2022 WIL initiative with students, staff, and faculty
Celebrating the successful completion of the Summer 2022 work-integrated learning initiative with students, staff and faculty

Psychology students who participated in the pilot praise the program for offering hands-on experience beyond the traditional classroom and the opportunity to grow personally and professionally.

“…it provided me with a chance to step outside of my comfort zone and grow as an individual, student and professional,” said Nichol Edwards Snagg, psychology undergraduate student. “Throughout my placement, I developed and strengthened my initiative, group facilitation and communication skills, all while contributing to a project that benefitted the Black community.”

The success of this initiative and future initiatives is contingent on having a strong support system and funding, said Herbert.

“We are grateful to the EE staff, faculty and student mentors in the Faculty of Health and CEWIL for their support; this initiative would not have been possible without them. These experiences are invaluable for our Black students, and we hope that there will be further funding opportunities to continue this important work,” said Herbert.

Dahdaleh Institute summer interns to showcase global health research

Global health

The Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research (DIGHR) invites York University community members to its fifth Summer Global Health Intern Symposium on Aug. 30.

DIGHR poster

Throughout the summer term, Dahdaleh global health interns have been undertaking exciting research projects that address critical global health challenges.

On Aug. 30, eight interns will reflect on their internship and deliver a short presentation about the experience, knowledge and skills they have gained, and will share progress on their research projects, including:

DIGHR research
Global health interns
  • experiential-based simulation learning;
  • effects of resource insecurity on health outcomes;
  • mental and emotional health and wellness;
  • post-pandemic public health reforms; and
  • impact of human behaviour on antimicrobial resistance.

To learn more about this event, or to register to attend, visit yorku.ca/dighr/events/5th-summer-global-health-intern-symposium.

Lunch will be provided. All are welcome to attend.

The Dahdaleh Institute is currently hiring the next cohort of global health interns for the upcoming Fall/Winter 2023-24 academic year. All interested applicants are encouraged to visit the DIGHR website to learn more.

Professor makes drama studies experiential

actors rehearsing on theatre stage

By Alexander Huls, deputy editor, YFile

Professor Deanne Williams has introduced experiential education to two summer Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies courses – AP/EN 2140 Drama and AP/EN 3535 Shakespeare – by enabling students to see productions of the plays they are reading and studying.

For her first time teaching these courses in the summer, Williams wanted to try something different. Theatre trips with students have always been an element of Williams’ full-year courses, but they were typically dependent on chance – only possible when productions in the Toronto area happened to mirror the plays she was teaching in her syllabus.

Deanne Williams
Deanne Williams

In the fall of 2021, Williams first approached Tina Choi, who was then the English Department Chair, with an idea for teaching her Shakespeare and drama courses in the summer. “I proposed to teach them as experiential courses where the syllabus would be determined by plays that we could actually go and see live during the summertime, making use of the Stratford Festival, the Dream in High Park, the Soulpepper Theatre and more,” Williams says.

She knew students having the chance to see the plays they read in class come to life on a stage could have a major impact on their learning. “There’s so much more ownership of the live theatre experience that the students have, which gives them an incredible sense of authority [over the material].”

With the approval of Choi, and having secured experiential education funding through York’s Academic Innovation Fund to support the cost of tickets and transportation, the courses moved forward earlier this summer. Since then, in both courses, students will typically spend two full three-hour classes devoted to reading plays like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Sizwe Banzi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, and they will then go on to see the stage production together.

“To enrich our in-class experience of studying the texts, where I am telling them a lot of things, we are also experiencing a live show together. Students will all have their own unique experience of that, which then they can bring back to the classroom for discussion,” Williams says. “We’ve had incredibly exciting and spirited discussions about the shows we’ve seen.”

Further accentuating the experiential element of the classes, Williams has arranged talkbacks with the actors and directors of the productions, allowing them to see how artists engage with and interpret the texts. For example, the Shakespeare class had the chance to interact with York Assistant Professor of acting and directing, Jamie Robinson, about directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 40th anniversary of Dream in High Park.

The benefits of the experiences this summer have not just been academic. For many of the students, it’s provided them – post COVID-19 isolation – a means of connection through, for example, several bus trips to the Stratford Festival. “There’s a kind of summer camp aspect. They’re bringing snacks, they’re making wonderful friendships, and you can really feel that sense of community being created in the classroom,” Williams says. “After so many years of being online, and that kind of alienation, it’s wonderful to see the students really bonding.”

The summer’s experiences have also had an impact on Williams, notably how she approaches teaching drama studies. Typically, the plays she teaches have been taught in historical chronological order – i.e. starting with plays by the ancient Greeks and moving up to contemporary drama. But because the summer courses’ syllabi were determined by the productions that were available to see throughout the summer, and what students could logistically attend, Williams had to approach things in another way.

“Instead of teaching Shakespeare and drama in a linear way, with a commitment to history, it’s been very interesting to think about teaching the plays through themes and questions and shared connections,” she says. “It’s very different from any other teaching I’ve done, but it’s certainly my favourite teaching so far that I’ve ever done.”

It’s all led to Williams being committed to teach more Shakespeare and drama courses this way in the future, in good part because the experiential education approach – including its collective nature – channels something of the power of theatre overall. “Theatre, from its very origins, has a spiritual aspect to it. There’s something about that collectivity and community in the environment of the theatre that is very moving and transformative,” says Williams.

York hosts Mitacs Globalink Research Internship students

Faculty of Education Decanal Message Innovatus Banner

By Elaine Smith

Each summer, research organization Mitacs’s competitive Globalink Research Internship (GRI) brings international undergraduate research talent to Canada for its 12-week program under the supervision of academics in various fields. This year, York University hosted one of the largest GRI cohorts to date.

Mitacs is a not-for-profit national research organization that, in partnership with Canadian academia, private industry and government, operates research and training programs in fields related to industrial and social innovation.

Students who come to York – which has participated since 2011 – apply for specific research projects and are chosen by faculty members at York University eager to work with promising young researchers. The GRI students work under the International Visiting Research Trainee (IVRT) program, overseen by York International and available to any York faculty member wishing to host a student researcher from abroad.

“It’s a win-win opportunity,” says Rachel Sung, Mitacs senior advisor, business development. “Through Mitacs, students gain excellent research experience and receive a stipend to support themselves while in Canada, and the faculty obtain talented, eager research assistance at no cost to them.”

This year, the University is hosting more than 50 GRI students, one of the largest cohorts to date. The students hail from 11 different countries and are working with 25 York professors from six Faculties and two schools. The projects they are participating in include: writing software to enable a robot to conduct long-duration autonomous tasks on the water; exploring the possibility of applying artificial intelligence, machine learning and graphic information system technology to climate change research, extreme weather analysis and data visualization; and creating a digital database and research website of biographical accounts of individuals born in Africa from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

Professor El Morr with GRI interns
Professor El Morr with GRI interns Bhawna Kumari and Nidhi Goyal

Christo El Morr, an associate professor of health informatics who is working with two Mitacs interns – Bhawna Kumari and Nidhi Goyal from the India Institute of Technology, Kharagpur – praises the benefits of the program.

“I have a problem to solve and Mitacs gives me access to people to work with on it,” says El Morr, who is looking at data about the impacts of COVID-19 on health-care workers to determine which factors can predict their perceived mental health and life stress. “Beyond working with data, they are also learning how to write, present and publish. It’s an enjoyable experience for me, too, because I like teaching and mentoring.”

Rosa McDonnell
Rosa McDonnell

Another example is Rosa McDonnell, an anthropology major at the University of Manchester in England, who is interning with Jessica Vorstermans, an assistant professor in the Critical Disability Studies program in the Faculty of Health.

Vorstermans is exploring L’Arche, the international federation of non-profit organizations that supports communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together, looking at how the organization coped with the unsavoury revelations about its founder and how it is finding its way forward in the aftermath.

For some, the GRI also helps showcase Canada and the study, research and career opportunities available here. For example, a former intern named Jiayin Chen came from China for her Mitacs internship at York in 2019 and fell in love with Toronto. After the pandemic, she returned to earn a master’s degree in biostatistics and currently works here as a data analyst for Thermo Fisher Scientific, a pharmaceutical company.

“Being at York changed my whole direction,” she says. “I originally wanted to study in the United Kingdom, but I decided I loved Toronto and have applied for my permanent residency.”

Woo Kim, director of international and student scholar services for York International, lauded Mitacs: “York University’s participation in Mitacs GRI is consistent with the University’s new Internationalization and Global Engagement Strategy, and it also helps promote York as a research and graduate studies destination for international students.”

Mitacs Celebration
Mitacs faculty and interns at York

Mitacs offers a variety of research opportunities for students and faculty. For more information, contact Rachel Sung, sungr@yorku.ca.

York’s membership in CALAREO, a hemispheric consortium, begins to blossom

Cropped globe on a table

By Elaine Smith

Although he knew little Spanish, Adam Hallag, a fourth-year York electrical engineering student, jumped at the opportunity to spend a couple of months this summer as a research intern at the Universidad Tecnólgica San Juan del Rio in Mexico’s state of Querétaro.

“I wanted to have a professional opportunity to add to my resume,” said Hallag. “Once you graduate, it’s harder to get a job without some work related to your field.

Adam Hallag
Adam Hallag

“When this opportunity from CALAREO (Canadian and Latin American Research and Exchange Opportunities consortium) came through, I took it as an opportunity to go abroad to get experience while learning about another culture.”

While there, he is immersed in a project to develop the design for a closed-loop solar tracking system that uses sensor technology to adjust solar panels so that the sun rays are orthogonal to the panel, which is where maximum power is attained.

“It has been challenging, combining the work with learning Spanish and travelling alone for the first time,” said Hallag, “but I’ve learned a lot of hard and soft skills.”

Hallag is one of the first York University students to take advantage of the global research opportunities provided by CALAREO.

York membership in a consortium that includes other Canadian institutions – Carleton University, Lakehead University (secretariat), Memorial University and Vancouver Island University – meant signing a Memorandum of Understanding that commits York to facilitating and increasing student mobility, building and strengthening relations in strategic research areas, and encouraging co-operation that results in national and international grants to enhance research collaborations and training of students.

CALAREO also received funding from the federal Global Skills Opportunity fund, providing financial support that allows Canadian students who are Indigenous, low-income or have a disability to participate in these global learning opportunities, whether field study or research. In addition, CALAREO partners with Mitacs to offer undergraduate students the opportunity to undertake research abroad.

York has already taken advantage of this funding. During Reading Week in February, Alejandro Zamora, associate professor of Hispanic studies at Glendon College, led a group of 11 students to Colombia for field study as part of a course in Hispanic geopoetics; nine of the students were funded through CALAREO.

The trip, organized in collaboration with the University of Magdalena in Santa Marta, focused on the work of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, the Nobel Prize-winning poet and author who drew inspiration from the region. Students had the opportunity to work in partnership with their Colombian counterparts and become involved in community projects.

Membership in CALAREO provides York with another avenue to broaden its scope internationally – an initiative the University is actively pursuing – as demonstrated by the University Academic Plan’s commitment to advancing global engagement and its new Internationalization and Global Engagement Strategy.

The consortium currently has partnerships with Mitacs, Colombia, CONACYT (Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology) and the Mexican state of Querétaro. As York’s engagement with CALAREO grows, the University will aim to increase the diversity of these partnerships; certainly, collaborative opportunities abound, if a recent trip to Brazil by York International (YI) team members is any indication.

In April, Helen Balderama, YI’s director of global engagement programs and partnerships, and Recep Demir, global partnerships manager, attended FAUBAI, the largest higher education conference in Latin America as part of a CALAREO delegation. Over a five-day period, the pair met with about 30 Brazilian institutions to explore new opportunities for collaboration and reciprocity.

“We have so many commonalities and explored possibilities for collaboration,” said Demir. “There was considerable interest in the International Visiting Research Trainee program, SDGs in Action and globally networked learning (GNL).

“CALAREO opened doors for us and we’re glad we came.”

Vinitha Gengatharan, assistant vice-president, global engagement and partnerships, said, “York’s increasing engagement with CALAREO is another step toward increasing York’s student and scholars’ engagement and impact in Latin America. We anticipate that membership in the consortium will be fruitful and mutually beneficial for all of the partners involved.”

Those interested in learning more about CALAREO or other ways to engage or advance your international and global priorities can contact Balderama at helencb@yorku.ca.

Summer program welcomes STEAM high school students

Two Female Students Building Machine In Science Robotics Or Engineering Class

From July 9 to 27, York University is hosting 64 high school students living on campus who are participating in the SHAD program, which looks to provide challenging and transformational opportunities focused on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), business and design thinking.

SHAD is an inclusive month-long national summer program open to high school students in grades 10 and 11, which aims to cultivate the next generation of preeminent leaders in STEAM, business, social justice and entrepreneurship.

York University has been designated a SHAD campus since 2019, and the program echoes the experiential education York University aims to deliver its students, instilling self-confidence, entrepreneurial and workforce skills, and a network for life into all participating students.

An element of the program is to offers exposure to big ideas, and this summer students are being introduced to a broad cross-section of subjects through lectures with titles like: “Women in Leadership Sports,” “Indigenous and Refugee,” “Neuroscience Research at York,” and more. Lecturers include several York-affiliated professors.

Upon completing the program, participants are designated SHAD Fellows and become respected members of SHAD’s network for life. SHAD Fellows are described by the organization as being leaders and changemakers committed to the values of community, diversity, creativity, responsibility and excellence. They create positive change where they live, study and work, across the country and around the world.

Osgoode students, alumni help build accessible legal chatbot

robot with digital display
3d rendering robot working with digital display

Osgoode Hall Law School students Ryan Boros and Elias Tung have spent the summer, when many of their peers take a break from academic pursuits, working on the recently launched Law Newbie – an online chatbot that makes criminal law research accessible to the public.

The free application was developed by Toronto criminal lawyer Jordan Donich with support from recent Osgoode graduate Camille Melo, who now articles with Collett Read LLP, but previously spent the summer of 2022 conducting initial research for Law Newbie. Boros and Tung, each in their third and second years of studies, joined the project to refine the app leading up to and after its launch.

The encyclopedic resource enables users to access details about criminal code offences and potential defence strategies simply by asking the chatbot questions.

“The whole thing has been built with a lot of effort and it’s very intuitive,” said Boros.

“I feel like it’s given me a much stronger idea of the core concepts of criminal law and the finer points,” he added. “The other benefit for me going forward is it’s inspired me to take more technology focused courses next year.”

One of them will be Osgoode’s Engineering the Law course, taught by adjunct faculty member Al Hounsell, who serves as the Toronto-based director of strategic innovation and legal design for the multi-national law firm Norton Rose Fulbright LLP.

Among other things, the Osgoode course introduces students to how client needs have pushed the boundaries of legal service delivery to include elements of data, computer technology and artificial intelligence (AI), according to the course description. It also gives students the practical skills to break down contracts and legislation into decision trees, to develop markups and workflows for contract development and negotiations, to attain basic experience with common legal technology applications, and to apply design thinking methodology to legal problems.

Ryan Boros and Elias Tung sit in front of Osgoode Hall Law School Ignat Kaneff Building sign.
Ryan Boros and Elias Tung

Tung, who is leaning towards a career in family law, said his work with Law Newbie has helped spark an interest in working at the intersection of family law and criminal law.

“We’re just trying to make the information as accessible as possible,” he said of the project. “There’s definitely a need for criminal law resources like this because a lot of people don’t understand the criminal code – and it’s also important to understand your rights.

“I feel very fortunate,” he added, “because not a lot of people have the opportunity to do this kind of work.”

Melo said the research and writing that she did for Law Newbie last summer gave her a more solid grounding in criminal law.

“I really liked the research component of it and it was good to know as an up and coming criminal lawyer,” she noted. “I really enjoyed working on an access-to-justice initiative like this, too.”

Donich said he is currently experimenting with integrating AI into the chatbot, but is still determining its effectiveness.

“I am manually programming it now,” he said, “and Camille, Ryan and Elias’s brains have been irreplaceable. They’ve all said they wish they had had this experience with technology earlier in law school – and lawyers who are my age are saying the same thing.”

He said he is planning to hire another student to work on the project part-time beginning in the fall.

Along with his work in criminal law, civil litigation and professional regulation, Donich also specializes in cybersecurity and internet-related crime.

“Technology is changing the legal profession, faster than we have anticipated,” he said. “Lawyers and law students need to be part of the change to ensure any innovation improves our client experience and continues to serve the public interest.”

Osgoode students help win deportation reprieve for Kazakh family

Judge signing papers

Louis Althaus and Brandon Jeffrey Jang, second-year students at Osgoode Hall Law School, spent three weeks in June testing their practical knowledge of frontline immigration law learned through the School’s Community & Legal Aid Services Program (CLASP) to advocate for an at-risk migrant family facing expulsion.

Guided by CLASP’s veteran immigration lawyer, Subodh Bharati, the pair mobilized every legal strategy available to keep the family – who remain unnamed for privacy purposes – from being forcibly returned to Kazakhstan, where they faced potential persecution and death.

Thanks in part to their hard work in winning a last-minute reprieve, the family’s 14-year-old daughter, who was voted valedictorian by her Grade 8 classmates days before the deportation was to take effect, now has a chance of realizing her dream of becoming a doctor in Canada.

“It was a privilege to work on this case and have so much of the family’s trust,” said Althaus. “We were so thrilled to turn it around and get them the best result we could have hoped for.”

Throughout the case, Jang and Althaus filed a 180-page stay motion to the Federal Court of Canada; detailed affidavits to support a humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC); and submitted a deferral request to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).

Getting to know the family helped the students add critical information to the H&C application, originally prepared by a Toronto law firm. “It was important to us that we brought their stories to life,” Jang said.

Louis Althaus and Brandon Jeffrey Jang
Louis Althaus and Brandon Jeffrey Jang

The family’s 2017 escape from Kazakhstan, where the father, a shopkeeper, was beaten and threatened with death by a local gang, reunited him with his brother and sister in Canada and enabled him to care for his sister, who was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. In the six years that followed, the family’s three children became fluent in English and excelled in school.

Althaus, who is originally from Germany, and Jang, a Scarborough native, said many law firms would not have had the resources to delve so deeply into the family’s story on a legal aid retainer. The experience “truly highlighted the magic” of Osgoode’s clinic system, added Althaus.

The two Osgoode students said they were also inspired by Bharati’s guidance and will carry those lessons with them.

“Subodh taught us to be courageous and to take initiative,” said Althaus. “He’s willing to fight for his clients on all fronts and to exhaust every avenue possible within the judicial system – and he has instilled that in us, too.”

Bharati said CLASP offers an incredible opportunity to students.

“They are able to work directly with vulnerable and marginalized people who truly need them,” he explained. “In doing so, they see, not only the privilege an Osgoode education affords them but their immense capacity to do good. These experiences will stay with them for the rest of their careers.”

“Just hearing the real difference you can make actually doing work on a case and having a real influence on someone’s life – that was something I was drawn to,” Jang said of his reason for joining CLASP. “I wanted an opportunity to help give a voice to people who need it the most, and CLASP provides a specialized opportunity to do so. After a few months working here, I can truly say that the clinic believes in its students.”

Althaus likewise said Osgoode’s wide selection of clinical programs was intriguing when it came time to pick a law school.

“When I chose Osgoode, I chose it knowing it has the most extensive clinical system in the country,” he noted. “I don’t think I could have worked on a case like this at any other law school.”

New Lassonde facility explores how climate impacts infrastructure

New York City parks and public infrastructure stock image banner photo

Professors from York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering have established the Climate-Data-Driven Design (CD3) Facility for Built Infrastructure in order to become Canada’s leading field-testing laboratory for studying the effects of climate variability on the behaviour of materials, ensuring more resilient infrastructure in the future.

Usman Khan
Usman Khan
Matthew Perras
Matthew Perras
Liam Butler
Liam Butler

The CD3 facility project is shepherded by Liam Butler, Matthew Perras and Usman Khan from the Civil Engineering department through funding support from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF) and will look at how climate conditions such as chilling snow, rain, intense humidity and heat can negatively influence the behaviour of infrastructure materials used in systems such as roads, bridges and tunnels.

The CD3 facility, located at York’s Keele Campus, will allow for outdoor testing and monitoring of natural and infrastructure materials to evaluate their performance under realistic conditions, using advanced sensing and data analysis techniques. Using existing indoor lab facilities and artificial intelligence (AI) methods, data collected from outdoor experiments will be used to interpret the effects of climatic conditions on the tested materials and develop models to predict their future performance over a variety of time scales and climate change scenarios.

Experiments performed at this facility will also establish critical information about the behaviour and long-term performance of emerging infrastructure materials, allowing for proactive measures to be taken when developing the next generation of infrastructure.

It will also provide local and global industry partners with an innovative space to test infrastructure materials, while advancing the reach and reputation of the facility and School – collaboratively driving solutions to some of the most pressing infrastructure-related challenges in Canada and around the world. Furthermore, student training and recruitment at Lassonde will allow for experiential learning opportunities that promote skill-building and inclusion.

“There are very few facilities like this in the world,” says Butler. “We want to leverage Lassonde’s state-of-the-art High Bay Lab for testing structural materials but also have the capability for testing in an outdoor setting. This way we can understand how our infrastructure materials behave in realistic conditions and therefore, develop methods for improving their design.”

Those interested in learning more about the CD3 Facility at York University or to explore future testing and research collaborations are encouraged to get in touch with Butler (liam.butler@lassonde.yorku.ca), Perras (mperras@yorku.ca) or Khan (usman.khan@lassonde.yorku.ca).

Professors create VR summer program for high school students

child using virtual reality goggles

York University Faculty of Science Associate Professor Derek Jackson, and Kyle Belozerov, a sessional assistant professor, have partnered with Science Engagement Programs to develop a new Spark Lab virtual reality (VR) research course that will introduce high school students to pharmaceutical chemistry.

Derek Jackson
Derek Jackson
Kyle-Belozerov
Kyle Belozerov

Spark Lab courses are week-long sessions designed for students in grades 9 to 12 who are interested in gaining hands-on experience in the science labs. The Faculty of Science offers courses in the experimental and research categories.

Experimental courses are developed and taught by York undergraduate and graduate students, teacher candidates, or Ontario-certified teachers, while research courses are developed and led by graduate students and/or professors and are based on the research they are conducting at York.

Students enrolled in the new Pharmaceutical Chemistry research course – which runs from July 17 to 21, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Keele Campus – will explore modern pharmaceutical chemistry through hands-on laboratory drug synthesis experiments and by using virtual reality (VR) to examine their structure and how they interact with their targets. By the end of the week, students will have a deeper understanding of biological molecules and the foundations of drug action in the human body.

As a postdoctoral researcher at the Emory University Medical School, Belozerov worked on pre-clinical development and testing of drug candidates targeting an aggressive form of brain tumor called glioblastoma. He also has taught pharmacology to students in the nursing program at York.

Jackson’s expertise is in organic chemistry, a field of study that is used to synthesize the molecules found in a large number of medications, ranging from everyday medicines, like Tylenol, to complex and life-saving cancer medications. The professors have combined their respective areas of expertise to develop an engaging and dynamic summer lab course for curious Toronto high schoolers.

For more information about Belozerov and Jackson and their pharmaceutical chemistry course, visit the Science Engagement Programs website.

To register for this course, visit the online ActiveWorks registration system.