New graduate fellowship rewards exceptional scholars, community service

Audience Applauding Speaker At Business Conference

York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies has announced a new fellowship for students in its graduate business programs, honouring the memory of a beloved colleague.

Kenneth McBey
Kenneth McBey

The late Professor Kenneth McBey, who passed away in June 2022, was an admired instructor and mentor during his many years at York University. He was a passionate teacher in the graduate programs for Human Resource Management, Disaster & Emergency Management and Public Policy & Law, and a founding member of both the School of Human Resource Management and the Disaster & Emergency Management Program. In addition to his academic accolades, McBey served his communities in many different capacities. He was involved in a number of community and voluntary associations throughout his life, and was a commissioned officer in the Canadian Army Reserve.

Last year, to honour her late husband’s generous nature and legacy of service, Betty-Anne McBey established the Dr. Kenneth McBey Graduate Fellowship in Management. It is awarded to an incoming or continuing master’s- or doctoral-level graduate student who demonstrates outstanding voluntary service to Canada and the community. 

“One of Ken’s great pleasures was working with his York students,” said Betty-Anne. “I used to overhear him teaching during the pandemic, integrating into his lessons everything from the World War II Halifax Harbour explosion to the Shackleton Antarctica expedition. He was very proud to have been a founding member of the Disaster & Emergency Management (DEM) Program, and advocated for DEM to have a PhD program, which I understand may now be in the works.”

The first recipient of the $4,000 McBey Fellowship, in 2023, was Grace Megumi Baba-Hoang, a student in the Master of Human Resource Management Program. In receiving the fellowship, she reflected on the nature of her own investments of time and effort in the community: “In serving, I never thought I’d be rewarded in this way,” she said. “But the fact that my service represented something that you felt should be awarded and celebrated is very humbling and special.”

The fellowship will be awarded annually, on a rotating basis, to a student in one of the following graduate programs: Human Resources Management, Disaster & Emergency Management, and Public Policy Administration & Law.

This year, the McBey Fellowship will be awarded to a student in the Master of Disaster & Emergency Management Program.

“Professor McBey was a wonderful colleague with a strong commitment to York and to the broader community,” said Marie-Hélène Budworth, director of the School of Human Resource Management. “He will be deeply missed by his colleagues in the School of Human Resource Management.”

For more information on the award, and how to apply, visit the Faculty of Graduate Studies website.

Niarchos scholarship brings students from Greece to York U

skyline of Greek town

By Elaine Smith

Students from Greece have an opportunity to study or conduct research at York University through a scholarship supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), an international philanthropic organization that honours the late shipping magnate.

Alexandros Balasis
Alexandros Balasis

In fact, Alexandros Balasis, a PhD student in history at York University, can trace his connection to York back to that scholarship. In 2018, when he was a fourth-year history student at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki in northern Greece, one of his professors told him about the Niarchos Foundation scholarships that provided an exchange to York.

He applied, was invited for an interview and was accepted in November 2018 for admittance in January 2019. York International, the office that handles exchanges, assisted him with orientation, registration and other logistics. Balasis arrived on Jan. 2, 2019, in time for York International’s orientation for international students, and from there, he was off and running.

“I saw a university system that I really liked,” Balasis said. “I got hooked from the very beginning.”

A photo of Sakis Gekas
Sakis Gekas

At York, he met Sakis Gekas, an associate professor who holds the Hellenic Heritage Foundation Chair of Modern Greek History, and they met every few weeks to discuss various aspects of modern Greek history.

“The scholarship gave me an opportunity to clarify my goals,” Balasis said.

He decided to pursue a master’s degree in history with Gekas, a degree that he obtained remotely during the pandemic. Gekas urged him to continue on to a PhD program and he has done so, studying Greek migration to Canada after the Second World War.

“The foundation changed the course of my life,” he said. “My experiences, both in Toronto and later with their Istorima project in Greece, gave me the opportunity to understand how much I like history. It made me decide to keep open to opportunities and take advantage of them.”

Grigorios Iliopoulos
Grigorios Iliopoulos

A Stavros Niarchos Foundation scholarship has also impacted Grigorios Iliopoulos‘s PhD studies, bringing his topic to life. Iliopoulos, a third-year PhD student in the American Literature & Culture Department at Aristotle University, is working on a thesis about contemporary literature that talks about the city of Toronto. However, until recently, he had never visited the city that is at the heart of his research.

“This was the perfect program for me,” Iliopoulos said. “I worked on material referring to Toronto, but this was my first chance to see the place.”

Iliopoulos’s work centres on literature depicting urban spaces. He chose Toronto because it is one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in North America and he has focused on novels and collections of short stories by authors of non-French or -British background, those less represented in the past.

“When I got to Toronto, I walked the streets and got a much better idea of how the city and the residents worked,” he said. “I got a sense of scale that is much different than in Europe and it felt like there was a huge difference in how we perceive space. I acquired a different understanding of the perspective of the authors I’ve studied, including David Bezmozgis and Dionne Brand.

“I was also able to access a wealth of library material that wasn’t available in Greece, so this opportunity will have a huge impact on my dissertation.”

Gekas, who serves as a liaison with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, is eager to see more students in Greece take advantage of the opportunity to study at York. The foundation provides funding for three or four undergraduates and one graduate student each year, and he would like to exploit York’s partnership with the University of Crete and connect with the University of Athens to provide broad national coverage in Greece.

Faculty members who collaborate with colleagues in Greece and want to promote this opportunity are encouraged to contact Gekas or Ashley Laracy, associate director of global learning at York International.

York researcher traverses tick-infested terrain to beat back insect apocalypse 

PhD student Hadil Elsayed in the field. Photo: Briann Dorin

By Corey Allen, senior manager, research communications 

Academic research is often perceived to involve a lot of books and library visits, but Hadil Elsayed’s PhD work studying insects at York University has involved choppy boat rides, off-road all-terrain vehicle (ATV) adventures and one particularly nasty trek through a swamp.  

Hadil Elsayed headshot
Hadil Elsayed

“I joke that my PhD defence will include a graph that shows the number of cuts and bruises I’ve had to endure for my research,” says the budding entomologist, who is in the fourth year of her PhD in the Department of Biology.  

Jokes aside, Elsayed’s research into the effects of climate change on insects is no laughing matter. In fact, her work is adding to an increasing number of studies that reveal insects are disappearing. It’s a troubling phenomenon dubbed “the insect apocalypse.”  

Current scientific evidence suggests insects across various species and regions are in global decline and are decreasing in terms of population, biomass and diversity. This has serious consequences for the health of our ecosystems, as insects are crucial for pest control, soil quality and pollination, or plant reproduction. Insects travel between different plants, helping them grow by leaving behind pollen grains. These plants can then be harvested as an energy source for humans and other living organisms, including birds that depend on insects for food.

Hadil Elsayed collects a sample from one of her malaise traps. Photo: Briann Dorin
Hadil Elsayed on a boat. Photo: Briann Dorin
Hadil Elsayed on a boat. Photo: Briann Dorin

“Many of these decline studies are coming out of Europe, so my research explores to what extent we are seeing this same trend here in Canada,” says Elsayed, whose work is supervised by leading conservation scientist Sheila Colla, an associate professor in the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change. “As far as I know, research into biodiversity loss within protected areas at this level has not yet taken place in this country or in North America.” 

Elsayed’s research spans 13 sites, primarily in the Long Point Biosphere Reserve three hours southwest from Toronto, off the shores of Lake Erie. It’s an ecologically significant area, made up of several distinct natural habitats including woodlands, marshes, beaches, meadows and sand dunes, among others. Protected by the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization, the area is home to a wide range of plants and animals, including many aquatic birds and species at risk.   

To collect all the insect specimens for study, Elsayed used malaise traps, tent-like structures that are set up in the direction of the wind to catch insects flying upwards into jars of ethanol. Elsayed collected hundreds of samples biweekly, or sometimes weekly, in the summery months of May through August.  

Setting up all the traps in the right places and monitoring them means Elsayed often had to brave the wilderness and all its elements, including tick-infested terrain.   

“I would have to stop every two minutes to pick ticks off me or shoo away all the mosquitoes,” she says. “I complained a lot while I was out there, but it’ll be worth it if it means I can help protect biodiversity and make a meaningful contribution to the field of entomology.”

An example of one of Elsayed’s malaise traps.
An example of one of Elsayed’s malaise traps.

With help from a guide from the Long Point Bird Observatory, Elsayed travelled to some sites that are only accessible by going off-trail – by ATV, by boat or by bushwhacking. The demanding task of collecting samples also entailed a month-long stint living alone in a cabin, where the only visitors Elsayed entertained were some rather unwelcome cockroaches.  

Back at the lab, Elsayed processes her samples and sorts, weighs and analyzes hundreds of insects. Her research specifically focuses on the insects that live in protected areas, like Long Point, which should be safer from environmental stressors than insects found in urban ecosystems or cities – in theory.  

But some of Elsayed’s early findings show these protected areas are also suffering, experiencing a decline of up to 200 grams in biomass. This translates to a loss of hundreds of thousands of insects. These findings are possible because Elsayed can compare data collected from the same sites in the early 1990s by the Canadian Wildlife Service against the data she has gathered 30 years later.  

“Preliminary results indicate that climate change is a factor in insect decline, even in protected areas, and various climate stressors are behind their disappearance,” explains Elsayed. “For one group of insects, the main driver for their decline appears to be a decrease in rainfall. For another, it’s linked to an increase in temperature.”  

Recently, Elsayed presented parts of her work at an annual conference held by the Entomological Society of America, with over 3,600 attendees. She was awarded first place in the Student Competition for the President’s Prize, recognizing her efforts to advance climate change research. 

With her strenuous field work completed, Elsayed is currently working on writing her dissertation, with a projected PhD completion date in early 2025.  

Her work is funded by York University, the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Entomological Society of Canada.  

De-escalating robocops? York study imagines future of crisis response 

Robotic hand reaches for human hand

By Corey Allen, senior manager, research communications

Picture this: a 911 operator in your city receives a call from a person in mental distress and needs to send help.  

They could dispatch the police or an integrated unit of both police and mental health professionals. But instead, the operator sends a robot.  

This scenario may sound like science fiction, but it’s the kind of futuristic thinking that has researchers at York University considering all angles when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and crisis response.   

Building more empathetic bots through interdisciplinary research  
Kathryn Pierce
Kathryn Pierce

In a paper published in Applied Sciences earlier this year, psychology PhD candidate Kathryn Pierce and her co-authors explore the potential role robots could play in crisis de-escalation, as well as the capabilities engineers would need to program them to be effective.    

The visionary paper is part of a larger project at the Lassonde School of Engineering that involves early-stage research to design and test robots to assist in security and police force tasks. The York engineers asked the psychology researchers to provide their social scientific lens to their forward-thinking work on humanizing machines.  

“De-escalation is not a well-researched topic and very little literature exists about what de-escalation really looks like moment by moment,” says Pierce, who is supervised by Dr. Debra Pepler, a renowned psychologist and Distinguished Research Professor in the Faculty of Health. “This makes it difficult to determine what kinds of behavioural changes are necessary in both responders and the person in crisis to lead to a more positive outcome.”   

No hard and fast rules for de-escalation, for both humans and robots  

With limited academic understanding of what really happens in human-to-human interactions during a crisis response, let alone robot-to-human, training a robot to calm a person down poses an incredibly tall task.  

Despite the challenge, Pierce and her co-authors were able to develop a preliminary model outlining the functions a robot should theoretically be able to perform for effective de-escalation. These functions are made up of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that engineers would need to be mindful of when building a robot for such a task.    

Some of these strategies include a robot’s gaze – the way a machine and human look at one another – the speed in which they approach (slow and predictable), and the sound and tone of their voice (empathetic and warm).  

But, as the researchers point out, ultimately, robots cannot be “programmed in a fixed, algorithmic, rule-based manner” because there are no fixed rules for how people calm each other.   

“Even if there were algorithms governing human-to-human de-escalation, whether those would translate into an effective robot-to-human de-escalation is an empirical question,” they write.  

It is also difficult to determine whether people will react to robots emulating human behaviour the same way they would if it was an actual person. 

Advances in AI could add new layer of complication to the future of crisis response  

In recent years, the use and discussion of non-police crisis response services have garnered growing attention in various cities across North America, and elsewhere in the world.  

Advocates for replacing traditional law enforcement with social workers, nurses or mental health workers – or at least the integration of these professionals with police units – argue that this leads to better outcomes.  

Research published earlier this year showed that police responding to people in mental distress use less force if accompanied by a health-care provider. Another study found that community responses were more effective for crime prevention and cost savings.  

Introducing robots into the mix would add to the complexity of crisis response services design and reforms. And it could lead to a whole host of issues for engineers, social scientists and governments to grapple with in the future. 

The here and now 

For the time being, Pierce and her co-authors see a machine’s greatest potential in video recording. Robots would accompany human responders on calls to film the interaction. The footage could then be reviewed for responders to reflect on what went well and what to improve upon.  

Researchers could also use this data to train robots to de-escalate situations more like their human counterparts.    

Another use for AI surveillance the researchers theorize could be to have robots trained to identify individuals in public who are exhibiting warning signs of agitation, allowing for police or mental health professionals to intervene before a crisis point is ever reached.  

While a world in which a 911 operator dispatches an autonomous robot to a crisis call may be too hard to conceive, Pierce and her co-authors do see a more immediate, realistic line of inquiry for this emerging area of research.  

“I think what’s most practical would be to have engineers direct their focus on how robots can ultimately assist in de-escalation, rather than aiming for them to act independently,” says Pierce. “It’s a testament to the power and sophistication of the human mind that our emotions are hard to replicate. What our paper ultimately shows, or reaffirms, is that modern machines are still no match for human intricacies.”  

Background  

The paper, “Considerations for Developing Robot-Assisted Crisis De-Escalation Practice,” was co-authored by Pierce and Pepler, along with Michael Jenkin, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the Lassonde School of Engineering, and Stephanie Craig, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Guelph.  

The work was funded by the Canadian Innovation for Defence Excellence & Security Innovation Networks. 

Voice-activated sexism: exploring consequences of gendered technology  

Man using virtual assistance

By Corey Allen, senior manager, research communications 

New research from two PhD candidates at York University examines the trend of smart speaker unboxing videos on YouTube, arguing that women who create content about devices like Siri or Alexa are perceived as a kind of domestic technology themselves.    

“Voice-activated personal assistants (VAPAs) use women’s voices as a default setting, and this gendered technology significantly influences the treatment of women tech experts by male audiences online,” says Stephen J. Neville, who conducted the work alongside Alex Borkowski, both of whom are in the Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture at York and Toronto Metropolitan University. 

Stephen J. Neville
Stephen J. Neville
Alex Borkowski
Alex Borkowski

Unboxing is a popular video genre on YouTube and features people unwrapping and reviewing the latest high-tech gadget or product, like smart speakers. These videos often also offer a walk-through or demonstration of such a device.

“Today’s consumers learn about new tech products online before buying them, and unboxing videos are seen as providing a trusted third-party review,” says Borkowski. “We were curious to learn more about the resonance between VAPAs and women tech experts.”   

Neville and Borkowski watched over 200 of the most popular smart speaker unboxing videos on YouTube, the majority of which featured men, studying their contents, structure and aesthetics. Videos of women doing the unboxing made up only 10.9 per cent of their initial sample and garnered far fewer views.  

Analyzing over 4,000 comments on videos made by women revealed a troubling but rather unsurprising finding: the women’s intelligence was often insulted, or they were sexually objectified.  

The pair of researchers argue some of these comments treat the women as if they are broken machines – a concept developed in previous media studies research – and are issued commands like a smart speaker to stop talking (or shut up), go mute or turn off.  

“Sexism and misogyny are pervasive online and offline, and it extends to YouTube, which creates a challenging environment for female content creators,” says Borkowski. “Our research shows the domestication of smart speakers has had a spillover effect in the media consumption of these unboxing videos and women tech experts.”  

A substantial portion of the pair’s research focused on analyzing each woman YouTubers’ presentation or performance style, and the ways in which they engaged with the product.   

Based on this analysis, Neville and Borkowski observed the female content creators showed technical prowess and a solid understanding of smart speakers overall, but one aspect of their performances contradicted this display of expertise.   

In some of the unboxing videos, when the VAPA is turned on, the women’s reactions were over the top, with some acting overwhelmingly shocked or audibly gasping.   

The pair see this exaggerated behaviour as indicative of the way women are forced to navigate society at large, being expected to conform to traditional femininity.  

“Our findings suggest that some of these women can at times act ditzy to undercut their own authority and expertise with new technology,” says Neville. “This behaviour functions almost like a pre-emptive defence to the negative reaction they anticipate receiving from the audience.”  

According to Borkowski, the idea of a technologically savvy woman is threatening to some, so these women have learned to adapt their behaviour in an attempt to minimize the level of vitriol or hate they receive online.  

“It’s a burden male tech experts never contend with,” she says.  

Despite these negative conditions facing women online, there are grounds for optimism. Neville and Borkowski see potential for the concept of women as broken machines to be co-opted to promote equity and social justice. 

“Albeit broken, women tech experts viewed as machines provides them with a platform and channel to shape the way their audiences see and use technology,” says Neville. “They can also block trolls and disable comments as a way to resist online misogyny.”  

“The popularity of these unboxing videos provides an opportunity for female content creators to discuss bigger issues with technology beyond the functionality or practicality of one product, including concerns about privacy, surveillance and control,” says Borkowski.  

The research, “Broken domestication: The resonant politics of voice in gendered technology,” was published as a book chapter earlier this year in the Routledge Handbook on Media and Technology Domestication.

York U sociologist travels to COP28 to research Indigenous climate leadership

COP28 flag

The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) wrapped up on Dec. 12, with more than 50,000 delegates who descended upon Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for the annual international climate summit.  

Among the delegates was York University’s Angele Alook, an assistant professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies, and her research team: community-based researcher Lydia Johnson, of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, with the Centre for Indigenous Knowledges & Languages; and PhD student and graduate associate Ana Cardoso.   

The trio were there to conduct field work for a project called Indigenous Climate Leadership and Self-determined Futures, which aims to highlight and advance the understanding of Indigenous methods to mitigate climate change, derived from traditional knowledge and governance, among Indigenous activists and leaders, knowledge holders, other researchers and policymakers.  

From left to right: Angele Alook, Lydia Johnson, Graeme Reed and Ana Carolina De Almeida Cardoso at the COP28 Indigenous Peoples Pavillion
From left to right: Angele Alook, Lydia Johnson, Graeme Reed and Ana Carolina De Almeida Cardoso at the COP28 Indigenous Peoples Pavillion.

The project’s findings will eventually be shared through both academic publications as well as several arts-based approaches, including photography, video and graphic novels. It is funded by the Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Research Clusters initiative, created by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation at York University.

Alook, who is a member of the Bigstone Cree Nation in Alberta, talks about the Indigenous-led project and her COP28 experience in this Q-and-A below. 

Q: What was your main objective with attending COP28?  

A: My team and I went to Dubai to interview several Indigenous leaders from Turtle Island (North America) and elsewhere in the world. We wanted to talk to them on the ground as they are simultaneously actively engaged in climate discussions with world leaders, government agencies, scientists and organizations. We believe capturing their stories in this moment will provide us with their best insights for our project.   

Much of our questions focus on learning about what motivated them to attend COP28, the challenges they face in a colonial space, their experience in policy talks and negotiations, and their climate actions back home.    

We also presented on several panels at the Indigenous People’s Pavilion and Canada Pavilion. We participated in the Local Communities and Indigenous People’s Platform youth knowledge holders discussions. We also participated alongside our Indigenous kin in several United Nations-sanctioned actions to promote Indigenous rights and human rights.  

Q: Why is Indigenous participation at events like COP28 important? 

A: COP28 represents the biggest international stage for climate change talks, but Indigenous Peoples make up only a small number of attendees. Indigenous Peoples are knowledge keepers and I believe they have real solutions to deal with climate change. We have a relationship to the Earth grounded in land-based practices and sustainability, so Indigenous Peoples’ voices are incredibly valuable if we want to see effective climate policies developed around the world.  

There’s also a lot of advocacy work that happens at these conferences to uphold Indigenous sovereignty, including in international treaties. Certain parts of the Paris Agreement, like article six, which focuses on carbon markets, could have serious implications for Indigenous Peoples and their assertion of rights. Some Indigenous communities have voiced their concerns that article six could lead to their lands or territories being exploited by companies or governments for carbon offsetting. It’s important Indigenous Peoples are fully consulted on these issues, as they often are the ones most impacted by these decisions.   

Q: COP28 marks the fourth time you’ve attended the summit. What progress do you see being made for Indigenous Peoples in climate discussions? What was your overall experience like? 

A: On progress, I think Indigenous people involved in negotiations at COP27 would point to the creation of the climate Loss and Damage Fund, which could benefit smaller nation states with Indigenous communities most affected by climate change. This year, they also announced a Gender-Responsive Just Transitions & Climate Actions Partnership with former United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton in attendance. However, these funds go to nation states that colonize Indigenous Peoples, who are demanding direct access to these funds, instead of those who continue to colonize us. 

I do think it’s one thing to come to COP as a business person or civil servant, but I think it’s a very different thing to come as an Indigenous person. There’s a whole other world taking place here among Indigenous attendees in terms of relationship building. There is an immense amount of Indigenous knowledge from around the world being shared with one another. I think it strengthens our sovereignty and our own Indigeneity to tell these stories to each other and acknowledge our shared experiences.  

Personally, the most hopeful thing I’ve felt at COP28 seems to be this growing solidarity among Indigenous Peoples. More and more Indigenous people are showing up as bold leaders in these spaces, sharing their knowledge and using their voices. It’s been an amazing experience for me and my research assistants to connect and listen to them. 

FGS enhances graduate supervision experience with support hub

Three women sitting and talking

York University’s Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) is celebrating 60 years of knowledge creation and marking the milestone by creating a Graduate Supervision Support Hub (GSSHub) – a place where supervisors, committee members and students can gather to collaborate and build mutually beneficial relationships drawing on graduate supervisory pedagogy and capacity-building principles that acknowledge the pivotal role of effective supervision.

York University Faculty of Graduate Studies 60th anniversary banner

Established with the help of a three-year grant from York’s Academic Innovation Fund, the GSSHub will be rooted in principles of dignity, mutuality and effective supervisory practices. It will aim to enhance the graduate supervision process with effective practices, capacity building, a centralized platform for support and guidance, and a toolkit of resources to help foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement in supervision methods.

“Graduate education stands as a cornerstone in the academic landscape and the quality of the graduate supervisory experience plays a pivotal role in shaping the academic and professional trajectories of students,” said Tracy Bhoola, program manager of the GSSHub. “The dynamics of this relationship profoundly impact the quality of research, the development of professional skills and the overall academic experience.”

The approach of this new hub, explained Bhoola, acknowledges that good supervision is not innate, nor solely about overseeing research projects, but is a relationship that requires mentorship, guidance, ethics, mutual respect, collaborative goal setting and skill development.

At the core of the envisioned GSSHub is the promotion of supervisory relationships enveloped in mutuality. “Acknowledging the diverse needs and expectations of supervisors and students, we want to keep relationships at the centre, with an ethos of dignity folded into every aspect and an explicit regard for the inherent value of both the supervisor and the student,” said Cheryl van Daalen-Smith, FGS associate dean, academic. “By fostering a culture of trust and collaboration, the GSSHub will aim to enhance the overall graduate supervisory experience for everyone involved.”

To ensure the pan-university GSSHub aligns with the diverse needs of the academic community, FGS is extending a call to ­­graduate students and faculty members­ to actively engage in the development process by providing input and guidance.

“By participating in consultations and sharing invaluable experiences and insights,” said Wesley Moir, FGS associate director of graduate academic affairs, “the community can help shape the development, initiatives and effectiveness of the proposed GSSHub, which will empower supervisors and students to thrive in their academic pursuits, making it a true reflection of the collective vision for effective supervision support.”

In Winter 2024, FGS will share a survey for graduate supervisors, seeking input on the supports and services that the GSSHub should provide. For now, the Faculty is gathering names of those who want to be involved and planning one-on-one consultations. To contribute, contact Bhoola, GSSHub program manager, at tbhoola@yorku.ca.

Faculty of Graduate Studies looks towards the next 60 years 

Header banner for INNOVATUS

Graduate students in physics apply machine learning to predict the dark matter halos for a population of galaxies and to see the glowing cells in a mouse’s brain.

Health equity master of arts students challenge their preconceived notions of allyship as they apprentice themselves to Indigenous and racialized community organizations – harvesting sweet water (maple sap), protesting pipelines and supporting birth workers – as part of their experiential education component of graduate coursework.

Alice MacLachlan
Alice MacLachlan

A graduate student designer learns to engage with user communities as part of human-centred design, inspired in part by her family’s care for a grandparent with dementia.

Black research professors from across York University provide mentorship and training to Black graduate students, as part of the Faculty of Graduate Studies’ commitment to identifying and dismantling the barriers facing racialized and underrepresented populations in graduate research and education.

The stories in this month’s Innovatus give us a glimpse into the new faces and new pathways of graduate education at York University – exemplifying both our 60-year tradition of engaged, progressive teaching and learning, and our enthusiastic embrace of new frameworks, new methodologies and new challenges, as we look to the future. 

York’s Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) was established in September 1963 and opened its doors to York’s first graduate cohort of just 11 students one year later, in 1964. This academic year, we celebrate our 60th anniversary and, with it, a remarkable history of meaningful and challenging graduate research and pedagogy. 

York was the first university in Canada to offer a PhD in women’s studies and the first to accept doctoral dissertations written in an Indigenous language. Knowledge creation for a better world has always been at the heart of what we do. 

We continue to lead both in our commitment to engaged research and in the values at the core of York as a university: excellence, equity, access, sustainability, diversity and decolonization among them. These values guide the research that is conceived and created in collaboration between students and supervisors and – equally – the inclusive approach to graduate education and research that shapes that research, with an emphasis on engagement, collaboration, depth of thought, expanded conceptual horizons and broken boundaries. 

As we look forward to the next 60 years of graduate education at York, we face multiple challenges and possibilities, ranging from the need to decolonize how we conceive of intellectual property and authorial autonomy to the rapidly changing technological landscape of artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are adapting to these, as we rise to meet the needs of a changing graduate student population whose devotion to research and professional development is matched by other commitments – to their families, their communities and the world we share. The challenges and possibilities presented are vast and, as we face them, I am encouraged by the incredible innovations and new pedagogies already emerging in graduate studies: in the stories collected in this issue, and in other initiatives, from experiential education, like the Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom for graduate students, to professional development, such as our new Scholarly Skills brown bag workshop series, to best practices in supervisory relationships and pedagogies, as collected by the FGS Supervisory Support Hub.  

The task of FGS has always been knowledge creation as a collaborative enterprise. I invite you to read these stories and come join us to see where that enterprise takes us next. 

Sincerely, 

Alice MacLachlan
Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies
 

Faculty, course directors and staff are invited to share their experiences in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience through the Innovatus story form, which is available at tl.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=16573.


In this issue:

Graduate physics professor shares machine learning knowledge with academic community
Joel Zylberberg, an associate professor in the Department of Physics at York, is expanding education on machine learning to graduate students in science across the province.

Graduate students see health equity in practice
Experiential education opportunities give graduate students studying health equity an opportunity to learn directly from those experiencing inequity.

Grad course teaches inclusive, human-centred design research
Inclusive, human-centred design methods have a big impact on product design and accessiblity needs, says grad student Rupsha Mutsuddi.

Professors help racialized grad students navigate academy
Roundtable discussions held by the Faculty of Graduate Studies have led to work that reduces isolation and builds community for racialized students.

Graduate physics professor shares machine learning knowledge with academic community 

innovation research digital AI network
innovation research digital AI network

By Elaine Smith 

With the recent advances in machine learning techniques, Joel Zylberberg, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at York University, decided it would be useful to science students to understand these methods, so he developed a graduate course to share his knowledge. 

Joel Zylberberg, physics professor who teaches Deep Learning for Physicists
Joel Zylberberg, physics professor who teaches Deep Learning for Physicists.

His course, Deep Learning for Physicists, made its debut in 2021 and was repeated in 2022. Its positive reception encouraged Zylberberg to think more broadly, and this year he is offering the course through the Fields Institute to graduate students from the 12 Ontario universities that are members of the institute. 

“I like the idea of having more downstream impact from my teaching, working with a class of 35 rather than five,” Zylberberg said. “The applications are pretty diverse; students are working with everything from space science to quantum mechanics. I get to interact with all of this fun science through a set of methods that I know pretty well.” 

He noted that the core machine learning ideas date back to the 1980s and 1990s, “but more sophisticated hardware now allows us to make models on a different scale.” 

“Machine learning methods have come to dominate a lot of quantitative work and I wanted to give graduate students a strong foundation,” he continued. “Computer science students may have done a course or two in machine learning, but there’s no undergraduate course available for natural science students. Most of the students who enrol in the course have a pretty sophisticated mathematics background with solid undergraduate training in calculus. About half of them now have some prior machine learning experience and come to the course to learn to think about this topic in a more systematic way.” 

The first half of the course is devoted to understanding the theory of why systems are built in a particular way and how they work; the second half of the course focuses on applying the theory. The assignments require students to make various machine learning applications and their final project asks them to solve a scientific problem using the course methods.

Jordan Krywonos, York PhD student in cosmology and teaching assistant for the course. PHOTO CREDIT: Gabriela Secara, Perimeter Institute
Jordan Krywonos, York PhD student in cosmology and teaching assistant for the course. Photo: Gabriela Secara, Perimeter Institute.

Jordan Krywonos, a York PhD student in cosmology, took the course last year and now serves as a teaching assistant for the course.  

“My supervisor had an idea for a project that involved machine learning, but neither of us had experience with these methods,” said Krywonos, who is based at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ont. “It was a good opportunity to have expert guidance in how to solve any machine learning problems we encountered.” 

She applied machine learning to her work in predicting the dark matter halos for a population of galaxies, a project Krywonos scaled up afterward. 

“I continue to use the course techniques for this ongoing project,” she said. “I’m trying various machine learning algorithms to see which one has the best performance.” 

In another example, one of the graduate students in Zylberberg’s lab found a way to use machine learning to see glowing cells in a mouse’s brain more clearly by using a model that removed much of the data noise from the measuring device, improving the signal-to-noise ratio by a factor of 20. 

During the course, Zylberberg has the class review research papers together so they can analyze the machine learning applications employed in each study. For Krywonos, it has been helpful, since machine learning is being used more frequently in cosmology today. 

“When I read through a research paper now, I can understand and analyze it better,” she said. 

This year’s class is being taught in hyflex fashion: all of the students, whether at York or at other universities, have the option of coming to class in-person or joining via Zoom. The online option allows students across Ontario to enrol in a valuable course to which they wouldn’t have access otherwise, while the in-person option provides students with the opportunity to enjoy a traditional classroom setting. No matter which option they choose, Zylberberg aims to provide them with an equitable experience.  

“We’ve gotten a lot of practice using hybrid formats over the last few years, given the pandemic,” Zylberberg said. 

The final few sessions of the class are devoted to a mini-conference where the students present their projects, honing skills that will be useful in the workplace. 

“Scientists need to be able to communicate what they are doing and why,” Zylberberg said. “It’s a broadly useful skill in academic research, as well as in industry where one might be selling a product or pitching a new venture to investors.”  

Cheryl van Daalen Smith, FGS associate dean, academic said, “With its relevant subject matter, its accessible delivery mode and its broad reach, Deep Learning for Physicists is an example of the innovative graduate courses that the Faculty of Graduate Studies is proud to offer.”  

Graduate students see health equity in practice 

Black Creek Farm FEATURED image

By Elaine Smith 

While working toward a master’s degree in health equity, Erin Flanagan’s experiential education (EE) opportunity in the Human Rights & Health Equity graduate course offered by Jessica Vorstermans was a factor in her decision to pursue her passion for health policy and equity in the PhD program at York University. 

In addition to teaching relevant theory, Vorstermans, an assistant professor of critical disability studies, requires students in her course to engage with small organizations that are doing grassroots work. She also brings in speakers from such organizations to share their work experiences with the class.

Graduate students, professor and members of SweetGrass Roots Collective gathering sweet water at Black Creek Community Farm. L-R: Olivia, Jessica, Star, Kashfa, Sana and Jennifer
Graduate students, professor and members of SweetGrass Roots Collective gathering sweet water at Black Creek Community Farm. Pictured, left to right: Olivia, Jessica, Star, Kashfa, Sana and Jennifer.

“I want the students to engage with the people doing that work on the ground and understand what that looks like,” said Vorstermans. “We talk about community engagement in research and intersectionality, and I think it’s important for students to experience that and have time to think, reflect and debrief as part of their academic training, since they’ll likely be working in policy and different systems of care.  

“The idea is for them to be close to the people who are experiencing the policies, theories and concepts my students are learning about: those who experience inequity.” 

The organizations that provide Vorstermans’ students an opportunity for EE include: the Sweetgrass Roots Collective, an Indigenous collective that works to re-indigenize urban spaces, doing land- and place-based education, earthwork, arts and storytelling, to plant and steward land at Black Creek Community Farm, which is next door to York’s Keele Campus; Community Peacemaker Teams, an advocacy organization that describes itself as building partnerships to transform violence and aggression; and the Ocama Collective, “a community-directed group of birth workers of colour, living and working in Tkaronto [Toronto], who are dedicated to the reclamation of traditional and holistic childbearing and birthing practices amongst IBPIC folx” (sic).  

“Learning from people experientially is powerful,” said Vorstermans, and both Flanagan and recent student Humairaa Karodia agree.

Humairaa Karodia
Humairaa Karodia

“The group project was the highlight of the course, because it allowed me to immerse myself into the real world,” said Flanagan. “We were doing research with a purpose, so we could see it come to fruition, see the end result and see that it made an impact.” 

Flanagan and the four other students on her team worked with the Indigenous Wet’suwet’en people of British Columbia who have been protesting plans made by large corporations to build pipelines on their lands – projects that don’t have the tribe’s consent. 

“We worked as an ally to support the Indigenous community with their protest, document it and ensure it got proper coverage in the media,” said Flanagan. “We provided the story from the perspective of the Indigenous community and we helped gather information so we could support the protest, researching the amount of money the RCMP was spending on the protest, including blockades and arrests of Indigenous people. We tried to find numbers so we could provide a clear look at how much public money goes into this. 

“There were a lot of nuances, and we filed a freedom of information request, going through that whole process. We built skills around how to find information people try to conceal. It brought to light what is transparent and what is not.” 

Their experience also caused team members to consider their own privilege, something they all discussed. 

“We talked about how to form a genuine allyship and avoid tropes of the white saviour,” she said. “It helped us stay grounded. We were constantly asking questions, since we had no lived experience with the issue.”

Master’s student Erin Flanagan and her classmates at Black Creek Community Farm, visiting with the members of the SweetGrass Roots Collective.
Master’s student Erin Flanagan and her classmates at Black Creek Community Farm, visiting with the members of the SweetGrass Roots Collective.

Karodia, a master’s student in health policy and equity, chose to work with the Sweetgrass Roots Collective to harvest sweet water because she remembers childhood trips to maple syrup farms and was also eager to give back to the Indigenous community during a time of reconciliation. 

“This was deconstructing what I knew about maple syrup,” she said, referring to sweet water, also known as sap. “And after all the years of hurt inflicted on the Indigenous Peoples, they still welcome settlers with open arms, asking us to come learn from them and join them. Forming these spaces allows us to see the common ground we all hold. Under the scope of human rights, this type of bonding, trust, and collaboration humanizes one another and we begin to feel like we are one body and obliged to protect one another.” 

Karodia found many similarities between Indigenous Peoples and Muslims in Canada, including adherence to a lunar calendar and promoting gratitude and sustainable living. 

“The way they hold their natural spaces and respect every living creature is very similar to Islam, and the West has discriminated and looked down on Islam in the same way they have on Indigenous practices and beliefs,” she said. “When we talk about agency, we think about protests and demonstrations, but bringing awareness can also be through intimate spaces like this, about bolstering your community together. Even the smallest action, such as boiling sweet water and canning it so it can go to Indigenous people throughout the province, makes a difference.” 

After their EE opportunities, the teams each presented a concept they learned during their work and related it to their classroom learning. Their presentations fostered thought-provoking discussion that Flanagan found “very rewarding.” 

“This practical experience was so refreshing,” she said. “It was the first time I’d done research in a group setting and the team dynamic was really enjoyable. We build some concrete skills that we could put on a resume. It was great that Professor Vorstermans offered us this opportunity.” 

For her part, Vorstermans says students’ graduate work “focuses a lot on theory. When you put that together with work on the ground, you realize that things can be complicated and difficult.  

“As the students move into expert mode as researchers, they need to know that their learning should be directed by those experiencing harms, injustices and oppression,” she said. “Listening is an important skill.”