AI is changing the world rapidly and as it does, it is important to have conversations not just about how to develop and use AI, but what the most responsible ways to do so are.
This year’s Bracing for Impact conference – titled Shaping the AI Challenge for a Healthy, Just Society – looks to advance socially conscious AI by exploring what implications the technology’s advancement may have for improving society. The conference will focus on the rapid advancements and implications of AI, with the spotlight on the technology’s intersection with health, neurotechnology, intellectual property, regulation, data governance, the arts and more. This one-day conference will bring together a multidisciplinary audience to discuss how AI can help shape a healthy and just society.
Giuseppina (Pina) D’Agostino
“In 2017 when we first launched Bracing for Impact, AI was still somewhat far-reaching,” explains Giuseppina (Pina) D’Agostino, vice-director of Connected Minds, founder and director of the IP Innovation Clinic and co-director of CAIS. “AI is now here and many of us are still in a brace position, attempting to understand how this technology is intermingling with our daily lives with all of its benefits and challenges. Our conference brings together diverse voices essential to explore these critical issues for the benefit of a healthy and just society for all.”
The conference will bring together Canadian and international academics as well as legal, policy, and technology practitioners to speak to ways of shaping AI and its uses for social betterment.
The event is being held at OneEleven on 325 Front Street West in Toronto and is sponsored by Microsoft Canada. Student and professional rates are offered and include food and refreshments.
York research looks to improve air quality prediction
Share
Mark Gordon, a professor in the Earth & Space Science & Engineering Department at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering, has dedicated the past five years to forest fieldwork to help create better air quality models that detect the detrimental impact pollutants may have on the environment.
Mark Gordon
In the summer of 2023, Toronto was briefly covered in a thick blanket of smoke due to pollution from wildfires in Quebec – causing the bustling city to have some of the worst air quality in the world. During that time, air quality models served as a crucial tool, helping people understand potentially harmful atmospheric conditions and adopt safety measures in the face of potential risks.
The experience served as a demonstration of how important air quality models – which some may have been unaware of until now – can be.
“Air quality models work in the same way weather models do,” says Gordon. “Just like a weather model can tell you when it is going to rain, these models allow us to understand air quality and inform necessary action.” Beyond this, air quality models are used to help control air pollution and monitor the impact of pollutants on natural ecosystems like grasslands and forests.
Gordon’s work looks to further the significance of air quality models by improving their accuracy to reflect real atmospheric conditions as closely as possible. “Getting air quality models right is crucial,” says Gordon. “Accurate models can help predict many things, like how pollutants from a newly implemented industrial site might impact nearby communities.”
To achieve this, physical and chemical properties and processes of various pollutants in the atmosphere need to be first measured and analyzed. Then, mathematical and numerical techniques are used to simulate the collected data and create or improve air quality models.
In a recently concluded project funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada, Gordon has looked to do just that.
He and his graduate students Kaiti (Timothy) Jiang, Xuanyi Zhang and Dane Blanchard measured pollutant emissions – emphasizing those with greatest impact on climate, vegetation and natural ecosystems – from the Athabasca oil sands region in northern Alberta to examine how pollutants interact with the nearby boreal forest. Measurements were also compared with values used in existing air quality models to validate their accuracy.
From left to right: Kaiti (Timothy) Jiang, Xuanyi Zhang and Gordon standing in front of the York Athabasca Jack Pine tower.
A 100-foot retractable tower, the York Athabasca Jack Pine tower, was erected in the boreal forest, equipped with tools to measure the concentration of the pollutants and used to examine their activity as well as their physical and chemical properties. In particular, the team looked to investigate how fast the surrounding forest takes the pollutants out of the air.
After five years of fieldwork in a remote forest, countless hours of research and a few encounters with bears, Gordon and his research team published three unique papers, each focused on one of the three distinct and harmful pollutants: aerosols, sulfur dioxide and ozone.
The trilogy of investigations resulted in insights that can help improve the accuracy of existing air quality models and support further studies. The goal is that in others drawing on Gordon and his team’s information and air quality model algorithms, inaccuracies of current air quality models can be corrected to reflect real-world conditions and establish more precise models.
New online CV tool, Discover York Academics, spotlights faculty scholarly work
Share
York University has launched Discover York Academics, a new electronic curriculum vitae (CV) tool designed to showcase the University’s outstanding faculty members.
Discover York Academics is a searchable database that enables faculty members to promote and store their research, publications, scholarly and creative works, and related teaching and professional activities in one centralized profile. In the process, their work and academic leadership will become more accessible and searchable for research collaborations and partnership opportunities, community engagements and more.
“Discover York Academics is an exciting, career-enhancing opportunity for York’s researchers, scholars and creatives to more widely share their public expertise and their local and global efforts to drive positive change,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. “By using this tool, our faculty members gain a bigger platform to network, strengthen their visibility and grow their work’s reach, influence and impact.”
The new tool offers a streamlined process for faculty to update and maintain one online profile, aggregating information from multiple databases to create a single-source repository that fully encompasses and captures York’s rising research and innovation enterprise.
“I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to set up my profile and how comprehensive the automatic data collection feature was in finding my scholarly outputs,” said Jennifer Steeves, associate vice-president research and professor in the Faculty of Health. “As my profile is publicly available, my research is now more visible to potential collaborators, partners and graduate students. Discover York Academics is an exciting opportunity to showcase the academic achievements of York’s faculty, truly reflective of a leading research-intensive university.”
Discover York Academics offers a more streamlined appearance, user experience and functionality for faculty profiles across the institution, and acts as an enhanced resource for both internal and external audiences.
Staff and students stand to benefit from the tool as well, by using it to seek out information on faculty availability for graduate supervision, insights into their academic or industry collaborations or to identify experts in a specific research or subject area.
Key features of the tool include:
reduced data entry through automation and aggregation from public sites such as DSpace, Scopus, ORCiD and Dimensions, and York databases like PeopleSoft and SIS;
customized report and CV generation to assist researchers with grant applications; and
full user control of profile, including private and public information display settings.
A test phase of the tool at York was run from September to December 2023, with more than 125 faculty members participating as test users.
If faculty need assistance setting up a profile, they can register for workshops running from February to April by navigating to YU Learn and searching for “discover,” book a one-on-one training session online or in-person, or email their CV to dyahelp@yorku.ca for direct help. Training resources, guides and technical support are also available here.
To create your profile and learn more about Discover York Academics, click here.
Professor proposes making virtual reality more secure
Share
Yan Shvartzshnaider, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering, is one of many researchers working to address virtual privacy concerns and develop practical solutions for growing cybersecurity needs.
Yan Shvartzshnaider
Imagine travelling to the peak of Mount Everest to observe the mountainous region, or floating in space to study the stars, constellations and planets – all during a class at school. Virtual reality (VR) technologies have made immersive learning experiences like these possible, expanding the opportunities available in traditional education settings.
However, though convenient and often exciting, some VR technologies pose significant privacy risks. “VR technologies are powered by an array of sensors and collect large amounts of data about users and their surrounding environment,” says Shvartzshnaider. “The extensive data collection practices intrinsic to VR technology expose users to a range of novel privacy and security threats.”
Shvartzshnaider and Karoline Brehm, an international exchange master’s student at York from Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, recently developed a paper titled “Understanding Privacy in Virtual Reality Classrooms,” which explores privacy concerns around VR platforms in education settings and proposes a framework to address those challenges. “As technology develops and becomes mainstream in established contexts like education, workplaces and health care, we need to examine and mitigate the associated privacy risks,” says Shvartzshnaider.
One reason concerns can arise around virtual reality’s use in education is that while VR platforms allow both real and virtual environments to exist simultaneously, each environment may adhere to different privacy norms. For example, if a student uses VR technology to attend a virtual lecture while at home, they are in two vastly different environments at the same time. Many VR platforms do not recognize these differences and may collect sensitive information about the user’s home environment, causing a violation of privacy of which the user may not be aware.
The paper by Shvartzshnaider presents a framework to help examine and address such privacy risks. First, VR providers should gather information from stakeholders – like faculty and students – about their privacy expectations and the context within which the tech will be used. Then, providers should consider how VR technology might impact those privacy expectations, and what data is gathered, followed by examining and identifying potential privacy violations of the technology. The last proposed step would see VR companies apply the gathered information to help inform solutions, ensuring the VR technology adheres to privacy expectations and avoids breaches.
Shvartzshnaider’s proposed framework – and work overall in the recently published paper – are part of ongoing efforts to help contribute to global cybersecurity efforts, especially as emergency technologies like VR and artificial intelligence bring with their innovations privacy concerns.
Professor receives inaugural funding to make Ontario energy greener
Share
Hany Farag, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering, is among the first to receive funds from a new initiative to revamp Ontario’s energy system.
Hany Farag
Green hydrogen has the potential to be a world-changing form of energy. It’s a sustainable, renewable and versatile energy carrier that can be used to support many industry sectors without releasing greenhouse gases. Among the most promising options for producing green hydrogen is electrolysis, which can split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from a renewable energy source.
There is a significant challenge, however: the production, storage and transport of this resource is highly complex and costly.
The government of Ontario feels it’s a challenge worth taking on. It has created the Hydrogen Innovation Fund, a brand-new funding initiative administered by the Independent Electricity System Operator, which over the next three years will help invest more than $15 million to help integrate hydrogen into Ontario’s clean electricity system.
Farag is among the first group of researchers to successfully attain this funding. In collaboration with Alectra Utilities, Bruce County, York University Facilities Services and other industry partners, Farag will investigate ways to implement Green Hydrogen Plants (GHPs) across Ontario. “There is currently no infrastructure that can support the integration of electricity and hydrogen,” says Farag. “We want to facilitate the innovation of green hydrogen, and this project will help optimize the design of GHPs and their integration into Ontario’s power systems.”
By providing research-backed information and planning tools to support GHP implementation, Farag’s work will help inform action that contributes to Ontario’s target of net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050.
“Electricity is the core sector we focus on in this work, but these tools will eventually help decarbonize other industries as well,” he says.
York prof to moderate panel on Black students’ mental health
Share
Research continues to indicate that anti-Black racism takes a toll on mental health – and academia is not immune to this unfortunate reality. As part of the upcoming Black Student Mental Health Symposium, York University Professor Agnès Berthelot-Raffard will moderate a panel discussion featuring experts from York and beyond speaking about mental health challenges faced by Black students, the racial climate on campus, and equity, diversity and inclusion in the university setting.
Agnès Berthelot-Raffard
Open to all community members, the Feb. 5 event – taking place from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the Founders Assembly Hall on York’s Keele Campus – aims to provide a space to explore strategies and resources to support the mental well-being of Black students, faculty and staff on university campuses.
Berthelot-Raffard, a professor in the School of Health Policy & Management, is the principal investigator of the Promoting Black Students’ Mental Health: A Pan-Canadian Research and Intervention Project on Social Determinants of Health and Equity in Canadian Universities, a project funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada for 2021-24. For this event, she gathered a group of notable York leaders and experts to contribute their diverse knowledge to the panel discussion:
Delores Mullings, vice-provost of equity, diversity and inclusion at Memorial University and a professor of social work;
Sophie Yohani, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Alberta;
Carl James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora, a professor at York University, and York’s senior advisor on equity and representation in the Office of the Vice-President of Equity, People and Culture;
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, instructor and special advisor at the Schulich School of Business; and
Yasmine Gray, York University alumna from the Critical Disability Studies program.
For more information and to register for the event, visit the Eventbrite page.
A heartfelt recognition: professor awarded for cardiac research
Share
Faculty of Health Professor Sherry Grace received the 2022 KITE Innovation and Impact Award from the University Health Network’s KITE Research Institute for the global impact of her work in the field of cardiac rehabilitation.
Sherry Grace
The Innovation and Impact Award, bestowed by the KITE Research Institute, is dedicated to rehabilitation science and counts as one of the principal research enterprises of the University Health Network (UHN), Canada’s top medical research hospital. The award is bestowed on two scientists – one senior, one not – whose research contributions have had a major impact, whether to policies, standards, best practice guidelines, regulations, dissemination of resources to the research community, intellectual property or commercialization, or collaborations with non-academic partners.
For Grace, the award served as a recognition of how, over a more than 25-year career – 19 of them at York – she has become recognized as a global authority on cardiac rehabilitation (CR) and has been credited for an ability to transform research into solutions that help reduce mortality and disability among heart patients.
Grace has published more than 320 research papers and has been cited almost 20,000 times, placing her among the top two to three per cent most-cited researchers globally across all fields of study.
Her work has also sought to promote accessible cardiovascular rehabilitationby supporting the growth of CR programs in resource-limited settings, looking to overcome barriers to cardiac rehab participation by increasing program capacity, as well as ensuring patients are better referred and engaged.
In doing so, both her past work and the work that is yet to come has created a catalogue of impactful accomplishment that helped earn her the Innovation and Impact Award.
From climate change to crisis response, York researchers explore 21st-century challenges
Share
Welcome to the December issue of Aspire, a special issue of YFile highlighting research and innovation at York University.
Aspire is produced by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation in partnership with the Communications & Public Affairs Division.
Renowned for its high-profile, research-intensive environment, York University fosters a community of forward-thinking scholars and changemakers dedicated to creating positive, global change.
York alumni-founded startup breathes new air into industry
Share
By Diana Senwasane, student and community engagement coordinator, YSpace and VPRI
Since its inception five years ago, YSpace – York University’s entrepreneurship and innovation hub – has supported hundreds of startups from ideation to incubation to scale. One such startup venture is Blade Air, which is quickly establishing itself as a national leader in the air filtration industry.
Founded by two York alumni from the Schulich School of Business, Giancarlo Sessa (BBA’19) and Aedan Fida (BBA’19), along with his brother Joseph Fida, Blade Air was recently named the fifth-fastest-growing company in Canada for 2023 by the Globe and Mail.
Left to right: Blade Air founders Aedan Fida, Giancarlo Sessa and Joe Fida.
The trio is also celebrating one of their other latest achievements from earlier this year: the acquisition of CleanAir.ai, a Toronto-based startup that specializes in electromagnetic HVAC filters.
The move will enhance Blade Air Smart IAQ Platform, the company’s innovative software for indoor air quality (IAQ) solutions.
“With this strategic acquisition, Blade Air has access to patents and technology that will fast-track the next generation of its Blade Air Smart IAQ Platform,” says Sessa, chief revenue officer. “This enables businesses, real estate groups and facility managers to access critical, real-time data regarding their indoor air quality while reducing energy consumption, carbon emissions and lowering operational costs.”
So far, Blade Air has implemented air quality solutions in over 540-million cubic feet of building spaces across North America, including for government, educational boards, hospitals and commercial enterprises. The list continues to grow as more spaces prioritize indoor air quality after the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Blade Air HEPA Air Purifier, the portable air quality solution for commercial spaces.
Sessa says the company’s success is due in part to the support they received early on from YSpace, which provides access to mentors, testing equipment, and connections with funders and key resources.
“YSpace was extremely supportive in providing us with the resources we needed to succeed, including great advisors, tools for making our business processes more efficient and an always cheerful and supportive network,” he says.
The company has also prioritized sustainability, working to reduce its carbon footprint using zero-waste technology. They also created the world’s first zero-waste carbon filters.
This commitment to innovate and be leaders in their industry stems from Sessa and Fida’s days at York.
“Attending York University not only gave us the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in the world of business, but we also found the inspiration to dream bigger and the network to make those dreams a reality,” Sessa says. “York empowered us to turn our vision into a thriving venture, and for that we are forever grateful.”
To learn more about Blade Air, visit bladeair.com.
Intellectual property services at York give startups innovation edge
Share
By Diana Senwasane, student and community engagement coordinator, YSpace and VPRI
For more than a decade, the IP Innovation Clinic at York University has been helping inventors and entrepreneurs protect and grow their wide-ranging business ventures.
Based out of Osgoode Hall Law School, the first-of-its-kind and now largest intellectual property (IP) legal clinic in Canada has provided pro bono legal support to hundreds of community members.
Recently, the clinic partnered with the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation (VPRI) to offer streamlined services and a more efficient pathway for faculty to bring their product or service to market.
This new partnership enhances the clinic’s ongoing contributions to the business development of dozens of startups.
Spotlighted below are three ventures that credit the clinic for helping them reach new levels of success.
NURO
Founded in 2017, NURO is a health-care technology company that uses neurotechnology to create a form of communication for incapacitated patients who suffer from conditions such as stroke, trauma and neurodegenerative diseases.
NURO’s second patented technology, The PAD, used for the detection and continuous monitoring of Alzheimer’s disease.
When the startup was first established, founder and CEO Francois Gand was referred to the IP Innovation Clinic to protect his intellectual property.
“This collaboration empowered us to assess and prioritize crucial aspects of our work with the aid of talented scholars, allowing for a much more intricate and in-depth organization of our IP portfolio,” says Gand.
The clinic provided pro bono patent searching that helped NURO assess the relevant patent landscape related to its technologies and helped the company begin the patent application process, resulting in NURO securing a patent and its IP more broadly.
Skygauge Robotics
Skygauge Robotics was founded by a trio of then-students, now York alumni, including two who were featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list: Nikita Illiushkin (BBA ’16) and Linar Ismagilov (BA ’18). Their company uses drones to create a workforce in the sky.
A Skyguage Robotics drone performing an inspection on a ship.
The drones do physical work for remote inspection and maintenance and can be used for painting, pressure washing, cleaning and even ultrasonic testing, which is used when inspecting large infrastructure like ships, bridges and piping.
The IP Innovation Clinic helped Skygauge Robotics secure their IP, which later contributed to them obtaining $3.3 million in funding led by BDC’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund.
“What really set us apart from other companies competing for funding was the fact that we had our technology patented,” says Illiushkin. “We credit the IP Innovation Clinic for their guidance and support in the IP process and the expertise of the supervising legal team who continue to advise us today.”
Indigenous Friends Association
The Indigenous-led, not-for-profit organization created by then-student, now York alumnus Alejandro Mayoral-Baños (PhD ’21) first began as an app to connect and support Indigenous youth. Mayoral-Baños turned to the IP Innovation Clinic to understand how to best protect his IP, develop essential contracts and become incorporated.
Founder Alejandro Mayoral-Baños (top middle) posing with the Indigenous Friends Association board of directors.
The clinic was instrumental in helping evolve the app into other projects and gain access to more funding, notably a $210,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
“Working with the clinic was a transformative journey in turning vision into reality,” says Mayoral-Baños. “It enabled me to critically navigate the complexities of IP, leading to the creation of real-life solutions that have propelled the Indigenous Friends Association forward.”
The Indigenous Friends Association now provides educational programs for Indigenous youth looking to enter the technology sector across the globe.
The IP Innovation Clinic continues to offer tailored support for inventors and entrepreneurs looking to protect and commercialize their ideas.
Backed by the expertise of the clinic and VPRI teams, these services give inventors and entrepreneurs the peace of mind that their intellectual property is protected. Clients can simplify a complicated process, avoid errors that can delay their journey to market, avoid costly lawyer or patent agent fees, and save valuable time.
Services offered by the clinic can include:
guidance on how to identify and protect assets, best practices and information surrounding freedom to operate;
patent searches and prior art searches;
trademark searches;
IP Agreement review; and
IP Application drafting and review.
Those looking to bring their product or service to market or protect their idea can schedule free one-on-one consultations with the clinic by emailing ipinnovationclinic@osgoode.yorku.ca.
