York University Professor Emeritus John S. Saul, a world-renowned scholar and passionate advocate for social justice, passed away on Sept. 23.
John. S. Saul
Saul, who inspired colleagues and students, as well as those outside the walls of academia, with his rigorous analysis and passion, joined York in 1973 and taught in the Department of Politics for 35 years until reaching age 70 in 2008.
He was a pre-eminent scholar on the politics of southern Africa, particularly in regard to the liberation struggles in that region during the 20th century. His scholarly output is prodigious: more than 20 academic books, more than 70 book chapters, more than 80 refereed journal articles and more than 180 conference publications.
Saul was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; the recipient of honorary degrees from universities in Canada and Africa; and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Association of African Studies.
Not only did Saul conduct groundbreaking and internationally recognized research, but he was also in the forefront of working towards social change in southern Africa, active both on that continent (teaching there, cumulatively, for a decade) and at home in Canada. In Canada, he founded the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa and remained active in that Committee’s wide range of activities for three decades. One of the initiators of the progressive Canadian journal This Magazine, he remained part of the team for more than a decade as a key writer and editor.
Saul’s contributions to York University are many and varied, including being a department Chair. He inaugurated numerous undergraduate courses on African topics and, more generally, on development concerns. He supervised significant doctoral dissertations and contributed to new graduate courses and other initiatives, linked to both African studies and development studies.
For more information on the legacy of Saul, see the University of Johannesburg tribute published on Sept. 26.
Interested in global learning? Attend the Go Global Fair, Oct. 5
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Students seeking new experiences with international study – both on campus and abroad – are invited to attend the Go Global Fair this week at the Keele Campus to learn more about the opportunities available.
York International’s Global Learning team will host the event, which gives students information about studying and working abroad, earning credits towards their degree and building transferable skills. Students who have previously studied abroad, and exchange students currently studying at York, will be in attendance to share their experiences and offer their perspectives on the value of participating in a global learning opportunity.
“York’s global engagement strategy prioritizes providing opportunities for students to immerse themselves in other cultures and gain diverse perspectives about the world,” says Ashley Laracy, associate director, Global Learning. “The University is committed to graduating global citizens, and the skills acquired from studying or working abroad can set recent graduates apart on the job market, increase their employability and ensure they are equipped to enter a diverse workforce.”
Students can optimize their post-secondary experience through global learning programs offered by York. With more than 300 global partners in more than 65 countries, York offers a variety of opportunities such as academic exchanges, summer schools, research and internships.
These experiences, however, don’t always require a passport – professors can also bring international experiences to students from their own classrooms. Through Globally Networked Learning, faculty and students from around the world can connect virtually, while participating in, and collaborating on, projects related to their field of study. This program creates global classrooms and aids in learning intercultural communication skills that will benefit them in the professional world.
Alyana Borras, a fourth-year communications and media studies student, completed an exchange in Singapore at the National University of Singapore and an internship at the Canadian Institute in Greece.
“Going abroad not only helped immerse myself in a new culture but allowed me to gain valuable skills like problem solving and independence,” she says.
Global learning is open to all students at York University – undergraduate, graduate, domestic and international – with travel funding and safety abroad assistance to support them on their journey.
“Hearing about this opportunity from my professor, and seeing they had a course that was specific to my creative writing interest, was so exciting – it felt like it was tailored to me. I sent my application right away,” says Sathana Muraleetharan, a fourth-year political science major with a minor in English, who was inspired by a professor to explore international and experiential learning on the Las Nubes EcoCampus in Costa Rica.
Muraleetharan received the York International Mobility Award as well as pre-departure training before her trip and a re-entry debriefing upon return to Canada. While in Costa Rica, she stayed with a local family, which nurtured her biggest accomplishment: learning Spanish.
“The family I stayed with only spoke Spanish,” she says. “I thought, ‘What am I doing here if I’m not willing to learn their language?’ And even though I was nervous to learn, it was one of the most rewarding things I have done.”
“These are experiences that students won’t forget. Global learning can build personal and professional networks to live on for years to come,” adds Laracy.
The Go Global Fair will be held Oct. 5 at Vari Hall from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is open to all students.
VR, immersive teaching strengthens York’s partnership with Bauhaus
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By Elaine Smith
The 20-year institutional partnership between York University and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany has been re-energized by a recent collaboration on advancing immersive teaching through gamification and virtual reality (VR).
When researchers at Bauhaus wanted to share their work in immersive, multi-user VR with colleagues outside of Germany earlier this year, they turned to York University, an institutional partner for more than 20 years.
Mojgan Jadidi with VR equipment.
Mojgan Jadidi, an associate professor of civil engineering who works with extended reality (XR) tools in her GeoVA Lab, was intrigued when teaching and learning colleagues at the Lassonde School of Engineering referred the inquiry to her, given her own work with VR. She invited Anton Lammert and Tony Zöppig, researchers working for the head of the Virtual Reality and Visualization Research Group at Bauhaus, to spend a week at York and present a public workshop focused on immersive teaching and virtual reality.
“We discussed different educational applications for immersive, multi-user virtual reality,” said Lammert. “We focused on lecture scenarios, as well as guided tour scenarios, and discussed how immersive recordings (recordings of all interactions that happened in virtual reality) could be used for research and educational purposes.”
The discussion led several interested undergraduate students to approach Jadidi afterward and, as a result, she has recruited new research assistants. At the same time, the Bauhaus researchers also made some new connections at York and revitalized their relationship with York International.
Outside of the lecture, the German team spent time collaborating and exchanging ideas with Jadidi’s lab team. “The visit was a stepping stone for broader collaboration between our labs,” said Jadidi. “We’re aiming to implement their algorithm and concepts in game development to enhance our games for multi-players. There was a lot of knowledge exchanged; they are teaching VR using a VR platform and I teach engineering through VR, so this enriches us both.
“Researchers from other universities bring a different mindset with them, and it re-energizes our students and faculty.”
The new connection prompted Jadidi to encourage one of her research assistants, Alexandro Di Nunzio, to apply for a scholarship to study at Bauhaus this fall, so he’s preparing to leave for Weimar, Germany in September.
Di Nunzio, who is also a master’s candidate in digital media, met the visiting researchers and was impressed by their work.
“Once I met them, I became interested in their work on multi-player VR applications,” said Di Nunzio, “and then I learned that they’re teaching a class about developing virtual reality applications using their multi-player VR framework. We did a little work together while they were here, and when they voiced interest in having me come to Bauhaus, I hastily applied for the scholarship.”
Di Nunzio will study at Bauhaus from October to February, taking the course taught by Lammert and Zöppig, and will incorporate his new knowledge into his master’s research project. He is working on finding a way to implement his current research on real-time audio analysis and music visualization into a multi-player virtual reality setting.
“My main goal while abroad is to become very familiar with VR development,” he said.
“The framework exists, so why not use it?” Jadidi said.
Lammert agreed. “Through this exchange, we hope that the student exchange between our two universities will be strengthened,” he said.
UNESCO Chair to speak at global conference
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York University UNESCO Chair Charles Hopkins will speak at the 2023 Global Conference on Sustainable Development on Oct. 4 and 5 in Hong Kong to discuss how to transform higher education towards embracing sustainability and elevate action to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Charles Hopkins
This is the first international conference organized by the Hong Kong Chapter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). The centre of discussion during the conference will be about strengthening the world’s commitment to the SDGs in all sectors of society and finding solutions to current and future climate and societal challenges.
Hopkins will speak on the potential of education for sustainable development (ESD) in promoting transformative, holistic change in universities, as higher education can play crucial roles in reorienting student learning, supporting a sustainable future with evidence-based knowledge, and providing support for local and global communities.
“Since ESD has been recognized by the United Nations as a key enabler of all SDGs, it is imperative to be implemented at all levels of education, in particular in higher education, as universities are important influencers within society,” says Hopkins.
In August, Hopkins, as well as Katrin Kohl, executive coordinator to the UNESCO Chair, were appointed members of the High-Level Advisory Council for the SDG Academy, representing SDSN’s education and training division.
At the upcoming conference, Hopkins will join a group of world-renowned speakers, including Ban Ki-moon, the former United Nations secretary general, and co‐chair of the Ban Ki‐moon Centre for Global Citizens, as well as Professor Jeffrey Sachs, SDSN president. Both will share their visions for a sustainable future and discuss practical solutions from around the world for the implementation of the SDGs.
The event will take place as a hybrid event in-person at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and will be streamed live on Oct. 4 and 5. Online registration is free. More details can be found at gcsd2023.sdsn-hk.org.
New opportunities await York study abroad students
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By Elaine Smith
York University has a robust global learning program, and this fall, 31 York students will travel abroad to study at institutions in 15 countries outside Canada.
These exchange students embody York’s priority for advancing global engagement, as stated in University Academic Plan (UAP), and its commitment to expand inclusive global an intercultural learning, as set forth in the University’s new Internationalization and Global Engagement Strategy. “More than ever,” states the UAP, “universities have a responsibility to contribute to positive change through global co-operation and borderless education.”
Photo of Sarah Persaud (centre) with Japanese exchange student (left) and fellow York student (right)
Sarah Persaud and Anthony Chedid are among exchange students heading abroad this fall, and they are eager for the adventure. Persaud is off to Asia for the entire year to study art at Yamanashi Gakuin University in Japan, where she’ll focus on visual arts in the International College of Liberal Arts (iCLA). Chedid is going to England to spend a semester at the University of Leeds.
“Before I begin teaching, I want to do my final year of courses abroad,” said Persaud, a fifth-year student in the visual arts and concurrent education program. “Over the past couple of years, I took a lot of art history courses and focused on East Asian art, so this is a wonderful opportunity.”
Chedid has been dreaming of going abroad since high school.
“I read the blogs of a number of travel bloggers talking about travelling the globe,” said Chedid, a third-year student in the joint political science/Master’s of Management program, “and they all had the same origin story: they studied abroad and travelled while they were there. I want to travel, and York offers all these incredible opportunities.”
Both students attended the pre-departure training for exchange students run by York International and found it beneficial.
“It actually changed my plans,” said Persaud, who also took a York study-abroad course in South Korea this summer. “I met an exchange student from Japan and her friend who were in Japan all summer, so I stopped in Osaka to see them, and I’ll be able to connect with the Japanese student once I’m at the iCLA.”
Chedid was thrilled by the session.
Anthony Chedid
“I got to meet exchange students from Britain and it was exciting to hear their experiences,” he said. “I was able to connect with a student who was here from Leeds and he gave me a lot of useful information about the city and the culture. It was also really helpful to get travel advice and information about health insurance.”
Both Persaud and Chedid have applied for bursaries and scholarships to help defray the costs of studying abroad. York International has bursaries available to students studying overseas, as does the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and there are also external awards available – topics that are also discussed in the pre-departure training.
“The York International Safety Abroad office is committed to enhancing the safety of students’ experiences during their time abroad,” said Sara Jane Campbell, manager, safety abroad for York International. “As part of the pre-departure training, we support students in understanding and mitigating risks they may encounter. All students are also required to enrol in York University Safety Abroad Travel Registry to enable us to monitor travel advisories and safety/security concerns and provide help in case of an emergency overseas.”
Although her courses will be taught in English, Persaud took Elementary Modern Standard Japanese (JP 1000) in preparation and plans to continue learning Japanese while she’s at iCLA.
“You never stop learning kanji (written characters); there are always more of them to know,” she said.
In fact, she hopes to have the opportunity to tie language and art together through a course at iCLA called Calligraphy and Kanji Culture.
“I’m going to a whole new country, so I hope I’ll be inspired to try different things,” Persaud said. “I am excited about the new opportunities.
Chedid plans to take courses in British politics. “Our system is based on theirs and it’s important to understand where our legal system originated,” he said. “It will also be interesting to see the effects of Brexit. This will be a great way to experience international politics, something for which I have a big passion.
“It will also be cool to explore a city that isn’t as widely known.”
Both students will experience the benefits of borderless intercultural education first-hand, and will be able to share their greater understanding of the global landscape with their York classmates upon return.
Teaching with an assist from technology
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By Elaine Smith
After returning to in-person teaching following the COVID-19 pandemic, some faculty at York University have continued to embrace technology as a useful and interesting adjunct to their courses. Alejandro Zamora, Mojgan Jadidi and Damilola Adebayo teach disparate topics, but each has decided that technology-enhanced learning benefits their students.
Zamora, an associate professor of Hispanic studies at Glendon College, first used digital technology in a Hispanic Geopoetics course in 2018. The class was studying the work of Luis Cernuda, a poet from Seville, Spain, and he led them on a field trip to explore the spatial memory of a place recreated in his poetry throughout a life of exile. Afterward, he had students collaborate on a web-based multimedia project about the poet and about their field experience.
Alejandro Zamora
Mojgan Jadidi with virtual reality
Damilola Adebayo
“I liked how these projects made students collaborate and engage with the community,” Zamora said. “They learned to create, analyze, synthesize and collaborate. I loved the pedagogic power of digital humanities courses.”
He now incorporates digital projects into all his courses that have field components, such as the summer courses he teaches at the University’s Las Nubes Campus in Costa Rica. Some of the courses have established projects to which students contribute, while in others, the class conceptualizes and creates a project from scratch. He is open to students who propose digital projects in his other courses, too, such as blogs or videos as assignments.
“Literature is often text-based, so students limit their experience to textual analysis and discursive thinking,” Zamora said. “These projects make the students think visually, so they help me enhance their learning experience. The course immediately becomes experiential, because the students realize that they can put what they have learned to work in practical ways and that they can mobilize knowledge.”
He has also turned to globally networked learning to bring together students from Glendon with their counterparts in Colombia, virtually, for joint sessions about Gabriel García Márquez’ novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.
“This was the first time we had a globally networked learning component as part of the [Hispanic Geopoetics] course and it was fantastic,” Zamora said.
Jadidi, an associate professor of civil engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering, uses gaming and virtual reality tools to assist her students in learning engineering and surveying principles. Previously, she created an extended reality sandbox (XR Sandbox) teaching tool that builds on an augmented reality physical sandbox (AR Sandbox) devised by faculty at the University of California, Davis. It allows students to mimic climate conditions online, such as floods, to see their impact on roads and bridges, for example.
“The XR Sandbox is an inclusive, diverse learning environment that helps students to retain information,” she said.
Recently, Jadidi and 11 colleagues received an Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) grant to develop gaming and XR tools that will assist students in learning complex engineering concepts. To do so, they will employ XR and gaming technologies, as well as Visual Verbal Integrated (VIVID) storytelling technology.
“We have observed that engineering students become more disengaged from their learning, particularly when learning contents that are complex, theory heavy, nuanced and unfamiliar,” said Jadidi. “Technology is advancing very quickly and students are comfortable using it, so we want to give them tools to see different dimensions of engineering problems and enjoy learning in a different way.”
For example, one of the tools will allow the students to virtually fly drones over a 3D model of the York University campus so they can understand a drone’s movement and rotation. They’ll be learning about drone assembly, system co-ordination, testing and flight, all within a virtual space.
“It’s all about providing students more opportunities for learning,” said Jadidi. “They’ll be able to learn independently, too; they won’t be limited by time.”
Adebayo’s first opportunity to teach a course occurred in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a PhD student at Cambridge, teaching wasn’t required, so he was forced to acclimate simultaneously to teaching and the virtual environment.
“I was plunged into the deep end,” said Adebayo, an assistant professor and historian of anglophone West Africa.
Luckily, having grown up with technology, Adebayo quickly found his feet.
At York, he started off teaching HIST 2750 (African History from 1800 to the Present) in a HyFlex classroom that is designed to provide remote learners with the same classroom experience as those present in person, and is also recorded for reviewing. It required some tinkering with technology to provide an equivalent experience.
For example, Adebayo is learning to use a tool that allows him to embed quizzes into lectures so that anyone watching virtually can’t continue unless they participate; the video simply stops.
An AIF grant has allowed him to purchase a professional camera and a green screen so he can improve the video quality of lectures, no matter the platform a student is using to view it. He has also learned to add closed captioning that is synchronized with the lecture.
“I believe in access, so the easier it is for my students, the better,” Adebayo said. “I want lectures for students to be mobile-friendly so students can participate on their computers or mobile devices.”
Since the course will be delivered remotely this year, Adebayo has also sought out a means to prevent students from using chat bots to do their assignments.
“I assign short presentations to the students, that they record and send to me; then we meet and discuss the substance of the presentation,” he said. “Even if they’re employing AI tools, they still need to know the content.”
The pandemic opened many eyes to the possibilities of technology in the classroom and, as illustrated, the students benefit.
C4 students turn gaze toward York University Libraries, SDGs
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By Elaine Smith
Summer 2023 saw the C4 (Cross-Campus Capstone Course) team turn its gaze to a challenge issued by York University Libraries (YUL).
The C4 course, inaugurated in 2019 by co-founding faculty members Franz Newland (Lassonde) and Danielle Robinson (School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design), provides students with an opportunity to work effectively in interdisciplinary teams on real-world challenges with social impact. Since C4’s inception, YUL faculty have collaborated on the design and development of this initiative, offering important interdisciplinary wisdom and insights along the way.
Dana Craig
The relationship changed this summer as YUL became a C4 project partner for an entire class of C4 students, searching for insights into how its own programs could more directly support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). After four years of contributing to the C4 initiative, Dana Craig, director of student learning and academic success for YUL, was seconded to the C4 leadership team in 2022-23. In this new role, she began to explore new and deeper ways that C4 and YUL could collaborate. She pitched a challenge to C4 students that focused on SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals): how can a university library be reimagined as a platform for local and global community engagement, knowledge mobility and sharing economies?
“The question was perfectly aligned with both our Keele Campus and our Casita Azul library project on the Las Nubes Campus in Costa Rica,” said Craig, “but that’s the beauty of C4. The students take a look and break the question down into what they think it’s all about. These students – five groups of 10 – wanted to apply the question in a variety of spaces.
Casita Azul
“It became a beautiful opportunity to get students to shake us up a bit by telling us what they need and how they want us to operate. The library should not just be viewed as a support – we are constantly innovating in different ways, too. What else can we do to benefit students and our communities?”
Each of the groups decided on a topic to explore. They were also required to establish a budget, do research, determine how to promote their idea and think about how to make it sustainable. Craig connected them to the library personnel and resources most suited to their research. She also introduced them to the Media Creation Lab, where they could work with digital technology to create a podcast, borrow a 360-degree camera or learn how to edit a video, among other possibilities.
The student teams presented their solutions to the leadership team. One group suggested connecting with the community by offering skills workshops that focused on topics that would appeal to 18-to-25-year-olds, such as financial literacy or how to assess the validity of online information. A second team reimagined the library’s website, designing a simpler gateway to make it more user-friendly. A third group created an artificial intelligence (AI) bot to make it easier to search for open-access resources in any language. A fourth team envisioned a platform where authors could publish open-source material and converse with other authors on the same topic, while the final group designed a book exchange where students could bring a book and take a book in return.
“I could see every single one of these projects being explored by the library, with us working towards some implementation based on the students’ final projects,” Craig said.
Robinson was delighted to have YUL take a project partnership role this summer.
“York University Libraries have been a strong partner of C4 from the very beginning,” Robinson said. “Libraries foster vital interdisciplinary spaces on campus, just like C4, so our values are in direct alignment and energize our collaboration. I am glad the project partnership this summer gave us a chance to give back to the libraries.
“Now, Dana has a 360-degree view of C4 – she has supported students in the classroom and as a member of our leadership team. She has seen, close up, what the students can do and their extraordinarily creative problem solving. Being inside C4 in this way provides a unique perspective; it allows you to see the power of a York degree in action and the unique talents our students bring to the challenges the world is facing.”
For her part, Craig had nothing but compliments for the C4 course and its impact.
“I’m quite impressed by C4’s way of teaching and involving students,” Craig said. “Students love it, and I can see them learning to apply skills, such as compromises about work and having respectful conversations. They are learning through doing and it’s a fantastic experiential education opportunity.”
She was also pleased to have the students brainstorm ideas for the library to consider.
“We don’t know what we don’t know, and additional lenses on how students see and experience their learning and research environments are always valuable and welcome as additional avenues for us to explore.”
Program helps students build English-language confidence
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By Lindsay MacAdam, communications officer, YFile
This fall, York International is launching a pilot program to help the University’s international student population build their English-language confidence as they navigate a new academic landscape.
The volunteer-based English Conversation Partners Program pairs “conversation partners,” who are fluent English speakers, with “student peers,” who have English as an additional language, to conduct one-on-one discussions for at least one hour every week for the duration of the program
In its pilot phase, the program is six weeks in length, including a kickoff event and a closing event meant for participant socializing in a larger group setting. The one-on-one conversation time between student pairs spans the four weeks in between. For each weekly session, students are provided with a facilitation guide via eClass that includes discussion topics and prompts, questions and a video tutorial with example interactions. Participants have the flexibility to arrange their meetups for times and places that are convenient to them.
A screenshot of the English Conversation Partners Program home page on eClass
In development since early this year, the program was spearheaded by Nikitia Cruz, international student experience coordinator at York International. According to Cruz, development involved researching what other universities were offering and speaking to international students to learn about the challenges they face. “I was a former international student,” says Cruz. “Although I did not experience many challenges having English as a second language, I recognize that York University’s international students come from all around the world, have varied educational backgrounds and experiences. I wanted to ensure that all participants have the opportunity to share their culture and knowledge of other languages in a fun and engaging way.”
Coincidentally, shortly after York International started the research and planning process for the program, a student reached out suggesting something similar. “That was a really great opportunity for student leadership development,” says Nethmi Kulatilake, manager of international student experience at York International. “So we connected the student with Nikita, and they ended up being one of the folks who supported the program development, too.”
The York International team is planning to evaluate the results of this program through testimonials, feedback surveys and, appropriately, through conversations with participants. “We’re planning to send surveys out to both the conversation partners and the student peers to get their insight on how the program is going, whether they are noticing the benefits of participating in it and if they would recommend the program to someone else,” says Cruz.
Then, the team will review all the feedback and decide if and where adjustments need to be made.
The Fall 2023 English Conversation Partners Program participants gathered Sept. 20 for a kickoff event
Benefits for student participants in the program include developing friendships and expanding social networks, enhancing cultural awareness, expanding perspectives, and improving soft skills like problem solving, active listening and critical thinking.
Beyond the individual impact, York International hopes to use this program as a tool to support the Internationalization and Global Engagement Strategy at York. “One of the pillars of this strategy is to enhance the international student experience,” explains Kulatilake, “but within that, it talks about building dialogue opportunities between domestic students and international students, and building that intercultural knowledge across the University.”
In addition, Kulatilake hopes this program can support international student retention at York. “If it becomes a helpful tool for an international student in their first term, it can help them navigate their classes a little bit easier, their social environments, their overall confidence to navigate this transition, which ultimately could be one of the reasons they continue on into their second year, third year, fourth year and eventually graduate.”
Researchers verify Einstein’s theory of general relativity
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Research, led by York University PhD student Nelson Nunes and supervised by Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar Nobert Bartel, verified Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity and the Einstein equivalence principle (EEP) by measuring gravitational redshift – a change in the frequency of a lightwave – and the slowing of time over distances as far as the moon, of about 350,000 kilometres.
The EEP is a cornerstone of general relativity and predicts the existence of gravitational redshift. The EEP states that the gravitational mass of an object is equal to inertial mass. For instance, standing on Earth and experiencing weight is equivalent to being accelerated in a spacecraft far away from Earth without the influence of gravity.
“Testing the EEP is thought to be decisive to test gravitational theories, including Einstein’s general relativity,” said Bartel. “Finding inconsistencies could perhaps help with generating new ideas on how to combine gravitational theories with the other pillar of our modern understanding of the physical world, which is quantum theory.”
The international group of astrophysicists involved in the project, which included York Senior Research Associate Michael Bietenholz and scientists from Russia, the Netherlands and Australia, used a highly accurate clock on a spacecraft named RadioAstron, which was launched in 2011 in an elliptical orbit around Earth, to obtain the measurements.
Their measurements – published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity – showed that time on Earth flows slower by 0.7 times a billionth of what it is on the spacecraft far away from Earth – which adds up to a 20-millisecond difference in one whole year. Although the difference is miniscule, the change in time verifies the EEP, the overarching focus of the research.
One consequence of the EEP is the changing flow of time in a gravitational field and, closely related, the gravitational redshift. Gravitational redshift has the effect of shifting waves to lower frequencies; with light, this means a shift to red. With respect to time, gravitational redshift should cause time to slow down.
Illustration of the York team’s experiment: a radio satellite in very elliptical orbit around Earth extending to the distance of the moon. Clocks showing slowed-down time near Earth in comparison to time far away are indicated. Courtesy of Norbert Bartel
“All clocks are based on oscillators and tick according to how fast they oscillate,” said Nunes. “So the gravitational redshift has fundamental repercussions on the flow of time in a gravitational field. In other words, if we are far away from Earth in space and let our clock fall toward Earth, we should be able to measure the clock ticking slower and slower the more it approaches Earth. In the extreme case, were our clock to fall towards the event horizon of a black hole, a place of no return, we would expect to see time slowing down so much that at some point it would stop altogether.”
Although the team’s results are about 10 times less accurate than previous measurements reported in 2018 by a separate team using European Galileo navigation satellites, their experiment covers a much larger distance. Whereas the 2018 study measured gravitational redshift as far as about 25,000 kilometres from Earth, Nunes’ measurements went as far as 350,000 kilometres from Earth. The York team says the measurements could be improved further and with future similar space missions, could reach 1,000 times higher accuracies.
Exceptional scholars earn Dahdaleh Global Health Graduate Scholarships
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Ten scholars will advance York University’s growing global health research community as recipients of the 2023-24 Dahdaleh Global Health Graduate Scholarship.
The program was created to support graduate research and related scholarly and creative activities in line with the three themes of the Dahdaleh Institute: planetary health; global health and humanitarianism; and global health foresighting. The scholarship is granted annually to graduate students who demonstrate outstanding academic achievement in global health research.
This year, the Dahdaleh Institute renews seven exceptional scholars and welcomes three new graduate students from the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the Lassonde School of Engineering and Osgoode Hall Law School.
2023-24 Dahdaleh graduate scholarship recipients
This year’s new recipients are:
Alexandra Scott – The Myth of “Good Enough”: Law, Engineering, and Autonomous Weapons Systems
Scott is a PhD student, Dahdaleh Global Health Graduate Scholar, and Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council doctoral Fellow at the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Scott’s work explores the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems (also known as “killer robots”) under international law and the role that engineers play in both.
“Beyond providing me with the financial means to pursue my PhD studies, my involvement with the Dahdaleh Institute has already allowed me to not only collaborate with and learn from esteemed academics, but become involved with research areas I had long hoped to delve into but could never quite figure out how,” says Scott. “The Dahdaleh Institute has already opened several doors to me and I am thankful to be part of such a welcoming and supportive program.”
Caroline Duncan – Optimizing Water Safety in Cambridge Bay Using Participatory System Dynamics
Duncan is a PhD candidate in civil engineering with a strong focus on optimizing drinking water in the Arctic using participatory approaches to system dynamics modelling. As part of the Lassonde School of Engineering, and under the guidance of Professor Stephanie Gora, her research seeks to understand the complex factors that affect the quality and accessibility of drinking water in the Arctic using an interdisciplinary and participatory approach.
Through her research, Duncan will work closely with the Municipality of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, collaborating with community members, government and non-governmental organization stakeholders involved with drinking water from source to tap. Through this collaboration, a model will be developed to test treatment and policy interventions to optimize drinking water safety.
Eyram Agbe – Digital deprivation: ICT education and social vulnerability in Ghana
Agbe is a master’s student in the Development Studies program. Her research seeks to understand the diverse psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 on basic school teachers in Accra, Ghana, and how these factors affect their ability to support new curriculum implementation as schools have returned to in-person classes. This study seeks to centre the critical role that social vulnerability plays in education, specifically how teachers’ health outcomes are situated within contentions over techno-political visions by stakeholders.
With the commencement of a new school year, the Dahdaleh Institute is excited to see the continued excellence and remarkable research of all the Dahdaleh Graduate Scholars. Those renewed will be exploring the following research areas:
Hillary Birch – More than Access: The urban governance of water quality in Lusaka, Zambia;
Michael De Santi – Improving Water Safety in Humanitarian Response with a Novel AI-Enabled Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment Model;
Nawang Yanga – Tuberculosis in Tibetan Refugee Settlements in India: Insights into Lived Experiences;
Nilanjana Ganguli – Assessing community resilience to the gendered health impacts of climate change in Malawi’s Lake Chilwa Basin;
Raphael Aguiar – Urban Political Ecologies of AMR and other interdependent threats;
Sukriti Singh – Building a Model of Global Mental Health Governance to Support the Mental Health of Health Professionals; and
Yuliya Chorna – Anthropology of global health policy-making and financing of Tuberculosis response.
