Connaught Fund

Research team explores next-gen vaccines to guard against sexually transmitted infections

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 16:07:53 +0000

Research team explores next-gen vaccines to guard against sexually transmitted infections

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/04/2024 - 12:07

Cutline

Aereas Aung, an assistant professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering , is developing new tools to study and manipulate immune cells and their reaction to vaccines (photo by Tim Fraser)

Qin Dai

Topic

Breaking Research

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Connaught Fund

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Research & Innovation

Vaccines

Subheadline

"This work could lay the foundation for more effective vaccines that curb the spread of STIs, particularly in marginalized communities disproportionately affected by these diseases”

A research team from the ��߲ݴ�ý is creating a new generation of vaccines that aims to overcome key hurdles faced by some existing formulations.

For example, a common shortcoming of many traditional vaccines is that they can’t produce antibodies in tissues where sexually transmitted infections (STIs) often enter the body.

“Most current vaccines fail to produce sufficient antibodies within mucosal tissues, leaving a significant gap in our defense against sexually transmitted infections,” says Aereas Aung, an assistant professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who is leading the research effort.

“Our goal is to develop a novel strategy that leverages the strengths of parenteral vaccination while also targeting the mucosal immune system.”

Normally vaccines are injected parenterally, meaning it is injected into or under the skin, into the muscle or directly into the bloodstream. The vaccine then travels to lymph nodes, which are small glands that help produce antibodies. Mucosal tissues in the cervix and rectum present a unique challenge since the mucus in these areas can break down the vaccine quickly and wash it away, making it difficult to reach the lymph nodes and be effective.

Aung’s research proposes fusing a protein carrier to the disease antigens, allowing it to reach distant mucosal lymph nodes after injection.

“We aim to incorporate potent immunostimulatory components into our antigen construct, optimizing its distribution and enhancing mucosal antibody responses,” says Aung.

“If successful, this work could lay the foundation for more effective vaccines that curb the spread of STIs, particularly in marginalized communities disproportionately affected by these diseases.”

Aung’s project is one of 51 U of T faculty members whose work is being supported by the Connaught New Researcher Awards in the most recent round – and one of eight at U of T Engineering. The award helps early-career faculty members establish their research programs.

The other U of T Engineering researchers whose projects are supported by the award are: 

Mohammed Basheer, department of civil and mineral engineering – Integrated hydrological-statistical method and tool for landslide susceptibility mapping in a changing climate
Daniel Franklin, Institute of Biomedical Engineering – Development of equitable pulse oximeters
Sarah Haines, department of civil and mineral engineering – Open Plenums & Indoor Environments (OPEN): Evaluating the impact of return air systems on indoor environmental quality
Mark Jeffrey, Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering – Productively surmounting the memory wall with task parallelism
Caitlin Maikawa, Institute of Biomedical Engineering – Affinity-directed dynamic polymer materials for biomarker sensing
Mohamad Moosavi, department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry – Learning the Language of Metal-Organic Frameworks Topology
Cindy Rottmann, Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice (ISTEP) – But I could be fired! How early career engineers hold the public paramount from organizationally subordinate locations

Healthy aging in place: New pilot program to provide high-tech cognitive, physical enrichment for seniors

rahul.kalvapalle — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 13:32:02 +0000

Healthy aging in place: New pilot program to provide high-tech cognitive, physical enrichment for seniors

rahul.kalvapalle Thu, 08/22/2024 - 09:32

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2RaceWithMe, a tool developed by Professor Mark Chignell from the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, combines physical and cognitive engagement by requiring users to pedal to be able to watch scenic videos (photo by Justin Greaves/Centivizer)

Safa Jinje

Topic

Our Community

department of mechanical and industrial engineering

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Connaught Fund

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Subheadline

The initiative, supported by a Connaught Community Partnership Research Program award, explores the use of interactive tools to promote active lifestyles among older adults

Older adults living in a Toronto co-operative apartment building will soon have access to high-tech activity spaces designed to promote cognitive, physical and social enrichment, thanks to a new pilot project led by the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Mark Chignell.

The activity spaces aim to promote healthy aging for older adults who are aging in place – meaning they have the social and health supports to live safely and independently. They will be located in the communal area of a City Park co-op building that is considered a naturally occurring retirement community, where more than 30 per cent of occupants are over the age of 65.

The initiative was launched by Chignell, a professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, in collaboration with HelpAge Canada, a non-profit that supports community-based services for seniors, and AGE-WELL, a research network and U of T institutional strategic initiative.

It’s one of nine projects to be supported by 2024-25 Community Partnership Research Program awards, given by U of T’s Connaught Fund with the aim of accelerating research carried out in collaboration with community partners and driven by their needs and priorities.

“My work is motivated by the fact that physical and cognitive health can decline very quickly for older adults,” says Chignell.

“We know the physical body and brain work together, and that physical exercise is important for cognitive status and preventing dementia. So being able to promote more active lifestyles for people who are still living independently in the community can have an immense benefit for our society.”

The activity spaces will feature products from Centivizer, a U of T startup spun off from Chignell’s research, that specializes in creating interactive activities, games and cognitive assessment tools to support healthy aging.

These include 2RaceWithMe, a device that promotes both physical and cognitive engagement by having users pedal while watching scenic videos that only play when the pedals are in motion.

Centivizer has also developed a suite of whack-a-mole-style games for cognitive assessment that Chignell hopes can be used to promote cognitive safety in clinical practice.

A two-time recipient of Connaught Innovation Awards, Chignell says he feels honoured to now receive support from the Connaught Fund's Community Partnership Research Program.

“The Connaught is a great validation as I start this project in naturally occurring retirement communities,” says Chignell. “I am also continuing to work with retirement homes and long-term care centres, including a new collaboration with a long-term care home in Tokyo, Japan.

“I’m hoping that this project will demonstrate the value of using our products in the community to help older people retain their physical and cognitive abilities for longer.”

Infants prefer live music over recorded version, study finds

lanthierj — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 19:22:00 +0000

Infants prefer live music over recorded version, study finds

lanthierj Mon, 07/17/2023 - 15:22

Cutline

Research found that babies' heart rates synchronized and they were more engaged when watching live music, compared to a recording of the same performance (photo by Envato Elements)

Topic

Research & Innovation

��߲ݴ�ý Scarborough

Subheadline

New research from U of T's TEMPO Lab suggests that even babies feel the impact of being at a live show, through both musicians’ interactions with an audience and the social experience of being in a crowd

You don't have to be an adult to feel the power of live opera – even babies prefer to attend in person, a new study suggests.

When infants watched a live performance of a baby opera, their heart rates synchronized and they were significantly more engaged than babies who watched an identical recording of the show, researchers say.

Laura Cirelli (supplied image)

“Their heart rates were speeding up and slowing down in a similar fashion to other babies watching the show,” says Laura Cirelli, assistant professor in the department of psychology at the ��߲ݴ�ý Scarborough and co-author of a new study published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts.

“Those babies were dealing with all these distractions in the concert hall, but still had these uninterrupted bursts of attention.”

The findings suggest that even babies feel the impact of being at a live show, through both musicians’ interactions with an audience and the social experience of being in a crowd. Cirelli recalls moments during the performance when a calm would sweep over the babies, and other times when a change in pitch or vocal riff would excite them all.

She says this may offer insights into why humans are hardwired to consume music and attend live shows.

“If there’s something happening that we collectively are engaging with, we’re also connecting with each other. It speaks to the shared experience,” says Cirelli, director of the TEMPO Lab, which studies how infants and children respond to music.

“The implication is that this is not necessarily specific to this one performance. If there’s these moments that capture us, then we are being captured together.”

It’s well established that socialization is crucial during early childhood development – an infant’s brain is laying the groundwork for future life skills and abilities as it grows. Cirelli says music can play a powerful part in making those important bonds. She points to research finding infants are more likely to socialize with someone after hearing them sing a familiar song or dancing to music with them, and that infants have strong emotional reactions to music and song even before their first birthday.

“We consistently find that music can be a highly social and emotional context within which infants can foster connections to their caregivers, other family members and even new acquaintances,” she says. “This audience study shows that even in a community context, infants are engaging with the music and connecting to their fellow audience members.”

Babies watched a selection of songs from The Music Box, an operatic performance designed for infants
(submitted photo)

For the study, researchers examined 120 babies ages six to 14 months as they watched a children’s opera performed at a concert hall that doubles as a research facility at McMaster University (61 babies watched in person, while the other 59 watched a recorded version).

Researchers meticulously broadcast the recording so that the performers were at the same size, distance and volume as the live version. The babies’ responses were tracked through heart monitors and tablets mounted on the backs of concert seats. Later, student research assistants combed through the footage to note when babies looked at the stage and when they looked away.

The live performance captured the babies' attention for 72 per cent of the 12-minute show while the recording held their attention for 54 per cent of the time. The live show also had infants continuously watching for longer bouts of time.

“Even little babies who may or may not have experienced music in a community context before are already engaging more when it’s delivered this way,” Cirelli says.

“That’s one question we have as music cognition researchers: What is it about the live experience that's worth it? Why would people go if there’s not something fundamental about that live music experience that's above and beyond listening to music by yourself?”

That’s not to say babies find virtual performances boring. After the onset of the pandemic, the researchers virtually studied one group of babies as they watched the same recording in their homes over Zoom. Those babies paid about as much attention as the ones who attended the live show – watching about 64 per cent on average – but they were more likely to become distracted and have shorter bursts of attention.

“The babies watching at home didn’t have the distraction of being in a new place – they were in their comfort zone,” Cirelli says. "But even without distractions, the quality of their attention was still not nearly as strong as the audience in the live condition.”

The study – which was co-authored by former TEMPO Lab postdoctoral researcher Haley Kragness, now an assistant professor at Bucknell University – will also feed into some of Cirelli’s other work.

In a different study, she and a team of researchers are exploring whether a live performance over Zoom has the same impact on engagement as a live performance in person, and whether musicians’ interactions with an audience can play a similarly powerful role in capturing attention.

Yet another study will investigate whether live performances affect their memory of the event and how watching a live performance versus a recorded version affects how they feel about the performer.

“If a baby is frequently brought to these kinds of events, will that shape their foundation for engaging in music and the community later in childhood?” Cirelli asks.

“It speaks to why we even engage with music at all.”

The study was funded by the U of T Connaught New Researcher Award and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

With support of Connaught award, U of T researchers to tackle health disparities in Black communities

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 17:34:07 +0000

With support of Connaught award, U of T researchers to tackle health disparities in Black communities

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 03/14/2023 - 13:34

Cutline

Notisha Massaquoi, an assistant professor at U of T Scarborough, will lead a large tri-campus project focused on Black health equity research (submitted photo)

Don Campbell

Topic

Our Community

Black Research Network

Connaught Fund

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Health

Research & Innovation

U of T Scarborough

A new research project supported by the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Connaught Fund and developed in collaboration with the Black Research Network (BRN) will bring together experts from across the university to address Canada’s racial health gap.

The project, which will receive $250,000 through the inaugural Connaught Major Research Challenge for Black Researchers, will support Black health equity research across U of T’s three campuses.

“We have researchers across U of T doing excellent work, but much of it is being done in silos,” says Notisha Massaquoi, an assistant professor in the department of health and society at U of T Scarborough and member of the BRN who will lead the project.

“We’re taking an interdisciplinary approach by focusing on the social determinants of health and then coming up with positive solutions to change health outcomes in Black communities.”

The project will involve a collaboration among 13 U of T researchers who are looking at the social determinants of health, which are the personal, social, economic and environmental factors that affect individual and population health. Massaquoi says some of the research areas will include looking at access to quality education, the social economy and poverty alleviation, as well as post-homicide support services.

More importantly, the project will look at creating tangible solutions.

“The hope is that we can start moving away from doing research that tells us over and over again that we have higher rates of illness and move towards finding solutions for these health disparities,” says Massaquoi, who launched the Black Health Equity Lab at U of T Scarborough in 2022.

“If Black women have higher rates of breast cancer, what programs or educational campaigns can we develop to address the issue? We want to use the research process to mobilize and provide solutions to these disparities that we know exist.”

Massaquoi says that in addition to developing a coherent research agenda, the researchers will also develop a framework for working collaboratively with Black communities and community organizations. The project will also leverage the expertise of Black researchers across U of T by co-ordinating efforts and prioritizing research objectives, while also increasing success in research funding through external grants.

The project includes a significant training element, especially for young and emerging researchers, by offering students a chance to work on large research projects focused on Black health.

“It’ll be the first time there will be a large-scale conversation between U of T researchers and the Black community on the future of Black health research. I’m really excited about the possibilities that will come from this project,” Massaquoi says.

In addition to this award, the BRN is providing support to projects by Janelle Joseph, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, and to Brice Lionel Batomen Kuimi, an assistant professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. The BRN is an Institutional Strategic Initiative launched in October 2021 to promote Black research excellence.

The Connaught Major Research Challenge for Black Researchers is supported by the Connaught Fund – the largest internal university research funding program in Canada. Established 50 years ago through the sale of Connaught Medical Research Laboratories, the fund has since provided more than $182.3 million to U of T scholars through a range of funding programs that support the university research community across all disciplines and career stages.

Inspired by her First Nations heritage and love of nature, PhD student researches salmon conservation

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:32:05 +0000

Inspired by her First Nations heritage and love of nature, PhD student researches salmon conservation

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/20/2022 - 16:32

Cutline

Jaime Grimm, who researches fish pathogens and salmon conservation, was recently named a Connaught PhD for Public Impact Fellow (photo by Danny McIsaac)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Breaking Research

Connaught Fund

Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Environment

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

Indigenous

Research & Innovation

Sustainability

PhD student Jaime Grimm’s research into fish pathogens and salmon conservation – and how she conducts that research – is the culmination of growing up amidst the rich ecosystems of Canada’s West Coast, parents who nurtured a love of nature in her, and her Salteaux First Nations heritage.

“Growing up in British Columbia, I spent a lot of time in nature,” she says, “which was a hugely privileged position to be in. We went camping every summer and my mother and I would spend all day looking for frogs and toads and salamanders – it was like a treasure hunt. She inspired that interest in me.”

In high school, Grimm started taking biology courses. “I was like wow, this is so interesting, so fun. We did a section on marine invertebrates – sea slugs, clams, crabs. I was completely enamored and decided then that I wanted to pursue a science degree and be a biologist.”

Today, Grimm is a PhD student in the Faculty of Arts & Science's department of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), supervised by Associate Professor Martin Krkosek and Adjunct Professor Andrew Bateman of the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

A salmon farm on the coast of British Columbia. Some may contain as many as a million fish (photo courtesy of Clayoquot Action)

She was recently named a Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellow by the School of Graduate Studies. The fellowship will enable her to engage the public in her work through training in science communication and public policy, and project-specific funding.

Grimm's research with Krkosek and Bateman is centred around the enormous salmon farms located in the coastal waters of B.C. The farms are giant pens made of nets so that ocean water circulates through them. Because of the high population density – some hold as many as a million fish – the pens are ripe breeding grounds for pathogens such as bacteria, viruses and fungi which can then threaten wild salmon populations.

Juvenile salmon returning to the ocean from spawning grounds in coastal creeks and rivers are particularly vulnerable. Their immune systems haven’t fully developed. Also, young fish aren’t normally exposed to diseases carried by mature fish because the latter are typically far out at sea when the former return to the ocean.

“But now we're adding these farms right on the migration routes of juvenile salmon,” says Grimm. “So, you have this big, potential source of disease that young salmon are encountering at this vulnerable stage in their lives. It's an enormous issue.”

What’s more, farms can be close together; Grimm is trying to determine if a pathogen outbreak in one can ride coastal currents to another.

Juvenile salmon native to the West Coast are at risk from pathogens that spread from salmon farms (photo courtesy of Jaime Grimm)

Like Krkosek, Grimm is committed to finding socially and ecologically just wildlife conservation solutions that recognize Indigenous rights and sovereignty. Her work, she points out, takes place in partnership with and on the unceded lands of coastal First Nations, including the Ahousaht First Nation, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation.

She also recognizes that salmon conservation is intimately tied to Indigenous rights because of the importance First Nations place on salmon. “Of course, they’re a source of livelihood and sustenance,” says Grimm, “but they're also essential components of culture. These salmon have spawned and lived in these rivers since time immemorial and, during that time, have been stewarded well by the people who live there.

“And now that this system is being disrupted, it's critically important that we recognize and value Indigenous knowledge and get back to the roots of what was working so well. This is their land, their unceded territory – they should have final say over what's happening.”

According to Krkosek, “Pacific salmon are a keystone species to coastal ecosystems and a centrepiece of the identity and food security of First Nations in coastal B.C. Jaime’s work on salmon aquaculture and infectious diseases is providing essential information to First Nation’s decision-making regarding salmon management in their territories.”

Grimm’s partnership with First Nations includes developing relationships with fisheries managers who work for First Nations, understanding their needs, developing research questions together – and being out on the water together conducting field work.

“The biggest part of it is building a relationship and building trust,” says Grimm. “And making sure we don’t just go in and extract data or knowledge and then leave. It's about working towards a shared goal.”

The Connaught fellowship will help Grimm build on those relationships. One of the projects she is considering is developing workshops for training community members to collect water samples and extract DNA from them in order to learn about the pathogens that are present. Not only would this help Grimm in her work, it would also make it possible for communities to do their own testing in support of their own autonomy and advocacy.

Another potential project lies at the intersection of her scientific endeavors and commitment to science communication. “I’d like to hire an artist from one of the First Nations I'm currently working with to produce a graphical representation of this research,” she says.

“My aim is to publish my scientific results in a peer-reviewed journal but in that form, it will only be accessible to a small group of people. So, I would like to have this beautiful, artistic piece that would be much more accessible that I could share with many more people.”

Grimm is spending the winter in Krkosek’s lab in Toronto but she’s looking forward to being back on the west coast next spring and, at the same time, is looking far into the future.

“I think this will be the journey for the rest of my life,” she says. “Learning how to do this right and do it well. The path I'm on now is difficult and humbling, but it’s what I hope the rest of my career will look like.”

A night of big ideas: Celebrating 50 years of the Connaught Fund at U of T

mattimar — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 19:15:26 +0000

A night of big ideas: Celebrating 50 years of the Connaught Fund at U of T

mattimar Mon, 12/12/2022 - 14:15

Cutline

From left: Renée Hložek, Maydianne Andrade and Ronald Deibert discuss the importance of university research and the next big ideas to influence our society, with journalist Mary Ito (all photos by Polina Teif)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Breaking Research

Department of Biological Sciences

Leah Cowen

Vice-president of Research and Innovation and Strategic Initiatives

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Citizen Lab

Connaught Fund

Faculty of Arts & Science

Political Science

President Meric Gertler

Research and Innovation

U of T Scarborough

The dangers of international digital espionage. The earliest moments of the universe. How scientists can also be activists and changemakers.

These were some of the topics ��߲ݴ�ý researchers delved into at a recent event celebrating the impact of the Connaught Fund, which has supported research excellence and innovation across the university for 50 years.

Members of the community gathered at Convocation Hall to hear Ronald Deibert, Renée Hložek and Maydianne Andrade discuss the impact of their research and the role of university researchers in society. A professor in the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Deibert is also director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Hložek is a cosmologist and associate professor at the Dunlap Institute and the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy and Astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Andrade, a University Professor in the department of biological sciences at U of T Scarborough and an expert on the black widow spider, is a leading advocate for equity and inclusion.

Over the years, the Connaught Fund has supported the pathbreaking work of all three researchers – part of what President Meric Gertler called the fund’s “extraordinary legacy” in his opening remarks.

“Not only does the Connaught Fund support research excellence from diverse disciplines and across different career stages it also supports inclusive excellence,” he said.

President Gertler said the Connaught Indigenous Funding Stream, which supports Indigenous community-driven research at U of T, and the Connaught Major Research Challenge for Black Researchers, which will strengthen the research capacity of U of T’s Black academics, are two initiatives that deepen the university’s commitment to education and discovery.

Created in 1972 from the sale of the Connaught Laboratories, the Connaught Fund has since given out more than $179 million to researchers across myriad disciplines – and is Canada’s largest internal university research funding program.

“The program supports global challenges, community partnerships and offers dedicated funding streams to help increase the research impact of PhD students, Black and Indigenous researchers and U of T-led startup companies,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

Andrade, renowned for her research on sexual selection, mating behaviour and the biology and ecology of black widow spiders, focused her presentation on activism in science and how she has leveraged her platform to create change.

“Scientists should stay in their lane – I’ve heard this a lot,” she said. “Our job is to create solutions and knowledge that other people who understand policy will then apply. But of course, advising solutions is not the same as solving a problem.”

As the co-founder and president of the Canadian Black Scientists Network and founder and co-chair of the Toronto Initiative for Diversity and Excellence, Andrade has worked to increase inclusion within institutions across Canada through education and advocacy.

Deibert, meanwhile, has contributed to the publication of more than 120 reports covering research on cyber espionage, commercial spyware, internet censorship and human rights. His talk explored Citizen Lab’s research into targeted digital espionage against civil society, outlining major cases that have received international attention and have prompted scandals in countries such as Greece, Spain and Mexico.

In her work, Hložek uses statistical methods and precise observations to answer cosmic questions.

“I’m interested in what the universe is made of, how it’s changing over time and then eventually how it’s going to end,” she said.

Hložek presented some of the observations used to put together the puzzle pieces of the universe and emphasized the importance of telescopes in her research.

The presentations were followed by a roundtable discussion hosted by broadcast journalist Mary Ito. Audience members had a chance to ask questions and the researchers discussed the importance of university research and the next big ideas to influence our society.

“I’m really encouraged by the growth of the field which I’m a part of,” said Deibert. “We are seeing a healthy community worldwide of people who are involved in this type of digital accountability work. The hope I have is that the field continues to grow.”

“I think it’s a responsibility of the universities to do this type of public accountability research.”

Indigenous communities drive Connaught-funded research projects

rahul.kalvapalle — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 18:06:45 +0000

Indigenous communities drive Connaught-funded research projects

rahul.kalvapalle Wed, 06/30/2021 - 14:06

Cutline

Clockwise, from top left: Eve Tuck, Teresa Edwards, Suzanne Stewart, Clayton Shirt, Alissa North and Shianne McKay.

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Our Community

Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health

Community Partnership

Connaught Fund

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Indigenous

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Research & Innovation

How can traditional knowledge be harnessed to help Indigenous people heal from the trauma of residential schools? Where do Indigenous community organizations want to focus efforts to recover healthy relationships to their lands? How can youth perspectives be meaningfully engaged for the betterment of the next generation of Indigenous Peoples?

These are some of the questions that will be explored by Indigenous-led non-profit and community organizations in collaboration with the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Eve Tuck as part of the Land Education Design Project.

Eve Tuck (photo by Red Works)

Working together, the partners will create an incubator to support three Indigenous community organizations and a youth research collective. The initiative aims to nurture land-based education programs that are designed by – and for – Indigenous Peoples and their communities.

“Land education is education that happens with intentional relationships to land,” says Tuck, a member of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Alaska and an associate professor of critical race and Indigenous studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).

“This has always been the way that Indigenous Peoples have learned – in relationship to land and to one another.”

The Land Education Design Project is one of nine U of T projects supported by the Connaught Community Partnerships Research Program’s Indigenous funding stream. The stream aims to boost Indigenous community-driven research at U of T with culturally safe projects that place Indigenous values and principles at the forefront.

The projects, each of which are receiving $50,000 in funding, were compiled by U of T’s Indigenous Research Circle through a consultative process that put the interests and concerns of Indigenous communities at the forefront. That’s in contrast to the competitive funding process that typically governs most post-secondary research projects.

Suzanne Stewart (photo courtesy Suzanne Stewart)

“We reached out to 600 Indigenous community organizations and First Nations across Canada and told them that we were interested in hearing if anybody had any research that they wished to do, and that we would like to explore matching them with researchers at U of T who had the skills, knowledge and capabilities to work with them,” says Associate Professor Suzanne Stewart, the provost’s academic adviser on Indigenous research and director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Next, the Indigenous Research Circle contacted U of T researchers with a track record in Indigenous-focused research. Those who were keen to participate were then introduced to the community partners and discussions held to explore opportunities for collaboration.

“What was different about this was that it was community-driven and co-operative, rather than academic-driven and competitive,” says Stewart. “We strove to really base every part of the process on Indigenous principles such as co-operation, relationship, transparency, honesty and non-interference – cornerstones of Indigenous cultural values.”

Several of the community organizations were understandably skeptical given past experiences with university researchers that had left them disillusioned.

Clayton Shirt (photo courtesy of Clayton Shirt)

“They’ve had many researchers come to them before and say, ‘This is the problem, this is how it is and this is what we’re going to do’ – there was always this talking down,” says Clayton Shirt, Traditional Knowledge Keeper and member of U of T’s Indigenous Research Circle who hails from the Wolf Clan of Saddle Lake Alberta, Treaty 6. “It was never community-led.”

Shirt says he and Cathy Fournier, special projects officer at U of T’s Indigenous Research Network, had to work to assure community representatives that their relationships with the U of T researchers would be centred on trust and mutuality, and that the research would truly be steered by their ideas.

In the case of the Land Education Design Project, that means Indigenous community organizations will determine how they want to wield land education to benefit their people, says Teresa Edwards, executive director of the Legacy of Hope Foundation – which is working with OISE’s Tuck on the initiative.

Teresa Edwards (photo courtesy of Teresa Edwards)

“We expect the community partners will work out what have been the costs or harms to their relationships with the land based on colonial harms – such as what survivors experienced while in residential and day schools or within the Sixties Scoop, and the racism they have experienced in Canada,” says Edwards. “As well, based on understanding these situations, they can start to identify effective and locally relevant remedies that would directly address these harms.”

Edwards cites substance abuse, depression and self-harming as examples of behaviours linked to trauma that could be addressed through cultural revitalization and land-based healing models.

“We reviewed additional research confirming the importance and power of land-based healing and treatment for Indigenous Peoples that was locally informed and shaped and empowered survivors,” says Edwards. “In partnering with Dr. Tuck, we adapted our interests with her expertise so that a land education project could move forward, paving the way for the foundation to increase our capacity to do community research that resulted in concrete, positive, culturally-informed action.”

For Tuck, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Methodologies with Youth and Communities, the project taps into a longstanding interest in youth participatory design research.

“One of the lines of my work is youth participatory action research, where we bring teenagers into collectives and teach them the same things that I teach my graduate students – how to do qualitative research including interviews, focus groups, photovoice and other visual methods,” Tuck says.

“In this instance, where our research question is, ‘What are the kinds of land education programs that residential school survivors and their families desire?’ – youth participatory research is a very fitting method.”

One of the other projects funded by the Connaught Community Partnerships Research Program uses Indigenous knowledge to help the natural environment – specifically Lake Winnipeg’s south basin.

Over the last several decades, Lake Winnipeg has suffered from eutrophication, or an increase in minerals and nutrients that results in excessive growth of algae that affects drinking water, fishing and enjoyment of the lake. To help address this problem, the Connaught Indigenous funding stream is supporting a project that will explore how Indigenous and Western knowledge can be combined to create natural infrastructure – such as the planting of vegetation to clean water and air – aimed at reversing the eutrophication.

Alissa North (photo courtesy of Alissa North)

“The idea that these two knowledges can build on and support one another towards environmental repair is an amazing agenda and will be hugely important to solving the complexities of eutrophication,” says Alissa North, an associate professor of landscape architecture at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, who will be working with the Winnipeg-based Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER) on the project.

To that end, North, her graduate students and CIER will hold virtual “Knowledge Circles” – community engagements with First Nations – to exchange ideas and share perspectives that could inform future natural infrastructure projects. North’s team will then work with CIER to put together a guidebook that draws on the insights gleaned from the Knowledge Circles.

Shianne McKay (photo courtesy of Shianne McKay)

Shianne McKay, senior project manager at CIER, explains the value of incorporating Indigenous Knowledge by using the example of a community seeking to build a wetland.

“You could bring in Elders and Indigenous Knowledge Keepers to inform on the types of plant species that could be grown there – because some of our most powerful medicines are found in the wetland areas,” says McKay, who is Ojibway and a member of the Pine Creek First Nation.

“So, to have people at the table with that knowledge while designing something like that would be really beneficial.”

McKay says the exchange of knowledge will also help Indigenous communities learn more about the process of building natural infrastructure, which could have a long-lasting impact.

“It’s providing communities with examples of what is possible and teaching them about the different types of natural infrastructure, so that they can envision what’s beneficial to their communities and how they can use natural infrastructure to help mitigate different environment problems,” she says.

The project is part of a long-term effort by the Collaborative Leadership Initiative – which comprises elected leaders in the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region and First Nations chiefs – to boost environmental health and community well-being, with the health of Lake Winnipeg representing a key priority.

“It’s a great way to advance the work the Collaborative Leadership Initiative was already undertaking,” says Richard Farthing-Nichol, project manager at CIER. “CIER has been around for 25 years, so we have relationships with these communities and work with them already.”

Farthing-Nichol notes that the project can serve as an example of genuine dialogue and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, and ways of knowing.

“Incorporating Indigenous and Western knowledge on an equal basis is something that we have to do from the very outset, and throughout the project planning, design and construction,” he says. “You shouldn’t build natural infrastructure unless you’re also trying to build those relationships.”

For the members of U of T’s Indigenous Research Circle, the coming-together of university faculty and Indigenous communities to pursue community-driven research is a watershed event that could serve as a model for the future. Stewart says she’s been “overwhelmed” by the university’s willingness to let the Indigenous Research Circle work to explore research possibilities without interference.

“This is really the first time that we, Indigenous Peoples, have been granted autonomy and sovereignty within any research funding system within a university,” she says.

“I’ve never heard of research funding based on Indigenous values and principles happening before. As far as I know, no other university in Canada or around the world has done this.”

Shirt similarly highlighted the opportunity to build a new relationship.

“I feel honoured to be able to say that I saw this massive institution called U of T give us the place to plant these seeds,” he says. “This has the potential of growing into something really beautiful.”

From hip-hop to healthy soil: 56 U of T researchers receive Connaught New Researcher Award

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 13:03:29 +0000

From hip-hop to healthy soil: 56 U of T researchers receive Connaught New Researcher Award

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 09/17/2020 - 09:03

Cutline

Lauren Cramer, one of 56 Connaught New Researcher Award recipients at U of T, is using architecture to theorize about hip-hop and the points of articulation between the aesthetics of Blackness and visual culture (photo courtesy of Lauren Cramer)

Paul Fraumeni

Topic

Our Community

Cell and Systems Biology

Anthropolgy

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Biology

Cinema Studies

Connaught Fund

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Drama

Earth Sciences

Economics

Electrical & Computer Engineering

English

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Music

Geography and Planning

History

Humanities

Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology

Management

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Philosophy

Political Science

Psychology

Rotman School of Management

When you think of hip-hop, what comes to mind?

For many, it might be music. But Lauren McLeod Cramer is quick to point out that music is only one part of hip-hop’s broad culture – a culture that touches on everything from the way we speak, to the clothes we wear, to matters of race and identity.

The assistant professor at U of T’s Cinema Studies Institute will be exploring hip-hop’s global influence even further in a new research project called “A Black Joint: Hip-Hop and the Architecture of Blackness,” where she will use architecture to theorize about hip-hop and the points of articulation between the aesthetics of Blackness and visual culture.

“This project is about hip-hop and space,” says Cramer, who joined U of T in 2019 after earning her doctorate in communications from Georgia State University. “I realized that when I was talking with students about race and critical race theory, and about Blackness, it was clearer to them when I put it in spatial terms.”

“It is easier to understand visually or in 3D. I think of Blackness not as a characteristic of the body but as a way of seeing or experiencing space – from buildings to neighbourhoods.”

Cramer is one of 56 winners of the Connaught New Researcher Award, which recognizes assistant professors within the first five years of a tenure-stream academic appointment (see full list below). The awards, part of U of T’s commitment to fostering excellence in research and innovation, are designed to help recipients establish a strong research program and increase their competitiveness for external funding.

This year’s recipients, who will share $1 million in funding, represent the broad spectrum of research undertaken at U of T in the humanities, life sciences, social sciences and physical sciences and engineering.

“Lauren McLeod Cramer’s research reflects the broad range of scholarship at the ��߲ݴ�ý and the Connaught New Researcher Award plays a key role in supporting such important and emerging areas of study,” says Ted Sargent, vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“I want to extend my congratulations to Professor Cramer and all of the other award winners this year. I’m personally looking forward to seeing where this exceptional group of investigators takes their work in the years to come.”

As for Cramer, she says that “hip-hop visual culture has grown to include a staggering number of objects: music videos, films, photography, digital art, painting and even architecture.”

She says her project will explore the spatial nature of hip-hop through a wide range of objects from different cultural spaces and times, including: the choreography of Beyoncé’s “Formation” music video, the subterranean architecture of “the sunken place” in Jordan Peele’s 2017 horror film Get Out, Charles Gaines’s fine art photography and architect David Adjaye’s noted public buildings, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture (part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.).

Cramer says that once we are past the pandemic and can travel more easily, the Connaught award will enable her to see that architecture first-hand.

“I was incredibly excited after I was told I had won one of the awards,” she says. “I believe that hip-hop allows Blackness to travel through space. Thanks to this funding, I can now map that space.”

In response to the protests against anti-Black racism surrounding the most recent incidents of police brutality – including the killing of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake – Cramer says it’s necessary to approach issues “at the appropriate scale” if you want to have a serious conversations about anti-Blackness.

“Racial difference is made and enforced through space: urban planning, environmental action, transportation and the built environment,” she says. “So, it is helpful to think about anti-Blackness in the spaces that we occupy, including pop culture.

“That means looking at architectural design, both real – like Adjaye’s work – and imagined, such as in in hip-hop music videos, as a way to understand how race is formed. What is particularly interesting to me is how hip-hop visual culture’s experimental aesthetics might also show us how Blackness can deform space.”

The funding for the Connaught New Researcher Award comes from U of T’s Connaught Fund, which was founded in 1972 when the university sold the Connaught Medical Research Laboratories for $29 million. This year, the Connaught New Researchers program has awarded funding to 14 researchers in humanities, nine in life sciences, eight in physical sciences and engineering, and 25 in social sciences.

Here is the full list of winners of the 2020 Connaught New Researcher Award:

Humanities

Mark Campbell, department of arts, culture and media, U of T Scarborough

Urvashi Chakravarty, department of English, U of T Scarborough

Lauren McLeod Cramer, Cinema Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts & Science

Anup Grewal, department of historical and cultural studies, U of T Scarborough

Ellen Lockhart, Faculty of Music

Christian Pfeiffer, department of philosophy, U of T Scarborough

Adrien Rannaud, department of language studies, U of T Mississauga

Anjuli Raza Kolb, department of English and drama, U of T Mississauga

Laura Risk, department of arts, culture and media, U of T Scarborough

Victor Rivas, department of Spanish and Portuguese, Faculty of Arts & Science

Timothy Sayle, department of history, Faculty of Arts & Science

Avery Slater, department of English and drama, U of T Mississauga

Anna Thomas, department of English and drama, U of T Mississauga

Elizabeth Wijaya, department of visual studies, U of T Mississauga

Life Sciences – Social

Amaya Perez-Brumer, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Nicholas Spence, department of sociology, U of T Scarborough

Life Sciences – Molecular

Scott MacIvor, department of biological sciences, U of T Scarborough

Adam Martin, department of physical and environmental sciences, U of T Scarborough

Heather McFarlane, department of cell and systems biology, Faculty of Arts & Science

Glenn Mott, department of biological sciences, U of T Scarborough

Derek Ng, department of biology, U of T Mississauga

Nicole Novroski, department of anthropology, U of T Mississauga

Scott Yuzwa, department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology, Faculty of Medicine

Physical Sciences

Merve Bodur, department of mechanical and industrial engineering, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Xu Chu, department of Earth sciences, Faculty of Arts & Science

Gwendolyn Eadie, David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics, Faculty of Arts & Science

Dan Gregory, department of Earth sciences, Faculty of Arts & Science

Nicolas Papernot, Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Silvana Pesenti, department of statistical sciences, Faculty of Arts & Science

Ting-Kam Leonard Wong, department of computer and mathematical sciences, U of T Scarborough

Masayuki Yano, U of T Institute for Aerospace Studies, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Social Sciences

Elizabeth Acorn, department of political science, U of T Scarborough

Andrea Allen, department of anthropology, Faculty of Arts & Science

Martha Balaguera Cuervo, department of political science, U of T Mississauga

Michael William Best, department of psychology, U of T Scarborough

Waqas Butt, department of anthropology, U of T Scarborough

Laurent Cavenaile, department of management, U of T Scarborough

Nicole Charles, department of historical studies, U of T Mississauga

Akash Chattopadhyay, department of management, U of T Mississauga

Alexandre Corhay, Rotman School of Management

Negin Dahya, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, U of T Mississauga

Michelle Daigle, department of geography and planning, Faculty of Arts & Science

Claudia Milena Diaz Rios, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Greg Distelhorst, Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources, Faculty of Arts & Science

Jim Goldman, department of economics, U of T Mississauga

Cassandra Hartblay, department of anthropology, U of T Scarborough

Christopher Higgins, department of human geography, U of T Scarborough

Janelle Joseph, Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Arlo Kempf, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Fikile Nxumalo, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Rachel Ruttan, Rotman School of Management

Jason Spicer, department of geography and planning, Faculty of Arts & Science

Anton Tsoy, department of economics, Faculty of Arts & Science

Mark Wade, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Jue Wang, department of geography, geomatics and environment, U of T Mississauga

Jennifer Wemigwans, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Rescuing crops, reframing history and researching MMIW: 2019 Connaught New Researcher Award winners announced

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 14:05:45 +0000

Rescuing crops, reframing history and researching MMIW: 2019 Connaught New Researcher Award winners announced

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/09/2019 - 10:05

Cutline

Three of this year's 52 winners of the Connaught New Researcher Award: Eliana Gonzales-Vigil, Shauna Sweeney and Jerry Flores

Jenny Rodrigues

Topic

Our Community

Mathematical and Computational Sciences

Anthropolgy

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Awards

Biochemistry

Biology

Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies

Chemistry

Computer Science

Connaught Fund

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Earth Sciences

Economics

English

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Information

Institute for Management & Innovation

Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Management

Mathematics

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Molecular Genetics

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Philosophy

Political Science

Psychology

Research & Innovation

Women and Gender Studies

Insects destroy up to one quarter of global crops each year, resulting in estimated losses of up to $470 billion. Even in greenhouse conditions, pests can still cause damage by making their way inside through vents.

It’s a problem the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Eliana Gonzales-Vigil aims to tackle by better understanding the complex relationship between plants and bugs.

The biological sciences researcher at U of T Scarborough is specifically looking at how to protect crops from the cabbage looper, a common pest of tomatoes and other vegetables such as peppers, cucumbers and – of course – cabbage.

“My long-term goal is to understand how plants defend themselves from insect herbivores,” Gonzales-Vigil said.

“But to achieve this, we need to understand all the players involved.”

Gonzales-Vigil is one of 52 winners of this year’s Connaught New Researcher Award, designed to help recipients establish a strong research program and increase their competitiveness for external funding. The award is part of U of T’s commitment to fostering excellence in research and innovation by supporting faculty members who are launching their academic careers.

Read the full list of Connaught New Researcher Award winners here

Up to $1 million will be distributed among this year’s winners.

“I would like to congratulate all the winners of the Connaught New Researcher Award,” said Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“These researchers are doing exciting, innovative work across many different disciplines. It’s the ��߲ݴ�ý’s hope that this funding will help set the stage for world-leading scholarship and important new discoveries.”

(photo courtesy of Eliana Gonzalez-Vigil)

Gonzales-Vigil is embarking on a study to explore how impacting the gut microbiome of the cabbage looper may help tomato plants be more resistant against the insect’s attack.

“We want to test the idea of whether the microbiome of the cabbage looper is being affected by the plant’s chemistry. If yes, then can we manipulate the plant’s chemistry by adding something like a probiotic that would impede insect growth?”

She added the Connaught award will help kick-start a new line of research after having most recently focused on how poplar trees defend themselves through a waxy compound secretion.

“Having the Connaught has given me the freedom to start something that’s new,” she said, adding that she hopes her research will eventually lead to insect control methods that can be used around the world.

Shauna Sweeney

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

During her undergraduate studies, U of T’s Shauna Sweeney was drawn to Caribbean history courses – in particular the history and the economy of the markets in Caribbean nations. It was an area of research Sweeney, who is herself of Jamaican background, wanted to explore further.

An assistant professor in the department of history and at the Women & Gender Studies Institute, Sweeney is currently working on a manuscript that examines the prominent role of enslaved women in developing an informal economy in the Caribbean.

She said that by selling or trading goods to each other, enslaved women asserted their own economic rights and ultimately laid the groundwork for a free community following abolition.

“In conventional studies of capitalism that consider the deeply violent and exploitative context of slavery, enslaved peoples' own economic lives and politics tend to fall out,” Sweeney said. “So, it’s important to me to restore the social and economic importance of trading to enslaved people and their descendants.”

“In addition to being commodities on paper, enslaved people actually were agents in their own economies and had economic interests of their own.”

Sweeney plans to conduct further transnational research with the Connaught award, travelling to Europe to visit the Archivo de Indias (Archives of the Indies) and the Archives Nationales d’Outre-mer (National Overseas Archives).

The research trips will also help lay a foundation for her second project, which will focus on white female slave owners.

Jerry Flores

(photo courtesy of Jerry Flores)

As a Mexican who was born and raised in Los Angeles, U of T Mississauga’s Jerry Flores brings an outsider’s perspective to a high-profile research project in Canada: an ethnography of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) and men in Toronto.

Flores, an assistant professor in the department of sociology, previously published a book about young, incarcerated Latina women.

As he heard more stories about MMIW, he began to notice similarities.

“The experiences of a lot of these women go like this: They’re abused at home by a partner or a family member and run away to get away from it,” Flores said.

“They end up on the street and participate in high risk behaviour or may end up getting involved in drugs or sex work. They meet a new partner – for young women, it’s usually an older man – that brings them home, but quickly spirals into drugs, alcohol and abuse.”

Specifically, Flores wants to study the circumstances in which Indigenous people make their way to Toronto. He’s asking: What challenges did they face to come here? Have they lost people on their journey to Toronto? What stories have they heard?

Flores is working closely with local organizations, including the Native Women’s Association of Canada and the Aboriginal Law Society in Toronto, to gather stories. Funding from the Connaught New Researcher Award will help compensate participants for their time and provide support for the community organizations that are assisting Flores in his research.

“By definition, ethnography is a study of culture. I’m trying to understand the culture of the Indigenous community in Toronto – how they negotiate life, the challenges and the high points. What is it that they need, what do they want to accomplish, and how can we as a collective – U of T Mississauga and U of T in general – support them?”

Flores hopes that the study will be able to provide concrete recommendations for policy, community action and scholarship on MMIW.

Here is the full list of winners of the 2019 Connaught New Researcher Award:

Humanities:

Tania Aguila-Way, assistant professor, department of English

Barend Beekhuizen, assistant professor, department of language studies, U of T Mississauga

Brendan de Kenessey, assistant professor, department of philosophy

Catherine Evans, assistant professor, Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies

Cindy Ewing, assistant professor, department of history

Sarah Gutsche-Miller, assistant professor, Faculty of Music

Adam Hammond, assistant professor, department of English

Rosalind Hampton, assistant professor, department of social justice education, Ontario Institute For Studies in Education

Mary Elizabeth Luka, assistant professor, department of arts, culture and media, U of T Scarborough

Luther Obrock, assistant professor, department of historical studies, U of T Mississauga

Shauna Sweeney, assistant professor, department of history and Women & Gender Studies Institute

Katherine Williams, assistant professor, department of English

Life Sciences/Social Cultural

Jennifer Brooks, assistant professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Aaron Conway, assistant professor, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Marzyeh Ghassemi, assistant professor, departments of medicine and computer science

Quinn Grundy, assistant professor, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Péter Molnár, assistant professor, department of biological sciences, U of T Scarborough

Olli Saarela, associate professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Molecular

Michael Garton, assistant professor, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Eliana Gonzales-Vigil, assistant professor, department of biological sciences, U of T Scarborough

Thomas Hurd, assistant professor, department of molecular genetics

Hyun Kate Lee, assistant professor, department of biochemistry

Baohua Liu, assistant professor, department of biology, U of T Mississauga

Physical Science

Melissa Anderson, assistant professor, department of Earth sciences

Amy Bilton, assistant professor, department of mechanical and industrial engineering

Maryam Mehri Dehnavi, assistant professor, department of computer science

Maria Drout, assistant professor, department of astronomy and astrophysics

Murat A. Erdogdu, assistant professor, departments of computer science and statistical sciences

Tovi Grossman, assistant professor, department of computer science

Fan Long, assistant professor, department of computer science

Semechah Lui, assistant professor, department of chemical and physical sciences, U of T Mississauga

Fabio Pusateri, assistant professor, department of mathematics

Arul Shankar, assistant professor, department of mathematical and computational sciences, U of T Mississauga

Diana Valencia, assistant professor, department of physical and environmental sciences, U of T Scarborough

Stanislav Volgushev, assistant professor, department of mathematical and computational sciences, U of T Mississauga

Joseph Williams, assistant professor, department of computer science

Mark Wilson, assistant professor, department of chemistry

Social Sciences

Monica Alexander, assistant professor, departments of statistical sciences and sociology

Noel Anderson, assistant professor, political science, U of T Mississauga

Jennifer Brant, assistant professor, department of curriculum, teaching and learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Michelle Cameron, assistant professor, department of anthropology

Laura Cirelli, assistant professor, department of psychology, U of T Scarborough

Fedor Dokshin, assistant professor, department of sociology

Emine Fidan Elcioglu, assistant professor, department of sociology, U of T Scarborough

Jerry Flores, assistant professor, department of sociology, U of T Mississauga

Ethan Fosse, assistant professor, department of sociology, U of T Scarborough

Charles Martineau, assistant professor, department of management, U of T Scarborough

David Price, assistant professor, department of economics, U of T Mississauga

Tahseen Shams, assistant professor, department of sociology

Jennifer Stellar, assistant professor, department of psychology, U of T Mississauga

Jia Xue, assistant professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Faculty of Information

Marius Zoican, assistant professor, department of management and Institute for Management and Innovation, U of T Mississauga

With the help of her students, U of T researcher and McLean Award winner is building the future of computer architecture

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 14:11:57 +0000

With the help of her students, U of T researcher and McLean Award winner is building the future of computer architecture

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/04/2019 - 10:11

Cutline

Natalie Enright Jerger, a professor in U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, is considered a worldwide expert in “on-chip” networks (photo by Roberta Baker)

Topic

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Research & Innovation

As a computer architect, the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Natalie Enright Jerger is helping make everything from smartwatches to sprawling data centres run as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The professor in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering’s Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering is considered a worldwide expert in “on-chip” networks and, recently, is focusing on so-called “chiplets,” which are touted by some as a way for chipmakers to circumvent Moore’s Law.

But Enright Jerger’s passions extend well beyond her research. She’s a big proponent of teaching and students, and has strived to make her field more welcoming to women and other underrepresented groups – an effort that hasn’t gone unnoticed by colleagues, who describe her as “tireless” and “stubborn.”

“The whole reason I became a professor is really the students,” Enright Jerger says.

“In the field I’m in, there’s lots of great industry jobs, but the reason I’m here doing what I do is being able to work with the students.”

For her contributions to computer architecture, Enright Jerger was named this year’s winner of the McLean Award. The $125,000 award, jointly funded by the Connaught Fund and the McLean endowment, recognizes early career researchers and supports outstanding basic research in the fields of computer science, mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering sciences and the theory and methods of statistics.

The award is designed to help the winner attract and fund promising graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.

“I’d like to congratulate Natalie Enright Jerger on being this year’s recipient of the McLean Award,” says Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, and the chair of the Connaught Committee.

“With her exceptional record of achievement, we are eager to see what will come next for her and her team.”

For Enright Jerger, the student focus of the award is fitting.

“Being able to support more students and build my research group through the award is really fantastic,” Enright Jerger says.

“The support that the award provides for basic research is critical. It allows us to ask more forward-looking questions and think outside of the box. Asking these questions carries greater risk but higher reward.

“With basic research, my team and I are the ones identifying challenging open problems – cultivating this ability to ask questions is a critical aspect of my students’ training.”

Enright Jerger also hopes to make her field as inclusive as possible in an effort to attract the brightest minds. She recalls being one of just a few women in her undergraduate classes and says the demographics in the classes she currently teaches are still largely the same.

“I’ve gotten really involved in my professional societies and research community in trying to push equity, diversity and inclusion,” she says. “There are a number of really notable women in my field and they’ve certainly been recognized for their accomplishments, but we still see remnants of the old boys’ club.

“It’s time to share that power and to be more inclusive in terms of leadership.”

Enright Jerger points to Cristina Amon, who recently ended her 13-year tenure as dean of U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, as an example of inclusive leadership. Under Amon’s watch, the number of female faculty members almost tripled and more female undergraduate students were recruited, with incoming classes over the past three years consisting of more than 40 per cent women.

Before joining U of T, Enright Jerger remembers asking Amon what she planned to do to help women in engineering.

“I was surprisingly blunt with her at the time,” Enright Jerger says. “Dean Amon talked about her work and her vision and it made me want to come to U of T. I always felt like I personally had her support.

“I’ve always felt that support from the university level as well, such as the Connaught Fund, which helped get the ball rolling for me.”

Now, Enright Jerger is hoping to pay it forward as her lab grows and she continues on to the next phase of her career.

“As new faculty join our department, I’m looking forward to seeing how I can use my experiences to help them be successful,” she says. “A rising tide lifts all boats. If we’re better as a community, everybody benefits.”

As for her reputation as “stubborn,” Enright Jerger is not about to apologize.

“I am incredibly stubborn,” she says with a laugh. “And I’m not going to let go of this until I feel that we’ve achieved what we want to achieve.”