EUC Research Update - April 2022

The Office of the Vice-President Research and Innovation (VPRI) has recognized our researchers for their research and creative achievements in a virtual Celebration of Research Excellence on April 19. Congratulations and best wishes to all our research award winners on their continued success!

Sheila Colla on winning the C. Gordon Hewitt Award from the Entomological Society of Canada;
Sarah Flicker on winning the 2021 Canadian Association for HIV Research-Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CAHR-CANFAR) Excellence in Research Award in Social Science;
Andil Gosine on being awarded the Duke University Press Scholar of Color First Book Award for Nature's Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean;
Jennifer Hyndman on being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada;
Lisa Myers on being named a York Research Chair in Indigenous Art and Curatorial Practice; and
Mark Terry on receiving an Honorable Mention from the UN SDG Action Awards.

Lisa Myers participated in The Phillips Collection and University of Maryland's Antiracism: Communities + Collaborations series panel discussion on Indigenous Arts. Antiracism: Communities + Collaborations is UMD’s Center for Literary & Comparative Studies’ initiative that “features scholarship, teaching, and public engagement to reimagine boundaries, model antiracist literary and rhetorical inquiry, and foster collaborative relations across and beyond campus.”

Anders Sandberg, in a Downsview Advocate article on Grassroots Artists, Activists And Scholars Are Bringing The Black Creek To Life With Dance, Artistry, And Education has been named as one of the scholars who have joined the Black Creek Walks, Talks and Dances project -- a set of educational teachings and art walks along the Black Creek in Downsview.

Dayna Scott, in a Tyee article on Environmentalism is for Everyone, noted the importance of equity and fairness in the environmental movement: “It’s fair to say today we’re not interested in environmental protection if it’s divorced from equity or fairness and that is where the environmental justice movement is so important" says Scott.

Las Nubes is holding a Workshop on Indigenous and Afro-descendant Autonomies from Central America and the Caribbean: A Knowledge-Exchange on Emancipation. The workshop brings together a group of people, members of indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations, academics and international civil organizations, to share, exchange and disseminate knowledge about multilevel emancipatory autonomies in Central America. The project provides an innovative forum to share information on local responses and commitments to the thematic report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the right to self-determination in the Americas, as well as promote its dissemination among participating indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations. The workshop, taking place in Costa Rica on Las Nubes EcoCampus (York University) from April 19 to 23, 2022, provides a timely knowledge exchange and collaboration space for participants to share knowledge about a multitude of topics related to concepts and practices of emancipation and autonomy. The workshop, supported by a series of preparatory and follow-up activities, to be carried out with collaborating organizations promotes an iterative process of knowledge sharing on local responses and perspectives of indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations on international standards, institutions and processes.

Sarah Rotz's Relational Accountability for Indigenous Rematriation (RAIR) project has a new podcast series featuring dialogues that explore Indigenous land rematriation and land sharing within the context of ongoing settler colonialism in Canada. The second episode featured Deborah McGregor who talked about treaties, Indigenous governance and land relations. The first episode addressed land, colonialism and patriarchy with Sherry Pictou and Martha Stiegman. Rotz was also cited in a CTV news article titled Could vertical farming solve Canada's food supply chain issues? Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in stacked, upright layers and using online technology to control and monitor the growing cycles. She expressed fears that the cost of entry could lead to a monopolization of the global food supply. 

Luisa Sotomayor was cited in a CBC News article titled "Ford government left key strategies out of housing legislation, critics say" commenting that the recommendations made in the legislation are not helpful for people trying to buy a home and that new measures are friendly towards developers. She also discussed Ontario's housing affordability plan in an AM 900 Hamilton News Talk Leader (CHML) and emphasized that government should focus on strategies that will encourage non-profit housing developments.

Martha Stiegman is part of Talking Treaties Collective, a multidisciplinary group of Indigenous and settler artists/researchers whose projects artfully share Indigenous history and awareness of the place now called Toronto. Projects include Dish Dances, By These Presents: "Purchasing" Toronto film/video production, and A Treaty Guide for Torontonians to be launched at the 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art.

Ellie Perkins is a lead author of Chapter 5 in the new Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) report, which tackles the social aspects of mitigation. The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The chapter, "Demand, Services, and Social Aspects of Mitigation", examines the conclusions of nearly 100,000 peer-reviewed articles across a range of social science disciplines, including psychology, women’s studies, economics, urban studies and history. Perkins was cited in The Globe and Mail and interviewed in CBC Radio One and CTV News Channel. “Social equity reinforces capacity and motivation to tackle climate change. Explicit attention to equity is essential if we want policies that take on climate change to be effective and socially acceptable. Social equity in turn reinforces capacity to reduce emissions,” says Perkins. "Government, business, finance, consumers, technical and cultural change are all part of the huge effort that’s urgently required to realize these reductions,” she adds.

Justin Podur’s Anti-Empire Project recently produced several podcasts on a range of topics from US environmental and political crisis, US war on Syria, Pakistan's coup to France's scramble for Africa. He was also interviewed by the Cadre Journal about the history of US in DR Congo and Rwanda.

Joshua Thienpont has a new podcast on The Invasion of the Exotic Aliens. Adam Jeziorski and Josh Thienpont wade through the wide variety of topics covered by the interdisciplinary field of paleolimnology. Whether you are already an expert at collecting sediment cores and microscope identifications, or you simply have an interest in environmental issues such as acid rain, eutrophication, and climate change, the podcasts will help make the natural records that surround us as clear as mud. Follow their Core Ideas - A Palelimneology Podcast on Soundcloud. In Fulcrum, Thienpont also discussed their 2017 study on the impact of habitat flooding on the Canadian wood bison.  He stressed that the impact of flooding is not just felt by this one herd or in this one conservation area; rather, the entire landscape is getting wetter such that the bison will face similar difficulties beyond their current habitat. Accordingly, the impact is also being felt by humans, specifically Deh Gáh Got’ı̨ę First Nations, who use the land for hunting activities.

Mark Winfield was cited in The Energy Mix Climate News Network article on Weak Ontario Hydrogen Strategy Mirrors Industry Wish List. He notes that a new provincial report on Ontario’s Low Carbon Hydrogen Strategy is overly optimistic about hydrogen’s potential for decarbonizing the economy. He was interviewed by EnergiMedia about the Canadian government's new emissions reduction plan, released March 29 where he notes that Trudeau's emissions reduction plan lacks power. He was also interviewed by CBC on the federal government's new climate plan with spending commitments and emissions project targets for 2030, noting that there are interesting elements, but some ambiguity in the plan.