EUC Research Updates - June 2024

Accolades, Appointments and Acknowledgements

During the EUC End-of-Year celebration in May, four awards were presented to EUC community members, recognizing their significant contributions within the Faculty and beyond. These awards are granted to faculty and staff members nominated by their peers in four categories: Research Excellence, Teaching Excellence, Service Excellence, and Staff Service Excellence.

In 2023/24, the EUC Dean’s Awards were bestowed to the following faculty and staff: Abidin Kusno, Dean's Research Award in recognition of his significant contributions to scholarship and research leadership, and especially his acclaimed new book Jakarta: The City of A Thousand Dimensions; Lina Brand Correa, Dean's Teaching Award in recognition of her excellence in challenging, motivating, and inspiring students, and especially her teaching and mentorship around the degrowth concept in the MES program; Steven Tufts, Dean's Service Award in recognition of his outstanding service contributions to the Faculty, both as the Geography graduate program director and as one of the leads in the cyclical program review process; and Andrea Abello, Dean's Staff Recognition Award, in recognition of her professionalism, creativity and innovation as EUC’s Digital & Multimedia Specialist. Congratulations to everyone and thank you for your significant contributions to your respective fields of scholarly work and service beyond normal expectations.

We are proud to share the great news that Roger Keil has been honoured with the title of Distinguished Research Professor in the Spring Convocation 2024. The Distinguished Research Professor is a designation reflecting a member of faculty who has made outstanding contributions to the York University community through research and whose work is recognized within and outside of the University.

Keil's most extensive contributions have been in the fields of urban political ecology, global suburbanization, and cities and infectious disease. He has held several important roles at York, including founding director of the City Institute and York Research Chair in Global Sub/Urban Studies. He previously received a York University President’s Research Excellence Award and is currently a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Jennifer Korosi received an NSERC Discovery as well as Northern Research Supplement grant for her project on "Lakes as sentinels and agents of environmental change in rapidly thawing discontinuous permafrost peatlands." The research will advance new conceptual models for predicting ecosystem change in small lakes of rapidly thawing discontinuous permafrost peatlands. She will collaborate with the Dehcho First Nations and scientists at the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) as well as other academic institutions to provide a mechanism to connect the research with broader efforts to understand and adapt to permafrost thaw in the Dehcho. In addition, she is working with the GNWT on a project "Assessing the impact of aerator installation on the chemical and biological recovery of Frame Lake" investigating influence of aerator installation on the chemical and biological recovery of Frame Lake, through regular sampling of water chemistry, phytoplankton, and zooplankton across seasons before and after aerator installation.

Joshua Thienpont also received NSERC Discovery as well as Northern Research Supplement grant for his project on "Reconstructing disturbance regimes and aquatic ecosystem impacts of permafrost thaw slumping." The research will assess the influence of lakes on thaw slump activity and re-activation, contributing to a better understanding of the reciprocal relationship between permafrost thaw and surface waters. The project will use geomatics, assessment of lake and catchment physical characteristics using bathymetric and LiDAR sensors, and lake sediment cores to infer past physical, chemical, and biological conditions in lake ecosystems over millennial timescales. Thienpont cohosts Core Ideas - The Paleolimnology Podcast that discusses a wide variety of environmental issues such as acid rain, eutrophication, and climate change covered by this interdisciplinary field.

Anna Zalik recently presented at the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade as part of its Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) review. This June, Zalik facilitated the field course on Free Trade, Unfree Labour, and Environmental Justice in Continental North America. The course introduced students to the practical implications of a continental free trade through immersive experiences in Southern Ontario and Central Mexico and to the social relations, political ecology and political economic factors surrounding the implementation of the Canada US Mexico agreement. Specifically, the course explored how the agreement is related to, and affects, environmental justice broadly conceived. Thematic topics of discussion included food and agriculture; energy, extractives, and infrastructure; migration and labour regimes.

Romeo Joe Quintero is one of four York doctoral students who has been awarded the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships. Quintero's research project on “Building Liveable Futures in Camps: Everyday Placemaking Practices of Internally Displaced Women in the Southern Philippines,” will examine the experiences of those living in resettlement and transitory sites for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the areas of the southern Philippines affected by armed conflicts.

Quintero recently published an article entitled "Looking for Safe Haven in a City Torn Apart by War: Narratives of agency from internally displaced persons in the southern Philippines" in the The Anti-Trafficking Review. It explores the broader context of trafficking, including gender analyses and intersections with labour and migrant rights.

Patrick Stogianou, Master in Environmental Studies (Planning), received an Outstanding Graduating Student Award from the Canadian Institute of Planners. The award recognizes a student from accredited planning programs (in both undergraduate and graduate) in Canada who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to their future profession. Stogianou wrote a major paper titled "New Era of Mass Transit: Governance, Suburbanization, and Regionalism in Toronto and Montréal" that examined the ways in which two mass transit projects, the Eglinton Crosstown in Toronto, and the Réseau express métropolitain in Montréal, are responding to changes and challenges in terms of governance, suburbanization, and regionalism.

Isaac Thornley received an Honourable Mention for the 2024 F.E.L. Priestley Prize awarded by the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE) for his article titled “Cracks, Gaps, and Oil Spills in the Settler-Colonial Symbolic Order: Confronting Socio-Ecological Antagonism in Canada” published in English Studies in Canada.

In its commendation, the prize committee admired the varied sources in the list of works cited by Thornley, noting that, "the lucidity of explanations was excellent, given the challenging work of Jacques Lacan at the heart of the essay. Further, in the context of ongoing debates and demonstrations on the topic of occupied land, the essay demonstrated many problems with pipelines, including the less obvious issues surrounding invisible imperial infrastructure".

Andrew Reeves is our new postdoctoral researcher at EUC working at the International Ecological Footprint Learning Lab (IEFLL). With a PhD in Physics from the University of Waterloo, focusing on the study of galaxy formation, he will contribute to the lab’s research agenda on developing ecological macroeconomic simulation models and metrics. This includes improving and updating LowGrow SFC, a well-known ecological macroeconomic simulation model developed by Prof Emeritus Peter Victor with Prof Tim Jackson (U.K). Members of the research team include Prof F. Delorme (University of Sherbrooke), Dr. Martin Sers (Statistics Canada and Adjunct Professor in EUC), and Dr. Mojgan Chapariha (private sector). Dissemination of the research group's outputs and findings will be through IEFLL and its international partnership, academic and popular publications, conferences, social media, and international networks. Andrew will work with the IEFLL research team and supervisors Peter Victor and Tarmo Remmel.

Publications and Reports

Abdi, E., Ali, M., Santos, C. A. G., Olusola, A., & Ghorbani, M. A. (2024). Enhancing Groundwater Level Prediction Accuracy Using Interpolation Techniques in Deep Learning Models. Groundwater for Sustainable Development, 101213.

Bacigalupo, A. M., Manrique, C. & McAllister, C., eds. Special Issue on "Subversive Religion and More-than-human Materialities in Latin America" American Religion 5(2), Spring 2024

Bacigalupo, A. M., Manrique, C. & McAllister, C. Introduction: The Flesh of Justice in Latin America American Religion 5(2), 1-18.

Birch, K. Marquis, S. and Silva, G.C. (2024). "Understanding Data Valuation: Valuing Google’s Data Assets," in IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, doi: 10.1109/TTS.2024.3398400.

Bragg, B., & Hyndman, J. (2024). “There Is No Safe Place in This Plant”: Refugee Workers in Canadian Meatpacking and the Limits of Permanent Legal Status. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 40(1), 1-19.

Dworatzek, P., Miller, E., Lo, Kiona., Howarth, E., & Kazubowski-Houston, S. (2024). National Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts, 2024 Edition. (Version 1.0). [Data set and metadata]. Produced for Footprint Data Foundation by York University Ecological Footprint Initiative in partnership with Global Footprint Network.

Espinoza-Cisneros, E., & Montoya-Greenheck, F. (2024). Peasant Livelihoods and Geographies of Sameness in the Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor, Costa Rica. Geography of Time, Place, Movement and Networks, Volume 2.

Gebresselassie, M. and Wood, P. (2024). Addressing Toronto’s Traffic Will Take More Than Technology. Spacing.

Gebresselassie, M, Alavi, S., and Andy Hong, A. (2024). “How and Where Did Older People Travel Before and After COVID? Insights from Washington, DC’s Smart Card Data.” Findings, February.

Gibson, S. D., Onuferko, T. M., Myers, L., & Colla, S. R. (2024). Determining the plant-pollinator network in a culturally significant food and medicine garden in the Great Lakes region. PeerJ, 12, e17401.

Kapoor, I., Fridell, G., Sioh, M., de Vries, P., Uluorta, H., Richter, H., … Gómez, M. (2024). Book forum: global libidinal economy. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 25(1), 108–133.

MacPhail, V. J., Hatfield, R., & Colla, S. R. (2024). Bumble Bee Watch community science program increases scientific understanding of an important pollinator group across Canada and the USA. Plos one, 19(5), e0303335.

McAllister, C. (2024). The Work of Grace and the Problem of the Social in a Dam Conflict in Chilean Patagonia. American Religion 5(2), 105-125.

McClelland, A. (2024). Criminalized Lives: HIV and Legal Violence. Rutgers University Press.

Oliver, V., & Flicker, S. (2023). Declining nudes: Canadian teachers’ responses to including sexting in the sexual health and human development curriculum. Sex Education, 24(3), 369–384.

Reed, G., Alook, A. & McGregor, D. (2024). Decolonizing climate agreements strengthens policy and research for all future generations. Nat Commun 15, 4810.

Shadaan, R. (2024). Multiscalar Toxicities: Counter-Mapping Worker’s Health in the Nail Salon. Labour/Le Travail: Journal of Canadian Labour Studies, 93, 195-222.

Shadaan, R. (2023). Towards Healthier Nail Salons: From Feminized to Collective Responsibilities of Protection. Environmental Justice, 16(1), 62-71.

Tissier, M. L., Blair, C., MacKell, S., Adler, L. S., MacIvor, J. S., Bergeron, P. Colla, S. et al. (2024). Fecal sampling protocol to assess bumble bee health in conservation research. Journal of Pollination Ecology, 35, 122–134

EUC Events and Media Coverage

York University held its Spring Convocation Ceremony on June 14 and during this event, EUC celebrated the outstanding academic and personal achievements of its faculty, staff and students with family and friends.

On this occasion, Roger Keil was honoured as one of two esteemed York faculty members with the title Distinguished Research Professor. Congratulations to Roger and to our students on your achievements!

We wish our faculty and students all the best in their future endeavours!

June 21 is National Indigenous People's Day and June is National Indigenous History Month in Canada, recognizing the rich history, heritage, resilience and diversity of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis.

York University Research Chair in Indigenous Art and Curatorial Practice, Lisa Myers, has been commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art to do an artwork and audio on augmented reality walk around the Sterling Road neighbourhood. Over Asking Over Taking is a critique of gentrification, development, and green washing and speaks to concerns about land use and planning. The show is up until July 28, but the walk is something that people can continue doing after the show is gone. Through many media and materials, including socially engaged art approaches, Myer's art practice examines place, underrepresented histories/present/futures, and collective forms of knowledge exchange.

As part of the Finding Flowers project with Sheila Colla, Myers also has an upcoming podcast on "Thinking Through Indigenous Languages and Plant Knowledge" with Tania Willard. This upcoming 7-episode podcast series will dive into the entanglements of Indigenous languages, plants, medicines, gardens and socio-environmental concerns across the land we know as Canada. The project will also promote the recovery of language using land-based pedagogies and engages in critical conversations on language learning and revitalization along with teachings on medicine plants and Indigenous gardens.

In a recent Quirks and Quarks Listener Question Show on CBC Radio, Colla tackled questions about bird population, as more people plant native grasses and plants around their houses and businesses in cities. She notes that "because birds and insects evolved alongside our native plants, they have relationships with these plants to provide food and habitat. Since bird populations have been in decline, planting native plants will help support native wildlife much better than imported or invasive species of flora."

June is also Pride Season in Canada and to celebrate the event, Andil Gosine and Natalie Wood offered a reading and presentation of "The Plural of He: Black Queer Archives and Art".

The Plural of He explores the life and work of the late Colin Robinson (1961-2021), the Trinidadian American poet, critic, and unsung hero of social and sexual liberation movements in New York, the Caribbean, and throughout the world.

Displayed alongside archival objects, the commissioned works respond to records of Robinson’s personal history, from carnival costumes and calypso music to love letters and agitprop. The exhibition launched on March 15 and will run until July 21 at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York City, the world’s only dedicated 2SLGBTQIA+ art museum.

Brian Ginther, BFA Honours Visual Art & Art History and EUC work-study student, presented a workshop on how you can be a better ally to trans folks in the workplace and in the classroom.

The Trans Ally workshop is part of York’s commitment to decolonizing, equity, diversity and inclusion (DEDI). Our fundamental belief is that everyone should be treated fairly and equitably with respect and that dignity is key, not only during Pride Month but throughout the year.

EUC's Maloca Team with Joce Two Crows has been holding sessions on Queering Place as they weave plants, medicines, and digital storytelling together while creating planter-installations out of tires as spaces for welcome, rest and contemplative in QUEERy-ing.

Queering Place explores the question, “What does it mean to make a place queer?” Through community-engaged design, Queering Place animates and amplifies forgotten, suppressed or silenced environmental and social histories, while also acting as a warm and welcoming gathering space for queer, trans, and 2Spirit young people. Two more events will be held at York's Maloca Community Garden in July. Register here.

Joseph Mensah recently hosted visitors from Ghana for their IDRC Women RISE collaborative project on "The socio-economic and health vulnerabilities of informal sector traders during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: the experiences of female ‘bushmeat’ traders in Ghana."

The 4-day visit by Dr. Emmanuel Ankrah Odame (Ghana Ministry of Health), Prof. Charlotte Nana Wrigley-Asante (University of Ghana), Dr. Fidelia Ohemeng, and Dr. Kofi Ampensah-Mensah (Centre for Biodiversity Conservation Research) involved meetings with York VP Research & Innovation Office, EUC Dean's Office, Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, Resource Centre for Public Sociology and York's Knowledge Mobilization Unit.

EUC has resumed its seminar series on Dialogues on Degrowth 2023/24. The last session on Transitioning to a degrowth future: Naïve or revolutionary? was held on June 27th and focused on the potential pathways for a degrowth transition and the main challenges and advantages to a degrowth future.

Speakers included Barbara Muraca from University of Oregon, Hubert Buch-Hansen from Roskilde University, Denmark, and Justin Podur as EUC moderator. For those who missed our Degrowth seminars, you can view the playlists on EUC’s YouTube Channel.

EUC-York and the Toronto Region and Conservation Authority (TRCA) recently held a networking session to bring together staff and researchers from York and TRCA to explore further partnership opportunities focussing on three theme areas: Climate Change and Resilience; Community Engagement and Cultural Vitality in a Diverse City-Region; and Formal Education, the School System and Student Learning.

EUC and TRCA are also collaborating on two joint projects--Jennifer Foster's Rubble to Refuge project exploring Toronto's Leslie Street Pit, also known as Tommy Thompson Park, which is one of Canada’s most celebrated “urban wilderness” landscapes; and Gail Fraser's Ecology, Conservation and Management of Avian Wildlife project on ecology and management of colonial nesting waterbirds, such as double-crested cormorants, black-crowned night herons and ring-billed gulls.

June 5 is World Environment Day and on this occasion, EUC’s Ecological Footprint Initiative (EFI) launched the 2024 Edition of the National Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts, with a global webinar introducing the dataset, which is available on the EFI website and is also syndicated through several global data platforms.  The accounts were produced by EFI staff and MES alumni Peri Dworatzek, Eric Miller, Kiona Lo, and MES students and research assistants Elaine Howarth, and Sandy Kazubowski-Houston. The 2024 edition includes data for 246 countries and territories and the world from 1961 to 2023.  Humanity’s total Ecological Footprint in 2023 was higher than in any other year, and about 71% higher than planetary biocapacity. Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity data, by total and by component, of production and of consumption, are available for all countries and the world on the EFI website. Micro-level data, on the Ecological Footprint of specific traded commodities, is also available, please reach out to iefll@footprintpartnership.net for more details.

At the Environmental Studies Association of Canada (ESAC) Conference within Congress 2024 hosted by McGill University, the Ecological Footprint team shared its research and chaired several sessions. Peri Dworatzek presented on “Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts for Ontario Communities” which will have a first published data release this summer. This research was supported by York’s CIRC geomatics interdisciplinary research clusters (led by EUC professor Tarmo Remmel) and with the collaboration of the Rural Ontario Institute. Kiona Lo presented “Accounting for a University’s greenhouse gas emissions and its Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity”. This research was supported by York’s Sustainability Office, which is supporting a new phase of the research to expand and enhance the measurement of emissions. Elaine Howarth presented “Revolutionizing the imaginary: Visions for a degrowth future” which is her ongoing MES major research project. Eric Miller presented on “Engaging interdisciplinary students in sustainability informatics” about transferable lessons learned from developing and delivering the curriculum used by the Ecological Footprint Initiative to engage environmental studies students in sustainability informatics.

From the MES program in EUC Kelly Gingrich also presented on “Perceptions of wellbeing in climate-just futures among youth climate activists”. Presentations from the EUC PhD program included, Sayeh Dastgheib-Beheshti on “Design Thinking and the Erosion of the Commons”, Laurence Butet-Roch on “Remediating Toxic Images: Moving Towards Representational Justice in Environmental Reporting”, Karl Petschke on “Wayside Ecologies: Life at the Margins of Infrastructure”, and Sampson Adese on “Forging a Sustainable Future: Addressing the Intersectionality of Socio-economic Inequality and Environmental Crises in the Global South”. 

EUC Geography faculty and students recently participated in the12th International Conference on Permafrost at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. In an article by CBC North, MSc student Claire O'Hagan who studies permafrost thaw in the Mackenzie Delta region remarked that it is important for researchers to work together and share knowledge. "The Arctic environment is so diverse and different that learning what's going on in other areas is very important. Understanding the research here can almost serve as a warning sign and help us understand what we could expect to see in other areas of the globe, as climate change continues to progress." she says.