Dr. Byomkesh Talukder is the inaugural Planetary Health Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, where he works at the intersection of health, sustainable development, climate change and food and agriculture systems. He is currently project co-director in four research projects: (1) Mapping Canada’s Imported Food Supply Chains to Identify Climate Change-Related Health Risks, (2) Ecological Footprint Health Indicators, (3) Complex Adaptive Modelling of Health Impacts of Climate Change in Malawi & Paraguay, and (4) Climate Change, Salinity & Public Health in Bangladesh. His past research applies a complexity science approach to designing sustainability assessment models of food and agricultural systems in Bangladesh. Dr. Talukder also has over 15 years of interdisciplinary field and training experience, including supervising more than 2,000 emerging leaders in sustainable development programs and policy design in Bangladesh. Since 2016, he has been a Mitacs Postdoctoral Fellow at Parmalat Canada and the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University. Dr. Talukdar holds a PhD in Geography and Environmental Studies (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada), a MES in Environmental Studies (Queen’s University, Canada), a MSc in Development Science (Hiroshima University, Japan), and a MSc in Geography and Environment (Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh).

By Elaine Coburn, Director of the Centre for Feminist Research

In his seminar, “Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, and Community Planetary Health in Bangladesh”, Dr. Talukder observed that if traditional medicine is concerned with health within the human body, planetary systems are concerned with external systems, including the climate, that affect people’s health. This enables a more holistic, non-linear approach to understanding complex issues, including rising salinity associated with rising seas in Bangladesh due to climate change. 

Today, the coastal areas of Bangladesh are home to more than 40 million people. It is estimated that by 2050 about 27 million people will be immediately affected by climate change, including heavily populated areas along coastal rivers. If sea levels rise by just 1.5 metres, more than 80% of people in Bangladesh will be affected since the vast majority of the population lives in a flood plain. In addition, frequent cyclones originate in the Bay of Bengal. Annually, they bring water, now heavily salinated because of rising seas, that kills all vegetation, rendering previously fertile lands barren. Combined with more than 290 dams in India and more than 100 dams in China, which aggravate penuries of water during the dry season, and Himalayan ice melt due to climate change, Bangladesh suffers from significant water shortages and increased salinity. Not only water but soil is becoming increasingly saline.

Development projects along rivers in Bangladesh, including dams, have not worked well but create waterlogging that makes agriculture impossible. In response to changing conditions, farmers have shifted agriculture to saline-water crops, like shrimp, moving away from previous staple crops like rice. If shrimp farming has created economic benefits, the decreased agricultural diversity – in dramatic decline from the 1970s to about 2014 – because of the concentration on the monoculture of shrimp, has created attendant health problems, due to food insecurity and diminished biodiversity. Shrimp feed has aggravated problems by interfering with the natural ecosystems. As mangrove forests decline, water is no longer retained by trees, making communities more vulnerable to the devastating effects of floods. 

Primary negative health impacts include the scarcity of freshwater. This is especially burdensome for women who must travel 5 to 10 km to search out fresh water. Many communities are using rainwater or open pond water for their daily household water needs. This creates communicable diseases, including skin infections, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery and ocular diseases. Hypertension increases due to salt in water and in food systems. 

Secondary negative health impacts include high rates of miscarriage among women who live close to coastal areas. Women stand in saline water for many hours a day, creating problems for women’s reproductive health, an under-investigated health concern observed by many local community groups. A lack of a diversified food given the concentration in the shrimp, creates vitamin D deficiencies, including rickets. 

Tertiary negative health impacts include the increase in breast and ovarian cancers in women. Women are harvesting drinking water in plastic containers and since plastics are unregulated, some are contaminated, which may be the cause of the increase in these cancers among women. There is increased mental health stress, especially among women, given the long distances they must travel to obtain basic needs, like water for the households. Internal migration often means a concentration of formerly rural people in urban slums, creating attendant health problems given the conditions in these slums which have weak sanitation systems. 

Overall, health inequities are increasing, especially in coastal areas.

Resolving these health impacts demands complex solutions from multiple stakeholders, everything from weather predictor systems to public health expertise. We need to listen to different stakeholders and the connections among the different challenges that they face to develop complex models that can help us understand the links among climate change, extreme weather events, internal migration and conflicts and public health, all of which are, in addition, gendered. This means taking into account biodiversity, vector-borne disease and the causal relationships among these different factors to create data beyond current tendencies to work in silos. Dynamic modelling is required if we are to develop scenarios, forecasting and support local communities and other stakeholders in developing community-based interventions to salinity and to enable monitoring to understand the present and better predict future health impacts. 

But modeling is not enough. We need interventions that take into account complex systems to support the government of Bangladesh’s 100-year delta plan, as the state seeks to ensure the sustainability of ecosystems for better livelihoods and intergenerational health in Bangladesh. We must prepare for different futures, knowing that if we do not take action now on climate change we will not be able to adapt to climate change in the future. We need to adapt today and we need to do this for many reasons, including for the health of people like those living in coastal areas of Bangladesh who are already being affected in their everyday life by climate change, especially rising sea levels and increasing salinity of coastal waters. 

Related Work

Talukder, B., Ganguli, N. & VanLoon, G. W., (2022). Climate Change Related Foodborne Zoonotic Diseases and Pathogens Modelling. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 100111.

Talukder, B., Ganguli, N., Matthew, R., VanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W., & Orbinski, J. (2022). Climate Change-Accelerated Ocean Biodiversity Loss & Associated Planetary Health Impacts. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 100114

Matthew, R., Chiotha, S., Orbinski, J. & Talukder, B. (2021). Research note: Climate change, peri-urban space and emerging infectious disease. Landscape and Urban Planning, 218, 104298.

Talukder, B., Ganguli, N., Matthew, R., VanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W., & Orbinski, J. (2021). Climate change‐triggered land degradation and planetary health: A review. Land Degradation & Development 32 (16), 4509-4522.

Talukder, B., vanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W., Chiotha, S. & Orbinski, J. (2021). Health Impacts of Climate Change on Smallholder Farmers. One Health, 100258.

Talukder, B., Matthew, R., Bunch, J. M., vanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W. & Orbinski, J. (2021). Melting of Himalayan Glaciers and Planetary Health. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 50, 98-108.

Talukder, B., van Loon, G., Hipel, K. W., & Orbinski, J. (2021). COVID-19's Implications on Agri-food Systems and Human Health in Bangladesh. Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, 100033.

Talukder, B., Blay-Palmer, A., & Hipel, K. W. (2020). Towards Complexity of Agricultural Sustainability Assessment: Main Issues and Concerns. Environmental and Sustainability Indicators, 100038.

Talukder, B., & Hipel, K. W. (2019). Diagnosis of Sustainability of Trans-Boundary Water Governance in the Great Lakes Basin. World Development, 129, 1-12.

Talukder, B., vanLoon, G. W., & Hipel, K. W. (2018). Energy Efficiency of Agricultural Systems in the Southwest Coastal Zone of Bangladesh. Ecological Indicators, 98, 641-648.

Talukder, B., Hipel, K. W., & vanLoon, G. W. (2017). Developing Composite Indicators for Agricultural Sustainability Assessment: Effect of Normalization and Aggregation Techniques. Resources, 6(4), 66.

Talukder, B., Saifuzzaman, M., & vanLoon, G. W. (2016). Sustainability of Changing Agricultural Systems in the Coastal Zone of Bangladesh. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 31(2) 148-165.

Talukder, B., Nakagoshi, N., & Shahedur, R. M. (2009). State and Management of Wetlands in Bangladesh. Landscape and Ecological Engineering, 5(1), 81-90.

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By Joel Ong, Director of the Sensorium and assistant professor, School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design:

There’s a growing realization in this epoch that much of the crisis we face is caused by decisions that externalize environmental costs and hide the true level of violent extractions and waste from view.  As we encounter the real possibilities of metabolic interventions into the planet by industrial complexes and institutions, art and poetics play an important role in the interdisciplinary approach we all seek, and it is this trajectory that has gained much momentum in changing our narratives and behaviours around climate change.  

At Sensorium and AMPD we are looking at ways to consider environmental solutions as a form of new civic knowledge, such as in collective imagining with communities of practice through site-specific and sustainable eco-scenographics; creative transductions of environmental data, film, sound; simulated evolution and mixed reality worldmaking; and collaborations with scientists and engineers across the campus. These research-creation works are very much indebted to intersectional discourses in feminist, queer, critical disability and Indigenous studies that elevate the aspects of the environment that are traditionally neglected when thinking about climate action - what Marisol De La Cadena calls the ‘anthropo-not-seen’.  Here I will highlight Professors Mary Bunch, Dolleen Manning and team’s work “” (2022), Professor Jane Tingley’s “” (2021), student alumni Ella Morton’s “” (2020) and Nicole Clouston’s “” (2017-), that consider the plurality of ‘ worlds’ other than our own.  These works have been featured in recent Sensorium group exhibitions.

But beyond the aesthetics, art aspires towards a shift in consciousness towards the care and intimacy that we need to encounter, and be accountable to, our environments.  As  Bioartist Jennifer Willet writes, “ notions of love are typically eschewed by academia and science as romantic, popular, or religious; but love can also be interpreted as a radical political act in the face of instrumental rationality”.  Could we say this month, that we love our environment? 

As part of Climate Change Month, Sensorium will be hosting a curatorial presentation and artist talk around the exhibition Agents for Change: Facing the Anthropocene (2020) on March 21st from 11 am - 12:30 pm. The presenters are  (Feminist Media Lab, Concordia), (Leonardo Network) and (SLO Lab, AMPD).  A listening booth will also be set up to show Liz Miller’s work The Shore Line (2017) that week, an interactive Documentary that features over 40 collaborative videos made with individuals who are confronting the threats of unsustainable development and extreme weather with persistence and ingenuity.  

"For the exhibition Agents for Change | Facing the Anthropocene, we wanted to highlight the often underrepresented voices of women artists and activists in an exhibition on environmental change. Women are so often on the front lines of this type of work (activism), and we wanted to put together a show that highlighted the stories that women artists want to tell. These stories were of course extremely diverse – starting with science, research, and observation – but for me the most exciting part was the interest in highlighting the stories of both human and non-human subjects. The works in varying degrees were informative, experiential, and interactive – and together helped the viewer develop empathy and better understanding of how deeply impactful human activity is on life on this planet – air, water, earth, plant, animal, insect, human. It is extremely important to have diverse representation in gallery exhibitions because ultimately this assures diversity in the stories that get to be told for public consumption. We need this as a society to assure that we begin to comprehend (and hopefully develop sensitivity to) the complexity and diversity that surrounds us in our everyday lives.”

Jane Tingley, Curator 
Director, SLOLab, 91��ɫ

Register .

A recording of the panel presentation is available
for an installation of The Shore Line by Professor Liz Miller (Concordia University) from March 28th - 31st The Shore Line is a collaborative web documentary profiling the efforts of educators, artists, architects, scientists, city planners and youth organizations from nine countries taking actions along our global coasts. The project was exhibited as part of the Agents for Change: Facing the Anthropocene exhibition co-curated by Nina Czegledy (Leonardo Network) and Professor (SLOLab, AMPD, 91��ɫ).

Visit the project at the Scott Library or on your device .

The post The Work of Art in the Time of Climate Change appeared first on Research & Innovation.

This March, 91��ɫ's Organized Research Units (ORUs) host the first Climate Change Research Month with more than a dozen events aimed at generating awareness of climate change research and mobilizing the community to take action.

News

Hosted by various Organized Research Units (ORUs), 91��ɫ celebrates its first annual Climate Change Research Month this March with events taking place just every few days. Organized by Professor , director of the Centre for Feminist Research (CFR), ORUs have come together to contribute varied and broad-ranging discussions and screenings focused on various aspects of climate change.

The commitment to creating an annual Climate Change Month is another crucial step towards widespread education and another example of how 91��ɫ is committed to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

“The climate crisis stands to impact every aspect of our lives, including areas such as employment, equity, health, and the wellbeing of our communities,” says 91��ɫ’s Vice President Research and Innovation, Dr. Amir Asif.

Events

Gender Equality in Low-Carbon Economies: Continuities, Contradictions, Disruptions
March 3, 2022
12:00-1:30 p.m.
The Centre for Feminist Research presents a talk by Canada Research Chair in Global Womens Issues and a Professor at Western University, This presentation identifies opportunities and constraints for women’s employment in renewable and clean energy in industrialized, emerging and developing economies, and makes recommendations for optimizing their participation.  

March 4, 2022
12:00-1:00 p.m.
The 91��ɫ Centre for Aging Research and Education presents a talk by , a political economist and health services researcher. This talk explores how climate change actions engage with inter-generational tropes. It highlights fault lines, raises questions about inter-generational blame and points to how we might consider inter-generational solidarity for climate action moving forward.

Pikopayin — It is Broken (Film)
March 7, 2022
3:00-4:30 p.m.
The Centre for Indigenous Knowledges and Languages presents a documentary video project. Taking place in the oil sands regions of Alberta, Pîkopayin (It is Broken), the film foregrounds Bigstone Cree Nation members’ perspectives and insights on energy projects and industrial activity within Treaty 8 Territory. The video project documents Bigstone Cree Nation members’ experiences of resource-extraction projects and activity within the First Nation’s traditional territory.
Learn more and register.

Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, and Community Planetary Health in Bangladesh
March 9, 2022
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Increasing salinity induced by sea level rise is causing planetary health impacts in the world's coastal communities. The coastal area of Bangladesh is no exception; the health and well-being of communities in coastal areas in Bangladesh have been strongly affected by increased water and soil salinity. These planetary health impacts can be categorized as (1) primary (communicable and non-communicable diseases; scarcity of potable water), (2) secondary (food and nutrition security; migration and related health impacts), and (3) tertiary (adaptation-related emerging diseases; disaster-related health vulnerability). Dr. Byomkesh Talukder will explore these multidimensional health impacts and associated salinity factors and present a collective intelligence-based framework to address the challenges currently being faced by coastal communities in Bangladesh.
Learn more and register.

March 10, 2022
1:00-2:00 p.m.
The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies presents an event that addresses how can renewable energy be transformative for communities and what new research areas and opportunities this provides for current scholars wishing to pursue a just renewable energy transition in research and in practice. The event features , an associate professor at the University of Victoria's department of geography.

March 14, 2022
12:00 p.m.
Hosted by the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, (University of Toronto) will deliver a talk about examining faith-based environmentalism and the ways that specific Jewish values are emphasized. His talk highlights how faith leaders and activists are increasingly vocal about environment and climate issues.

March 15, 2022
9:00-10:00 a.m.
Towards the formal launch of the Consortium of Excellence for the 17 Goals, please be invited to the organization's 2nd gathering, a.k.a. Café 17, at 9-00 am EST on March 15, 2022. The topic of the conversation this time is quantifying the contribution of inclusive insurance to helping the "missing middle" avoid poverty and climb the socio-economic ladder in the era of limited data.

Host: Professor , University of Lausanne;
Special Guests:  and , International Labour Organization;
Panelists: Professors , University of Liverpool;  and , 91��ɫ.

March 17, 2022
1:00-2:30 p.m.
Cities cause climate change. What are we doing about it? Dr. will provide an informative and timely discussion of the issues and challenges of cities and climate change, drawing upon her experience in the Toronto area. Cities are undergoing a paradigm shift to deal with climate change through a variety of actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy use and to prepare to be more resilient to climate impacts, while promising environmental justice and social equity.

Agents for Change: Facing the Anthropocene
March 21, 2022
11:00-12:30 p.m.
Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology presents a curated and artist talk featuring Liz Miller, Jane Tingley and Nina Czeglady.
The presenters are  (Feminist Media Lab, Concordia),  (Leonardo Network) and  (SLO Lab, AMPD).  A listening booth will also be set up to show Liz Miller’s work The Shore Line (2017) that week, an interactive Documentary that features over 40 collaborative videos made with individuals who are confronting the threats of unsustainable development and extreme weather with persistence and ingenuity. 

March 22, 2022
11:30-1:00 p.m.
The 91��ɫ Centre for Asian Research presents a talk featuring speakers: Teti Argo and . In the wake of the failure of talks at COP 26, scholars and activists have taken grassroots actions to build for communities an alternative infrastructure they need for climate change adaptation. This talk presents a discussion about what we can learn from the local residential knowledges of residing alongside rivers in Jakarta; how the residents develop their own sense of risk and coping mechanism in and through social media; how they work at the local level with scholars, designers and activists to provide a shared structure of knowledge and practice below the formal system of adaptation and mitigation plan.

UN World Water Day - Human Environmental Health, Engagement with Indigenous Communities, and Engineering Scientific Solutions 
March 22, 2022
9:00-12:00 p.m.
Co-hosted by CIFAL 91��ɫ and the Office of the Provost, in partnership with the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, 91��ɫ and part of CIFAL 91��ɫ’s In-Focus Knowledge Exchange Series for Nature, Climate, and People.

The impacts of climate change and ecosystem degradation are experienced by local communities regionally and around the world. These experiences are exacerbated by underlying social inequities. World Water Day is an opportunity to contextualize research that sheds light on these experiences against the backdrop of global efforts to boost ambition on adaptation action, and strengthening inter-regional and cross-boundary adaptation to the impacts of planetary stressors  — e.g., food systems, water, agriculture and fisheries, and energy — with special focus on human and environmental health. This one-day event will have presentations from convenors Drs.  and   and a keynote address from Dr. James Orbinski. As well, Dahdaleh Institute’s Global Health and Humanitarianism Fellow Dr. Syed Imran Ali (and many others) will engage in discussions on the science and governance of freshwater, including Human and Environmental Health; Local Actors and Communities; and Engineering Scientific Solutions. 
Learn more and register.

March 23, 2022
9:00-12:30 p.m.
As part of the commitment to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, Risk and Insurance Studies Centre at 91��ɫ is delighted to invite everyone to a one-day workshop that brings together renowned international scholars from distinct disciplines and influential leaders from the private sector, aimed at generating awareness of climate change risks and mobilising the community to take action.
Presenters , Mathematics, University of Liverpool, UK; , Biology, 91��ɫ, Canada; , Finance, University of Lausanne, Switzerland; , Engineering, 91��ɫ, Canada.
Panel lead: , Canadian Business Coalition for Climate Policy.

Children’s Brain Development in a Changing Climate
March 24, 2022
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
LaMarsh Centre for Child & Youth Research will be hosting a climate change seminar on "Children’s Brain Development in a Changing Climate". Brain development in the early years lays the foundation for lifelong cognitive function, productivity, and mental health. How does the changing climate threaten children's brain development globally? This presentation will provide an overview of impacts on child health and development of both the sudden climate change effects, including extreme weather events, extreme heat, and effects on natural systems; and consequences of the changing climate, such as displacement, migration, and social instability. Some key challenges towards to studying and modelling these impacts will be shared. Finally, action and commitments to protect children from climate change will be highlighted. The session concludes with reflections in small groups.
Learn more and register.

March 28, 2022
2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas features a special event with , , . Marcondes Coelho is a forest engineer and holds a Master's degree in Environmental and Forest Sciences. Dr. Chrislain Eric Kenfack's research is at the heart of the critical issues of our times. His questions concern the grounds for solidarity among social movements. Balikisu Osman is finishing her PhD in Environmental Studies at 91��ɫ. Her doctoral research focuses on climate risks, household responses and sustainable food security in northern Ghana. 

Climate Change in the Caribbean: The Role of Capital in the Climate Crisis and the Movement for Climate Justice
March 31, 2022
6-7:30 p.m.
The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) is pleased to present and to discuss Climate Change in the Caribbean. Join us for an important and timely presentation that will discuss the role that capital plays in the Climate Crisis and the movement towards Climate Justice in the Caribbean. Malene Alleyne is a Jamaican human rights lawyer and founder of Freedom Imaginaries with a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School and a Master of Advanced Studies degree from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. Dr. Esther Figueroa is a Jamaican independent film maker, writer, educator and linguist with over thirty-five years of media productions.

The post Climate Change Research Month appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Originally from Iran, Shamskhany joined 91��ɫ in 2019 and is entering her third year of doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor . After earning her BSc and MSc in civil engineering at the Amirkabir University of Technology – Tehran Polytechnic, Shamskhany came to Canada to pursue a specialization in environmental hydraulics in the Department of Civil Engineering at Lassonde.

“At Lassonde, the facilities are excellent for both experimental and numerical research," said Shamskhany. "Here we have access to well-equipped numerical and experimental labs. I hope to be able to use my experience here to help other eager students pursue an education in the field.”

Working with Karimpour, Shamskhany's research focuses on numerical modelling of microplastic transport in aquatic environments. Microplastics are minuscule plastic particles, often invisible to the human eye. The accumulation of microplastics in the environment can be direct, or result from the breakdown of larger plastic particles, while the aquatic deposition is a direct result of improper recycling or waste handling. Since only one per cent of microplastic input is visible in surface layers of aquatic environments, understanding what causes the mixing and transport of the invisible 99 per cent is crucial to tackle this global problem.

The winning paper dives deep into this subject matter to uncover how the size and density of microplastics impact their transport and settling into different vertical regions of the water bodies. Their approach is a combination of different numerical modelling approaches to achieve better realistic results. Ultimately, they found a way to categorize microplastics based on their physical properties, which were found to have unique characteristics for entrainment and vertical transport within the water column. Using numerical simulation was beneficial for this prospective research as it can control and manipulate different factors in the process, which is crucial to guiding future field-based assessments and risk mitigation.

The work of Karimpour and Shamskhany is very significant for Canada, and aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals No. 6, clean water and sanitation, and No. 14, life below water.

“Microplastic pollution is an emerging contaminant. Trying to find a solution is critical; however, we should try to solve this problem where it begins," said Shamskhany. "If we try to separate plastic waste and aid in waste management, this will reduce the impact of mismanaged plastic waste. Hopefully, through our work and that of others, we can help people develop a better understanding of plastic pollution, its reach, adverse impacts and why it is important to address it. Once plastic waste turns into microplastic particles, we are very limited in what we can do to get rid of it from the environment."

In addition to this Best Student Paper Award, Shamskhany received both the First Place and the People’s Choice awards in the 2020 Lassonde Research Photo Competition for “Le Diable Bleu.” See the article in .

The laboratory of Karimpour recently received a five-year grant through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's Alliance Option 2 program, entitled “Hidden microplastics of the Niagara Basin: distribution, variability, and ecotoxicology in water and sediments.”

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Sometime in autumn 2023, a parachute will deposit a canister that will land in a Utah desert. Inside it will be rock samples from an asteroid called Bennu, with an orbit mostly situated between Earth and Mars. This operation has a lot to do with 91��ɫ’s expertise and leadership in space science and engineering.

Bennu, roughly the height of a skyscraper at 500 metres in diameter, is interesting in many ways. For one thing, it poses a disarmingly real threat to us. It orbits close to Earth every six years and many space scientists believe there’s a small chance it could strike our planet in the next century.

This aside, Bennu has a deeper value. It could contain clues about the origin of the solar system – including our planet and every living being on it. (As Joni Mitchell put it so aptly in her song Woodstock, “We are stardust…”)

The rock samples are being brought to us courtesy of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and by the technical expertise of 91��ɫ’s Michael Daly, a professor of Earth and Space Sciences in the Lassonde School of Engineering.

Daly, director of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Earth and Space Science, has been working with the Canadian Space Agency since 2008 on developing the OSIRIS REx Laser Altimeter, an instrument to map the surface of Bennu.

“I developed the concept for the instrument, a very early part of the design. I put the plan together for analyzing the data and how we were going to observe the asteroid to capture the scientific information we required,” he explains.

Daly, 91��ɫ Research Chair in Planetary Science, and his colleagues had to consider a multitude of challenges. Can you get there easily? Does the asteroid spin slowly enough that you could touch down and collect a sample? Can you get the sample back?

Thanks to Daly’s mapping, the team discovered that Bennu has a very rocky surface and the researchers were able to locate a smooth area, the size of a few parking spaces, where the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft could sample.

The plan worked. The spacecraft extracted samples and is soon to make its way back to Earth. Daly is thrilled. Even though the bumpy surface threw a temporary wrench into their plans, “these surprises are valuable because you’ve learned something unexpected,” he says.

Daly is one of a growing community of scholars at 91��ɫ that focuses on every aspect of space and how it all came to be. This work has contributed to an increasing buzz among space experts around the world.

“91��ɫ is very strong in space. I don’t think there’s any rival in Canada,” says Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science and Lassonde Professor Isaac Smith, who joined 91��ɫ in 2018, having come from the renowned Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

Smith was surprised by the reaction from friends when he first arrived in Toronto. “My neighbours asked what I did for a living. I told them I’m a planetary scientist at 91��ɫ… they didn’t even know the University had a space program.”

After earning his master’s in physics, Smith toured the American west where he became fascinated by geology, rock formations and deserts. He then applied that interest to the planet closest to us: Mars.

“Mars has always been part of humankind’s fascination. We grew more interested when the first telescopes made people wonder if there might be water and even life, in some form.”

While life has not been found, the idea of it continues to tantalize scientists.

“Mars’ geology is remarkably similar to our planet. I could take a picture of the Utah desert, and find another picture from a rover on Mars, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

But Smith isn’t focused on the ages-old question of life on Mars. Instead, he wants to understand how the planet was born, how it has evolved. He believes this has a lot to do with ice.

“The story of Mars is incomplete if you don’t talk about ice. There’s ice all over the planet. In the past, it was water, and this shaped many of the landforms – giant canyons and glaciers, created 100 million years ago. The ice and water are important in the formation of Mars. I want to understand more,” he explains.

91��ɫ Research Chair in Space Exploration Professor John Moores is also fascinated with planets. A professor in Earth and Space Science Engineering at Lassonde, he says the focus of his research group is to use what they learn in planetary science to support space missions.

Moores has a special interest in the red planet – especially the mysterious presence of methane. The gas was detected by Curiosity, the NASA rover that has been on Mars since 2012. Methane is produced by numerous natural, biological processes on Earth – from fossil fuels to cow flatulence. “We understand why it’s present on Earth, but we don’t expect it on Mars. To understand why it’s there, we need more data,” says Moores.

As much as Mars, Bennu, Earth and the ever-expanding universe is a mystery, there’s one force that unifies it all: dark matter. Professor Sean Tulin believes it’s at the root of, well, everything.

“Dark matter is the biggest missing piece of the puzzle we have in astrophysics,” says Tulin, assistant professor of physics and astronomy and Canada Research Chair in Particle Physics and Cosmology. “It’s easy to think, ‘There’s this mysterious substance in space that doesn’t impact what we do.’ But it provides the cosmic foundation for the entire structure in the universe, all the galaxies, and how they’re organized and how they form.

“Think of a birthday cake,” he suggests. “The regular matter – the planets and the stars – are the frosting but the dark matter’s the cake.”

Tulin uses mathematical calculations to investigate the properties of dark matter, then shares his ideas and predictions with astronomers to test them.

“The universe is about 14 billion years old. For about 10 billion of those years, it was dominated by dark matter. If we want to understand what the universe looks like, we have to understand the properties of dark matter. We still don’t. We can’t see it with telescopes. It’s a huge challenge to try to figure this out.”

And why is all this research so valuable?

Tulin says “We can use space as a laboratory for understanding the fundamental properties of nature.”

Smith explains “I’m motivated to share what I learn with students and the public. Helping them feel that wonder and amazement energizes me to learn and share more, do more research.”

Daly elaborates “Space exploration helps us to put ourselves in context in the universe. We’re part of something much bigger than Earth. And if we don’t explore space, I think we lose some of our basic humanity.”

Moores agrees. “By studying ancient environments on other planets we are able to get a better idea of how life originated on our own world, and how our own planetary systems, such as the climate, will change over time. This new knowledge about these wonders will expand our conception of what’s possible and how we fit into this vast cosmic dance.”

To learn more about Daly, visit his . For more on Tulin, see his . To learn about Smith’s work, visit his . For more on Moores, visit his .

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, follow us at ; watch our new , which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the snapshot infographic, a glimpse of the year’s successes.

Paul Fraumeni is an award-winning freelance writer, who has specialized in covering university research for more than 20 years. To learn more, visit his .

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What other sorts of metrics are out there about him?

Part of the reason for thinking about metrics is that they are central to the way that universities are ranked nowadays, whether that is national rankings like �Ѳ������𲹲�’s magazine, or global rankings like ,��, or . Such rankings are a fact of life for any university researcher and for any university, and these rankings are configured – in one way or another – by metrics including citations counts.

Metrics matter for professorial careers, since they can and do play a major role in hiring and promotion decisions. It’s worthwhile then, thought Birch, to try and understand his own personal citation score and its relationship to his academic career and to the University’s reputation. So, he decided to look at his citation performance and achievements in more depth.

Web of Science, the world’s leading citation index, is the best starting point for this. It covers more than 21,000 journals, 104,000 books, and eight million conference papers according to its . Exploring Web of Science, Birch came across something interesting. Web of Science classifies some publications as “Highly Cited Papers,” representing those publications that “As of May/June 2019 … received enough citations to place it in the top one per cent of the academic field of Social Sciences, general based on a highly cited threshold for the field and publication year.” In order to avoid a range of problems with comparing citations, Web of Science adjusts crude citations by discipline, time since publications, and so on in order to come up with this ranking.

In looking up his own research, Birch discovered that he has three “highly cited papers” according to Web of Science, meaning that all three are among the top one per cent of the world’s most cited social science publications. These articles are:

1. Birch, K. (2017) ,��Science, Technology and Human Values 42(3): 460-490.
2. Birch, K. and Tyfield, D. (2013) ,��Science, Technology and Human Values 38(3): 299-327.
3. MacKinnon, D., Cumbers, A., Pike, A., Birch, K. and McMaster, R. (2009) ,��Economic Geography 85(2): 129-150.

According to Web of Science, 91��ɫ has a total of 289 “highly cited papers” by current – and sometimes past – researchers, although they are distributed unevenly across the University. For example, as far as Birch could discern from the Web of Science database, there are another two “highly cited papers” by current researchers in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies:

1. Martin, A., Myers, N. and Viseu, A. (2015) ,��Social Studies of Science 45(5): 625-641.
2. Lileeva, A. and Trefler, D. (2010) ,��The Quarterly Journal of Economics 125(3): 1051-1099.

“It’s obviously great to find out that your work is in the top one per cent of the world’s research,” said Birch in light of these findings, “and it’s gratifying to be recognized by Web of Science like this. I’m only 42, so hopefully I’ll be able to produce a few more influential pieces over the rest of my career.”

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The purpose of the research was to determine if young children can suppress their visual surroundings when attempting to inspect a specific detail in front of them (i.e. to recognize if someone is wearing a hat, do human brains have the innate ability to suppress other details of the person like hair colour) or if this ability develops over time.

The study, “Development of spatial suppression surrounding the focus of visual attention,” was published in the  and was conducted by an interdisciplinary research team including Department of Psychology PhD student Audrey Wong-Kee-You and her primary supervisor, Professor . Lassonde Professor , from the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, also collaborated on the research.

A main component of the research involved a study held at the Ontario Science Centre with 400 kids participating, designed and conducted by Wong-Kee-You. She concluded that this quality to suppress irrelevant visual details when having to focus on other specific details only develops by 16 to 18 years of age and is, in fact, not an innate characteristic of the human brain.

The research can be applied in countless ways, such as informing educational practices by enabling educators to better align teaching methods and educational requirements to age-appropriate attentional skills or influencing how environments for children are designed.

In the future we may be better equipped to recognize difficulties in children and determine how to best deal with them to improve their visual function, said researchers.

This is also a revelation for those in the field of machine learning, as the principles of machine learning theory are built on the idea that one need only feed an artificial brain with sufficient data. These results show that the human brain takes years to develop and does so while it learns about its world.

This insight from human visual development suggests that a different approach to machine learning and artificial intelligence is needed if it is to truly behave as humans do.

The interdisciplinary nature of this research is a key part of its success.

“I had spent a good portion of my PhD reading and learning about descriptive models of visual attention, but meeting John [Tsotsos] and working on this project gave me the opportunity to familiarize myself with his computational theory, the selective tuning model of attention,” said Wong-Kee-You. “This gave me a different perspective and allowed me to consider the strengths of theories with an algorithmic mechanism.”

Courtesy of YFile

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Born from the popular  of the same name,�� serves as a time capsule of Toronto’s most iconic concert moments.

From Duke Ellington and David Bowie to Daft Punk, Toronto has played host to many musical legends, solidifying its place as a major music destination both nationally and globally.

Featuring a foreword by Rush’s Geddy Lee,��The Flyer Vault runs the gamut of musical genres – from vaudeville to techno and everything in between – using co-author Daniel Tate’s extensive collection of concert posters and flyers to illustrate the breadth of Toronto’s musical history.

Complementing the stunning visuals are stories highlighting iconic moments in the city’s legendary music venues, including the Horseshoe Tavern, Massey Hall, the Rock Pile, the Edge and many more.

Bowman is a Grammy Award winner who has been writing about music for more than 40 years. His book Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.

Tate worked in the concert industry for several years before starting The Flyer Vault project on Instagram in 2015. His efforts to chronicle Toronto’s live music history have been featured in the Globe and Mail,��NOW,��Vice and BlogTO.

“These pages will take you on a musical, magical mystery tour of Toronto’s important place in concert history,” said 91��ɫ grad Dan Kanter (BFA ’07), a multiplatinum songwriter and producer, about the book. “Reading The Flyer Vault creates a rush just like the one you get when the house lights go down.”

Concert promoter and producer Gary Topp offered an equally glowing review: “I’m not sure there’s ever been anything like this…. The graphics are fascinating, the script is comprehensive. It’s staggering what’s been unleashed from the Vault.”

The Flyer Vault is now available for purchase .

Courtesy of YFile

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There have been new and improved updates to the guide and applications for  and for .

Previously, deadlines have been rolling, there are now set deadlines quarterly throughout the calendar year. Be sure to check out the  for more information.

Courtesy of YFIle

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