“I warmly welcome our most recent cohort of SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellows to 91��ɫ and congratulate them on being awarded this prestigious fellowship,” said Barbara Crow, FGS dean. “I wish them the very best over the next two years and am excited to follow the research projects they will be undertaking here.

“Our postdocs make an incredibly important contribution to 91��ɫ’s research culture,” said Crow. “The innovative quality and tremendous social significance of these postdoctoral projects speaks to the importance of 91��ɫ’s postdoctoral research to our strategic research priorities.”

Joining FGS are Nadège Compaoré, Christopher Little, Barbara Swanson, Megan Lowthers, Adrienne Johnson and Mitchell Akiyama.

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowships support promising Canadian new scholars in the social sciences and humanities, and assist them in establishing a research base at an important time in their research careers. Postdoctoral researchers in general are a critical element of 91��ɫ’s goal of research intensification. The six new postdoctoral fellows and their research build on and enhance the interdisciplinary work underway at 91��ɫ. They are affiliated with a breadth of research topics and units, including: social science and anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS); the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES); visual art and art history in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), and the Sensorium and the Centre for Refugee Studies research centres.

Nadège Compaoré

Nadège Compaoré is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social Science (LA&PS), and is supervised by Assistant Professor Uwafiokun Idemudia. Compaoré holds a PhD in political studies from Queen’s University, where her research was funded by SSHRC, by the Center for International Governance Innovation and the Canadian International Development Agency. Her current research project at 91��ɫ, titled “Re-negotiating Mining Laws and State Regulation in Ghana, Guinea and Mali: Implications for the Mining-Development Nexus in Africa,” investigates the changing nature of mining legislations in West Africa, as well as the implications of these changes for corporate and state behaviour in host countries. Compaoré is co-editor of New Approaches to the Governance of Natural Resources: Insights from Africa (with J.A. Grant and M.I Mitchell, Palgrave 2014).

Christopher Little is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology (LA&PS), and is supervised by Associate Professor Shubhra Gururani. Little’s project, titled “Towards the livable city: urban transformation, aesthetics, and social life in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea,” considers the growing importance Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, and the conflicts over access to the city and urban public space. His research interests include cities, education, gender, and youth and children. His long-term ethnographic research has been conducted in the Pacific Island state of Papua New Guinea. Little’s dissertation research was a study of young, uneducated men attempting to make their lives in urban Papua New Guinea through activities such as crime, sports and informal street selling. Papua New Guinea remains one of the least urbanized countries in the world, yet cities have taken on a great importance to many and, as a result, urban areas are rapidly expanding.

Barbara Swanson

Barbara Swanson is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Visual Art & Art History (AMPD). Her project, titled “Painting the Concerto delle donne: Female Vocal Virtuosity and Musical Bodies in Italian Renaissance Art,” focuses on the rise of the professional virtuoso female singer in late 16th-century Italy. Swanson examines the impact of this phenomenon on Renaissance visual culture to demonstrate the significant role of professional female musicians in defining musical and painterly expression within the Renaissance. Her work contributes to a growing transdisciplinary dialogue on arts in the Renaissance and will benefit from the expertise of faculty at 91��ɫ including, in particular, the work of her supervisor Associate Professor Leslie Korrick, who has published significant research on art and music in Renaissance Italy. Swanson will also work with the Regent Park School of Music while at 91��ɫ thanks to relationships facilitated by 91��ɫ’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit. She will be researching and documenting the school’s music programs for youth in the Jane and Finch community.

Megan Lowthers is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with the Centre for Refugee Studies at 91��ɫ, where she is supervised by Professor Wenona Giles. She received her PhD in anthropology and migration and ethnic relations from Western University. Lowthers’ research focuses on migration and sexual-economic exchange in Africa and her SSHRC postdoctoral project is titled: “Sex Workers’ Experiences of Displacement, Human Rights, and ICTs in Kenya’s IDP Camps.” Lowthers will conduct research at a number of camps and resettlement projects in the Great Rift Valley, exploring female sex workers’ experiences of internal displacement and how they exercise agency by using information and communication technologies, especially mobile phones, to mitigate vulnerability to sexual and gender-based violence and also mediate access to basic human rights.

Adrienne Johnson

Adrienne Johnson is affiliated with FES and host supervisor Associate Professor Anna Zalik. Her project, titled “Governing North of 51: The Political Ecologies of the Subsoil in the Ring of Fire Region,” examines how various stakeholders’ knowledge from different groups in northern Ontario such as First Nations Peoples, industry interests, government representatives and local politicians come together via policy institutions to shape the mining future of the Ring of Fire region — a remote area containing up to $60 billion of chromite in the James Bay lowlands. Johnson’s project has implications for the types of resource development practices that are sanctioned in the region, amid government commitments to climate change and conservation priorities, as well as commitments to operationalize more inclusive forms of resource development.

Mitchell Akiyama is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with Sensorium, a research centre in AMPD that supports cross-disciplinary work in digital media arts. Akiyama is supervised by Professor Janine Marchessault. Akiyama completed his PhD at McGill University in communications and his current research project is titled "Metaphorical Media: A Natural History of Sonic Reproduction." He is concerned with the relationship between media technologies and the metaphors that both preempt their existence and explain their places in the world. A composer, artist and scholar, he has released 10 records on such labels as Raster Noton, Sub Rosa, and Alien8 in addition to works on his own imprint, Intr.version Records, and has scored and contributed music to many films and dance performances. His doctoral research examined “field recording” across a variety of disciplines, from biology to folklore to sound art. He has published on numerous subjects, from sound art to urban ecology in journals and magazines including, Leonardo Music Journal, The Canadian Journal of Communications, Canadian Art Review (RACAR), Offscreen, Locus Suspectus and Matrix. A book chapter titled “The Recording that Never Wanted to be Heard’ and Other Stories of Sonification,” co-written with Jonathan Sterne, was recently published in the Oxford Handbook to Sound Studies.

The post New faces: Six new postdoctoral fellows join the Faculty of Graduate Studies appeared first on Research & Innovation.

On Monday, Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science & technology) announced the significant investment by the Government of Canada in basic research and research training in the social sciences and humanities.

Gary Goodyear

“We are very pleased with SSHRC’s investment to support the work of 91��ɫ’s researchers in the Social Sciences & Humanities,” said, Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “This funding allows our researchers to grow and strengthen their innovative research programs while contributing to Canada’s knowledge base.”

Thirty-two 91��ɫ faculty members received more than $3.8 million to fund their research projects through SSHRC’s Insight Grants and programs.�� In the Insight Grants competition, 91��ɫ enjoyed an exceptional 39 per cent success rate, which is 12 per cent higher than the national success rate for the competition.��

Robert Haché

The funding was granted for research covering a wide range of topics, including:��

• Institutional changes and adaptive search behaviour of business groups in developing economies
• Industrialization, human capital and democracy
• Teaching for mathematical understanding: The potential of 'folding back' as a pedagogical tool
• Second generation success and marginalization: the impacts of race, gender and place on employment and social mobility
• Multilingualism and ethnic identity: An international perspective
• The roles of lead banks and institutional investors in secondary loan sales
• Modernist Literary Musics

Graduate students and doctoral fellows benefited from the announcements as well: ��167 91��ɫ master’s and doctoral students have won more than $5.8 million in scholarships and fellowships.��More than 2,400 graduate and postdoctoral projects across Canada received funding.��

“Canada’s position as a world leader in research excellence leads to discoveries, innovations and advanced skills that drive job creation and opportunities in the knowledge economy,” said Goodyear. “Through Economic Action Plan 2012, our government provided additional resources to support advanced research at universities and other leading research institutions, which will build on previous investments to further strengthen Canada’s research advantage.”

“This research is the key to innovation and to building knowledge for Canada’s future,” said Chad Gaffield, president of SSHRC. “Through this funding support, we are generating insights and developing innovative solutions for today’s social, economic and cultural issues, while training the next generation of researchers and leaders.”

A complete list of SSHRC-funded projects is available on the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post SSHRC awards more than $9.7 million to 91��ɫ researchers appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“On behalf of the 91��ɫ research community, I am very pleased by this announcement,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “NSERC’s investment in science, engineering and technological research reflects the exceptional quality of the research activities undertaken by 91��ɫ’s researchers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Our growing success in NSERC grant competitions allows our researchers to continue to grow and strengthen their innovative research programs across these disciplines from a base of excellence.”

Scientists, engineers and students at universities across the country will receive more than $410 million in grants and scholarships over terms ranging from one to five years. ��These awards comprise the 2012 competition results for NSERC’s Discovery Grants, Discovery Accelerator Supplements, Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships, NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships and Postdoctoral Fellowships Programs.

Forty-nine 91��ɫ researchers received funding in the Discovery Grants Competition, securing $6,086,000 in funding – a success rate of 71 per cent – highlighting the strength of University research programs in the science and engineering disciplines.

In the Discovery Grants and Discovery Accelerator Supplements Competition, the funding was granted for research programs covering a wide range of topics, including:

• Experiments in the atmospheres of Mars and Earth
• Structural and functional imaging of the human thalamus
• The role of electrical synapses in vision
• The development and application of dynamic smart surfaces
• Thoracic and lumbar spine biomechanics
• Development and application of mass spectrometry imaging to biological models

91��ɫ researchers were also awarded $601,733 in funding in the Research Tools & Instruments competition.

"Our government's top priority is jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. To remain at the forefront of the global economy, our government is investing in the people and ideas that will produce tomorrow's breakthroughs," said Gary Goodyear, federal minister of state for science and technology. "Through these investments, we are creating the best-educated and most skilled workforce in the world."

"Through these programs, NSERC provides direct support to an exceptionally strong base of scientific and creative talent in every field of the natural sciences and engineering," said Suzanne Fortier, NSERC president. "Our scholarships and fellowships programs help us recruit and retain the bright young minds that will lead the next generation of Canadian discoverers and innovators. The flexibility and broad base of research supported by our internationally recognized Discovery Grants Program maintains our capacity to promote important breakthroughs."

The Discovery Grants Program supports ongoing programs of research in every scientific and engineering discipline. Valued at $120,000 over three years, Discovery Accelerator Supplements are awarded to researchers whose research proposals suggest and explore high-risk, novel or potentially transformative concepts and lines of inquiry, and are likely to have impact by contributing to groundbreaking advances in the proposed areas of research.

Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) grants foster and enhance the discovery, innovation and training capability of university researchers in the natural sciences and engineering by supporting the purchase of research equipment and installations.

The NSERC scholarships and fellowships awards announced Wednesday − comprised of the Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships, NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships and Postdoctoral Fellowships −��offer support at the master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral levels.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post 91��ɫ researchers awarded $7 million by NSERC appeared first on Research & Innovation.

91��ɫ Professors Natasha Myers and Thilo Womelsdorf have been awarded $100,000 each in funding under the Ontario government’s Early Researcher Awards program. ��

Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development��& Innovation announced the awards Monday. ��91��ɫ’s research investment of $50,000 will match the funds for the award.

The program helps promising, recently appointed Ontario researchers build research teams of undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research associates and technicians. The goal of the program is to improve Ontario’s ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent. Ontario’s Early Researcher Awards investment of $8.68 million will support 62 emerging researchers and their teams at 19 institutions across the province.

Professor , of the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science��& Engineering and member of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Vision Research, is studying how individuals focus their attention on one object, thought or event, while ignoring other external information. ��His research examines the three major regions of the brain that guide and determine selective attention, to find out how they work and interact.����Womelsdorf’s research will identify how networks of brain cells coordinate separable attention information using state-of-the-art technologies and will critically advance hotly-debated, neuro-economic decision making theories.��The research will lead to a better understanding of various diseases that widely affect health, education and the economy of Ontario.

Professor Natasha Myers, of the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, examines how plants are acquiring new status and visibility in our culture. Specifically, she explores the ways that artists and scientists are transforming our everyday assumptions through artworks and experiments that render plants as active, sensing organisms. This ethnographic research with practitioners both in Ontario and at international sites will shed light on the ethical and political significance of these shifts in perception about nonhuman life and the order of things.

“I am most pleased that the Ministry of Research and Economic Development has recognized the achievements of 91��ɫ Professors Natasha Myers and Thilo Womelsdorf, who are actively engaged in conducting globally competitive research in the early stages of their careers,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “Our early career researchers represent the future of research at 91��ɫ and contribute to building Canada’s knowledge-based economy. ��The funding provided by the Ministry will provide these emerging researchers with resources to build their innovative research programs.” ��

“This research work is important to helping us meet our health care challenges while fostering long-term job creation and economic growth,” said Brad Duguid, minister of economic development and innovation.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Two 91��ɫ profs receive Ontario Early Researcher Awards appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The grants, part of $237 million in funding and awards recently announced, span across nine 91��ɫ Faculties and support research that improves the quality of life of Canadians, while advancing knowledge and building understanding of complex socio-cultural and economic issues.

“We are very pleased with ’s investment in humanities and social sciences research to support 91��ɫ’s researchers,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “This funding will allow our researchers to make important contributions to our country’s knowledge base, while addressing key social issues facing Canadian society.”

��

Forty-three faculty members received more than $2.9 million in standard research grants.

Researchers��received more than $1.6 million in insight development grants, public outreach and dissemination grants, and research/creation grants in fine arts to support��fifteen projects.

91��ɫ��received more than $480,000 for research workshops and conferences. In the November competition in this category, SSHRC funded 100 per cent of��fourteen 91��ɫ projects, including:

• Modern Slavery, Human Rights and Human Development
• Museums, Film, Musealization in German culture
• Critical Issues in International Refugee Law Research
• Changing Frontiers of Ecological Knowledge:��A Critical Dialogue of Asian Ecologies on the Edge
• 3-D Cinema
• The Politics of Labour in Canada

At 91��ɫ, 179 graduate students also received more than $5 million in scholarships and fellowships. Altogether 2,500 graduate and postdoctoral projects across Canada received funding.

Eight 91��ɫ researchers also received more than $1.5 million in partnership development grants, which encourage collaboration in social sciences and humanities research. This funding supports national and international partnerships between 91��ɫ and other universities, non-governmental organizations and governments. In this competition, 91��ɫ’s success rate was 17 per cent higher than the national success rate. Seven out of the eight awards were associated with 91��ɫ’s research centres.

“The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of investing in research in order to keep Canada at the forefront of the global economy,” said Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology, in announcing the awards. “We are supporting research that will improve the quality of life of Canadians, while helping our universities develop, attract and retain the world’s best researchers.”

“Social sciences and humanities research is about people – who we are as human beings, what we do and why. By deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, and by sharing that knowledge with government, businesses and communities across the country, our researchers continue to make significant contributions to Canada’s prosperity and our quality of life,” said SSHRC president Chad Gaffield. “Through these investments, we ensure that Canada’s best scholars receive the support they need for their research and that they share their knowledge with those who can put it to use across society.”

Visit the website for a complete list of funded projects.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post 91��ɫ researchers receive more than $11.9 million in SSHRC funding appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Those questions and more��are at��the core of��Making the Scene: 91��ɫville and Hip Toronto in the 1960s, a new book by 91��ɫ postdoctoral fellow published this��month by the University of Toronto Press.

The book examines��the history of Toronto's countercultural mecca, 1960s 91��ɫville. Henderson narrates the development of the 91��ɫville scene from its early coffee house days when it was frequented by��Neil Young and Joni Mitchell��to its drug-fuelled final months.

A cultural historian Henderson is a postdoctoral fellow with the Department of History in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

“I have always found myself drawn to that form of cultural rebellion. I admired the perhaps oversimplified idea of a peace and love movement, and I really loved the music that had been produced from within the ranks of the counterculture,”��says Henderson, a self-professed neo-hippie. “So, when I was thinking about how to approach Canadian cultural history, I just aimed straight at this era [the 1960s] and the people I'd always found to be fascinating.”

Left: Stuart Henderson

The true story of the 91��ɫville scene, says Henderson,��is��about people trying to find a space in which to "perform" a hip identity and stretch the confines that they felt had been imposed on them by society, their parents and other sociopolitical pressures. "They were all looking for something real, something authentic. In their search, they uncovered some pretty amazing stuff and had some really interesting experiences," he says.��"But authenticity is elusive and certainly fleeting. It's all about the journey, not the destination, as it turns out.��A central��point I want people to recognize��is that 91��ɫville was not a 'hippie' place. It was a place that��came to be closely associated with 'hippies'��but people who fit that mold were never the only people hanging around there."

In Making the Scene, Henderson takes a��new look at��the hip mecca and gives a voice to people��not typically heard in the popular stories associated with��91��ɫville –��women, working class youth, business owners and municipal authorities. Members of biker gangs, working class kids (who didn't look much like "hippies", says Henderson), media types, store owners, gallery people, artists and musicians were��the 91��ɫville neighbourhood.��"All of these people were there and few of them would count as 'hippies' in any conventional definition, then or now," he says.

He explores how the 91��ɫville neighbourhood came to be regarded as the symbol of hip Toronto in the cultural imagination. Henderson argues that the popular association of 91��ɫville with the flower power generation was more accurately a close association with��the widespread anxiety in the mid-1960s over the "degeneration" of the middle-class baby boomers into unproductive members of society.

The��expectation of the time was that the working class and racial minorities would be rebellious and problematic, says Henderson. "The fact that these [hippies] were middle-class teenagers from the suburbs who were dropping acid and growing their hair and losing their virginity was��what kept journalists and municipal authorities up at night."

91��ɫville in the 1960s, he says, was always more complicated than the 91��ɫville hippies.

In writing the book, which sprouted from his PhD dissertation, Henderson says there were many memorable experiences. "I got to spend some time with [writer and activist] who was a hero of mine. She was an astoundingly committed philanthropist and activist, and she always positioned herself at the forefront of battles to protect people from a system which had forgotten them," he says. "We spent an afternoon together a few months before she died and I was just so appreciative of her desire to participate in this project at such a late stage of her illness. I'll never forget that when I asked her why she was willing to come talk to a stranger under these circumstances, she just said: 'Oh, well, I trust the process. Write a good book'."

His next project involves a cultural history of the communal residence and alternative education experiment of the era, Rochdale College on Bloor Street. "I am writing a sequel of sorts to the 91��ɫville book. I am working on a book on Rochdale College and what I have termed 'hip separatism' in the 1970s," he says. "While 91��ɫville saw people performing cultural difference right there in the open," he says, "Rochdale remained closed to outsiders and tourists��and��represents a certain retreat from the integrationist, even evangelical, politics of '60s-era hip youth."

Despite his fascination with the 1960s, Henderson says that if he could dine with anyone, dead or alive, his choice would be Canadian artist Tom Thomson. "I have some good buddies who died too young. It'd be nice to see one of them again, but how do you choose? So, I'll be a Canadian cultural historian and say dinner over a campfire with Tom Thomson somewhere in Algonquin Park on a star-filled night. But mostly because I really like camping."

Henderson is on Twitter under the handle .

By Jenny Pitt-Clark, YFile editor

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Postdoctoral fellow Stuart Henderson's book examines the hip scene in 1960s 91��ɫville appeared first on Research & Innovation.