An investment of $2.1 million, , will fund transformative work examining history, human behaviour, digital technologies and critical infrastructure to better understand and improve well-being, equity and resilience across Canada.

The CRC program bolster research excellence and advances the development of knowledge that benefits society, the economy and the environment.

"Canada Research Chairs drive new knowledge that strengthens Canada鈥檚 global competitiveness and addresses real-world challenges," says Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. "Across 91亚色, this research reflects a commitment to tackling complex issues 鈥� from advancing Indigenous knowledge and addressing addiction, to shaping the future of AI and strengthening critical infrastructure 鈥� in ways that deliver tangible benefits for communities in Canada and beyond."

Alan Corbiere 鈥� Canada Research Chair in Indigenous History of North America (Tier 2, renewal)
Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

An assistant professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of History, Corbiere鈥檚 research focuses on Anishinaabe language, oral traditions and material culture.

Corbiere uses approaches such as the study of treaty negotiations and wampum belts to challenge and reshape historical narratives while supporting the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge and culture.

Matthew Keough 鈥� Canada Research Chair in Addiction Vulnerability (Tier 2)
Faculty of Health

Keough is an associate professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Psychology, a clinical psychologist and a senior scientist with Homewood Research Institute. He studies the causes of addictive behaviours and develops evidence鈥慴ased treatments with a focus on heavy drinking, cannabis use, concurrent disorders and digital interventions for young adults.

Keough also received $100,000 through the Canada Foundation for Innovation鈥檚 which supports research infrastructure projects through its partnership with the CRC program.

Jennifer Pybus 鈥� Canada Research Chair in Data, Empowerment and Artificial Intelligence (Tier 2, renewal)
Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

Associate professor in the Department of Politics and director of the Centre for Public AI, Pybus studies how social media, mobile platforms and AI use personal data.

Her focus is on strengthening data literacy, supporting informed public debate and examining issues of digital sovereignty and data governance in Canada.

Pirathayini Srikantha 鈥� Canada Research Chair in Reliable and Secure Power Grid Systems (Tier 2, renewal)

Srikantha, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, develops AI鈥慸riven and transactive energy solutions.

The aim of her research is to improve the reliability, security and resilience of electrical power grids and support the design of trustworthy energy systems.

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The initiative, led by Stephanie Gora, assistant professor at the , received $250,000 from the Government of Canada鈥檚 New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) . The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) program supports bold, interdisciplinary research that tests new ideas and aims for real鈥憌orld impact.

Gora鈥檚 project focuses on drinking water quality in multi鈥憉nit rental housing, where water safety is impacted by the actions of water utilities, tenants, landlords/building owners and regulators.

鈥淭his funding gives us the freedom to step back and take a 鈥榩roblem-first鈥� approach to understanding and improving water safety in rental housing that prioritizes the lived experiences of tenants, as well as building owners and management,鈥� says Gora. 鈥淭he goal is to co-develop technologies and frameworks that address the real barriers to safe water in rental housing."

While Canada has invested heavily in protecting drinking water, quality of water from the tap 鈥� particularly in rental buildings 鈥� remains difficult to assess and address, she adds.

Expertise in engineering, housing and urban planning will come together to examine both the technical and social dimensions of water quality. Gora is joined by co鈥憄rincipal investigator Katherine Perrott (University of Waterloo) and co鈥慳pplicants Judy Duncan (ACORN Canada), Liam Butler and Razieh Salahandish (91亚色), along with Brian Doucet (University of Waterloo) for the project, titled 鈥溾�楥an I drink the tap water?鈥� An interdisciplinary action framework for water quality assurance in multi鈥憉nit rental housing.鈥�

According to Gora, research and policy following the 2000 Walkerton water crisis focused primarily on protecting municipal sources, treatment plants and distribution systems. However, conditions within buildings are a separate risk where aging plumbing, construction materials and maintenance practices can significantly affect water quality by the time it reaches residents鈥� taps.

These challenges are particularly pronounced in rental housing, where tenants have limited control over infrastructure and limited access to information.

Multi鈥憉nit buildings constructed before 1960 are more likely to contain lead-bearing plumbing components and lead solder, but water quality issues are not limited to older housing stock. Newer and high鈥憆ise buildings can also experience problems related to water stagnation and interactions between the water and materials used for plumbing.

In January 2024, more than 200 tenants were evacuated from a newly built student apartment building in Hamilton, Ont., due to poor water quality, highlighting the scope of the issue.

The 91亚色鈥憀ed project responds to these gaps by integrating scientific testing with lived experience.

Researchers will begin by testing water samples and interviewing tenants, building owners or managers to understand how water quality issues arise and how they are handled in real-world settings. The team will test how point-of-use and distributed water quality sensors monitor water safety in real time.

The findings will help the team develop a data-driven water safety framework for multi-unit rental buildings using an approach that considers social, environmental and economic impacts while encouraging collaboration among sector partners to clarify shared responsibilities.

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Everyday actions such as reaching for a cup or typing on a keyboard, rely on constant feed back from the brain. It monitors how each movement was executed and makes small refinements as needed. If a hand lands slightly off target, for example, that error is used to improve the next attempt.

Researchers distinguish between two ways the brain's neural activity updates these movements. Sometimes it fine鈥憈unes an existing skill, making small, automatic adjustments 鈥� like when a baseball pitcher corrects their aim after a missed throw. Other times, it must develop a new way of moving altogether, especially when familiar patterns no longer work, such as when moving a computer mouse with your hand one way makes the on-screen cursor move in the opposite direction.

Research led by PhD candidate Raphael Gastrock, supervised by Professor Denise Henriques and research associate Bernard Marius 鈥檛鈥疕art, examines what happens in neural systems when the brain responds to these two forms of learning. Published in , the study compares how the brain responds to errors when refining an existing skill (motor adaptation) versus learning a new one (de novo learning).

鈥淲e wanted to explore how the brain processes errors across these two forms of learning,鈥� Gastrock says. 鈥淎lthough previous research has identified brain signals linked to adapting movements, no studies have directly compared those signals between adaptation and acquiring a completely new way of moving. With this work, we aimed to address that gap.鈥�

To test this, participants completed simple "reaching" tasks using a stylus to move a cursor toward a target on a screen. After establishing how participants moved under normal conditions, researchers altered the visual feedback to compare the two types of learning.

In one case, the cursor was slightly rotated, requiring participants to adjust their aim, representing 鈥渁daptation鈥� learning, where neural systems gradually tweak an existing motion. The other scenario flipped the display like a mirror, meaning left and right were reversed, presenting the more demanding "type of skill "de novo" learning, where the brain creates a new plan to adapt to the movement.

Researchers recorded neural activity using electroencephalography, or EEG, to track how the brain prepared each movement and how it responded after participants saw the result. They found when participants adjusted to the rotated display, their neural activity changed as they improved, suggesting the brain gradually learns how to correct the action. As their aim got better, their responses to errors also became smaller, showing the task was becoming more predictable.

The mirror reversal showed a different pattern, however. Although participants movements improved, their neural activity changed very little, suggesting they had to actively think through each motion instead of relying on automatic adjustments.

Together, the findings point to a simple idea: the brain uses different approaches depending on the kind of problem it faces. When errors are consistent and predictable, it can fine鈥憈une movements automatically; however, when the task requires a new set of rules, it depends more on deliberate, effortful strategies.

This distinction may help explain why some skills are easier to learn 鈥� or relearn 鈥� than others.

鈥淢otor learning plays a central role in everyday activities, from acquiring new skills to recovering function after injury,鈥� Gastrock says. That recovery process is one area where the team鈥檚 findings could have real鈥憌orld impact.

The findings could be especially relevant for physical rehabilitation, where repeated practice and feedback are used to help people regain movement. Understanding when the brain can refine automatically versus when it requires more more cognitively demanding and effortful adaptation, could help design more effective programs.

鈥淏y better understanding the mechanisms behind it, we may be able to improve training and rehabilitation strategies,鈥� he adds.

The researchers describe the work as an early step, but one that helps clarify how the brain handles different kinds of learning 鈥� and area that has been rarely examined side by side. The dataset has also been made publicly available to support further research.

By showing that human鈥檚 neural systems use distinct processes to fine鈥憈une actions or build new ones, the study offers a clearer framework for understanding how people gain and regain skills.

鈥淚n the long term, I hope findings from these types of studies can help inform rehabilitation approaches, educational strategies and skill training,鈥� Gastrock says.

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For decades, bird flu, a virus that affects avian species鈥� respiratory and digestive systems, has been treated as a problem related to poultry farms and migratory birds, says Moyles. In recent years, however, it has spread beyond those boundaries, appearing in mammals, infecting dairy cattle and, in some cases, humans.

That shift requires better understanding of how the virus is evolving and circulating. 鈥淎vian influenza needs to be monitored carefully, as its ability to adapt and move between species raises concerns about its outbreak potential,鈥� says Moyles, who teaches in the Faculty of Science's Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

As with other infectious diseases, researchers rely on mathematical models to explore how bird flu might spread in situations that are difficult 鈥� or impossible 鈥� to observe directly, including rare spillover events where the virus jumps from one species to another.

These frameworks help decision-makers estimate how quickly a virus spreads, which species are most at risk and how effective control measures might be. Their accuracy can directly shape how outbreaks are monitored and managed. While bird flu is not currently transferring easily between people, its growing ability to infect a wider range of animals has raised concerns that it could increase risk for humans.

Moyles and his collaborators, however, noted that as bird flu was identified in new species, including dairy cattle in 2024, there had been little review on whether existing models capture emerging risks.

鈥淭his prompted us to perform a modern systematic review of mathematical modelling literature related to avian influenza to identify gaps,鈥� says Moyles about the work now published in .

The research team examined 30 peer鈥憆eviewed studies published between 2023 and mid鈥�2025 on how bird flu spreads to assess whether current approaches reflect how the virus behaves today. The work was grounded in a 鈥淥ne Health鈥� perspective, which looks at connections between human, animal and environmental health.

What they found is most frameworks rely on a single, dominant approach. Nearly 90 per cent of the studies used compartmental models, which group populations into simple categories 鈥� for example, those who can catch the virus, those who are infected and those who have recovered. These models are relatively straightforward to work with and are often used to estimate whether an outbreak is likely to grow or fade.

The problem, researchers say, is many of these models are still based on earlier assumptions about how bird flu spreads, when infections were largely confined to wild birds and poultry. Since 2023, the virus has presented widely in birds, been detected in dozens of mammal species and, notably, has affected dairy cattle. Human infections remain rare, but are increasingly linked to contact with livestock. Despite this shift, most models overlook livestock almost entirely, limiting how well they capture bird flu transmission data and related emerging risks.

Studies using agent-based models, which simulate how individual animals or farms interact, and network models, which map how connections like trade or movement spread disease, was far less common. While these approaches can better capture real-world complexity, such as how poultry movements or farm networks influence transmission, they also require more detailed data and computing power.

The review also found broader gaps in how these models are built and tested. Many rely on assumptions or data from older studies, rather than being grounded in current outbreaks. Important features of the virus 鈥� such as how long it incubates, how immunity works or how it persists in the environment 鈥� are often simplified. Perhaps most striking, notes Moyles, is that very few models are tested against real-world data. Only two of the 30 studies compared predictions with actual outbreaks, raising questions about how reliable the methods for predicting virus behaviour is.

Models that leave out livestock, oversimplify immunity or fail to incorporate real evidence may give a false sense of certainty, especially when used to guide policy in fast鈥憁oving outbreaks where the virus behaves differently than in the past.

鈥淎 lack of understanding of the multi-host transmission and spillover of avian influenza creates gaps in surveillance capabilities,鈥� says Moyles.

To address this, the researchers recommend a shift toward more biologically grounded and data-driven modelling by accounting for livestock, incorporating data on how immunity works, including antibody responses and testing model predictions against real-world outbreaks. They also suggest using multiple approaches together, rather than relying on a single forecast, and call for better surveillance data and greater transparency in how models are built and reported.

鈥淲e hope that this review will motivate more One Health mathematical modelling studies and the collection and use of data that support them. This will improve the ability to design meaningful intervention strategies,鈥� says Moyles. 鈥淚n the long term, the goal is to develop models that better capture spillover risk, including early warning signs of the virus emerging in new species and its potential to cause outbreaks.鈥�

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Michael Davies鈥慥enn, a Faculty of Graduate Studies student in the Global Health graduate program, joins the Expert Group on Equitable Access to Water and Sanitation led by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

The three鈥憏ear appointment highlights the impact of 91亚色 researchers in addressing complex global health and environmental challenges.

The group brings together researchers, policymakers and practitioners and began its work earlier this year to guide the implementation of the World Health Organization鈥檚 Protocol on Water and Health. Its focus is on identifying marginalized populations and supporting their meaningful engagement in water and sanitation decision making.

Davies鈥慥enn鈥檚 research synthesizes Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 鈥� Clean Water and Sanitation, equity, global health and environmental governance. His work examines how water insecurity and climate events, such as floods and drought, influence the risk of infectious diseases, including malaria, cholera and West Nile virus.

鈥淪everal diseases linked to climate change impacts relate to the excess or absence of water,鈥� Davies鈥慥enn says. 鈥淭his suggests water is a key driver of climate鈥憆elated health outcomes.鈥�

In his fieldwork, Davies-Venn focuses on basin鈥慳rea communities along the Orange鈥慡enqu River basin in Southern Africa, a transboundary freshwater resource that supports approximately 20 million people across Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and South Africa. Through participatory research, he studies how environmental and social factors shape disease risk.

鈥淚t is reasonable to argue that human life is impossible without fresh water,鈥� he says. 鈥淵et inequities in access to drinking water persist.鈥�

In some river鈥慴asin communities, open defecation remains common due to limited access to sanitation services which increases the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera.

鈥淪ome people use the river as a latrine, while others collect water from the same river for domestic use, including drinking,鈥� Davies鈥慥enn says. 鈥淥pen defecation is a serious problem and cholera remains a global challenge. Research also links cholera outbreaks to floods and drought.鈥�

For Davies鈥慥enn, the work is both academic and personal. Having spent his childhood in similar conditions, and surviving malaria, gives him first-hand insight into the challenges these communities face.

Those experiences inform his commitment to global health solutions and his passion to make a difference.

鈥淚f, through working with basin communities, I raise awareness that contributes to saving even one child from cholera, that contribution to science and humanity will give meaning to my life and work,鈥� he says.

A member of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, Davies-Venn's research is supervised by Associate Professor Godfred Boateng (), Professor Idil Boran (Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies) and Professor Philipp Pattberg (Vrije University-Amsterdam). In addition to his doctoral committee's guidance, he credits 91亚色 for fostering a collaborative environment that supports interdisciplinary research, helping him bridge his background in environmental governance with public health.

He is completing his doctorate through a cotutelle arrangement between 91亚色 and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, an international partnership that reflects 91亚色鈥檚 commitment to global research collaboration.

Through his work in the expert group, he hopes that by empowering vulnerable populations, and recognizing broader societal failures, critical improvements in equitable access to water and sanitation will lead to healthier communities.

"Micheal鈥檚 appointment reflects the type of globally engaged, interdisciplinary scholarship 91亚色 is cultivating," says Amrita Daftary, professor and graduate program director at the School of Global Health. "Grounded in equity and shaped by lived experience, his work demonstrates how graduate research can contribute to meaningful change beyond the University and Canada."

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Calvin Lakhan, project director of 91亚色's Circular Innovation Hub, was mentioned in The Washington Times May 14.

91亚色 was mentioned in CNW Group May 13.

Mark Winfield, associate professor at 91亚色, was quoted in Prince Albert Daily Herald May 13 and May 14.

91亚色 was mentioned on GBCGhanaOnline.com May 13.

Gerard Naddaf, emeritus professor at 91亚色, contributed to the Cape Breton Post May 14.

Natalie Braun, PhD candidate at 91亚色, co-authored a piece in The Conversation May 12.

See more ways 91亚色 is making headlines at聽News @ 91亚色.

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Since joining 91亚色 in 2018, the Freud Lab 鈥� led by Associate Professor Erez Freud and in collaboration with the Department of Psychology and the Centre for Vision Research 鈥� has focused on how the brain supports object recognition and interaction. Drawing on neuroimaging, neuropsychological research, developmental studies and motion鈥憈racking technology, the group explores how people perceive the world and act within it.

In recent years, the lab has focused on autism, using movement and perception to better understand how people with autism engage with their surroundings.

Over the last six years, the Freud Lab has collaborated with the University of Haifa to collect detailed motion data from autistic participants, using motion鈥憈racking cameras and machine鈥憀earning tools. Among the group鈥檚 successes was a 2025 study that drew wide attention for showing that differences in how grasping and moving objects could be used to distinguish participants with and without autism with a high degree of accuracy.

That work now serves as a foundation for the lab鈥檚 next phase as it is expanding how, where and with whom its data is collected. 鈥淭he idea is to try to expand and to reach out to different educational and clinical institutions in order to help us reach more children and young adults with autism,鈥� Freud says.

Through new clinical鈥� and community鈥慴ased collaborations, the goal is to extend the lab鈥檚 autism studies beyond a single context, while also increasing the number and diversity of participants involved. In doing so, it can broaden both the scope of the data and the questions it can help answer.

Among those efforts is a new collaboration with Autism Therapy & Training, a Vaughan鈥慴ased clinic that works directly with children with autism and their families. It has also partnered with the Summit Center for Education, Research and Training based at Montreal鈥檚 Summit School in Ville Saint鈥慙aurent, a multidisciplinary centre serving more than 600 neurodivergent learners between the ages of five and 21.

Working in clinical and educational settings allows the Freud Lab to study autism in ways that more closely reflect everyday life. Places like Autism Therapy & Training and the Summit School are not controlled study environments, but active spaces where children learn, play and receive support as part of their daily routines.

For researchers, that means observing behaviour as it naturally unfolds in classrooms, therapy rooms and shared activities. Freud and his team are pursuing this work through the use of advanced technologies, in service of a central question that runs through the lab鈥檚 efforts: why people with autism often move differently and what those differences reflect at a neural level.

Previously, much of the group鈥檚 work relied on tightly controlled experiments that required participants to perform specific, constrained motions 鈥� often with tracking markers attached to their fingers. Now, the lab is turning to a tool called Athena, a marker鈥慺ree motion鈥憈racking system developed in collaboration with Jonathan Michaels, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Health.

Athena uses a synchronized array of multiple video cameras to capture motor behaviour from multiple angles at once. Those video streams are aligned in time and analyzed using machine鈥憀earning methods that identify and label different parts of the body, allowing researchers to track and quantify motion in three鈥慸imensional space. For the Freud Lab, that makes it possible to measure how participants move 鈥� such as which hand they use, how quickly and efficiently they complete tasks and how consistent their movements are 鈥� without constraining natural behaviour.

The approach makes it well-suited for work with children with autism; it allows them to engage in familiar, low鈥憄ressure activities, like building Lego models, while the system quietly records information about how they move.

For Freud, these everyday interactions offer enhanced insights into behaviour and lead to more meaningful questions about autism. 鈥淭he goal,鈥� Freud says, 鈥渋s to try and understand what is different about the autistic brain and the autistic representations.鈥�

The findings also point toward a more applied objective: identifying reliable motor patterns that could be used to develop more objective tools for earlier identification. 鈥淚n autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, we know that early treatment and early intervention are crucially important,鈥� he says, noting that earlier identification can help ensure support is provided at a stage when development is more flexible and interventions may have greater impact.

For Freud, that applied focus is central to his research and reflects an ongoing concern with how scientific work might translate beyond the lab 鈥� how insights about perception, movement and the brain can ultimately help people with autism, their families and the professionals who support them.

鈥淚 see my role as a cognitive neuroscientist as fundamentally about understanding the human mind and brain and how that can meaningfully promote the well鈥慴eing of a broader community,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen it comes to working with individuals with autism and their families, that responsibility feels especially significant.鈥�

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This award, presented by Fairtrade Canada during the National Fair Trade Conference, marks 91亚色鈥檚 first time receiving the honour. The recognition builds on the University鈥檚 Silver Fair Trade Campus designation which it has held over the past two years and reflects its sustained leadership in embedding fair trade principles into everyday campus life.

91亚色 was recognized for its 鈥淔air Trade, Every Day鈥� approach, which has expanded the availability of fair trade-certified products across the University. As a result, tens of thousands of products are purchased each year, increasing access for the campus community while supporting ethical supply chains.

Fair trade-certified products 鈥� such as chocolate, coffee, tea and bananas 鈥� are available at various YU Eats locations including Stong College, Winters College, Central Square (Keele Campus) and Glendon Campus. The initiative also extends to apparel, with the 91亚色 Bookstore offering certified fair-trade T-shirts and hoodies through a partnership with Green Campus Co-op, a student- and faculty-founded organization established in 2011.

The award also acknowledges 91亚色鈥檚 broader leadership role in the sector. By hosting the National Fair Trade Conference in 2025 and maintaining an active presence in national conversations about fair trade in higher education, 91亚色 has become a hub for learning and collaboration.

91亚色 staff are frequently called on to share expertise on advancing fair trade in higher education. Sasa Netsorovic, director, Bookstore, printing and mailing services at 91亚色, recently shared insights on how campuses can translate fair trade values through procurement decisions, community partnerships and student engagement, drawing on 91亚色鈥檚 鈥淔air Trade, Every Day鈥� approach.

Nicole Arsenault, director of sustainability, says the award 鈥渞eflects years of dedicated work by students, faculty and staff who have championed fair trade and embedded it into campus culture.鈥�

These efforts, she adds, support the United Nations鈥� Sustainable Development Goals.

With national recognition as Fair Trade Campus of the Year, 91亚色 continues to demonstrate how institutional commitment and community-driven action can create meaningful change.

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