McDermott will use the funds to conduct research on muscle as part of the CIHR’s virtual research institutes, the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health & Arthritis and the Institute of Circulatory & Respiratory Health.

The first award will support McDermott’s research project investigating the function of a gene that regulates skeletal muscle growth. The award will help McDermott build on his present work to understand how the gene known as SMAD7, has the effect of regulating the growth of tissue on muscle cells and whether it fulfills the same function in living animals.

John McDermott

Using motion capture technology with a variety of sensors, the performers in the show will be able to control projections of complex digital animations in real time. A wave of an infrared wand can create twinkling fairy lights or control swarms of shadows, while the movements and expressions of an actor wearing a head-mounted camera will cause a floating, 3D-animated virtual donkey head to follow suit.

Midsummer Nights Dream

“Shakespeare wrote a romantic fantasy full of supernatural illusion and magic,” said Theatre MFA candidate Alison Humphrey, who directs the show. “We’re using the kind of digital special effects normally used in blockbuster movies to bring his fairy magic to life on stage. And since everything happens in real time, driven by the actors, the projected images will breathe, dance and change with each performance.”

“Arthur C. Clarke famously quipped that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’, and this concept forms the backbone of our production,” said Humphrey.  “Entertainment giants like Pixar and Cirque du Soleil revolutionized storytelling by mixing new technologies into animation and circus arts respectively, gripping audiences with a sense of wonder.”

The Dream team aims to break new ground in visual storytelling by inventing new technologies as well as pioneering ways to combine existing techniques for dazzling effects on stage. York’s talented theatre production students have been working from the start with their counterparts in the Digital Media Program, weaving cutting-edge and time-honoured stage techniques together to create innovations in set, costume, lighting, projection and sound design.

See the video on Youtube!

The technology integrated into the show is drawn from a tool box partly sourced within York – such as an existing prototype of the fairies’ infrared wands and digital media students’ proficiency in a variety of creative coding programming environments (aren’t some of the projectors ours? The catalyst server?) – and partly contributed by external partners.

Some of the fairy-magic code the digital media team is working with was adapted from the open-source community at OpenProcessing.org. Companies such as Toronto-based GestureTek and Dynamixyz of Rennes, France, have lent motion-capture gear and expertise. Videogame star and convergence consultant Pascal Langlois (Motives in Movement) has been working with Adam Bergquist, a member of the Graduate Acting Conservatory in York’s MFA Program in Theatre, to get the most out of the show’s virtual donkey head for the role of Bottom, the rustic. A satellite team of animators and programmers from the SIRT Centre is also helping to bring the donkey head to life.

“There’s just a small number of companies innovating with this technology, and we’ve been very lucky to attract some of the best in the world,” said Shaver. “There’s a real sense of excitement and support for what we’re doing, which in many respects breaks fresh ground in motion capture and live performance.”

York’s Digital Media Program, launched in 2008, is an innovative, interdisciplinary and cross-Faculty program bringing together the strengths of the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Department of Computer Science in the Lassonde School of Engineering. Students use computer code to explore theoretical, artistic, aesthetic and experiential ideas and techniques, gaining comprehensive skills for the creation of interactive mobile and desktop apps, immersive environments, physical objects and interactive electronics.

As part of a Strategic Project Grant, titled “Enhanced identification and visualization of relevant social media content and free form text: Relationships, affect, information influence and diversity”, Cercone and his research team will identify the sentiment, conceptual and emotional content within texts and develop tools to better understand emotions found in social media texts. The project, in collaboration with OCAD University, Empress Software and The Globe & Mail, also seeks to develop new tools for media users to shape emotional content and respond to others.

Nick Cercone

“This project initiated in and leverages the Centre for Innovation for Visualization and Data Driven Design (CIVDDD), an Ontario Research Fund-supported network based at York with the partnership of OCAD University and University of Toronto,” said Cercone. “York and OCAD University will bring their complementary strengths in data analytics and visualization to support research on this popular field of inquiry.”

“The research project led by Professor Cercone underscores the importance of understanding the growing impact of social media in our lives,” said Robert Haché, York’s vice-president research & innovation. “NSERC’s investment supports the work of our researchers and enables them to continue to build and enhance their innovative research programs.”

The announcement was made by Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science and technology) at McGill University on Feb. 8. Cercone’s project was part of more than $36 million in funding and awards recently announced under NSERC’s Strategic Project Grants Program. Goodyear also announced more than $9.4 million in funding under the Strategic Network Grants Program.

“Our government’s top priority is creating jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity,” said Goodyear. “Fostering a strong research environment and supporting partnerships are fundamental building blocks for a modern competitive economy. This funding will allow companies to increase their research and development activities in Canada by maximizing the expertise and knowledge of our researchers.”

The study, “CryoSat-2 estimates of Arctic sea ice thickness and volume”, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, examined data gathered by the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 satellite from 2010 to 2012, comparing it to data taken from NASA’s ICESat satellite from 2003 to 2008. Results show an extensive sea ice thinning in the Arctic between 2003 and 2012, with 36 per cent loss of ice volume in autumn and nine per cent loss in winter.

Christian Haas

“Data are urgently required to better understand the causes of Arctic Ocean change and to better predict the ice’s future fate,” says York professor and study co-author Christian Haas, Canada Research Chair for Arctic Sea Ice Geophysics and coordinator of international CryoSat sea ice validation activities. “While two years of CryoSat-2 data aren’t indicative of a long-term change, they are to be seen in the context of ongoing international efforts to observe sea ice thickness and volume from space.”

The study reveals that thick sea ice has disappeared from a region to the north of Greenland, the Canadian Archipelago and to the northeast of Svalbard. It confirms the continuing decline in Arctic sea-ice volume simulated by the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS), which estimates the volume of Arctic sea ice and has been checked using earlier submarine, mooring and satellite observations.

The CryoSat-2 satellite measures ice volume using a high-resolution synthetic aperture radar altimeter, which fires pulses of microwave energy down towards the ice. The energy bounces off both the top of sections of ice and the water in the cracks in between. The difference in height between these two surfaces lets scientists calculate the volume of the ice cover. These delicate measurements need to be carefully validated to remove any potential biases. The team confirmed the accuracy of CryoSat-2 estimates using measurements from three independent sources – moored upward-looking sonar, airborne laser altimetry and airborne electromagnetic thickness sounding.

Haas’s Sea Ice Geophysics Team at York University is one of only a few groups worldwide capable of performing airborne electromagnetic ice thickness surveys. In April 2011 and 2012, his group provided data from the region between Canada and the North Pole during two dedicated airborne surveying campaigns.

David Phipps

David Phipps, executive director, Research & Innovation Services, which includes York University’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit (KMb), has been named the most influential knowledge broker in Canada, according to a report by Knowledge Mobilization Works, a consulting and training company based in Ottawa.  It is a repeat honour for Phipps, because in 2011, he was named the most influential knowledge mobilizer by Knowledge Mobilization Works.

When the Canadian Knowledge Mobilization 100, a survey run by Knowledge Mobilization Works, asked respondents to rank the biggest influences of their knowledge mobilization practice, Phipps topped the list.

Also mentioned among the top influencers in Canada were Michele Dupuis of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Wilfred Laurier University knowledge mobilizer Shawna Reibling.  The survey collected responses from Oct. 15 to Dec. 16, 2012.

Knowledge Mobilization blog

“Engaging the community through knowledge mobilization initiatives is an important facet of University research,” said Robert Haché, York’s vice-president research & innovation. “We are proud of York’s national and international reputation as a leader in knowledge mobilization and it continues to grow and thrive. This recognition for David and the Knowledge Mobilization team at York is well-deserved.”

York University’s Knowledge Mobilization Blog, Mobilize This! was named the most read KMb resource and the most consulted blog. Michael Johnny, manager of York’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit also received a mention in the second most influential knowledge mobilizer category.

In collaboration with the University of Victoria, York University piloted institutional knowledge mobilization in 2005 under a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and SSHRC. York University now leads ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche, Canada’s knowledge mobilization network that also includes Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador, Université du Québec à Montréal, University of Guelph and University of Saskatchewan. ResearchImpact as a network received a mention in the second most influential knowledge mobilizer category.

The two-day workshop, organized by York University’s Centre for Disease Modelling, will bring Canadian scientists together with principal Brazilian partners from the University of São Paulo and the BIOMAT Consortium/BIOMAT Institute of Advanced Studies of Biosystems, a non-profit association of members from universities and research institutions based primarily in Brazil.

Jianhong Wu

“This face-to-face meeting provides a unique opportunity for the Centre for Disease Modelling and its Brazilian partners to develop research programs and academic exchanges in infectious diseases,” said the centre’s director Jianhong Wu, a distinguished research professor at York University and Canada research chair in Industrial & Applied Mathematics. “The Canada-Brazil workshop provides a platform to develop the scientific framework and technical tools to address issues in the control of vector-borne diseases and the management of multi-drug resistance.”

Funded through the Government of Canada’s Going Global Innovation program, the workshop will expand Canadian-Brazilian collaboration in health informatics and infectious disease modelling to address challenges that affect both human health and economies: the ongoing threat of emerging infections; the outbreaks of diseases such as Dengue Fever and West Nile in the Americas; and global spread of tuberculosis drug resistance.

International cooperation is needed to address these issues, participating researchers say, because they have been exacerbated by globalization, climate change and environmental degradation. They will establish formal partnerships, explore joint commercial opportunities and discuss implementation of specific computational tools that can be used to rapidly evaluate disease intervention strategies.

Robert Tsushima

Robert Tsushima, associate dean of research and partnerships in York’s Faculty of Science, said he is delighted to have the opportunity to meet with university officials and research directors in São Paulo, along with Margaret Hough, director of research and international relations in the Faculty.

In the longer term, the Canada-Brazil partnerships will promote the exchange of trainees, expertise and technology.

“We will be able to develop new research partnerships at a time when the Brazilian government has committed considerable funding towards the training of Brazilian students and postdoctoral fellows abroad and to science research through its Science Without Borders,” said Tsushima.

Sapna Sharma

Sapna Sharma is also joining Science at York. Her research focuses on climate change, invasive species, aquatic ecology and statistical modeling. She joins the Department of Biology following her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Biology at York has a significant presence around the world and will give me the opportunity to collaborate with excellent researchers,” says Sharma.

She is interested in understanding the effects of environmental stressors on ecosystems and improving the use of quantitative approaches used to generate these predictions. At York, she will continue her work in an effort to understand the effects of climate change, invasive species, habitat alteration, and pollution on ecosystems and develop conservation and management strategies to conserve biodiversity. Concurrently she also aims to disentangle the role of climate change and large-scale climate drivers on climatic variability over the past 150 to 550 years based on lake ice records.

Youness Lamzouri

Youness Lamzouri joins the Department of Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he held a J. L. Doob Research Assistant Professor appointment.

Lamzouri’s research interests are in analytic and probabilistic number theory. He studies questions related to the distribution of prime numbers, Riemann’s Zeta function and L-functions, as well as character sums and multiplicative functions.

“I use methods from analysis, probability and combinatorics to study fundamental questions in number theory such as the distribution of prime numbers,” he says. “The primes are the building blocks of natural numbers in the same way that atoms are the building blocks of nature. Our credit cards and the nation’s defense secrets are kept secure by modern encryption methods based on large prime numbers.”

Matthew Johnson

Matthew Johnson joins the Department of Physics & Astronomy. He also holds an Associate Faculty appointment at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI), the hub of theoretical physics in Canada. “In my research, I am always trying to find ways that observations of the universe can inform us about models of theoretical physics, “ says Johnson. “I am delighted to be in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at York, with its strong research programs in Astronomy and Particle Physics, where this feedback between theory and observation is highly valued.”

Johnson’s research focuses on understanding how the fundamental laws of nature can be probed through their imprint on the large scale structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. This new collaboration will facilitate intellectual exchange among faculty and students at both York and PI, to push the boundaries of the current understanding of the cosmos.

Jennifer Chen

The second of the five new researchers joining York Science is Jennifer Chen. Her research focuses on exploring optically active nanostructures for sensing and optoelectronic applications. She joins the Department of Chemistry following a National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington. “I’m excited to be part of the York community. My research relies on an interdisciplinary approach,” says Chen, and I believe York’s collaborative environment will enhance my research to lead to societal impacts.”

Her research has demonstrated a unique sensing platform for detecting analytes in complex media using nanotechnology, specifically actuatable plasmonic nanoparticle dimers. She has also made important contributions to the field of optically enhanced photocatalysis and photovoltaics. As director of the Chen Research Group at York, she will build on her expertise and work on developing optical sensing systems for security, biomedical and environmental applications, and using inorganic nanomaterials for solar energy conversion.

Chris Bergevin

Christopher comes to the Department of Physics & Astronomy following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery at Columbia University. “York provides fantastic potential for interdisciplinary collaboration given the wide range of excellent research taking place here,” he says. Bergevin’s research focuses on how sound is transduced by the ear into neural impulses going to the brain.

Surprisingly, says Bergevin, the healthy ear not only detects sounds, but also generates and emits it. These sounds, called otoacoustic emissons (OAE) are generated from within the cochlea and are used routinely in various clinical applications such as screening of newborn hearing. At York, Bergevin will be using OAEs to develop and test new theories about basic biophysical processes at work in the ear. ”I am excited to further my research into hearing and understanding how we hear the world around us,” says Bergevin. “Such studies not only yield new insights into basic biophysics, but ultimately provide an opportunity to translate the knowledge we gain in the lab into improving people’s quality of life, for example, those with hearing impairment.”

Peripheral vision, beyond the central area traditionally considered in vision research, plays a critical role including controlling posture, determining orientation and guiding locomotion and driving; yet the role of this enormous visual area in these functions is largely unknown. Diseases and other factors associated with aging (even wearing glasses) can impact peripheral vision with poorly understood effects.

“I am delighted that the Canada Foundation for Innovation has recognized the work of Professor Laurence Harris and his colleagues through this award,” said Robert Haché, York’s vice-president research & innovation. “CFI’s investment in state-of-the-art infrastructure helps support innovative research programs underway at the University.”

Understanding the role of the whole visual field will contribute to the health of Canadians and to the safety and effectiveness of workers in challenging environments. Findings from the project will inform the development of health technologies to ensure that appropriate information is available in the peripheral field to aid balance and movement, and will support the development of digital media displays such as large-screen cinemas and virtual reality environments that will provide more realistic simulations for use in training and serious gaming.

As Tier 1 CRCs, Haas will each receive $1.4 million over seven years. The CRC is part of a package of CRC appointments announced Oct. 12, by Gary Goodyear,  minister of state (Science and Technology).

“Our government’s top priority is creating jobs, growth and long-term prosperity,” said Goodyear. “By investing in talented people through programs such as the Canada Research Chairs, our government is supporting cutting-edge research in Canadian post-secondary institutions. This fosters innovation by helping researchers bring their ideas to the marketplace, where they can touch the lives of Canadians.”

In all, the government announced an investment of $121.6  million to fund the appointment of 155 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at 42 Canadian degree-granting post-secondary institutions.

Christian Haas

Haas, a professor of geophysics, in the Department of Earth & Space Science and Engineering in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, is examining the underlying reasons for the recent, rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice and the consequences for the Arctic climate system and ecosystem, for Northerners, and for better access to Arctic resources and shipping routes.  His research also addresses the role of changes in winds and ice drift as well as of variations in atmospheric radiation and temperature and ocean salinity and temperature on ice thickness and areal coverage.

A thorough understanding of the reasons for the recent Arctic sea ice decline will help fuel predictions of future scenarios and identify links to possible human-induced causes for climate change.

Ice information obtained by Haas’ research utilizing airborne and ground-based field campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctic, satellite remote sensing and numerical modeling provides important information for safe and environmentally responsible resource exploration and extraction, as well as shipping and over-ice travel.  His research contributes unique information on ice thickness, one of the most important sea ice properties for the design and regulation of offshore structures and ships, safe ice utilization and assessment of oil spill development.

Rushworth explores how the human brain makes decisions. A distinguished systems neuroscientist whose research on decision making has a wide influence on our understanding of the human mind, the lecture explores our capacity to make decisions from a neuroscience and a psychological perspective, but also from an economic and clinical perspective.

In his recent work, Rushworth discovered how brain areas in the frontal part of the brain act together to bring about a choice.  Brain activity in these areas relates directly to the cost and the prospective merit of a choice before the decision is actually made. Specifically, these brain activations are evident when we make social decisions, as well as during economic decisions about what and why to buy.

The talk is the inaugural lecture of the New Systems and Computational Neuroscience Speaker Series at York University. The series attracts internationally distinguished and new rising researchers who combine systems neuroscience discoveries about the brain with theoretical insights about the human mind, how it learns, attends and makes decision in real life.

The Systems and Computational Neuroscience Speaker Series is jointly supported by the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Health and the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation at York University.

“On behalf of the York research community, I would like to congratulate Professor Arturo Orellana on his receipt of the Boehringer Ingelheim Young Investigator Award,” said Robert Haché, York’s vice-president research & innovation. “This prestigious award recognizes Professor Orellana’s exceptional research achievements and contributions to the field of Organic Chemistry, at the early stages of his career. We are very proud of this well-deserved recognition of Dr. Orellana’s work.”

Arturo Orellana

Orellana’s research relates to the development of innovative metal-catalyzed chemical reactions for organic synthesis. In particular his research involves the development of new reactions to prepare small molecule building blocks with applications in the synthesis of pharmaceutically active agents and naturally occurring substances with important biological properties.

The R&D division of Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) is one of Canada’s largest pharmaceutical research centres. The Boehringer Ingelheim Young Investigator Award for Organic Chemistry is awarded yearly to a promising organic chemist in the early stages of their academic career and was established to support research in synthetic organic chemistry in Canadian universities.

For more information, visit the Orellana Research Group website.