Geography

No wait times for mental health appointments at Health & Wellness. Redesigned health and wellness spaces, both virtual and physical, that make it easier for students to receive help when and where they need it. And, beyond campus, access to staff who can help students navigate mental health resources in the community.

These are among the many steps the University of Toronto has taken, or that are underway, to improve the delivery of mental-health services across its three campuses in line with the sweeping recommendations made by Presidential and Provostial Task Force on Student Mental Health, which was composed of students, faculty and staff.

“You don't have to wait a month to see a counsellor,” said Joe Desloges, the provostial adviser on process redesign of mental health services, of the new “stepped care” model. “For those in need, you don't have to wait months to see a psychiatrist.”

The majority of the task force’s action items have already been completed or are in progress – with students continuing to play a key role in the systems’ redesign. They include Vishar Yaghoubian, a two-term undergraduate student representative on U of T’s Governing Council who canvassed student groups over eight months and synthesized their points of view in a report spanning more than 100 pages. Yaghoubian, a Woodsworth College student, called it a “long process,” but said the fact that university leaders have dedicated many months to hearing students’ concerns and soliciting recommendations are signs that U of T is truly listening.

Cheryl Regehr, U of T’s vice-president and provost, lauded the U of T community for its commitment to improving mental health service delivery on the three campuses.

“Across the university, our faculty, students, staff and librarians have been remarkably generous in sharing insights, ideas, experiences and recommendations that show how deeply they care about this issue,” Regehr said. “We’re especially grateful to our students for their contributions and their commitment to fostering compassion and community.

“Now, we are seeing the results of all that consultation and work come together as the University of Toronto continues to roll out a new approach to mental health services delivery – one that will support students’ well-being and success at every turn.”

In a recent meeting of U of T’s senior leaders, Desloges and Andrea Levinson, director, psychiatric care at U of T’s Health & Wellness, provided an update on the university’s progress toward enacting all 21 of the task force’s recommendations.

A top priority of the task force, as well as all the campus Health & Wellness Centres, was to build an “easy access system” by implementing a “stepped care’ model of mental-health service delivery – a system where a range of resources and services are available to students, and where decisions about care are made based on students’ preference, need and the types of programming with which they are prepared to engage.

The U of T team engaged Stepped Care Solutions, a not-for-profit mental health consultancy group founded by Peter Cornish, now director of counselling and psychological services at the University of California, Berkeley, to help U of T transition to a more flexible and client-centric mental health-care model. Stepped Care’s 2.0 framework has been used by the Government of Canada in its COVID-19 response, as well as well as by jurisdictions such as Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories.

“This system really supports a very diverse student body with wide-ranging needs and preferences,” said Levinson, an assistant professor of psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. “One key piece is that it’s strength-focused. We often see service delivery as trying to fix a problem, but this is about meeting students where they’re at and building on their inherent strengths and capacities.”

The model offers increased access to care at various degrees of intensity, with patients accessing different steps, in a flexible way, based on readiness, engagement and strengths. “The steps are based on choice and readiness rather than looking at traditional symptoms and functioning,” Levinson explained.

Crucially, the stepped care model emphasizes treatment over lengthy assessments, so that individuals can begin to receive the help they need sooner. In a presentation to U of T leadership, Cornish and Alexia Jaouich, vice-president program development and implementation at Stepped Care Solutions, said the framework helped reduce wait lists in provinces by more than 60 per cent.

While there may still be wait times for certain specialized services such as group psychotherapy under the new model, students don’t have to wait long for an initial appointment, said Desloges, a professor in the departments of geography and Earth sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

In cases with more complex and urgent care needs, students on the St. George Campus will have access to mental-health navigators – in partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) – to guide them to and from acute care services in the hospital system.

“The navigators will be embedded within CAMH to support our students specifically in a setting that is often described as very overwhelming, confusing and hard to navigate,” Levinson said, adding that it’s the first time the system is being applied to a post-secondary context.

The university is also taking a phased approach toward recruiting navigators who would serve U of T Scarborough and U of T Mississauga in partnership with local hospital networks. And U of T has begun a search for an executive director, student mental health systems, policy and strategy – a new role overseeing mental health services across the three campuses. “Think of it as quality assurance across the whole institution to ensure consistency of information, accessibility, communications, branding and to lead outreach,” Desloges said.

As part of the redesign, service providers across the three campuses have completed cultural sensitivity and literacy training, and many have shared their biographies and specializations online so students can find a counsellor who is the right fit.

Jodie Glean, U of T’s executive director, equity, diversity and inclusion, said such initiatives are inextricably linked with the goal of creating a “culture of caring” across the university, a priority frequently mentioned in the task force’s report.

“The EDI landscape is continuously giving us tools, policies, initiatives to help mitigate the experience of -isms, discrimination and harassment on our communities,” Glean said. “But as well, it supports the notion of creating a culture of care because it gives us spaces to listen, learn and then develop our services and programs in a way that accounts for the fullness of who people are.”

The improvements to mental health services haven’t just been concerned with personnel but also spaces – both virtual and in-person.

Prior to the task force’s report, faculties, divisions and campuses listed their mental health resources separately, but they can now all be found at mentalhealth.utoronto.ca. The online mental health wayfinder, Navi (short for navigator), helps students discover available resources at the university and make personal decisions about appropriate supports. The tool is accessible 24/7 and communication is anonymous.

At the same time, Desloges noted that mental health service areas on all three campuses are undergoing renovation. On the St. George campus, the Koffler Student Services Centre, on the northwest corner of College and St. George Streets, is undergoing a planned modernization that begins this fall. The project will consolidate health and wellness services on a single floor and will add levels, ramps and an elevator to improve accessibility. During the expansion – expected to take two and a half years – health and wellness services on St. George will move to 700 Bay Street, a site chosen for its proximity to campus.

At U of T Scarborough, a new, five-storey hub on the north side of the campus, the Instructional Centre 2, will have a floor dedicated to health and wellness, along with airy lounges, glass facades and a green roof. The new Health & Wellness Centre will be equipped with areas designed for exercise, meditation, decompression, baby feeding and relaxation. “The presence of a highly visible student service centre will create an inclusive and accessible hub for student supports,” said Sheila John, acting dean, student experience and wellbeing at U of T Scarborough.

At U of T Mississauga, the Health & Counselling Centre (HCC), on the first level of the William G. Davis Building, is in the midst of a renovation of its counselling and medical suites. Once the project is finished, the suites will be facing each other and share a lounge to better integrate care. The counselling suite, which was completed first, is due to reopen this summer, while renovations at the medical clinic are slated to begin this fall.

“This has allowed us to expand the number of counselling staff and mental health navigation and triage staff,” said Erin Kraftcheck, medical director of the HCC. “It has also allowed our counselling rooms to be remodeled so that they are bright and spacious, to assist with setting a tone of wellness for student clients.”

Students’ input may shape, indirectly, the future of mental health services at U of T and beyond another way: through research.

Lexi Ewing, a fourth-year PhD student in developmental psychology and education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, was among the students who lent their expertise and experience as advisers to a student and youth mental health research initiative called Inlight, which is led by Kristin Cleverley, an assistant professor in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing.

Ewing provided feedback on the stepped care model, mental health website and on the role of special constables when responding to mental health calls.

“What makes this research so important is there is so much work that needs to be done – a lot of nuanced contexts need to be investigated further and more in depth,” she said.

“I tend to think of post-secondary student mental health as an emerging field of literature.”

For her dissertation, Ewing is looking at how stressors associated with a stage in life researchers call “emerging adulthood” sometimes overlap with the transition to university to produce unique challenges. “We don’t really know how those things interact and create kind of unique risks for the development of mental health concerns,” she said.

U of T’s new stepped model of care, along with other changes like the mental health navigators and streamlined website, are all positive developments, according to Ewing.

“With the redesign, one of the big things was ensuring timely access to care and appropriate care,” she said.

“I do think the stepped care model that is being implemented will help to really address that. I think it’s really structured so that it can meet students where they are at the right time.”

U of T prof's research and advocacy focuses on land grabbing – and those fighting it

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 15:59:13 +0000

U of T prof's research and advocacy focuses on land grabbing – and those fighting it

geoff.vendeville Fri, 04/29/2022 - 11:59

Cutline

A member of the Garifuna ethnic group holds a sign reading "Garifuna Lives Also Matter" during a protest in front of the Supreme Court of Justice in Tegucigalpa in July, 2020 (photo by Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images)

Tina Adamopoulos

Topic

Global Lens

Black Research Network

Feminism

Geography

U of T Scarborough

Sharlene Mollett studies the relationship between land and culture, as well as how gender and race shape access to natural resources. A feminist political ecologist and cultural geographer at the University of Toronto Scarborough, she largely focuses on communities displaced by land grabbing in Central America – and the policies that fail to protect them.

Land grabbing refers to the legal or sometimes illegal process of appropriating property – often by fraud or force – by individuals or groups ranging from agricultural companies to tourism operators.

Sharlene Mollett

In some cases, corporations and elites – enabled through state corruption – buy contested lands. But often, powerful elites grab land through loopholes or they take advantage of vague language in the law. Almost always, economically poor small landholders and the landless are dispossessed.

“When we think about land grabbing, we often think of the land itself,” says Mollett, an associate professor in the department of human geography at U of T Scarborough.

“I wanted to think about the relationship between land and [human] bodies, and not only when there is land dispossession. There's an embodied process that is happening to the people who exist on the land.”

Published in The Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography, Mollett’s latest chapter, “Resistance against the land grab,” traces the lives of Garifuna Defensoras, women who serve as land and community defenders on the north coast of Honduras. The chapter focuses on the tourism industry and criminalization of Garifuna women.

Communities in coastal regions, often prime real estate for tourism corporations, have a constitutional right to communal lands. And yet, Garifuna people – particularly women – are often and mistakenly seen as trespassers while they travel along coastal beaches that have been appropriated by hotels. Often, Garifuna women and girls are harassed by hotel staff and security, and experience sexual harassment by tourists.

In the chapter, Mollett sketches how Garifuna women have long been land defenders in Honduras. “Defenders are not just defending their lands,” Mollett says. “They're also defending their communities from different kinds of embodied violence by those who get to usurp their land.”

Mollett’s work also follows the Miskito peoples, an Indigenous community in the Honduran Mosquitia region, located in the easternmost part of the country.

“These two fields [feminist political ecology and cultural geography] help me tell the story of people in Central America who are struggling to make claims to lands and territories against the Honduran state and elites who seek their dispossession,” Mollett says.

A Miskito woman sits next to a wall with graffiti saying "Settlers Out" in the community of Sangnilaya, Puerto Cabezas, North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region of Nicaragua (photo by Inti Ocon/AFP via Getty Images)

She explains that, although Miskito and Garifuna lands and territories are organized along matriarchal forms of inheritance, the state uses a patrilineal framework for land registration. In discussing land struggles in the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, Mollett notes:

“The state is not only appropriating land in the name of biodiversity conservation but using patriarchal and racial ideologies to justify the disruption of matriarchal landforms in the Mosquitia.”

Along with other scholars who focus on Honduras, Mollett serves as an expert witness for North American asylum cases involving Hondurans seeking to flee the country.

“Many of us have contributed our time to writing detailed reports about the situation in Honduras in hopes that it will help asylum claims for Miskito and Garifuna peoples trying to enter North America,” Mollett says.

Back home, the on-the-ground change to which Mollett hopes to contribute comes down to inspiring her students to think critically about the world and systems around them – no matter the field or career they decide to pursue.

“I think teaching is one of the ways that we can really change minds towards more equitable policies shaping development intervention and inspire future generations to take human rights seriously,” she says.

Climate change slows reduction of methylmercury levels in Arctic: U of T researchers

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 18:31:22 +0000

Climate change slows reduction of methylmercury levels in Arctic: U of T researchers

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/19/2021 - 13:31

Cutline

Igor Lehnherr, a researcher at U of T Mississauga, assessed the build-up of methylmercury, a dangerous neurotoxin, in Lake Hazen, one of Canada’s northernmost lakes (photo by Igor Lehnherr)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Sustainability

U of T Mississauga

Climate change may be slowing the reduction of methylmercury – a dangerous organic neurotoxin created by microbes that metabolize mercury – in Arctic waters despite a global movement to reduce industrial mercury emissions.

That is among the findings of Igor Lehnherr and his research team at the University of Toronto after assessing the build-up of methylmercury in Lake Hazen, one of Canada’s northernmost lakes.

The study is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

“Mercury pollution has gone down in the atmosphere,” says Lehnherr, an assistant professor of geography at U of T Mississauga. “We’re doing things to tackle it, but climate change is throwing things for a loop [because] it can actually undo some of the benefits from emission reductions.”

Methylmercury levels rise only indirectly from human activity. Burning fossil fuels, mining and other industrial processes release unmethylated mercury into the atmosphere. As the mercury settles into aquatic ecosystems, certain types of microbes metabolize it to form the much more dangerous methylmercury.

A “persistent organic pollutant,” Methylmercury becomes more concentrated as it moves up the food chain – from bacteria to fish, predators and people. It affects the nervous system and can also cause cardiovascular damage. The toxin is especially dangerous for pregnant women and for fetuses, babies and young children whose nervous systems are still developing.

While the area where the U of T team collected samples is not close to any northern communities, Lehnherr says the work is relevant for Indigenous people who hunt and fish for food.

“What we’re learning is not constrained to that location,” he says. “We put a lot of import on understanding mechanisms that affect methylmercury, so we can apply what we learn in one place somewhere else.”

Igor Lehnherr, an assistant professor of geography at U of T Mississauga, says the field work for his latest study spanned several seasons and involved collaboration with other research teams in order to expand sampling (photo by Igor Lehnherr)

Arctic methylmercury levels depend on a complex mix of factors, including industrial emissions, precipitation patterns, microbial numbers and activity, as well as changes in seasonal sea ice. The complexity, along with the remoteness of northern ecosystems, make Lehnherr’s work particularly challenging.

“The field work spanned a few seasons,” he says of his latest study. “Some years we were there in the spring when it’s all snow and ice cover, some years in the summer, some years for both. By combining efforts with other teams, we expanded the sampling. Arctic research by nature is fairly collaborative – we share costs, time and ideas.”

Igor Lehnherr and his research team take water samples through the ice (photo by Igor Lehnherr)

In general, methylmercury-producing microbes are more active in warmer environments, implying a direct correlation between global warming and increased toxicity. But climate change also has many other effects that can exacerbate, mitigate and further complicate the situation.

“Temperature in the Arctic also controls permafrost thaw. It affects the amount of precipitation by controlling cloud cover, sea ice cover, rates of evaporation and these kinds of things,” Lehnherr says.

Changing weather patterns also affect how much methylmercury builds up in specific isolated areas and how efficiently it flows from one lake to the next, creating more widespread problems. In the short term, Lehnherr says it looks as though reduced emissions have not fully translated into cleaner Arctic ecosystems. However, Lehnherr says it should not necessarily be interpreted as a sign that efforts to reduce mercury aren’t worth it.

“I mostly think it validates the ongoing efforts to reduce anthropogenic mercury emissions,” he says. “Countries have shown this is something they’re willing to take on. These results allow us to have reasonable expectations about how long it will take for mercury levels to go down and stabilize.”

Lehnherr also wants to reassure people in northern communities who may be concerned about the safety of their food supply.

“Whenever I talk about the risks of mercury and negative health impacts, I always stress that the benefits of consuming traditional foods vastly outweigh the risks of contaminants. Locally caught Arctic char has better nutritional value than dried goods and flown-in goods,” he says.

Lehnherr plans to continue his study of methylmercury in the Arctic region to get a better sense of the long-term impacts of climate change.

Using tree rings, U of T researchers measure history of mercury contamination in Yukon

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 17:06:30 +0000

Using tree rings, U of T researchers measure history of mercury contamination in Yukon

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 11/09/2020 - 12:06

Cutline

Researchers at U of T Mississauga examined tree rings in Bear Creek, a former mining site near Dawson City, Yukon, to trace the history of mercury contamination in the area (photo by Trevor Porter)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Sustainability

U of T Mississauga

Yukon

By examining clues hidden beneath tree bark, a research team from the University of Toronto Mississauga is recording the history of pollution in Canada’s North.

Paleoclimatologist Trevor Porter (pictured), an assistant professor of geography, geomatics and the environment who uses tree rings to understand past climate, recently teamed up with Igor Lehnherr, a fellow assistant professor who studies contaminants, and master’s student Sydney Clackett to investigate annual pollution levels at an old gold mining site in the Yukon. They were particularly interested in the “heavily polluted” Bear Creek area, a busy gold mining town that operated from 1905 to 1966 just outside Dawson City, Yukon.

One of the methods used in the past to extract gold from river gravel was to add mercury, which binds to the gold to help separate it from the sediment. The deposits were then heated to separate the gold and mercury. The process of burning off the mercury meant some of it was diffused into the atmosphere, where trees would “breath it in” during their growing season, according to Porter.

“Especially in the north, trees are growing in this really temperature-limited environment so we can look at the rings and almost interpret it like a climate record, going back in time,” he says.

Porter and the other researchers took core samples from 15 trees growing in the area to see if the rings could provide a year-by-year account of atmospheric mercury levels created by past local mining operations. Core samples from an area unaffected by local mining operations were also collected as a control site.

The team found that the trees at Bear Creek not only hold a record of mercury levels, but those changes in levels match, precisely, the known activities at the site. Their findings were recently published in Environmental Pollution.

U of T Mississauga master’s student Sydney Clackett collects a bore sample from a tree at Bear Creek, a former gold mining site in the Yukon. The samples were used to measure past concentrations of atmospheric mercury in the area (photo by Trevor Porter)

“We were just amazed when we saw this big spike in mercury take off, especially when operations at the site started expanding,” Porter says. “Trends on this site were just orders of magnitude greater than what was happening naturally.”

In 1923, for example, there was a merger of all major Klondike mining operations and more ore was brought to Bear Creek for processing. That year, researchers observed a “rocket ship” trend in the mercury data. By contrast, as operations started to wind down in the 1940s and 1950s, there’s a precipitous decline in mercury concentrations. The fastest rate of decline appears in 1966, when the site closed.

“I was amazed at how closely it corresponded to what we could gather from the historical record,” Porter says, adding the research provides compelling evidence that this is a reliable method to track concentrations of local atmospheric mercury. “It elevates the idea that tree rings are an important archive for studying past changes in mercury.”

There’s not a lot of global data about changes to atmospheric mercury, Porter adds. While there is some monitoring in highly urbanized areas, the data only goes back about 30 years. U of T Mississauga researchers, meanwhile, were able to analyze 151 years’ worth of data using tree rings.

The “Gold Room” at the Bear Creek site where mercury was used to extract fine gold from the placer ore (photo by Trevor Porter)

Although levels of mercury recorded at Bear Creek slowly came down to baseline levels, those baselines have been increasing over the past decade. Porter says that an uptick in atmospheric mercury has been observed in two other sites in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, and has recently been confirmed by other records, including lake sediment in Alaska. That increase in mercury has been linked to rising emissions in Asia (mercury is not used in modern mining practices in Yukon).

Porter says there are international treaties to reduce mercury pollution and, while there’s been a lot of progress, “we know that’s not happening everywhere. Some still use dirty energy sources and other industries emit mercury.”

A larger network of sites is needed to better understand these regional increases and determine what is happening, according to Porter. He says he’s already looking additional sites in Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

“We’re scaling up our efforts to better understand recent trends in the environment.”

U of T Mississauga professors find creative ways to engage students online

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:21:07 +0000

U of T Mississauga professors find creative ways to engage students online

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 09/08/2020 - 11:21

Cutline

A slide from a summer course taught by David Samson, an assistant professor of biological anthropology at U of T Mississauga (image courtesy of David Samson)

Topic

From live streaming on Twitch to creating videos and using student feedback to make improvements, professors at the University of Toronto Mississauga are finding creative ways to keep their lectures interesting and relevant in the digital realm.

And the approach is resonating, students say.

“When you’re interested in the content, the lectures are engaging irrespective of whether they’re taught online or in person,” says Vibhor Rohatgi, a master’s student in sustainability management who took an online Natural Hazards course over the summer with Barbara Murck, a professor, teaching stream, in the department of geography, geomatics and environment.

For Murck, a teaching stream professor in the department of geography, geomatics and environment, teaching remotely is nothing new. For about 15 years, she has been teaching ENV100Y5 Environment, a large first-year course, in a dual-delivery format during the academic year. During the summer, the course is online only in a condensed six-week format.

In addition to teaching skills, Murck says there are two main factors that make remote course delivery successful: being authentic and connecting with students.

“You have to be real, so your students have the feeling that you are an actual person talking to them – especially if the lecture is asynchronous, because you’re not meeting them in the hallways where they can chat with you informally,” she says.

Murck also took steps to stay connected with her class with daily online office hours. She says students dropped in every day and, even if they didn’t drop in, they liked knowing their instructors were available. “With fully online courses, I communicated obsessively with the students,” Murck says.

Nicole Chafe, another first-year master’s degree student who took Murck’s online Natural Hazards course, says that online courses require her to become more disciplined.

“I learned about personal motivation and realized that I had to push myself more,” she explains. “It takes determination to be sure to get the work done without the reinforcement of classes.

“My personal preference is still face-to-face classes, but (Murck) was very engaging and it was easy to pay attention to her online lectures.”

David Samson, an assistant professor of biological anthropology, live streams his lectures using the Twitch app, often used by gamers. Samson is teaching his first full remote course, Sister Species, this summer.

“One thing I feel makes my classes engaging is my energy and I was afraid I’d lose that online,” he says. “I know how critical body language is and, with a lot of remote options, the students couldn’t see me gesturing.”

Samson found live streaming “much more enjoyable than reading from a PowerPoint and recording myself. It was like having my own little production studio.”

Samson held a question and answer session at the end of each class and asked for student feedback about the format. As a result, he was able make tweaks to improve the experience, including, for example, adjusting the font size for his chat boxes.

“I see opportunity in remote delivery,” Samson said. “Distance usually prevents students at the other U of T campuses from enrolling in my courses, so why not improve access for the wider student body?”

U of T grad Dariya Darvin overcomes obstacles to become a top science student

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 22:12:23 +0000

U of T grad Dariya Darvin overcomes obstacles to become a top science student

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 06/24/2020 - 18:12

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After graduating with a bachelor's degree from U of T Mississauga, Dariya Darvin is heading to U of T's Faculty of Medicine to pursue a career focused on reducing inequities in health care (photo courtesy of Dariya Darvin)

Topic

Dariya Darvin may have achieved top marks at the University of Toronto, but she knows first-hand how challenging – and unpredictable – the path to academic success can be.

The graduate from U of T Mississauga overcame financial hardship, held down a job while pursuing her degree, carved out time to volunteer on campus and in the community – and pursued a mix of courses that she managed to tie together in pursuit of her long-term goal of attending medical school.

Now Darvin, who has been accepted to U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, is being recognized with the Rose Sheinin Award, which is presented to the top female science student at the university.

“I knew I had good grades, but I didn’t think I’d get an award like this,” says Darvin.

It’s not the only award Darvin has received. She was also the recipient of a U of T Student Leadership Award, which recognizes outstanding student leadership, service and commitment to the university. These are just the latest in a list of awards and scholarships the Mississauga resident has earned since she began her studies at the university.

Darvin came to Canada from India in 2015 at the end of Grade 12. As a new immigrant, she says she faced financial hardships, but received an entrance scholarship and other awards. “Any financial support made a difference, especially in first year,” says Darvin, adding that she initially found it challenging to adapt to a different education system in a new country.

Nevertheless, Darvin says she found the period stressful, which is why she signed up for programs offered by the Centre for Student Engagement during her first two years. She says it gave her a chance to meet upper-year students, make friends and receive guidance from professional staff.

“It really helped me,” she says, adding that U of T Mississauga became like a second home. “I have so many wonderful memories.”

By her second year Darvin started working at the Office of Student Transition and Student Engagement. It was her first job on campus. She would go on to become a teaching assistant and later an academic don for the summer mentorship program at U of T’s Faculty of Medicine.

Between her job and studies, Darvin still found time to get involved in other activities. She volunteered with the Health and Counselling Centre, Accessibility Services and the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre. She also worked on policy issues for the student union.

Off campus she served as a mentor for the Indigenous Spirit Journey Program run by the Riverwood Conservancy and U of T Mississauga’s Centre for Student Engagement. Darvin also mentored students from a high school alternative program in an effort to show them that university is a viable option. She called the work “one of the best experiences.”

Between work and volunteering, Darvin still managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA. She says she never aimed for such a high standard, but once she got good grades, she was determined to keep it up.

Darvin credits her busy schedule for her academic success. By being so deeply involved, she found a support system, made friends, had fun, created ways to relieve stress and embrace the university experience. It also helped her schedule her time more efficiently.

“Having the right balance is extremely productive,” Darvin says.

Her varied interests and activities are also evident in her multidisciplinary studies.

The first day Darvin stepped foot on campus, she had a clear goal in mind: to become a doctor. This fall she’ll take the next step toward achieving that goal when she joins U of T’s Faculty of Medicine. Her path to medical school, however, wasn’t straight. Darvin let her interests and passions guide her academic journey.

Originally a life sciences student, she shifted direction after taking a first-year calculus class. Darvin says she enjoyed it so much that she took another math class over the summer and “fell in love.”

She then switched her major to mathematics, but kept biology as a minor – mindful that her plan was still to one day attend medical school.

Meanwhile, her interest in geography led her to take a first year Geographic Information Systems (GIS) course. She soon discovered the field was applicable to her goal of working in public health since she could use GIS to improve health-care delivery.

“I did it because I like it, but once I was into it, it fell into place,” Darvin says. “I saw the connections.”

Darvin graduated with a major in mathematics and a double minor in biology and GIS.

Darvin says the multidisciplinary approach has allowed her to look at health through different lenses. “It looks like a mix, but it ties together.”

Following medical school, her plan is to use that mix of knowledge to work with an interdisciplinary team of public health experts dedicated to reducing inequalities in access to health care.

'Lost opportunity': Affordable housing needed in local development projects, U of T researcher says

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:33:21 +0000

'Lost opportunity': Affordable housing needed in local development projects, U of T researcher says

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/14/2020 - 09:33

Cutline

Aerial view of The Strand, part of the Square One District development unveiled by Oxford Properties in Mississauga, Ont. (image via CNW Group/Oxford Properties Group Inc.)

Topic

Research and Innovation

U of T Mississauga

Mixed-use housing projects are based on questionable assumptions that increasing the supply of rental units will lead to more affordable housing – a problem University of Toronto researcher Tara Vinodrai is highlighting after plans for a massive, 37-tower development in Mississauga’s City Centre neighbourhood were unveiled earlier this year.

Pointing to a study she co-authored in 2018 while at the University of Waterloo, Vinodrai says mixed-use developments like those favoured in Toronto and other municipalities actually decrease affordability and price out certain segments of the population.

She and her co-authors drew the conclusion after examining long-term change in Toronto, where mixed-use zoning is actively used, in the context of labour market changes.

“We’re seeing people priced out of the city,” says Vinodrai, an associate professor in U of T Mississauga’s department of geography and the director of the school’s new Master of Urban Innovation professional graduate program.

Part of the problem is the disappearance of the middle class, she says. Manufacturing is declining in favour of a growing technology-based economy with higher-earning jobs that require higher education. What is emerging is a division of the labour market, where people either have a lot of resources for housing or they have very few, according to Vinodrai.

Those in lower-earning jobs, she says, are increasingly unable to afford housing, particularly in mixed-use developments that are often in desirable locations with access to amenities and transit.

“Even in the mid-sized cities we’re starting to see a push on housing prices that makes it unaffordable, particularly for people in the lowest brackets.”

Tara Vinodrai, an associate professor in U of T Mississauga’s department of geography, says it’s ironic that many urban developments lack affordable housing units since they exclude the very people who need to be close to urban transit hubs or who work at local retail establishments (photo by Drew Lesiuczok)

In the case of Mississauga’s City Centre neighbourhood, the proposed 37-tower Square One District, unveiled by Oxford Properties in January, will include community buildings, green space, office space, retail, a transit hub and 18,000 residential units that are a mix of rentals and condominiums. There are no plans for affordable housing units that are priced below market rent.

Vinodrai calls this a “lost opportunity,” adding there’s an irony that these developments exclude the very people who need to be close to transit hubs or those who work at local retail shops.

One of the concerns Mississauga employers have is attracting young, bright minds because of the challenges they face finding housing. Yet, while the city’s newest development addresses an issue that helps with the labour market, Vinodrai says the city also needs housing for people who work lower-wage jobs.

“Without deliberate intervention, I don’t think you’re going to have a desirable outcome, which, from a planning standpoint, would be to ensure some form of equitable development,” she says.

Ontario municipalities already have planning tools at their disposal to address affordability, including density bonuses, where developers can build more units or taller structures than permitted if, in return, they set aside affordable or below-market housing.

Or there’s the approach being taken by Montreal. Starting in 2021, developers in the city will be required to set aside 20 per cent of new housing units for social housing, 20 per cent for affordable housing, and 10 to 20 per cent for family-sized units – or pay compensation to the city in land or cash.

“Mississauga has an opportunity to show leadership in the GTA and beyond in terms of considering these types of policy and planning tools to address housing affordability, and it doesn’t have to be at the expense of attracting the best and brightest minds to the city’s downtown,” Vinodrai says.

“I would hope the city could push back either through regulation or some kind of deal, I would hope they could think about requiring that the developer set aside even a small proportion of units for below-market.”

U of T Mississauga to collect data on large scale to understand relationship between cities and environment

davidlee1 — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 18:52:37 +0000

U of T Mississauga to collect data on large scale to understand relationship between cities and environment

davidlee1 Thu, 10/10/2019 - 14:52

Cutline

A view of Toronto's Don Valley. A new initiative led by U of T Mississauga’s Centre for Urban Environments will gather real-time data from dozens of sites across the Greater Toronto Area (photo by Katrin Ray Shumakov via Getty Images)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Sustainabilty

U of T Mississauga

A new initiative led by U of T Mississauga’s Centre for Urban Environments (CUE) will create the first large-scale data collection system to understand the complex relationship between cities, the local environment and global climate change.

“More than 80 per cent of the world’s population lives in cities, but we really don’t understand how cities are changing the environment that we live in, and how this is driving – and being affected by – climate change,” says Marc Johnson, CUE’s director and an associate professor of biology.

“We hope to learn more so we can make cities healthier and more sustainable.”

The centre’s Urban Environmental Network, or UrbEnNet, will gather real-time data from dozens of sites across the Greater Toronto Area. “CUE’s UrbEnNet will provide unprecedented data about how urbanization and urban development shapes the environment that we live in, including the physical environment, the air we breathe, the temperatures we feel and the quality of water we drink, and the impact of this on life,” Johnson says.

“These elements affect every living creature in the Greater Toronto Area, from the salmon swimming up the Credit River to the people living in the urban GTA.”

Johnson points to a heatwave that resulted in the deaths of more than 90 people in Montreal. “In urban areas the lack of green cover means the city areas becomes hot,” he says.

Buildings absorb the sun’s energy and radiate heat, even after sundown. Elevated temperatures can contribute to heatstroke and extra stress on human cardiovascular systems, putting vulnerable people in urban areas at risk.

“If we can better locate the location of heat island or air pollution hot spots, we can create better mitigation strategies and policies to keep people healthier during these events, which are becoming more common as a result of climate change,” Johnson says.

The research team – which includes 38 researchers from U of T – has interdisciplinary expertise in geography, biology, chemistry, robotics and more. Regional conservation authorities and municipal and provincial policy-makers are also contributing partners.

A pilot project, led by Matthew Adams, an assistant professor in U of T Mississauga’s department of geography, is currently managing a mobile pilot project to monitor air pollution levels around the GTA. By collecting real-time data, Adams hopes to pinpoint pollution hot spots.

“This will tell us where we need to focus our attention,” Johnson says.

Monika Havelka, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of geography, will use 100 remote wildlife camera traps to capture images and data. “These cameras can help us look at species diversity, population density, as well as seasonal dynamics, demography, and temporal and spatial patterns in activity, behaviour and habitat use,” Havelka says.

“The camera traps have been relatively underused in urban environments, and we hope that they can contribute significantly to our understanding of how wildlife survive and navigate their way through urban environments.”

“The idea is to ramp this up exponentially, to have over 100 bioclimatic stations around the GTA to measure air quality, temperature, soil chemistry and more,” Johnson adds.

In the coming months, CUE’s UrbEnNet will seek federal support for the initiative, which will cost about $18 million. Results will be published in journals and delivered through lectures and public conferences.

“We will also work with policy-makers to help them understand what we’re learning,” says Johnson, who hopes to see the project replicated around the globe. “CUE’s UrbEnNet will create a world model for understating how cities and urbanization influence the environment where most of us live.”

Critical images from new satellites aid U of T faculty member's lake ice research

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 14:00:48 +0000

Critical images from new satellites aid U of T faculty member's lake ice research

noreen.rasbach Fri, 08/09/2019 - 10:00

Cutline

“Our research will help Canadians and others in temperate regions around the world as we learn to live with our changing climate,” says U of T cryospheric scientist Laura Brown (photo by Maeve Doyle)

Topic

Research & Innovation

U of T Mississauga

University of Toronto cryospheric scientist Laura Brown says a trio of satellites recently launched by the Canadian Space Agency will help improve how she researches lake ice and climate change because it provides satellite and radar images of all of Canada’s territory daily, as well as images of the Arctic up to four times a day.

“Thanks to the new RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM), there will be much better coverage so we won’t have gaps in the data,” says Brown, an associate professor in U of T Mississauga's department of geography.

Brown studies lake ice in both the Arctic and temperate regions. She wants to know how freshwater ice and snow are responding to the change in climate. She combines the satellite data with information from other sources to represent the ice and snow system in climate models.

Until now, Brown accessed data from the RCM’s predecessor. “But my field site in Haliburton is just outside the region with daily coverage by RADARSAT-2, so we only had imagery about one in every three days from the radar bands we need,” she says.

She and her research team filled the data gaps by inferring it through temperature data. “But actually being able to visualize the ice cover itself is so much better than just looking at the temperature.”

Brown says that lake ice is a proxy of our climate. “If the climate warms or cools, if there is a change in the snow, the ice responds.”

Temperate region lake ice differs from Arctic ice. Arctic ice is thick and black with just a thin layer of white reflective ice from snow on top. Arctic ice stays frozen until spring. In temperate regions, snow piles up on lake ice, mid-winter thaws cause flooding, then the water refreezes. “So we get a layer of white ice which is more reflective but thinner ice overall and not as strong,” Brown says.

The three RADARSAT Constellation Mission satellites provide images of all of Canada’s territory daily, as well as images of the Arctic up to four times a day (image courtesy of the Canadian Space Agency)

With more data from the RCM, Brown will be able to see daily surface changes from mid-winter thaws and track how often they happen. She will be able to develop models to better project if lake ice is forming later and disappearing sooner.

“We also use the satellites to look at a larger area from space,” she says. “Rather than just drill a hole and look at one lake, we can look at a whole region at once to see how it is changing.”

A change in ice cover impacts recreational activities on the ice like snowmobiling and ice fishing. It impacts transportation over ice roads. It also impacts what happens under the ice.

Brown says that less ice cover means more open water. More open water means more evaporation and more sunlight coming into the lake. “This would change the organisms living in the lake that respond to different light conditions. It could also change the nutrients within the lake,” says Brown.

In a forthcoming paper, Brown and PhD candidate Alexis Robinson present a new climate model “to better represent the reflectivity of our ice cover here so that we can get the melt timing with more accuracy.”

Brown, members of her research team and a scientist from her industry partner Campbell Scientific Canada are taking part in a summer trip to the Arctic. The first stop was the Polar Continental Shelf Program’s research station in Resolute, an Inuit community, on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut. With help from a member of the Resolute Bay Hunters and Trappers Association, Brown collected data on Arctic lake ice conditions from two of her research lakes.

Next the researchers flew to Polar Bear Pass National Wildlife Area on Bathurst Island where Brown has another lake instrument to observe ice cover. She also helps to maintain Campbell Scientific’s weather tower there in exchange for data.

“By the end of the century, the research lakes in Haliburton probably won't have ice cover every year,” says Brown. “Our research will help Canadians and others in temperate regions around the world as we learn to live with our changing climate.”

From AI to immigrant integration: 56 U of T researchers supported by Canada Research Chairs Program

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 18:56:08 +0000

From AI to immigrant integration: 56 U of T researchers supported by Canada Research Chairs Program

geoff.vendeville Fri, 06/14/2019 - 14:56

Cutline

Three of U of T's 56 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs (from left to right): Jonathan Kelly, Marzyeh Ghassemi and Vincent Kuuire (photos courtesy of Jonathan Kelly and Marzyeh Ghassemi, and by Blake Eligh)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Our Community

Pediatrics

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Cell and Systems Biology

Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation

Artificial Intelligence

Biochemistry

Canada Research Chairs

Chemistry

Computer Science

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Drama

Economics

Electrical & Computer Engineering

English

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Faculty of Medicine

Geography

Hospital for Sick Children

Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Molecular Genetics

Mount Sinai Hospital

Occupational Therapy

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Research & Innovation

University Health Network

UTIAS

Vector Institute

Visual Studies

Women's College Hospital

Survey after survey show doctors face burnout from heavy workloads. But what if they could use a machine learning algorithm to shoulder some of the burden?

Marzyeh Ghassemi (left), the first University of Toronto faculty member to be cross-appointed to the departments of computer science and medicine, is looking to lighten the load on health practitioners – and, by extension, improve patient health – by developing algorithms that can estimate the length of a person's hospital stay, need for intensive care or mortality risk.

“We have a really good body of clinical research that suggests patients respond better to all manner of treatments when it’s provided with compassion and with focus, and with an understanding of where they come from,” she said.

“So I think we should use machine learning to let doctors do the doctoring, to actually interface with patients and make decisions about care.”

Ghassemi is one of 56 U of T faculty members awarded new Canada Research Chairs, or whose chairs were renewed, as part of a double, fall-spring cohort announced Friday by the federal government. Established in 2000, the federal program invests about $295 million annually to recruit and retain top minds in Canada. It supports research in engineering, natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences.

U of T’s total allotment of research chairs in the program is 315, making it the largest in the country.

“I want to extend my warmest congratulations to U of T's new and renewed research chairs,” said Vivek Goel, U of T's vice-president of research and innovation.

“The work supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program benefits all Canadians by advancing our shared knowledge and fostering innovation.”

The new and renewed research chairs at U of T focus on fields ranging from artificial intelligence, or AI, to studies of immigrant integration and well-being.

Ghassemi, who was named a tier-two chair in machine learning and health, is continuing work she began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during her PhD studies. That includes developing an algorithm to help physicians determine the best possible patient treatments by predicting the onset of acute conditions and the need for intervention. Part of her research involved tagging along with doctors and nurses at a Boston hospital during their morning rounds to get a better sense of their daily routines and determine where AI could offer assistance.

Also a faculty member at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Ghassemi said her research chair will allow her to expand the scope of her research beyond acute cases. In fact, she said her research is increasingly focused not on sickness, but on being in good health.

“The majority of the research we’re able to do looks at people when they’re at their very sickest, and then tries to understand whether there are small differences in outcome that we can have at these very, very sick moments,” she said.

“We don’t really know what it means for a person to be healthy.”

She sees her tier-two chair, a five-year award reserved for “exceptional emerging scholars,” as a vote of confidence in her work.

“It’s recognizing that this area of research is one that Canadians care about,” she said.

Jonathan Kelly (left), an assistant professor at U of T’s Institute for Aerospace Studies, or UTIAS, is putting artificial intelligence to work for a different purpose. The new tier-two chair in collaborative robotics designs the software brain for machines with a wide variety of applications, from self-driving wheelchairs to robotic space explorers.

One focus of Kelly’s research is on warehouse-dwelling “cobots” – short for collaborative robots – that are intended to work side-by-side with people in logistics, packaging and assembly. The machines would be sophisticated enough to respond to a worker’s movements without being told explicitly what to do.

“In a manufacturing scenario, maybe both of you are working on adjusting a bolt on a part, but you need the robot to help support the piece so a bolt can be tightened,” Kelly said.

“We’ve actually looked at trying to program the robot to interpret forces that are applied to the part by the person, because that can guide the machine as to what the person’s intent is.”

Kelly sees cobots in the warehouse as a first step toward a Jetsons-like future where robots are interacting with humans in more unpredictable environments – including on the street or in the home.

The Canada Research Chairs Program, Kelly said, provides an advantage when trying to recruit top research talent.

“We want to attract really great students,” he said, “and when you’re in the pool with the MITs, the Stanfords and Berkeleys and Carnegie Mellons, anything you can do to enhance your visibility is extremely valuable.”

At U of T Mississauga, health geographer Vincent Kuuire (right) said his tier-two chair in immigrant well-being and global health gives him more resources to explore health and well-being among newcomers to Canada.

The assistant professor in geography is presently focused on Greater Toronto’s Eritrean and Nigerian communities, which are among the fastest growing groups in Canada. He relies on both census data and information painstakingly gathered by visiting local churches and grocery stores, where he explains his research purpose and looks for volunteers.

He considers himself a “serial migrant,” having lived in seven different regions of his native Ghana before coming to Canada for graduate studies.

Kuuire said the goal of his research is to better understand Canadian immigration, which has been pursued as a population growth strategy for over three decades in response to an aging population and low fertility rates. In one recent paper in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, he traces the relationship between an experience of “childhood adversity” – such as physical and sexual trauma before age 15 – to psychosocial health outcomes among immigrants later in life.

“It’s important to be able to understand the factors that are related to their (immigrants) general wellbeing and integration,” Kuuire said.

“Those findings can contribute to broader policies that may enhance or promote a more cohesive Canada.”

Here is the full list of new and renewed Canada Research Chairs:

New Canada Research Chairs (applied fall of 2018)

Jennifer Campos, in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science and University Health Network, tier two in multisensory integration and aging
Sabine Cordes, in the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine and Sinai Health System, tier one in molecular mechanisms of mood and mind
Ken Croitoru, in the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Sinai Health System, tier one in inflammatory bowel diseases
William Derry, in the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in genetic models of human disease
Natalie Enright Jerger, in the department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in computer architecture
Michael Garton, in the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in synthetic biology
Marzyeh Ghassemi, in the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in machine learning for health
Maria Hupfield, in the department of visual studies and the department of English and drama at U of T Mississauga, tier two in transdisciplinary Indigenous arts
Noah Ivers, in the department of family and community medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Women’s College Hospital, tier two in implementation of evidence-based practice
Zhengping Jia, in the department of physiology in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in synaptic plasticity and brain disorders
Brian Kavanagh, in the department of anesthesia in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in acute lung injury
Jonathan Kelly, at University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in collaborative robotics
Heather McFarlane, in the department of cell and systems biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in plant cell biology
JoAnne McLaurin, in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, tier one in Alzheimer’s disease therapeutics
Aleixo Muise, in the department of paediatrics and department of biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease
Emily Nalder, in the department of occupational science and occupational therapy in the Faculty of Medicine, tier two in resiliency and rehabilitation
Patricia O'Campo, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Unity Health Toronto, tier one in population health intervention research
Meaghan O'Reilly, in the department of medical biophysics in the Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, tier two in biomedical ultrasound
Christopher Pearson, in the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in disease-associated genome instability
Beate Sander, at the Institute of Health Policy, Management & Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and University Health Network, tier two in economics of infectious diseases
Bojana Stefanovic, in the department of medical biophysics in the Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, tier one in neuroimaging
Sandra Styres, in the department of curriculum, teaching and learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, tier two in Iethi’nihsténha Ohwentsia’kékha (land), resurgence, reconciliation and the politics of education
Lillian Sung, in the department of paediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in pediatric oncology supportive care
Wendy Ungar, at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in economic evaluation and technology assessment in child health
Lu-Yang Wang, in the department of physiology in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in brain development and disorders
Ding Yuan, in the department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in systems software
Gang Zheng, in the department of medical biophysics in the Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, tier one in cancer nanomedicine

Renewals of Canada Research Chairs (applied fall of 2018)

Evdokia Anagnostou, in the department of paediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, tier two in translational therapeutics in autism

Michael Baker, in the department of economics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier one in economics and public policy
Timothy Chan, in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier 2 in novel optimization and analytics in health
Brendan Frey, in the department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier one in machine learning for genome biology and therapeutics
Marney Isaac, in the department of physical and environmental sciences at U of T Scarborough, tier two in agroecosystems and development
Catherine Sabiston, in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, tier two in physical activity and mental health
Bianca Schroeder, at the department of computer and mathematical sciences at U of T Scarborough, tier two in data centre technologies
Wei Yu, in the department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier 1 in information theory and wireless communications

New Canada Research Chairs (applied spring of 2018)

Isabella Caniggia, in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology in the Faculty of Medicine and Sinai Health System, tier one in placental biology in pregnancy and disease
David Curtin, in the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in theoretical particle physics
Shiphra Ginsburg, in the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Sinai Health System, tier one in health professions education
Tara Gomes, in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Unity Health Toronto, tier two in drug policy research and evaluation
Annie Huang, in the department of paediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in rare childhood brain tumors
Mohit Kapoor, in the department of surgery and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, tier one in the mechanisms of joint degeneration
Vincent Kuuire, in the department of geography at U of T Mississauga, tier two in immigrant well-being and global health
Tony Lam, in the department of physiology in the Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, tier one in diabetes and obesity
Hyun Lee, in the department of biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine, tier two in biomolecular phase transitions in cellular repair
Philipp Maass, in the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier two in non-coding disease mechanisms
Julien Muffat, in the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier two in stem cell bioengineering and synthetic neuro immunology
Navindra Persaud, in the department of family and community medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto, tier two in health justice
Hannes Röst, at the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research in the Faculty of Medicine, tier two in mass spectrometry-based personalized medicine
Adam Shlien, in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier two in childhood cancer genomics
Valerie Wallace, in the department of ophthalmology and vision sciences in the Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, tier one in retina regeneration
Wendy Wong, in the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in global governance and civil society

Renewals of Canada Research Chairs (applied spring of 2018)

Aimy Bazylak, in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in thermofluidics for clean energy
Gustavo Bobonis, in the department of economics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in the political economy of development
Goldie Nejat, in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in robots for society
Scott Schieman, in the department of sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier one in social contexts of health
Dvira Segal, in the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in theoretical chemistry