News bites

“Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time,” a seven-year project led by history professor Steven High at Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, received considerable financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

One of the objectives of High’s research is to investigate how race, gender and class intersect with the decline of industrial activity and the rise of right-wing populism 

When a NASA mission to Mars blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 30, the rover on board sported a new wheel design — thanks, in part, to Concordia researcher Krzysztof Skonieczny. “We came up with ways to improve performance on Mars’s loose and rocky soil,” explained Skonieczny, associate professor and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Aerospace Robotics in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science.

Arseli Dokumaci, Concordia’s new Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Critical Disability Studies and Media Technologies and an assistant professor of communication studies in the Faculty of Arts and Science, will lead a research program to explore the use of new media technologies within disability movements, cultures, scholarships and activism.

Concordia alumni contributed to the online Contemporary Native Art Biennial this past April. The multi-gallery event’s theme centred on Indigenous kinship and resistance in the face of colonialism.

Members of the Cree community of Wemindji have worked with Monica Mulrennan, a professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, and other researchers to protect over 30,000 square kilometres of territory from large-scale resource development. The project is premised on the recognition of Indigenous authority over traditional lands and waters.

Concordia’s Facilities Management, which oversees all aspects of the university’s physical environment, is constantly at work to create practical urban spaces for academics and students.

The newest example is now underway at the corner of Guy and Ste. Catherine streets in Montreal’s Quartier Concordia, where, despite pandemic-related construction challenges, the basement of the Faubourg Building (FB) will be converted to accommodate open and modern areas for courses and group study before the fall 2021 term.

A scientific training program launched by Concordia and Future Earth will be funded with $1.65 million over six years by NSERC’s Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program. The grant will further scientific research on climate, biodiversity and other critical sustainability goals as well as support the career development of students and postdoctoral fellows.

Irene Rozsa, MA 11, PhD 20, won the Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal this past June. The Film and Moving Image Studies program alumna earned the prize for achieving the highest academic standing at the graduate level among students at the university completing a dissertation.

“I am grateful to Concordia for giving me first-hand access to an intellectual community where scholarship, professional dedication and kindness coexist,” said Rozsa, whose research focuses on the transnational dimensions of visual culture in Latin America.

The long-standing flagship of the John Molson Executive Centre (JMEC), the Airport Executive Leadership Program (AELP), made a successful online pivot in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual sessions provided a new opportunity for aviation executives to improve their strategic management skills. “Participants are staying 100 per cent active,” said Sandra Nichol, executive director of JMEC.

Researchers at Concordia have co-developed and disseminated PROFILE, a multimedia tool kit designed to combat racial and social profiling by compelling users to confront their conscious or unconscious biases.

Soroosh Shahtalebi, a doctoral candidate at the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, has been awarded the Louis-Berlinguet prize from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT). Shahtalebi was recognized for his article “PHTNet: Characterization and Deep Mining of Involuntary Pathological Hand Tremor Using Recurrent Neural Network Models,” which appeared earlier this year in the open-access journal Scientific Reports.

Under the supervision of associate professor Arash Mohammadi, Shahtalebi’s work at the Intelligent Signal and Information Processing (I-SIP) Lab applies machine-learning solutions to problems in medicine and health care.