Bold innovation for a better future

I also focus on pension funds and other long-term institutional investors that have some responsibility towards their own shareholders and are not just after the money — they can pressure companies to make changes.

What are some interdisciplinary aspects of your work?

PP: In terms of our renewable-energy work, and even on electrified transportation, we collaborate widely with people outside of our immediate group through Concordia’s Next- Generation Cities Institute.

TW: My research group received a sizeable grant jointly offered by Quebec and Luxembourg funding agencies to look at water pollution across borders. Sometimes a parent company in one country will have plants in another where restrictions are laxer in what is essentially ‘emission shifting.’

How do you see the future of renewable energy?

PP: I’m very optimistic about the technical solutions, but the adoption of the technologies is also a question of policy, an area where additional effort is required for widespread adoption. I believe that the younger generation is deeply attracted to questions of the environment, and I think they really want to make a difference. I teach a course on renewable energy once a year, which attracts over 100 students each time, with long waiting lists.

Experts in aging across Concordia’s faculties have united under the engAGE Centre for Research on Aging to focus on the social, health-related and technological dimensions of aging.

Meghan Joy is the interim director of engAGE and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. Her research explores the policy and politics of population aging and changing relations between governments and non-profit organizations.

Kim Sawchuk is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies who, since the 1990s, has studied the intersection between aging and communication technologies. She also collaborates with engAGE and is the director of Ageing + Communication + Technologies (ACT), which brings together researchers and community partners to examine new forms of communications in networked societies.

What does empowered aging mean to you?

Kim Sawchuk: There have been lots of injunctions for older adults to be active, and a lot of work on healthy and positive aging, which is, of course, important. Empowered aging is about people sharing their experiences — good and bad — not only as bodies that need biomedical attention, but as contributing members of society at all stages of life.

Meghan Joy: Empowered aging means that individuals have agency over their experience. In particular, that older adults with diverse lived experiences have control over what well-being means to them as they age, and also in terms of the programs and the support that is available.

Has the public perception of aging changed?

KS: I think the pandemic was a shock for people in terms of the types of conditions we created and how we’ve abandoned older adults. In some senses, that’s the biggest shift I’ve seen because suddenly, there was an acknowledgment that we’ve really done a poor job of thinking about long-term care.

Before the pandemic I had to fight to explain to people why I focus on aging and technology that’s not about assistive devices for health purposes, but about everyday digital practices.

Why are community organizations so important for empowered aging?

MJ: Community non-profit organizations offer vital, human-centred personal supportive work that is deeply informed by the needs and voices of diverse older adults. These agencies check in on people, offer opportunities for social connection, and are increasingly filling gaps in government programs such as by transporting folks to appointments. That’s why engAGE not only brings together researchers from across the university, but is also really rooted in the community.

Susan Liscouët-Hanke: I focus more on the things you don’t see — all of the systems inside the aircraft that make it work. These include flight controls, as well as environmental systems that help protect against ice or keep passengers comfortable.

We are starting a project on hybrid-electric aircraft with a combination of typical engines that consume fuel, along with a battery system for different phases of flight. There are plenty of complicated systems fit into the small space of the aircraft and they need to be very light.

Why is Concordia in an ideal location for aerospace research?

CM: Montreal is the third-largest hub for aerospace in the world after Seattle and Toulouse. If we don’t take the lead, we will become followers, and a lot of other cities in the world are competing to increase their share of the aerospace industry. We see a lot of new technologies including artificial intelligence, electrification and hydrogen that are game-changers in the context of making aerospace greener, but they require a lot of research and development to be carried out in the coming years.

How are you collaborating with researchers from other disciplines?

SLH: We’re working on a project based in Europe called AGILE 4.0 that is developing methods and tools to collaborate between different research centres and companies based in Europe, Canada and Brazil. What is interesting about aircraft design is that it’s so multidisciplinary — no one alone can develop the technologies of the future.