Speakers

Matthew Schnurr, Associate Professor, Department of International Development Studies, Dalhousie University

My core research program investigates the contentious debates over the potential for Genetically Modified (GM) crops to improve yields and livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa. I am particularly interested in examining the suitability of GM technology for the proposed recipients of GM technology: smallholder, subsistence farmers.

  Ted Cavanagh, Professor, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Dalhousie University

Robert France, Associate Professor of Watershed Management, Department of Environmental Sciences and the Rural Research Centre, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University

Urbanization sprawl and the consequent runoff of excessive stormwater together with loss of wetlands are some of the most serious environmental land-use problems facing North American cities. This study seeks to describe the environmental and planning history of the Alewife watershed, located near Boston, MA, possibly the most richly mapped and thoroughly documented urban wild on the continent.

Anatoliy GruzdAssociate Professor, School of Information Management, Director of the Social Media Lab at the Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University

The Dalhousie Social Media Lab studies how social media are changing the ways in which people communicate, collaborate, and disseminate information and how these changes are impacting social, economic, and political norms and structures of our modern society. Dr. Gruzd will speak about various SSHRC-funded research initiatives currently underway at the Lab.

Anna MacLeodAssistant Professor, Division of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University

The Faculty of Medicine simultaneously delivers curriculum to campuses that are 400 kilometers apart (Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia) via state-of-the-art videoconferencing technologies. This ethnographic research is exploring the complexities of becoming a physician in a ‘button-mediated’ digital learning environment. 

Jennifer Bain, Associate Professor and Department Chair, Department of Music, Dalhousie University

Musicologists and computer scientists are working together on the Optical Neume Recognition Project to develop software to read neumes—graphic musical symbols—found in the earliest form of Western musical notation. Given that individual manuscripts could contain 250,000 recurrences of 20+ discrete neume types and their variants, the tool developed will allow musicologists to study these signs more quickly and accurately and, most importantly, in far greater depth than ever before.

Heather Castleden, Associate Professor and CIHR New Investigator (Knowledge Translation), School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University

For Huu-ay-aht First Nations, April 1, 2011 became known as “Effective Date”: the date their Treaty was implemented, enabling them to make their own decisions on their own terms. Through an innovative pilot project we explored Huu-ay-aht youth perceptions of the Treaty, documenting their vision for their Nation using digital stories.

Pauline Gardiner BarberProfessor and Sociology and Social Anthropology Department Chair, Dalhousie University

Canada’s immigration discourse promises reforms to ease delays in the immigration queue and more rapidly address labour market needs. My research questions how Canadian policies are translated by migrants and migration agencies in the Philippines, and to what effect.

Fiona Black, Professor of Information Management, and AVP Academic, Dalhousie University

Developing transnational approaches in print culture: new questions and methods. This project, with collaborators in Scotland and New Zealand, is exploring the tools and conceptual frameworks by which scholars can expand book history scholarship from studies of nation-states to those that are transnational.

Letitia Meynell, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and cross-appointed with the Gender and Women's Studies Programme, Dalhousie University

Situating Science is a national, seven-year, SSHRC-supported project promoting communication and collaboration among humanists and social scientists that are engaged in the study of the sciences and technology.

Marjorie Stone, Professor of Gender Studies, Department of English, Dalhousie University

Elizabeth Kay-Raining BirdProfessor, School of Human Communication Disorders, Dalhousie University

Bilingualism in children with special needs is an understudied area. Our research shows children with language and cognitive disabilities become bilingual and that input frequency matters. We are currently studying how context affects participation in bilingual experiences and ultimately development.