Lecture

Indigenous Speakers Series presents Kim Tallbear

Olivia Vanderwal — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:28:29 +0000

Indigenous Speakers Series presents Kim Tallbear Olivia Vanderwal Fri, 12/05/2025 - 13:28

The Indigenous Speakers Series is honoured to present Dr. Kim Tallbear, professor, author, and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society.

About the speaker

Kim TallBear (she/her) is a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, a Dakota nation in present-day South Dakota. She is a Professor in the Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities campus. She earned a B.A. in Community Planning at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and a Master’s in City Planning (environmental policy and planning) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned her PhD in History of Consciousness at University of California, Santa Cruz.

She is the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Dr. TallBear is the co-founder of the Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) Canada. She has advised the President of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) on issues related to genomics and Indigenous peoples. She has also advised museums on exhibits related to race and science.

In addition to studying genome science disruptions to Indigenous governance and to Indigenous self-definitions, Dr. TallBear studies colonial disruptions to Indigenous sexualities. She is a regular panelist on the weekly Indigenous current affairs podcast, Media Indigena. She is also a regular media commentator in outlets such as CBC, CNN, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, the LA Times, APTN, and the BBC on topics pertaining to Indigenous peoples, science, and technology; on the politics of self-indigenization; and on Indigenous sexualities. She is a former Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (PETF) Fellow (2018-2021).

You can follow her on Bluesky @kimtallbear.bsky.social and read her occasional posts on her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization.

Please note: Registration is appreciated but not required. Everyone is welcome!

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Watch past recordings from our Indigenous Speakers Series on YouTube.

Political Science Speaker Series: Gender, Peace, and Power Sharing

Elizabeth Rogers — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 17:55:53 +0000

Political Science Speaker Series: Gender, Peace, and Power Sharing Elizabeth Rogers Thu, 11/27/2025 - 12:55

Dr. Allison McCulloch (she/her) is a Professor of Political Science at Brandon University. Her research considers the politics of deeply divided, post-conflict societies, with a specific interest in the relationship between peacemaking, power-sharing and constitution-writing. Her work explores how power-sharing arrangements can be made more inclusive of identities beyond the ethnonational divide

Dr. McCulloch will be speaking on her upcoming book Gender, Peace, and Power-Sharing (University of Toronto Press, June 2026), coauthored with Siobhan Byrne (University of Alberta). The book explores how power-sharing and the women, peace, and security agenda intersect in peacebuilding practices. It offers a feminist “alternative telling” that captures the tensions and potential of these frameworks

Obstructed Labour: A Century of (In)action on Maternal Mortality in Canada

Elizabeth Rogers — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 15:30:15 +0000

Obstructed Labour: A Century of (In)action on Maternal Mortality in Canada Elizabeth Rogers Mon, 11/03/2025 - 10:30

Scholar Spotlight Series: Eleanor McGrath

Canada's official maternal mortality statistics are incomplete to the extent that the World Health Organization applies an amplifier of 60%. This problem has been known for at least 100 years with no lasting progress to address it at a national level. Through the lens of reproductive justice, this presentation chronicles the historical trajectory and interrogates the public policy failure to prioritize the critical issue of maternal mortality.

Poetry, Pain, and the Promise of Palestine

Wendy Philpott — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 18:11:47 +0000

Poetry, Pain, and the Promise of Palestine Wendy Philpott Fri, 10/31/2025 - 14:11

The Faculty of Arts is honoured to present guest speaker Dr. Sa'ed Atshan – scholar, Palestinian Quaker, and LGBTQ human rights advocate – on the role of poetry in capturing the realities of contemporary Palestinian life in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and beyond.

Please join us for this unique opportunity to explore how interdisciplinary scholarship can be applied to both understand and address a global crisis which has had such tragic human consequences.

About the speaker

Dr. Sa'ed Atshan is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College. He has previously served as an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Emory University, as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Senior Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. He earned a PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies and MA in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and BA from Swarthmore College. Atshan is the author of Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique (Stanford University Press, 2020), coauthor (with Katharina Galor) of The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians (Duke University Press, 2020), and co-editor (with Galor) of Reel Gender: Palestinian and Israeli Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2022).

Details and proceedings

Registration is required for in-person and online attendance. For those attending in-person, proof of registration is required at the reception area.

Doors open: 6:30 p.m.
Lecture and moderated Q & A: 7:00 to 8:20 p.m.
Reception for the in-person audience: 8:30 to 9:00 p.m.

Paid visitor parking is available in Lot M across from Federation Hall. More parking information.

This lecture is made possible through the generosity of alumni and friends. We extend sincere appreciation to the donors who contributed to the Foundation for Palestinian Studies Fund.

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Watch past recordings from our Palestinian Lectures series on YouTube.

From Myth to Malice: Affective and Political Consequences of False Claims to Indigeneity

Elizabeth Rogers — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 13:53:23 +0000

From Myth to Malice: Affective and Political Consequences of False Claims to Indigeneity Elizabeth Rogers Mon, 09/29/2025 - 09:53

Scholar Spotlight Series featuring Dr. Rowland Robinson

In this talk, Rowland will interrogate the phenomenon of false Indigenous identity claims and their corrosive effects on Indigenous communities. Drawing on personal experience, historical precedents, and critical Indigenous scholarship, he situates these practices within the broader logic of settler colonialism and its drive toward self-indigenization. In particular, he will focus on the drive to consume and assume historical Indigenous suffering in the effort to cohere false claims.

Read Rowland Robinson's bio

Robots vs Reality: Responsible Science Communication in the Attention Economy

Olivia Vanderwal — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 16:23:46 +0000

Robots vs Reality: Responsible Science Communication in the Attention Economy Olivia Vanderwal Thu, 09/25/2025 - 12:23

Join the Global Engagement Seminar: The Future of Connection on Tuesday, October 21 between 4:00-5:00PM for Evan Ackermans's presentation Robots vs Reality: Responsible Science Communication in the Attention Economy.

Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum, the award-winning flagship publication of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Evan has been writing about robots, science, and emerging technology for over 15 years. After co-founding his own robotics blog in 2007, he joined Spectrum in 2011. In addition to Spectrum, Evan’s work has appeared in a variety of other websites and print magazines, and you may have heard him talking about robots on NPR’s Science Friday or the BBC World Service if you were listening at just the right time. Evan currently lives in Oklahoma City, along with his partner and a steadily growing collection of robot vacuums. In his spare time, he enjoys scuba diving, squeezing flamingos, and playing bagpipes excellently.

How Hard Could It Be? Applying International Human Rights Law to Content Moderation

Olivia Vanderwal — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 16:17:53 +0000

How Hard Could It Be? Applying International Human Rights Law to Content Moderation Olivia Vanderwal Thu, 09/25/2025 - 12:17

Join the Global Engagement Seminar: The Future of Connection on Tuesday, September 30 between 4:00-5:00PM for Sabrina Ahmad's presentation How Hard Could It Be? Applying International Human Rights Law to Content Moderation: Lessons from Meta’s Oversight Board.

Sabrina Ahmad is a Trust & Safety professional with several years’ experience working at the intersection of content moderation, platform governance, and freedom of expression issues in our digital world. Prior to her work in this field, Sabrina served as a policy analyst at the federal Government of Canada in designing skills-based technology training programs for public servants, and in communications and stakeholder relations for Canada’s Public Policy Forum. She holds an MSc in the Social Science of the Internet from the University of Oxford, and a Joint Honours BA in Communications and Sociology (French Immersion) from the University of Ottawa.

Indigenous Speakers Series presents Mary Spencer

Olivia Vanderwal — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 19:10:26 +0000

Indigenous Speakers Series presents Mary Spencer Olivia Vanderwal Fri, 09/05/2025 - 15:10

The Indigenous Speakers Series is honoured to present Mary Spencer, member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation and former WBA super welterweight world champion.

About the speaker

Mary Spencer is a member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation and held the WBA super welterweight world championship professional boxing title for the past year. She boxes out of Montreal, Quebec. Spencer grew up in Windsor, Ontario, and started boxing at the age of 17. She spent 10 years on the Canadian Boxing Team where she won three world titles as well as the PanAm Games, and in 2012 she became the first woman to represent Canada in Olympic boxing.

Spencer's talk will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Dale Bellaire, a PhD student in the Faculty of Health.

Please note: Registration is appreciated but not required. Everyone is welcome! You can join the livestream via MS Teams.

Portrait of Mary Spencer by Hawlii Pichette, Urban Iskwew.

Registration

Watch past recordings from our Indigenous Speakers Series on YouTube.

Critical Tech Talk 12: Vibe Coding with AI for Cancer Detection - Building Mini Medical Machines in the Shadow of “Big Tech”

Wendy Philpott — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 19:57:25 +0000

Critical Tech Talk 12: Vibe Coding with AI for Cancer Detection - Building Mini Medical Machines in the Shadow of “Big Tech” Wendy Philpott Mon, 06/23/2025 - 15:57

Join the Critical Tech Talk series to hear about how “vibe coding”, a flexible, intuition-driven approach to prototyping, can empower people from non-computing backgrounds to shape the medical tools they actually need.

About the talk

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in healthcare and creative workflows, the boundary between expert and end-user is blurring. This talk explores how “vibe coding”, a flexible, intuition-driven approach to prototyping can empower people from non-computing backgrounds to shape the medical tools they actually need. Drawing from experience building fast, lightweight AI utilities for cancer detection and clinical documentation, the speaker examines how small-scale code experiments can unlock agency and challenge institutional inertia. In this session, the speaker hopes to generate discussion on how personal toolmaking can offer an alternative to extractive models of technological development, fostering more grounded and human-centered applications of technology in medicine and beyond.

About the speaker

Dr. Josh Del Papa is a resident physician in Diagnostic and Molecular Pathology at the University of Western Ontario. He completed medical school at Queen’s University and holds a PhD in biochemistry with a specialization in human and molecular genetics from the University of Ottawa. His research bridges diagnostic dermatopathology, physician-centered interface design, and artificial intelligence, with a focus on transparent, clinician-empowering tools. He is currently developing a fully offline AI platform that classifies skin cancers in real-time. The system is designed to augment intraoperative consultations through a human-in-the-loop approach, without relying on the cloud or opaque black-box systems.

Respondents

Dr. Helen Chen is Director of the Professional Practice Centre in Health Systems and serves as Program Lead of the Master of Health Informatics and Analytics program. Her expertise lies in health data analytics and the interoperability of health information systems. Dr. Chen’s research explores the application of machine learning and generative AI to enhance the accessibility and usability of real-world health data, supporting evidence-based decision-making in healthcare and public health.

Dr. Jim Wallace is Professor in the School of Public Health Sciences with a cross-appointment in the Cheriton School of Computer Science. His research explores the intersection of human-computer interaction and health. He has published widely on topics including human-centered design, games for health behaviour change, and AI support for qualitative research. His work has received awards at the CHI and CSCW conferences, and is funded by NSERC, NRC, and CFI-JELF.

Dr. Plinio Morita is Director of the Ubiquitous Health Technology Lab (UbiLab). His research interests are in the areas of population-level surveillance using IoT data, mHealth and wearable technology design, ubiquitous sensors for smart homes, usage data and health data analytics, precision medicine, and technology for aging. He focuses on personalized medicine technologies that can prevent unnecessary visits to hospitals and drive our healthcare system toward community care and telehealth.

Moderator

Dr. Marcel O'Gorman, University Research Chair, professor of English, and founding director of the Critical Media Lab (CML), University of Waterloo. Professor O'Gorman leads collaborative design projects and teaches courses and workshops in critical media studies and responsible innovation. He has published widely about the impacts of technology on society, and he has an international portfolio of exhibitions and performances.

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Visualizing the EV3 Solar Panels

Wendy Philpott — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 19:15:41 +0000

Visualizing the EV3 Solar Panels Wendy Philpott Mon, 06/09/2025 - 15:15

This event begins with a brief talk by Professor Ian Rowlands about the deployment of solar panels on the top of Waterloo’s EV3 building, placing this within the context of solar energy policy and use in Ontario more broadly. A guided tour around EV3’s atrium will follow and – weather-permitting – its exterior and roof for an up-close look at the building’s solar panels

Next, participants will work with Professors Anne Pasek (Trent University) and Marcel O’Gorman to design a solar energy visualization project using data from the EV3 solar panels. No technical or artistic expertise is required, but an interest in alternative energy, sustainability and critical-creative design is a must.

Please register for this event