Tuesday, August 24, 2021

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• Longhouse Labs Project receives $50K donation from Wawanesa Mutual Insurance
• Bernard Duncker reappointed as AVP Interdisciplinary Research
• Professor Eric Blais receives Ontario Early Research Award
• Protecting biodiversity requires novel strategies and new policy tools

Longhouse Labs Project receives $50K donation from Wawanesa Mutual Insurance

This article was originally featured on the Faculty of Arts website.

The Faculty of Arts is pleased to announce the first corporate donation to the Longhouse Labs Project. Wawanesa Insurance donated $50,000 to support the creation of an art studio space.  

The Longhouse Labs is a major undertaking at the University of Waterloo that will enable Indigenous artists from across the country to focus and develop their creative practices within the Department of Fine Arts in ways that will also support student growth through mentorship.  The Longhouse Labs aims to dismantle the complex set of barriers that hinder Indigenous artists from fully participating in the cultural life of this country, and to address issues raised by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, by building an inclusive education system that includes Indigenous self-determination, culture, and knowledge.

“We’re honoured to support the work of the University of Waterloo’s Longhouse Labs Project and applaud the leadership team working to make this vision a reality,” said Wawanesa’s Vice President of Culture, Community and Communications, Selena Hinds.

“We are tremendously grateful to Wawanesa Insurance for taking a leadership role in supporting this important initiative,” said Sheila Ager, Dean of Arts. “Clearly, they understand the importance of building a strong, vibrant cultural sector that welcomes the many voices of Indigenous artists in Canada.”

“The Longhouse Labs Project is founded on the premise that we need many partners to shift barriers and to make more avenues for Indigenous leaders to mentor both Indigenous and non-Indigenous emerging artists.  I am delighted that Wawanesa recognizes the potential to make a lasting social impact,” said Logan MacDonald, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Art.

Longhouse Labs will begin programming in the fall of 2022. Read more about Professor MacDonald and Longhouse Labs.

For more information, please contact Kim Bardwell, Director of Arts Advancement: office telephone 1-519-888-4567 extension 47310, or email kim.bardwell@uwaterloo.ca.

Bernard Duncker reappointed as AVP Interdisciplinary Research

Professor Bernard Duncker has been reappointed Associate Vice-President, Interdisciplinary Research for a three-year term beginning on September 1, 2022.

"Professor Duncker has held the AVP role in the Office of Research since 2018 and has been instrumental in promoting and facilitating interdisciplinary research; overseeing and supporting the University Research Centres & Institutes; and developing and overseeing international research partnerships," wrote Vice-President, Research and International Charmaine Dean in a memo circulated to employees yesterday. "In this role, he has also served as the University of Waterloo lead, on behalf of the Vice-President, Research and International, for the National Research Council-University of Waterloo Collaboration Centre and served as co-Chair of the Waterloo Awards Committee."

"Under his leadership, Professor Duncker successfully launched the Interdisciplinary Trailblazer seed funding program; co-chaired the Interdisciplinary Task Force; oversaw the nomination and appointment process for several University Centre & Institute executive directors; strengthened international research with key strategic partners including the University of Bordeaux and Technion; and served as the University of Waterloo’s administrative lead, in partnership with Leader’s Fund, Communitech, and the Schulich Foundation, for the successful inaugural $1M Leaders Prize AI competition."

"In his second term, Professor Duncker aims to advance interdisciplinary collaboration through the creation of networking and event spaces; align the University’s research strengths with important global challenges through the work of the University Centres & Institutes; promote the formation of cross-faculty graduate student teams; advance a performance management system (i.e., key performance indicators) for the University Centres & Institutes; and develop and implement processes for Faculties to engage with the Centres & Institutes and the Office of Research in an efficient and effective manner."  

"Professor Duncker joined the University of Waterloo as a faculty member in 2000. He earned his B.Sc. (Hons.) from the University of Ottawa, his Ph.D. in Biology from Queen’s University and completed a Terry Fox Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland. His research on yeast and the proteins involved in controlling DNA replication and cell cycle checkpoints has applications in detecting the presence of environmental carcinogens and cancer in humans."

"I would like to thank members of the AVP Interdisciplinary Research nominating committee for their time and dedication to this process. These include Jean Andrey, Catherine Burns, Drew Knight, Ling Loerchner, Sushanta Mitra, Bruce Muirhead, Neil Randall, David Tweddell and Mary Wells," writes Dean.

Professor Duncker will be on sabbatical leave from September 1, 2021, to August 30, 2022. Vice-President Dean reports that Professor Bessma Momani will serve as interim Associate Vice-President, Interdisciplinary Research in his absence. 

"Momani is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and previously served as both interim Assistant Vice-President, International Relations in 2020 where she coordinated the development of the international strategic direction for the University of Waterloo; and as Assistant Vice-President, Research and International to support the Vice President in the Office of Research on a variety of initiatives," Dean writes. "Professor Momani’s priorities will include launching the key activities identified by Professor Duncker above, as well as preparing for the renewal of several Centres & Institutes, building of the new National Research Council-University of Waterloo Collaborative Centre, overseeing internal nominations for awards by external organizations, and nurturing existing and new international research collaborations."

"Please join me in congratulating Professor Duncker on his reappointment, and we all look forward to working with Professor Momani in the coming year," Dean's memo concludes.

Professor Eric Blais receives Ontario Early Research Award

This article was originally published on the Cheriton School of Computer Science website.

Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor Eric Blais is one of nine researchers at the University of Waterloo to receive funding from the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities through the Early Researcher Awards program. 

Professor Blais, whose research interests span theoretical computer science with a special focus on sublinear-time algorithms, randomness in computation, and complexity theory, was awarded $140,000 in funding through the ERA program for his proposal titled “Sublinear-time algorithms for high-dimensional sets.” This funding amount is matched by an additional $50,000 by the University of Waterloo, bringing the total to $190,000.

“A central goal of computer science is to design efficient algorithms to solve fundamental computational tasks,” Professor Blais said. “Historically, algorithms that run in time proportional to the size of their input have been considered efficient. But for many modern massive datasets, the only practical algorithms are those that run in significantly less time than it takes to read their entire input.” Sublinear-time algorithms are one class of such algorithms. Over the past quarter of a century, computer scientists have successfully developed sublinear-time algorithms for computational tasks where the input is a large graph or a Boolean function, and the resulting algorithms have found multiple applications in the analysis of massive datasets. 

“Many other massive datasets, however, can’t be modelled as graphs or Boolean functions,” Professor Blais explains. “To handle such datasets, we need to develop sublinear-time algorithms for a different type of input — what are known as high-dimensional geometric datasets. This is what my team of graduate students and I propose to do.” This work will develop new theoretical foundations for sublinear-time algorithms, advance our understanding of the nature of computation, and also lead to new algorithm design techniques for the software industry. 

“Congratulations to Eric on receiving an Early Researcher Award,” said Raouf Boutaba, Professor and Director of the Cheriton School of Computer Science. “The impact of the research that Eric and his graduate students will conduct funded by this award will not only enhance Ontario’s stature in the international academic community, but it will also provide long-term economic benefits across the software industry.”

The research made possible through ERA funding will be structured to encourage collaboration among graduate students in the Cheriton School of Computer Science’s algorithms and complexity group. In particular, the training and guidance provided by Professor Blais and other faculty members in the algorithms and complexity group will enable a doctoral candidate to develop mentoring skills while working with two master’s students and several undergraduate researchers.

Protecting biodiversity requires novel strategies and new policy tools

This article was originally published on the Faculty of Environment website.

In light of the meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and negotiations around post-2020 global conservation targets, there is renewed attention on the need to assess and apply novel conservation policy tools. One of these tools is referred to as ‘Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs)’. 25 experts representing 26 institutions and 14 countries recently published a paper in Nature that assesses for the first time the core opportunities and challenges of OECMS to address the biodiversity crisis. This work is one output of Science for People Partnership (SNAPP) ‘Coastal Outcomes’ working group.

As Derek Armitage, professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, and a contributing author to the study notes, “OECMs are not your typical protected area, nor do they have much in common with our iconic image of Banff National Park or Algonquin Provincial Park. Instead, they recognize the diverse ways that people sustainably use landscapes and seascapes, even in situations where conservation is not the primary aim.

It is crucial to recognize that areas stewarded by Indigenous Peoples and many local communities make invaluable contributions to biodiversity protection as well as cultural and economic wellbeing. These spaces, along with historic shipwreck reserves, sacred groves, and low-intensity farmland managed under traditional agricultural management systems are all valuable strategies with which to protect biodiversity amidst the growing climate crisis.”

“If done well, OECMs can be an essential tool to ensure equitable conservation,” says Dr Georgina Gurney, the study’s lead author and Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. “Protected areas are generally defined as having a primary objective of biodiversity conservation. This can alienate people who manage areas that sustain biodiversity for different objectives, such as sustainable resource use or cultural practices.”

Still, there are plenty of challenges ahead. Perceptions remain that OECMs might be a ‘land grab’ or ‘sea grab’ by national governments, outsiders or international organizations seeking to achieve biodiversity targets. And the idea is still relatively new - OECMs were only devised by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 and not really defined until 2018. Currently less than one percent of the world’s land and freshwater environments and less than 0.1 percent of marine areas are recognized with an OECM designation. How OECMs are governed, funded and integrated with other global agreements are open-ended questions.

Ultimately, says Dr Emily Darling, study co-author and Director of Coral Reef Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, “If done right, OECMs are a potentially powerful mechanism to advocate for outcomes-based conservation since a key criteria of OECMs is demonstrating their effectiveness.”