Tag Archives: UBC

An art/science and a science event in Vancouver (Canada)

We’re closing off August 2019 with a couple of talks, Curiosity Collider features an art/science event and Café Scientifique features a discussion about protease research.

Collider Café: Art. Science. Hybrids. on August 21, 2019

From an August 14, 2019 Curiosity Collider announcement (received via email),

How can the hybrids of scientific studies and artistic practices – embroidery, botanical art, projection sculpture, and video storytelling – spark creativity and discoveries?

Our #ColliderCafe is a space for artists, scientists, makers, and anyone interested in art+science to meet, discover, and connect.

Are you curious? Join us at “Collider Cafe: Art. Science. Hybrids.” to explore how art and science intersect in the exploration of curiosity.

When: 8:00pm on Wednesday, August 21, 2019. Doors open at 7:30pm.
Where: Pizzeria Barbarella. 654 E Broadway, Vancouver, BC (Google Map).
Cost: $5-10 (sliding scale) cover at the door. Proceeds will be used to cover the cost of running this event, and to fund future Curiosity Collider events.

//Special thanks to Pizzeria Barbarella for hosting the upcoming Collider Cafe!//

With speakers: Heather Talbot (ecosystem, embroidery and felt art): Studying complex systems with thread
Katrina Vera Wong (botanical and climate research informed art): Flower Power
Kat Wadel (projection sculpture & plastic waste): Polymer Legacy
Lucas Kavanagh & Jesse Lupini; Avocado Video (science communication & video storytelling): Experiments in Digital Scientific Storytelling
Head to the Facebook event page – let us know you are coming and share this event with others! Follow updates on Instagram via @curiositycollider or #ColliderCafe. 
Looking for more Art+Science in Vancouver?

September 13, 14 We are excited to announce events for Her Story: Canadian Women Scientists, a film series dedicated to sharing the stories of Canadian women scientists. We will be hosting two screening events in September at the Annex. Get your tickets now!
August 15 Explore our relationships with waterways across Metro Vancouver at Living Legends of Vancouver: a premiere screening of short videos by students from the Emily Carr. This screening will be hosted by the Beaty Biodiversity Museum (admission by donation), and intermixed with interactive presentations and dialogue led by the artists. 
August 28 Our friends at Nerd Nite Vancouver is hosting Nerd Nite Goes to the Movies at the VIFF. The next event will focus on evolution. The event will be followed by a screening of Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca. Get tickets now!
Until September 29  New Media Gallery presents Winds, where artists explore how our perception and understanding of landscape can be interpreted through technology.  
Until November 10 CC friend Katrina Vera Wong (also speaker for Collider Cafe!), and Julya Hajnoczky will present their exhibition Closer at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Using different approaches – Hajnoczky with high-resolution still life photographs and Wong with sections of pressed or dried plants – both artists explore the enchanting world of the often overlooked in this unique joint exhibition

For more Vancouver art+science events, visit the Curiosity Collider events calendar.

Café Scientifique: From tadpole tails to diagnosing disease – the evolution of protease research, August 27, 2019

From an August 14, 2019 Café Scientifique announcement (received via email),

Our next café will happen on Tuesday, August 27th at 7:30pm in the back room at Yagger’s Downtown (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the evening will be  Dr. Georgina Butler from the Centre for Blood Research at UBC [University of British Columbia].


From tadpole tails to diagnosing disease – the evolution of protease research  
 
Proteases are enzymes that cut other proteins. Humans have 560 different proteases – why so many? what are they doing? We know that too much protease activity can be detrimental in diseases such as cancer and arthritis, but failed efforts to stop cancer spread by blocking proteases has contributed to the realization that some cuts are essential. In the era of “big data”, at UBC we have developed new techniques (degradomics) to study proteases on a global scale to determine what they really do in health and disease. Hopefully this information will enable us to identify new drug targets as well as novel biomarkers to diagnose or monitor disease.

Dr. Butler completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry (with Studies in Italy) at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Leicester in the UK. She came to UBC as a Wellcome Trust Travelling Fellow in 1999 for 2 years. Still here, she is a Research Associate at the Centre for Blood Research and in Oral, Biological and Medical Sciences at UBC, where she studies novel roles of proteases in health and disease. 

We hope to see you there!

Your Café Sci Vancouver Organizers

You can find Dr. Butler’s UBC profile page here.

Heart & Art—the first Anatomy Night in Canada—February 14, 2019 in Vancouver

First the local side of this news and then the international.

Vancouver

From a February 4, 2019 Curiosity Collider email,

Join Curiosity Collider and UBC [University of British Columbia] anatomists and medical illustrators on a tour of our remarkable heart on Valentine’s day [sic]

Pre-registration on Eventbrite is required. Only 15 spots are available. Purchase your tickets now!

During this special event we will explore the heart, a spectacular organ, through art, dissection, illustration, and discussion with UBC professor Claudia Krebs, MD/graduate student Najah Adreak, associate professor Carol-Ann Courneya, and medical illustrator Paige Blumer.

What to expect? This event is organized with members of UBC Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences and UBC Continuing Professional Development.

An anatomy of the heart presentation and bovine heart dissection by UBC professor Claudia Krebs and MD/graduate student Najah Adreak.

A discussion on the heart in art with Heartfelt Images founder and UBC associate professor Carol-Ann Courneya.

Illustrating the heart (draw your own!) – hands-on introduction with medical illustrators Paige Blumer and Kate Campbell

Q&A and casual mingling

What are Anatomy Nights?

Anatomy Nights started out in Hull, UK as a public outreach event to bring anatomy knowledge to the general public. During an anatomy night, an anatomist talks about a specific organ and then performs a live dissection of that organ – not human: in this case it will be a bovine heart. This year the event is expanding to a new frontier with a global anatomy night – this will be the beginning of the Canadian series of events.

About the event
This event is open to all ages but minors must be accompanied by adults. Event venue is wheelchair accessible. Refreshments are available by donation. Proceeds will be used to cover the cost of running the event; profits will be donated to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Logistics for the event (from the Curiosity Collider Heart & Art event page);

Anatomy Night: Heart and Art

Date/Time
Date(s) – 14/02/2019
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Location
Artworks – Gallery
237 E 4th Ave, Vancouver, BC

Anatomy Nights International

I checked out the anatomynights.com website and found this Valentine’s Day listing of events (from their events webpage):

Valentine’s Day 2019

In 2019 we have gone international. Follow the links below to book places at an event near you.

You can learn all about the heart and see inside as part of the dissection of an animal heart.

UK

Newcastle – The Bridge Hotel

Brighton – The Walrus

Edinburgh – Summerhall

Belfast – The Black Box SOLD OUT

Bristol – The Greenbank, Easton

EUROPE

Riga, Latvia – Cafe Spiikiizi SOLD OUT

USA

Indianapolis – CentrePoint Brewery (Friday 15th February)

CANADA

canada

     Vancouver – 237 E 4th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5T 0B4

Happy Valentine’s Day! One final note, Curiosity Collider is a not-for-profit volunteer art/science organization based in Vancouver, Canada.

Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) talk on October 30th, 2018: Solving some of Canada’s grandest challenges with synthetic biology

From an October 16, 2018 Café Scientifique Vancouver announcement (received via email),

Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30TH at 7:30PM in the
back room at YAGGER’S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the
evening will be DR. VIKRAMADITYA G. YADAV. His topic will be:

SOLVING SOME OF CANADA’S GRANDEST CHALLENGES WITH SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

A warming climate, unrepressed mining and logging, contamination of our
water resources, the uncertain price and tight supply of crude oil and
the growing threat of epidemics are having a profound, negative impact
on the well-being of Canadians. There is an urgent need to develop and
implement sustainable manufacturing technologies that can not only meet
our material and energy needs, but also sustain our quality of life.
Romantic and unbelievable as it sounds, Nature posses all the answer to
our challenges, and the coming decades in science and engineering will
be typified by our attempts to mimic or recruit biology to address our
needs. This talk will present a vivid snapshot of current and emerging
research towards this goal and highlight some cutting-edge technologies
under development at the University of British Columbia [UBC].

When he joined the University of Waterloo as an undergraduate student in
chemical engineering, Dr. Vikramaditya G. Yadav coveted a career in
Alberta’s burgeoning petrochemical sector. He even interned at Imperial
Oil during his first summer break from university. Then, one fine
evening during second year, he stumbled upon a copy of Juan Enríquez’s
As the Future Catches You in the library and became instantly captivated
with biological engineering. His journey over the past few years has
taken him to Sanofi Pasteur [vaccines division of the multinational
pharmaceutical
company Sanofi], the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT],
Harvard University, and finally, the University of British Columbia,
where he now leads a wonderful group of researchers working on
wide-ranging topics at the interface of biology, chemistry, engineering,
medicine and economics.

We hope to see you there!

Oftentimes, the speaker is asked to write up a description of their talk and assuming that’s the case and based on how it’s written, I’d say the odds are good that this will be a lively, engaging talk.

For more proof, you can check out Dr. Yadav’s description of his research interests on his UBC profile page. BTW, his research group is called The Biofoundry (at UBC).

Brain Talks: Epigenetics and Early Life Experiences on October 22, 2018 in Vancouver (Canada)

An October 3, 2018 announcement arrived from the Brain Talks folks (Vancouver, Canada) in my email box,

BrainTalks: Epigenetics and Early Life Experiences

Monday, October 22, 2018 from 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Join us on Monday, October 22nd for a talk on Epigenetics and Early Life Experiences. We are honoured to host three phenomenal presenters for the evening: Dr. Michael Kobor, Dr. Liisa Galea, and Dr. Adele Diamond.

Dr. Michael Kobor is a senior scientist at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics and BC Children’s Hospital, and a Professor at UBC [University of British Columbia]. He studies social epigenetics and medical genetics, with a focus on studying how the environment shapes the human epigenome, and how this in turn might affect children’s susceptibilities to chronic disease and their mental health. He has received numerous awards for his research, and runs the Kobor Lab at UBC.

Dr. Liisa Galea is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, and Director of the Graduate program in Neuroscience at UBC. The vision for her research is to establish how sex hormones influence brain health and disease in both females and males. Her goal is to improve brain health for women and men by examining the influence of sex and sex hormones on normal and diseased brain states, and how this can effect offspring development. She has received numerous awards for her research, and runs the Galea Laboratory for Behavioural Neuroendocrinology.

Dr. Adele Diamond is a well known and respected expert in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, the way the developing young brain evolves in its ability to make intelligent sense of the world around it, and how it evolves in response to the surrounding environment. She will address the effect of early adverse experiences on the brain from a developmental perspective. She has spoken at TedTalks and runs her Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab associated with UBC.

Our event on Monday, October 22nd will start with presentations from each of the three speakers, and end with a panel discussion inspired by audience questions. For physicians, the event is CME accredited for a [sic] MOC credit of 1.5. After the talks, at 7:30 pm, we host a social gathering with a rich spread of catered healthy food and non-alcoholic drinks. We look forward to seeing you there!

You can get tickets here (no more free tickets, the ones that are left cost $10),

Date and Time

Mon, 22 October 2018

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT

Add to Calendar

Location

Paetzhold Theater

Vancouver General Hospital; Jim Pattison Pavillion

Vancouver, BC

View Map

Refund Policy

Refunds up to 1 day before event

There you have it.

The sense of beauty: an art/science film about CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in Vancouver, Canada; art/sci September in Toronto (Canada), a science at the bar night in Vancouver (Canada), and a festival in Calgary (Canada)

Compared to five or more years ago, there’s a lollapalooza of art/sci (or sciart) events coming up in September 2018. Of course, it’s helpful if you live in or are visiting Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary at the right time.  All of these events occur from mid September (roughly) to the end of September. In no particular date order:

Sense of beauty in Vancouver

The September 10, 2018 Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia invitation (received via email) offered more tease than information. Happily, the evite webpage for “The Sense of Beauty: Art and Science at CERN” (2017) by Valerio Jalongo filled in the details,

The Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia

Invites you to the screening of the documentary

“The Sense of Beauty: Art and Science at CERN” (2017) by Valerio Jalongo

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2018 at 6:30 pm

The CINEMATHEQUE – 1131 Howe Street, Vancouver

Duration of film: 75’. Director in attendance; Q&A with the film director to follow the screening

Free Admission

RSVP: info@dantesocietybc.ca

Director Jalongo will discuss the making of his documentary in a seminar open to the public on September 24 (1:00-2:30 pm) at UBC  [University of British Columbia] (Buchanan Penthouse, *1866 Main Maill, Block C, 5th floor*, Vancouver).

The Sense of Beauty is the story of an unprecedented experiment that involves scientists from throughout the world collaborating around the largest machine ever constructed by human beings: the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). As the new experiment at CERN proceeds in its exploration of the mysterious energy that animates the universe, scientists and artists guide us towards the shadow line where science and art, in different ways, pursue truth and beauty.

Some of these men and women believe in God, while others believe only in experiment and doubt. But in their search for truth they are all alert to an elusive sixth – or seventh – sense: the sense of beauty. An unmissable opportunity for lovers of science, of beauty, or of both.

Rome-born Valerio Jalongo is a teacher, screenwriter and director who works in cinema and TV, for which he created works of fiction and award-winning documentaries. Among them: Sulla mia pelle (On My Skin, 2003) and La scuola è finita (2010), starring Valeria Golino, on the difficulties facing public schools in Italy.

This event is presented by the Dante Alighieri Society of BC in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in Vancouver and in association with ARPICO (www.arpico.ca), the Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada.

RSVP: info@dantesocietybc.ca

I searched for more information both about the film and about the seminar at UBC. I had no luck with the UBC seminar but I did find more about the film. There’s an April (?) 2017 synopsis by Luciano Barisone on the Vision du Réel website,

From one cave to another. In prehistoric times, human beings would leave paintings in caves to show their amazement and admiration for the complexity of the world. These reproductions of natural forms were the results of an act of creation and also of mystical gestures which appropriated the soul of things. In another gigantic and modern den, the immense CERN laboratory, the same thing is happening today, a combination of enthralled exploration of the cosmos and an attempt to control it. Valerio Jalongo’s film tackles the big questions that have fascinated poets, artists and philosophers since the dawn of time. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? The scientists at CERN attempt to answer them through machines that explore matter and search for the origins of life. In their conversations or their words to camera, the meaning of existence thus seems to become a pure question of the laws of physics and mathematical formulae. If only for solving the mystery of the universe a sixth sense is necessary. That of beauty…

There’s also a February 5, 2018 essay by Stefano Caggiano for Interni, which uses a description of the film to launch into a paean to Italian design,

The success of the documentary The Sense of Beauty by Valerio Jalongo, which narrates the ‘aesthetic’ side of the physicists at CERN when faced with the fundamental laws of nature, proves that the yearning for beauty is not just an aspect of art, but something shared by all human efforts to interpret reality.

It is no coincidence that the scientists themselves define the LHC particle accelerator (27 km) as a grand machine for beauty, conceived to investigate the meaning of things, not to perform some practical function. In fact, just as matter can be perceived only through form, and form only if supported by matter (Aristotle already understood this), so the laws of physics can be glimpsed only when they are applied to reality.

This is why in the Large Hadron Collider particles are accelerated to speeds close to that of light, reconstructing the matter-energy conditions just a few instants after the Big Bang. Only in this way is it possible to glimpse the hidden fundamental laws of the universe. It is precisely this evanescence that constitutes ‘beauty.’

The quivering of the form that reveals itself in the matter that conceals it, and which – given the fact that everything originates in the Big Bang – is found everywhere, in the most faraway stars and the closest objects: you just have to know how to prove it, grasp it, how to wait. Because this is the only way to establish relations with beauty: not perceiving it but awaiting it. Respecting its way of offering itself, which consists in denying itself.

Charging the form of an object with this sensation of awaiting, then, means catalyzing the ultimate and primary sense of beauty. And it is what is held in common by the work of the five Italian designers nominated for the Rising Talent Awards of Maison & Object 2018 (with Kensaku Oshiro as the only non-Italian designer, though he does live and work in Milan).

There’s a trailer (published by CERN on November 7, 2017,

It’s in both Italian and English with subtitles throughout, should you need them.

*The address for the Buchanan Penthouse was corrected from: 2329 West Mall to 1866 Main Maill, Block C, 5th floor on Sept. 17, 2018.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon at Nuit Blanche, Mycology, Wild Bees and Art+Tech!

From a Tuesday, September 11, 2018 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email),

Baba Yaga Collective and ArtSci Salon Present:
Chaos Fungorum

In 1747, Carl Linnaeus, known as the “father of taxonomy”, observed
that the seeds of fungus moved in water like fish until “..by a law of
nature thus far unheard of and surpassing all human understanding..,”
they changed back to plant in their adult life.

He proceeded to include fungi in the new genus of “Chaos”. But why
delimiting fungi within categories and boundaries when it is exactly
their fluidity that make them so interesting?

Chaos Fungorum draws on the particular position occupied by fungi and
other hybrid organisms: neither plant nor animal, fungi extend across,
and can entertain, communications and collaborations between animal,
human and industrial realms.

Mixing different artistic practices and media, the artists featured in
this exhibition seek to move beyond rigid comprehensions of the living
by working with, rather than merely shaping, sculpting and manipulating
plants, microorganisms and fungi. Letting the non-human speak is to move
away from an anthropocentric approach to the world: it not only opens to
new rewarding artistic practices, but it also fosters new ideas of
sustainable coexistence, new unusual life collaborations and
adaptations, and new forms of communications and languages.

THE EXHIBITION
September 26 – October 7, 2018

Baba Yaga Collective 906 Queen Street West @Crawford, Toronto

info@babayagacollective.ca

FEATURING

BIO.CHROME COLLECTIVE
Robyn Crouch • Mellissa Fisher • Shavon Madden
Tracy Maurice • Tosca Teran • Alexis Williams

SPECIAL GUEST
Whitefeather Hunter

SPECIAL NUIT BLANCHE OPENING RECEPTION
September 29
6:00 – 9:00 pm

6:30pm: Artsci Salon introduction with Roberta Buiani and Stephen Morris
rethinking categories and the “non-human” in art and science

Followed by artist remarks.
Scientists from the University of Toronto will act as respondent.

9:30pm onward: Tosca Teran & Andrei Gravelle of Nanotopia [emphasis mine]

BIO-SONIFICATIONS: NON-HUMAN COLLABORATIONS Mycelium to MIDI •

Midnight Mushroom music live performance

This Special program is co-presented by The Baba Yaga Collective and
ArtSci Salon. For more information contact artscisalon@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/1763778620414561/

 All the Buzz on Wild Bee Club!
Summer Speaker Series

Wed Sept 19 at 7pm
High Park Nature Centre,
All the Buzz on Wild Bee Club! – Summer Speaker Series

The speaker series will feature the club’s biologist/leader SUSAN FRYE.
A major component of this club will use the SONIC SOLITARIES AUDIO BEE
CABINET  – an observable nest site for bees in OURSpace – to encompass a
sensory experience with stem nesting bees and wasps, and to record
weekly activity at the cabinet. Pairing magnified views in tandem with
amplified sound via headphones, the cabinet facilitates an enhanced
perception of its tiny inhabitants: solitary bees and wasps and other
nest biota in action, up close. As citizen scientists, we can gather and
record observations to compile them into a database that will contribute
to our growing understanding of native bees, the native (and non-native)
plants they use for food and nest material sources, their co-evolution,
and how pollination in a park and restored habitat setting is
facilitated by native bees.

Fri, Sept 21, 8pm
Music Gallery, 918 Bathurst (their new location) –
Trio Wow & Flutter
with Bea Labikova, fujara, saxophones,
Kayla Milmine-Abbott, soprano saxophone,
Sarah Peebles, shō, cracklebox, amplifiers.

Call for Participants: Art+Tech Jam

ChangeUp’s Art+Tech Jam
September 21-23

This three days event will unite a diverse group of artists and
technologists in an intensive, collaborative three-day creation period
and culminating showcase (public exhibition and interdisciplinary rave).

ChangeUo is currently accepting applicants from tech and arts/culture
spaces of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels.
Limited spots available.
For more information and to apply
https://tinyurl.com/changeup-artsorg

I looked up Nanotopia and found it on SoundCloud. Happy listening!

Et Al III (the ultimate science bar night in Vancouver) and more

A September 12, 2018 Curiosity Collider announcement (received via email) reveals details about the latest cooperative event/bar night put on by three sciencish groups,

Curiosity Collider is bringing art + science to Vancouver’s Ultimate Bar Science Night with Nerd Nite & Science Slam

Do you enjoy learning about science in a casual environment? This is the third year that Curiosity Collider is part of Et al, the Ultimate Bar Science Night where we bring together awesome speakers and activities. Come and enjoy Curiosity Collider’s segment on quantum physics with Spoken Word Poet Angelica Poversky, Physicist James Day, and CC’s own Creative Director Char Hoyt.

When: Drinks and mingling start at 6:30pm. Presentations start at 7:30pm.
Where: Rio Theatre, 1660 E Broadway, Vancouver, BC V5N 1W1
Cost: $15-20 via Eventbrite and at the door. Proceeds will be used to cover the cost of running this event, and to fund future science bar events.

Special Guest talk by Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist with a Twist!

Dr. Carin Bondar is a biologist, author and philosopher. Bondar is author of the books Wild Sex and Wild Moms (Pegasus). She is the writer and host of an online series based on her books which have garnered over 100,000,000 views. Her TED talk on the subject has nearly 3 million views. She is host of several TV series including Worlds Oddest Animal Couples (Animal Planet, Netflix), Stephen Hawking’s Brave New World (Discovery World HD, National Geographic) and Outrageous Acts of Science (The Science Channel). Bondar is an adventurer and explorer, having discovered 11 new species of beetles and snails in the remote jungles of Borneo. Bondar is also a mom of 4 kids, two boys and two girls.

Follow updates on twitter via @ccollider or #ColliderCafe. This event is part of the Science Literacy Week celebration across Canada.

Head to the Facebook event page – let us know you are coming and share this event with others!

Looking for more Art+Science in Vancouver?
For more Vancouver art+science events, visit the Curiosity Collider events calendar.

Devoted readers 🙂 will note that the Vancouver Biennale’s Curious Imaginings show was featured here in a June 18, 2018 post and mentioned more recently in the context of a September 11, 2018 post on xenotransplantation.

Finally for this section, special mention to whomever wrote up the ‘bar night’ description on Eventbrite,

Et Al III: The Ultimate Bar Science Night Curiosity Collider + Nerd Nite Vancouver + Science Slam Canada

POSTER BY: Armin Mortazavi IG:@Armin.Scientoonist

Et Al III: The Ultimate Bar Science Night

Curiosity Collider + Nerd Nite Vancouver + Science Slam Canada

Special Guest talk by Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist with a Twist!

6:30pm – Doors open
6:30-7:30 Drinks, Socializing, Nerding
7:30pm-945pm Stage Show with two intermissions

You like science? You like drinking while sciencing? In Vancouver there are many options to get educated and inspired through science, art, and culture in a casual bar setting outside of universities. There’s Nerd Nite which focuses on nerdy lectures in the Fox Cabaret, Curiosity Collider which creates events that bring together artists and scientists, and Science Slam, a poetry-slam inspired science communication competition!

In this third installment of Et Al, we’re making the show bigger than ever. We want people to know all about the bar science nights in Vancouver, but we also want to connect all you nerds together as we build this community. We encourage you to COME DRESSED AS YOUR FAVOURITE SCIENTIST. We will give away prizes to the best costumes, plus it’s a great ice breaker. We’re also encouraging science based organizations to get involved in the show by promoting your institution. Contact Kaylee or Michael at vancouver@nerdnite.com if your science organization would like to contribute to the show with some giveaways, you will get a free ticket, if you don’t have anything to give away, contact us anyway, we want this to be a celebration of science nights in Vancouver!

BIOS

CARIN BONDAR
Dr. Carin Bondar is a biologist, author and philosopher. Bondar is author of the books Wild Sex and Wild Moms (Pegasus). She is writer and host of online series based on her books (Wild Sex and Wild Moms) which have garnered over 100,000,000 views. Her TED talk on the subject has nearly 3 million views. She is host of several TV series including Worlds Oddest Animal Couples (Animal Planet, Netflix), Stephen Hawking’s Brave New World (Discovery World HD, National Geographic) and Outrageous Acts of Science (The Science Channel). Bondar is an adventurer and explorer, having discovered 11 new species of beetles and snails in the remote jungles of Borneo. Bondar is also a mom of 4 kids, two boys and two girls.

Curiosity Collider Art Science Foundation promotes interdisciplinary collaborations that capture natural human curiosity. At the intersection of art, culture, technology, and humanity are innovative ways to communicate the daily relevance of science. Though exhibitions, performance events and our quarterly speaker event, the Collider Cafe we help create new ways to experience science.

NERD NITE
In our opinion, there has never been a better time to be a Nerd! Nerd Nite is an event which is currently held in over 60 cities worldwide! The formula for each Nerd Nite is pretty standard – 20 minute presentations from three presenters each night, in a laid-back environment with lots to learn, and lots to drink!

SCIENCE SLAM
Science Slam YVR is a community outreach organization committed to supporting and promoting science communication in Vancouver. Our Science Slams are informal competitions that bring together researchers, students, educators, and communicators to share interesting science in creative ways. Every event is different, with talks, poems, songs, dances, and unexpected surprises. Our only two rules? Each slammer has 5 minutes, and no slideshows are allowed! Slammers come to share their science, and the judges and audience decide their fate. Who will take away the title of Science Slam champion?

That’s a pretty lively description. You can get tickets here.

Calgary’s Beakerhead

An art, science, and engineering festival in Calgary, Alberta, Beakerhead opens on September 19, 2018 and runs until September 23, 2018. Here’s more from the 2018 online programme announcement made in late July (?) 2018,

Giant Dung Beetle, Zorb Ball Racers, Heart Powered Art and More Set to Explode on Calgary Streets!

Quirky, fun adventures result when art, science and engineering collide at Beakerhead September 19 – 23, 2018.

In just seven weeks, enormous electric bolts will light up the sky in downtown Calgary when a crazy cacophony of exhibits and events takes over the city. The Beakerhead crew is announcing the official program lineup with tickets now available online for all ticketed events. This year’s extravaganza will include remarkable spectacles of art and science, unique activities, and more than 50 distinct events – many of which are free, but still require registration to get tickets.

The Calgary-born smash up of art, science and engineering is in its sixth year. Last year, more than 145,000 people participated in Beakerhead and organizers are planning to top that number in 2018.

“Expect conversations that start with “wow!” says Mary Anne Moser, President and Co-founder of Beakerhead. “This year’s lineup includes a lot of original concepts, special culinary events, dozens of workshops, shows and and tours.”

Beakerhead events take place indoors and out. Beakernight is science’s biggest ticketed street party and tickets are now on sale.

Highlights of Beakerhead 2018:

  • Light up the Night: Giant electric bolts will light up the night sky thanks to two 10-metre Tesla Coils built by a team of artists and engineers.
  • Lunch Without Light: This special Dark Table dining experience is led by a famous broadcaster and an esteemed neuroscientist.
  • Beakereats and Beakerbar: Dining is a whole new experience when chef and bartender become scientist! Creative Calgary chefs and mixologists experiment with a new theme in 2018: canola.
  • Four to Six on Fourth: Blocks of open-air experimentation including a human-sized hamster wheel, artists, performers, and hands-on or feet-on experiences like walking on liquid.
  • Beacons: This series of free neighbourhood installations is completely wild! There’s everything from a giant dung beetle to a 3.5 metre lotus that lights up with your heart beat.
  • Workshops: Learn the art of animation, understand cryptocurrency, meet famous scientists and broadcasters, make organic facial oil or a vegan carrot cake and much more.
  • Zorbathon: Get inside a zorb and cavort with family and friends in an oversized playground. Participate in rolling races, bump-a-thons, obstacle courses. Make a day of it.

Beakerhead takes place September 19 – 23, 2018 with the ticketed Beakernight on Saturday, September 22 at Fort Calgary.

Here’s a special shout out to Shaskatchewan`s Jean-Sébastien Gauthier and Brian F. Eames (featured here in a February 16, 2018 posting) and their free ‘Within Measure’ Sept. 19 – 23, 2018 event at Beakerhead.

That’s all folks! For now, that is.

Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) talk on August 28th 2018: Getting the message: What is gene expression and why does it matter?

Here’s more about the latest Café Scientifique talk from an August  22, 2018 announcement received via email,

Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, AUGUST 28TH at 7:30PM in the back
room at YAGGER'S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender [St., Vancouver]). Our speaker for the
evening will be DR. KATIE MARSHALL from the Department of Zoology at
UBC [University of British Columbia]. Her topic will be:

GETTING THE MESSAGE: WHAT IS GENE EXPRESSION AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Many of us think that DNA is like a light switch; you have a particular
sequence of base pairs or a particular chromosome, and these directly
cause a large change in biological functioning. But the truth is that
any given gene can be up or downregulated through a dizzying array of
biochemical “dimmer switches” that finely control how much that
particular gene is expressed. Understanding how this works is key to
answering questions like “How does a sequence of base pairs in DNA
become a whole organism?” and “Why is it that every cell has the
same DNA sequence but different function?”. We’ll chat about the
advances in computing needed to answer these questions, the importance
of gene expression in disease, and how this science can help us
understand social issues better too.

I wasn’t able to find out too much more about Dr. Katie but there is this profile page on the UBC Zoology Department website,

The long-term goal of my research is to understand how abiotic stress filters through physiology to shape species abundance and distribution. While abiotic stressors such as temperature have been used very successfully to predict population growth, distribution, and diversity of insect species, integration of the mechanisms of how these stressors are experienced by individuals from alteration of physiology through to fitness impacts has lagged. Inclusion of these mechanisms is crucial for accurate modelling predictions of individual (and therefore population-level) responses. My research to date has focused on how the impact of frequency of stress (rather than the duration or intensity of stress) is a superior predictor of both survival and reproductive success , and used insect cold tolerance as a model system.

At UBC I’ll be focusing on the cold tolerance and cryobiology of invertebrates in the intertidal. These organisms face freezing stress through the winter, yet remarkably little is known about how they do so. I’ll also be investigating plasticity in cold tolerance by looking for interactive effects of ocean acidification and community composition on thermal tolerance.

Enjoy!

June 4, 2018 talk in Vancouver (Canada): Genetically-Engineered Food: Facts, Ethical Considerations and World Hunger

ARPICO (Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada) is hosting a talk on the topic of genetically modified food. Here’s more from their May 20, 2018 announcement (received via email),

Our third speaking event of the year has been scheduled for Monday, June 4th, 2018 at the Italian Cultural Centre – Museum & Art Gallery. Marie-Claude Fortin’s talk will discuss food systems derived from biotechnology (often referred to as GMO) and their comparison with traditional farming processes, both technical and ethical. You can read a summary of Marie-Claude Fortin’s lecture as well as her short professional biography at the bottom of this message.

Ahead of the speaking event, ARPICO will be holding its 2018 Annual General Meeting in the same location. We encourage everyone to participate in the AGM, have their say on ARPICO’s matters and possibly volunteer for the Board of Directors.

We look forward to seeing everyone there.

Please register for the event by visiting the EventBrite link or RSVPing to info@arpico.ca.

The evening agenda is as follows:

6:00pm to 6:45pm – Annual General Meeting
7:00 pm – Lecture by Marie-Claude Fortin
~8:00 pm – Q & A Period
Mingling & Refreshments until about 9:45 pm

If you have not yet RSVP’d, please do so on our EventBrite page.

Further details are also available at arpico.ca, our facebook page, and Eventbrite.

Genetically-Engineered Food: Facts, Ethical Considerations and World Hunger

In this lecture we will explore a part of our food system, which has received much press, but which consumers still misunderstand: food derived from biotechnology often referred to as genetically modified organisms. We will be learning about the types of plants and animals which are genetically engineered and part of our everyday food system and the reasons for which they have been transformed genetically. We will be looking at the issue from several different angles. You are encouraged to approach the topic with an open mind, and learn how the technology is being used. We will start by understanding the differences between traditional plant breeding, conventional plant breeding, transgenic technology and genome editing. The latter two processes are considered genetic engineering technologies but all of them constitute a continuum of techniques employed to improve domestic plants and animals. We will then go over the ethical paradigms related to genetically engineered food represented by the European and North American points of view. Finally, we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses associated with genetic engineering as a tool to solve world hunger.

Marie-Claude Fortin is a former Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Associate Editor with Crop Science Society of America, Board Member of the Soil and Water Conservation Society and Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and currently responsible for the shared research infrastructure portfolio at the UBC Vice-President Research & Innovation Office. Her main areas of research expertise are crop and soil sciences with special interests in measuring and modeling crop development and various processes on agricultural land: water and nitrogen fertilizer flow through the soil profile, emissions of greenhouse gases and soil physical properties. Her research shows that sustainable crop management practices result in soil environments, which are conducive to resilient crop production and organic matter buildup, which is the process of storing carbon in soils, a most important process in this era of climate change. For the past 18 years, Marie-Claude has been teaching food systems courses at UBC [University of British Columbia], emphasizing impacts of decisions made at the corporate, national and local levels on the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the food system, including impacts of organic and industrial agriculture and adoption of genetically engineered crops and animals, on farmers and consumers.

WHEN (AGM): Monday, June 4th, 2018 at 6:00pm (doors open at 5:50pm)

WHEN (EVENT): Monday, June 4th, 2018 at 7:00pm (doors open at 6:45pm)

WHERE: Italian Cultural Centre – Museum & Art Gallery – 3075 Slocan St, Vancouver, BC, V5M 3E4

RSVP: Please RSVP at EventBrite (https://gmofoods.eventbrite.ca/) or email info@arpico.ca

Tickets are Needed

Tickets are FREE, but all individuals are requested to obtain “free-admission” tickets on EventBrite site due to limited seating at the venue. Organizers need accurate registration numbers to manage wait lists and prepare name tags.

All ARPICO events are 100% staffed by volunteer organizers and helpers, however, room rental, stationery, and guest refreshments are costs incurred and underwritten by members of ARPICO. Therefore to be fair, all audience participants are asked to donate to the best of their ability at the door or via EventBrite to “help” defray costs of the event.

FAQs

Where can I contact the organizer with any questions? info@arpico.ca

Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event? No, you do not. Your name will be on our Registration List at the Check-in Desk.

Is my registration/ticket transferrable? If you are unable to attend, another person may use your ticket. Please send us an email at info@arpico.ca of this substitution to correct our audience Registration List and to prepare guest name tags.

Can I update my registration information? Yes. If you have any questions, contact us at info@arpico.ca

I am having trouble using EventBrite and cannot reserve my ticket(s). Can someone at ARPICO help me with my ticket reservation? Of course, simply send your ticket request to us at info@arpico.ca so we help you.

We look forward to seeing you there.
www.arpico.ca

I wonder if they’re going to be discussing AquAdvantage salmon, which was first mentioned here in a Dec. 4, 2015 post (scroll down about 40% of the way), again, in a May 20, 2016 posting (AquAdvantage salmon (genetically modified) approved for consumption in Canada), and, most recently, in a Sept. 13, 2017 posting where I was critiquing a couple of books (scroll down to the ‘Fish’ subtitle). Allegedly the fish were allegedly sold in the Canadian market,

Since the 2016 approval, AquAdvantage salmon, 4.5M tonnes has been sold in Canada according to an Aug. 8, 2017 article by Sima Shakeri for Huffington Post (Note: Links have been removed),

After decades of trying to get approval by in North America, genetically modified Atlantic salmon has been sold to consumers in Canada.

AquaBounty Technologies, an American company that produces the Atlantic salmon, confirmed it had sold 4.5 tonnes of the modified fish on August 4 [2017], the Scientific American reported.

The fish have been engineered with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon to grow faster than regular salmon and require less food. They take about 18 months to reach market size, which is much quicker than the 30 months or so for conventional salmon.

The Washington Post wrote AquaBounty’s salmon also contains a gene from the ocean pout that makes the salmon produce the growth hormone gene all-year-round.

The company produces the eggs in a facility in P.E.I., which is currently being expanded, and then they’re shipped to Panama where the fish are raised.

Health Canada assessed the AquAdvantage salmon and concluded it “did not pose a greater risk to human health than salmon currently available on the Canadian market,” and that it would have no impact on allergies nor a difference in nutritional value compared to other farmed salmon.

Because of that, the AquAdvantage product is not required to be specially labelled as genetically modified, and is up to the discretion of retailers.

As for gene editing, I don’t follow everything in that area of endeavour but I have (more or less) kept track of CRISPR ((clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat). Just use CRISPR as the search term for the blog search function to find what’s here.

This looks to be a very interesting talk and good for ARPICO for tackling a ‘difficult’ topic. I hope they have a lively, convivial, and open discussion.

Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) talk on May 29th, 2018: Insects in the City: Shrinking Beetles and Disappearing Bees. How Bugs Help Us Learn About the Ecological Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change

I received this Café Scientifique April 30, 2018 notice (received via email),

Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, MAY 29TH at 7:30PM in the back
room at YAGGER'S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the
evening will be DR. MICHELLE TSENG, Assistant Professor in the Zoology
department at UBC. Her topic will be:

INSECTS IN THE CITY: SHRINKING BEETLES AND DISAPPEARING BEES. HOW BUGS
HELP US LEARN ABOUT THE ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF URBANIZATION AND CLIMATE
CHANGE

Living in the city, we don’t always see the good bugs amongst the
pesky ones. In this presentation, I’ll take you on a trip down insect
lane and share with you the incredible diversity of insects that have
lived in Vancouver over the last 100 years. Many of these bugs have been
collected and preserved in museums and these collections provide us with
a historical snapshot of insect communities from the past. My students
and I have made some remarkable discoveries using museum insect
collections, and these findings help us understand how these fascinating
creatures are changing in response to warming climates and increased
development.

Michelle Tseng is a professor of insect ecology at the UBC Biodiversity
Research Centre. She and her students study the impacts of habitat and
climate change on plankton and insects. Her group’s work has been
featured in national and international media, and on CBC’s Quirks and
Quarks. Michelle is also the zoologist on the award-winning CBC kids
show Scout and the Gumboot Kids.

We hope to see you there!

It says Dr. Tseng is in the zoology department but I also found a profile page for her in the botany department and that one had a little more information,

The Tseng lab investigates ecological and evolutionary responses of populations and communities to novel environments.  We test and refine theory related to predator-prey dynamics, body size variation, intra- and interspecific competition, and the maintenance of genetic variation, using laboratory and field experiments with freshwater plant and animal communities.  We also use museum collections to investigate long term patterns in organism phenotype.

Enjoy!

Ingenuity Lab (a nanotechnology initiative), the University of Alberta, and Carlo Montemagno—what is happening in Canadian universities? (2 of 2)

You can find Part 1 of the latest installment in this sad story here.

Who says Carlo Montemagno is a star nanotechnology researcher?

Unusually and despite his eminent stature, Dr. Montemagno does not rate a Wikipedia entry. Luckily, his CV (curriculum vitae) is online (placed there by SIU) so we can get to know a bit more (the CV is a 63 pp. document) about the man’s accomplishments (Note: There are some formatting differences), Note: Unusually, I will put my comments into the excerpted CV using [] i.e., square brackets to signify my input,

Carlo Montemagno, PhD
University of Alberta
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering
and
NRC/CNRC National Institute for Nanotechnology
Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4
Canada

 

Educational Background

1995, Ph.D., Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences University of Notre Dame

1990, M.S., Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Pennsylvania State University

1980, B.S., Agricultural and Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Cornell University

Supplemental Education

1986, Practical Environmental Law, Federal Publications, Washington, DC

1985, Effective Executive Training Program, Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvannia, Philadelphia, PA

1980, Civil Engineer Corp Officer Project, CECOS & General Management School, Port Hueneme, CA

[He doesn’t seem to have taken any courses in the last 30 years.]

Professional Experience

(Select Achievements)

Over three decades of experience in shepherding complex organizations both inside and outside academia. Working as a builder, I have led organizations in government, industry and higher education during periods of change and challenge to achieved goals that many perceived to be unattainable.

University of Alberta, Edmonton AB 9/12 to present

9/12 to present, Founding Director, Ingenuity Lab [largely defunct as of April 18, 2018], Province of Alberta

8/13 to present, Director Biomaterials Program, NRC/CNRC National Institute for Nanotechnology [It’s not clear if this position still exists.]

10/13 to present, Canada Research Chair, Government of Canada in Intelligent Nanosystems [Canadian universities receive up to $200,000 for an individual Canada research chair. The money can be used to fund the chair in its entirety or it can be added to other monies., e.g., faculty salary. There are two tiers, one for established researchers and one for new researchers. Montemagno would have been a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair. At McGill University {a major Canadian educational institution} for example, total compensation including salary, academic stipend, benefits, X-coded research funds would be a maximum of $200,000 at Montemagno’s Tier 1 level. See: here scroll down about 90% of the way).

3/13 to present, AITF iCORE Strategic Chair, Province of Alberta in BioNanotechnology and Biomimetic Systems [I cannot find this position in the current list of the University of Alberta Faculty of Science’s research chairs.]

9/12 to present, Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Crafted and currently lead an Institute that bridges multiple organizations named Ingenuity Lab (www.ingenuitylab.ca). This Institute is a truly integrated multidisciplinary organization comprised of dedicated researchers from STEM, medicine, and the social sciences. Ingenuity Lab leverages Alberta’s strengths in medicine, engineering, science and, agriculture that are present in multiple academic enterprises across the province to solve grand challenges in the areas of energy, environment, and health and rapidly translate the solutions to the economy.

The exciting and relevant feature of Ingenuity Lab is that support comes from resources outside the normal academic funding streams. Core funding of approximately $8.6M/yr emerged by working and communicating a compelling vision directly with the Provincial Executive and Legislative branches of government. [In the material I’ve read, the money for the research was part of how Dr. Montemagno was wooed by the University of Alberta. My understanding is that he himself did not obtain the funding, which in CAD was $100M over 10 years. Perhaps the university was able to attract the funding based on Dr. Montemagno’s reputation and it was contingent on his acceptance?] I significantly augmented these base resources by developing Federal Government, and Industry partnership agreements with a suite of multinational corporations and SME’s across varied industry sectors.

Collectively, this effort is generating enhanced resource streams that support innovative academic programming, builds new research infrastructure, and enables high risk/high reward research. Just as important, it established new pathways to interact meaningfully with local and global communities.

Strategic Leadership

•Created the Ingenuity Lab organization including a governing board representing multiple academic institutions, government and industry sectors.

•Developed and executed a strategic plan to achieve near and long-term strategic objectives.

•Recruited~100 researchers representing a wide range disciplnes.[sic] [How hard can it be to attract researchers in this job climate?]

•Built out ~36,000 S.F. of laboratory and administrative space.

•Crafted operational policy and procedures.

•Developed and implemented a unique stakeholder inclusive management strategy focused on the rapid translation of solutions to the economy.

Innovation and Economic Engagement

•Member of the Expert Panel on innovation, commissioned by the Government of Alberta, to assess opportunities, challenges and design and implementation options for Alberta’s multi-billion dollar investment to drive long-term economic growth and diversification. The developed strategy is currently being implemented. [Details?]

•Served as a representive [sic] on multiple Canadian national trade missions to Asia, United States and the Middle East. [Sounds like he got to enjoy some nice trips.]

•Instituted formal development partnerships with several multi-national corporations including Johnson & Johnson, Cenovus and Sabuto Inc. [Details?]

•Launched multiple for-profit joint ventures founded on technologies collaboratively developed with industry with funding from both private and public sources. [Details?]

Branding

•Developed and implement a communication program focused on branding of Ingenuity Lab’s unique mission, both regionally and globally, to the lay public, academia, government, and industry. [Why didn’t the communication specialist do this? ]

This effort employs traditional paper, online, and social media outlets to effectively reach different demographics.

•Awarded “Best Nanotechnology Research Organization–2014” by The New Economy. [What is the New Economy? The Economist, yes. New Economy, no.]

Global Development

•Executed formal research and education partnerships with the Yonsei Institute of Convergence Technology and the Yonsei Bio-IT MicroFab Center in Korea, Mahatma Gandhi University in India. and the Italian Institute of Technology. [{1}The Yonsei Institute of Convergence Technology doesn’t have any news items prior to 2015 or after 2016. The Ingenuity Lab and/or Carlo Montemagno did not feature in them. {2} There are six Mahatma Ghandi Universities in India. {3} The Italian Institute of Technology does not have any news listings on the English language version of its site.]

•Opened Ingenuity Lab, India in May 2015. Focused on translating 21st-century technology to enable solutions appropriate for developing nations in the Energy, Agriculture, and Health economic sectors. [Found this May 9, 2016 notice on the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada website, noting this: “… opening of the Ingenuity Lab Research Hub at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, in the Indian state of Kerala.” There’s also this May 6, 2016 news release. I can’t find anything on the Mahatma Ghandi University Kerala website.]

•Established partnership research and development agreements with SME’s in both Israel and India.

•Developed active research collaborations with medical and educational institutions in Nepal, Qatar, India, Israel, India and the United States.

Community Outreach

•Created Young Innovators research experience program to educate, support and nurture tyro undergraduate researchers and entrepreneurs.

•Developed an educational game, “Scopey’s Nano Adventure” for iOS and Android platforms to educate 6yr to 10yr olds about Nanotechnology. [What did the children learn? Was this really part of the mandate?]

•Delivered educational science programs to the lay public at multiple, high profile events. [Which events? The ones on the trade junkets?]

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati OH 7/06 to 8/12

7/10 to 8/12 Founding Dean, College of Engineering and Applied Science

7/09 to 6/10 Dean, College of Applied Science

7/06 to 6/10 Dean, College of Engineering

7/06 to 8/12 Geier Professor of College of Engineering Engineering Education

7/06 to 8/12, Professor of Bioengineering, College of Engineering & College of Medicine

University of California, Los Angeles 7/01 to 6/06

5/03 to 6/06, Associate Director California Nanosystems Institute

7/02 to 6/06, Co-Director NASA Center for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration

7/02 to 6/06, Founding Department Chair, Department of Bioengineering

7/02 to 6/06, Chair Biomedical Engineering IDP

7/01 to 6/02, Chair of Academic Biomedical Engineering IDP Affairs

7/01 to 6/06, Carol and Roy College of Engineering and Applied Doumani Professor of Sciences Biomedical Engineering

7/01 to 6/06, Professor Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Recommending Montemagno

Presumably the folks at Southern Illinois University asked for recommendations from Montemagno’s previous employers. So, how did he get a recommendation from the folks in Alberta when according to Spoerre’s April 10, 2018 article the Ingenuity Lab was undergoing a review as of June 2017 by the province of Alberta’s Alberta Innovates programme? I find it hard to believe that the folks at the University of Alberta were unaware of the review.

When you’re trying to get rid of someone, it’s pretty much standard practice that once they’ve gotten the message, you give a good recommendation to their prospective employer. The question begs to be asked, how many times have employers done this for Montemagno?

Stars in their eyes

Every one exaggerates a bit on their résumé or CV. One of my difficulties with this whole affair lies in how Montemagno can be described as a ‘nanotechnology star’. The accomplishments foregrounded on Montemagno’s CV are administrative and if memory serves, the University of Cincinnati too. Given the situation with the Ingenuity Lab, I’m wondering about these accomplishments.

Was due diligence performed by SIU, the University of the Alberta, or anywhere else that Montemagno worked? I realize that you’re not likely to get much information from calling up the universities where he worked previously, especially if there was a problem and they wanted to get rid of him. Still, did someone check out his degrees, his start-ups,  dig a little deeper into some of his claims?

His credentials and stated accomplishments are quite impressive and I, too,  would have been dazzled. (He also lists positions at the Argonne National Laboratory and at Cornell University.) I’ve picked at some bits but one thing that stands out to me is the move from UCLA to the University of Cincinnati. It’s all big names: UCLA, Cornell, NASA, Argonne and then, not: University of Cincinnati, University of Alberta, Southern Illinois University—what happened?

(If anyone better versed in the world of academe and career has answers, please do add them to the comments.)

It’s tempting to think the Peter Principle (one of them) was at work here. In brief, this principle states that as you keep getting better jobs on based on past performance you reach a point where you can’t manage the new challenges having risen to your level of incompetence.In accepting the offer from the University of Alberta had Dr. Montemagno risen to his level of incompetence? Or, perhaps it was just one big failure. Unfortunately, any excuses don’t hold up under the weight of a series of misjudgments and ethical failures. Still, I’m guessing that Dr. Montemagno was hoping for a big win on a project such as this (from an Oct. 19, 2016 news release on MarketWired),

Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions announced today that it has been named as one of the 27 teams advancing in the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. The competition sees scientists develop technologies to convert carbon dioxide emissions into products with high net value.

The Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions team – headquartered in Edmonton of Alberta, Canada – has made it to the second round of competition. Its team of 14 has proposed to convert CO2 waste emitted from a natural gas power plant into usable chemical products.

Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions is comprised of a multidisciplinary group of scientists and engineers, and was formed in the winter of 2012 to develop new approaches for the chemical industry. Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions is sponsored by CCEMC, and has also partnered with Ensovi for access to intellectual property and know how.

I can’t identify CCEMC with any certainty but Ensovi is one of Montemagno’s six start-up companies, as listed in his CV,

Founder and Chief Technical Officer, Ensovi, LLC., Focused on the production of low-cost bioenergy and high-value added products from sunlight using bionanotechnology, Total Funding; ~$10M, November 2010-present.

Sadly the April 9,2018 NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE news release  announcing the finalists in round 3 of the competition includes an Alberta track of five teams from which the Ingenuity Lab is notably absent.

The Montemagno affair seems to be a story of hubris, greed, and good intentions. Finally, the issues associated with Dr. Montemagno give rise to another, broader question.

Is something rotten in Canada’s higher education establishment?

Starting with the University of Alberta:

it would seem pretty obvious that if you’re hiring family member(s) as part of the deal to secure a new member of faculty that you place and follow very stringent rules. No rewriting of the job descriptions, no direct role in hiring or supervising, no extra benefits, no inflated salaries in other words, no special treatment for your family as they know at the University of Alberta since they have policies for this very situation.

Yes, universities do hire spouses (although a daughter, a nephew, and a son-in-law seems truly excessive) and even when the university follows all of the rules, there’s resentment from staff (I know because I worked in a university). There is a caveat to the rule, there’s resentment unless that spouse is a ‘star’ in his or her own right or an exceptionally pleasant person. It’s also very helpful if the spouse is both.

I have to say I loved Fraser Forbes that crazy University of Alberta engineer who thought he’d make things better by telling us that the family’s salaries had been paid out of federal and provincial funds rather than university funds. (sigh) Forbes was the new dean of engineering at the time of his interview in the CBC’s April 10, 2018 online article but that no longer seems to be the case as of April 19, 2018.

Given Montemagno’s misjudgments, it seems cruel that Forbes was removed after one foolish interview. But, perhaps he didn’t want the job after all. Regardless, those people who were afraid to speak out about Dr. Montemagno cannot feel reassured by Forbes’ apparent removal.

Money, money, money

Anyone who has visited a university in Canada (and presumably the US too) has to have noticed the number of ‘sponsored’ buildings and rooms. The hunger for money seems insatiable and any sensible person knows it’s unsupportable over the long term.

The scramble for students

Mel Broitman in a Sept. 22, 2016 article for Higher Education lays out some harsh truths,

Make no mistake. It is a stunning condemnation and a “wakeup call to higher education worldwide”. The recent UNESCO report states that academic institutions are rife with corruption and turning a blind eye to malpractice right under their noses. When UNESCO, a United Nations organization created after the chaos of World War II to focus on moral and intellectual solidarity, makes such an alarming allegation, it’s sobering and not to be dismissed.

So although Canadians typically think of their society and themselves as among the more honest and transparent found anywhere, how many Canadian institutions are engaging in activities that border on dishonest and are not entirely transparent around the world?

It is overwhelmingly evident that in the last two decades we have witnessed first-hand a remarkable and callous disregard for academic ethics and standards in a scramble by Canadian universities and colleges to sign up foreign students, who represent tens of millions of dollars to their bottom lines.

We have been in a school auditorium in China and listened to the school owner tell prospective parents that the Grade 12 marks from the Canadian provincial school board program can be manipulated to secure admission for their children into Canadian universities. This, while the Canadian teachers sat oblivious to the presentation in Chinese.

In hundreds of our own interaction with students who completed the Canadian provincial school board’s curriculum in China and who achieved grades of 70% and higher in their English class have been unable to achieve even a basic level of English literacy in the written tests we have administered.   But when the largest country of origin for incoming international students and revenue is China – the Canadian universities admitting these students salivate over the dollars and focus less on due diligence.

We were once asked by a university on Canada’s west coast to review 200 applications from Saudi Arabia, in order to identify the two or three Saudi students who were actually eligible for conditional admission to that university’s undergraduate engineering program. But the proposal was scuttled by the university’s ESL department that wanted all 200 to enroll in its language courses. It insisted on and managed conditional admissions for all 200. It’s common at Canadian universities for the ESL program “tail” to wag the campus “dog” when it comes to admissions. In fact, recent Canadian government regulations have been proposed to crack down on this practice as it is an affront to academic integrity.

If you have time, do read the rest as it’s eye-opening. As for the report Broitman cites, I was not able to find it. Broitman gives a link to the report in response to one of the later comments and there’s a link in Tony Bates’s July 31, 2016 posting but you will get a “too bad, so sad” message should you follow either link.The closed I can get to it is this Advisory Statement for Effective International Practice; Combatting Corruption and Enhancing Integrity: A Contemporary Challenge for the Quality and Credibility of Higher Education (PDF). The ‘note’ was jointly published by the (US) Council for Higher Education (CHEA) and UNESCO.

What about the professors?

As they scramble for students, the universities appear to be cutting their ‘teaching costs’, from an April 18, 2018 article by Charles Menzies (professor of anthropology and an elected member of the UBC [University of British Columbia] Board)  for THE UBYSSEY (UBC) student newspaper,

For the first time ever at UBC the contributions of student tuition fees exceeded provincial government contributions to UBC’s core budget. This startling fact was the backdrop to a strenuous grilling of UBC’s VP Finance and Provost Peter Smailes by governors at the Friday the 13 meeting of UBC’s Board of Governors’ standing committee for finance.

Given the fact students contribute more to UBC’s budget than the provincial government, governors asked why more wasn’t being done to enhance the student experience. By way of explanation the provost reiterated UBC’s commitment to the student experience. In a back-and-forth with a governor the provost outlined a range of programs that focus on enhancing the student experience. At several points the chair of the Board would intervene and press the provost for more explanations and elaboration. For his part the provost responded in a measured and deliberate tone outlining the programs in play, conceding more could be done, and affirming the importance of students in the overall process.

As a faculty member listening to this, I wondered about the background discourse undergirding the discussion. How is focussing on a student’s experience at UBC related to our core mission: education and research? What is actually being meant by experience? Why is no one questioning the inadequacy of the government’s core contribution? What about our contingent colleagues? Our part-time precarious colleagues pick up a great deal of the teaching responsibilities across our campuses. Is there not something we can do to improve their working conditions? Remember, faculty working conditions are student learning conditions. From my perspective all these questions received short shrift.

I did take the opportunity to ask the provost, given how financially sound our university is, why more funds couldn’t be directed toward improving the living and working conditions of contingent faculty. However, this was never elaborated upon after the fact.

There is much about the university as a total institution that seems driven to cultivate experiences. A lot of Board discussion circles around ideas of reputation and brand. Who pays and how much they pay (be they governments, donors, or students) is also a big deal. Cultivating a good experience for students is central to many of these discussions.

What is this experience that everyone is talking about? I hear about classroom experience, residence experience, and student experience writ large. Very little of it seems to be specifically tied to learning (unless it’s about more engaging, entertaining, learning with technology). While I’m sure some Board colleagues will disagree with this conclusion, it does seem to me that the experience being touted is really the experience of a customer seeking fulfilment through the purchase of a service. What is seen as important is not what is learned, but the grade; not the productive struggle of learning but the validation of self in a great experience as a member of an imagined community. A good student experience very likely leads to a productive alumni relationship — one where the alumni feels good about giving money.

Inside UBC’s Board of Governors

Should anyone be under illusions as to what goes on at the highest levels of university governance, there is the telling description from Professor Jennifer Berdahl about her experience on a ‘search committee for a new university president’ of the shameful treatment of previous president, Arvind Gupta (from Berdahl’s April 25, 2018 posting on her eponymous blog),

If Prof. Chaudhry’s [Canada Research Chair and Professor Ayesha Chaudhry’s resignation was announced in an April 25, 2018 UBYSSEY article by Alex Nguyen and Zak Vescera] experience was anything like mine on the UBC Presidential Search Committee, she quickly realized how alienating it is to be one of only three faculty members on a 21-person corporate-controlled Board. It was likely even worse for Chaudhry as a woman of color. Combining this with the Board’s shenanigans that are designed to manipulate information and process to achieve desired decisions and minimize academic voices, a sense of helpless futility can set in. [emphasis mine]

These shenanigans include [emphasis mine] strategic seating arrangements, sudden breaks during meetings when conversation veers from the desired direction, hand-written notes from the secretary to speaking members, hundreds of pages of documents sent the night before a meeting, private tête-à-têtes arranged between a powerful board member and a junior or more vulnerable one, portals for community input vetted before sharing, and planning op-eds to promote preferred perspectives. These are a few of many tricks employed to sideline unpopular voices, mostly academic ones.

It’s impossible to believe that UBC’s BoG is the site for these shenanigans take place. The question I have is how many BoGs and how much damage are they inflicting?

Finally getting back to my point, simultaneous with cutting back on teaching and other associated costs and manipulative, childish behaviour at BoG meetings, large amounts of money are being spent to attract ‘stars’ such as Dr. Montemagno. The idea is to attract students (and their money) to the institution where they can network with the ‘stars’. What the student actually learns does not seem to be the primary interest.

So, what kind of deals are the universities making with the ‘stars’?

The Montemagno affair provides a few hints but, in the end,I don’t know and I don’t think anyone outside the ‘sacred circle’ does either. UBC, for example,is quite secretive and, seemingly, quite liberal in its use of nondisclosure agreements (NDA). There was the scandal a few years ago when president Arvind Gupta abruptly resigned after one year in his position. As far as I know, no one has ever gotten to the bottom of this mystery although there certainly seems to have been a fair degree skullduggery involved.

After a previous president, Martha Cook Piper took over the reigns in an interim arrangement, Dr. Santa J. Ono (his Wikipedia entry) was hired.  Interestingly, he was previously at the University of Cincinnati, one of Montemagno’s previous employers. That university’s apparent eagerness to treat Montemagno’s extras seems to have led to the University of Alberta’s excesses.  So, what deal did UBC make with Dr. Ono? I’m pretty sure both he and the university are covered by an NDA but there is this about his tenure as president at the University of Cincinnati (from a June 14, 2016 article by Jack Hauen for THE UBYSSEY),

… in exchange for UC not raising undergraduate tuition, he didn’t accept a salary increase or bonus for two years. And once those two years were up, he kept going: his $200,000 bonus in 2015 went to “14 different organizations and scholarships, including a campus LGBTQ centre, a local science and technology-focused high school and a program for first-generation college students,” according to the Vancouver Sun.

In 2013 he toured around the States promoting UC with a hashtag of his own creation — #HottestCollegeInAmerica — while answering anything and everything asked of him during fireside chats.

He describes himself as a “servant leader,” which is a follower of a philosophy of leadership focused primarily on “the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong.”

“I see my job as working on behalf of the entire UBC community. I am working to serve you, and not vice-versa,” he said in his announcement speech this morning.

Thank goodness it’s possible to end this piece on a more or less upbeat note. Ono seems to be what my father would have called ‘a decent human being’. It’s nice to be able to include a ‘happyish’ note.

Plea

There is huge money at stake where these ‘mega’ science and technology projects are concerned. The Ingenuity Lab was $100M investment to be paid out over 10 years and some basic questions don’t seem to have been asked. How does this person manage money? Leaving aside any issues with an individual’s ethics and moral compass, scientists don’t usually take any courses in business and yet they are expected to manage huge budgets. Had Montemagno handled a large budget or any budget? It’s certainly not foregrounded (and I’d like to see dollar amounts) in his CV.

As well, the Ingenuity Lab was funded as a 10 year project. Had Montemagno ever stayed in one job for 10 years? Not according to his CV. His longest stint was approximately eight years when he was in the US Navy in the 1980s. Otherwise, it was five to six years, including the Ingenuity Lab stint.

Meanwhile, our universities don’t appear to be applying the rules and protocols we have in place to ensure fairness. This unseemly rush for money seems to have infected how Canadian universities attract (local, interprovincial, and, especially, international) students to pay for their education. The infection also seems to have spread into the ways ‘star’ researchers and faculty members are recruited to Canadian universities while the bulk of the teaching staff are ‘starved’ under one pretext or another while a BoG may or may not be indulging in shenanigans designed to drive decision-making to a preordained outcome. And, for the most part, this is occurring under terms of secrecy that our intelligence agencies must envy.

In the end, I can’t be the only person wondering how all this affects our science.

Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) talk on April 24th, 2018: Medical Myths You Need to Learn about Before It’s Too Late

From an April 6, 2018 Café Scientifique notice (received via email),

Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, APRIL 24TH at 7:30PM in the back
room at YAGGER’;S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the
evening will be DR. JAMES MCCORMACK, Professor from the Faculty of
Pharmaceutical Services at UBC [University of British Columbia].

James received his undergraduate pharmacy degree at the University of
British Columbia in 1982 and received his doctorate in pharmacy
(Pharm.D.) in 1986 from the Medical University of South Carolina in
Charleston, South Carolina. He has had extensive experience, both
locally and internationally, talking to health professionals and
consumers about the rational use of medication, and has presented over
500 seminars on drug therapy over the last 30 years. He focuses on
shared decision-making using evidence based information and rational
therapeutic principles. He is also the co-host of one of the world’s
top medical podcasts – the Best Science (BS) Medicine podcast.

MEDICAL MYTHS YOU NEED TO LEARN ABOUT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

What if much of what you thought about medications was wrong? In this
talk you’ll learn that the following are myths:

1) You should finish the full course of an antibiotic prescription –
THE TRUTH – for most infections you should stop after you have had no
symptoms for 2-3 days

2) Most people benefit from blood pressure/diabetes treatment – THE
TRUTH – less then 30% benefit over a lifetime of treatment

3) The recommended doses of medications are what you should be on –
THE TRUTH – you should likely start with a 1/4 or an 1/8th of the
recommended dose for most medications

4) And much, much, more

You can find Dr. James McCormack’s University of British Columbia’s faculty page here but you might find the webpage listing the iTunes episodes for the Best Science Medicine Podcast – BS without the BS by Dr James McCormack and Dr Michael Allan (University of Alberta) of more interest.