December 18, 2020 by
A&S News
From a sophisticated cyber attack on several United States government agencies, to speculation on how public transit might rebound in a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars from a range of disciplines across the Faculty of Arts & Science are sharing their expertise on a variety of issues in the media.
Here’s some of what they had to say this week.
December 11, 2020
- Department of Psychology professor Geoff MacDonald comments in MetroUK on the human need for social interaction and attention from others that is now being provided to some people by artificial intelligence chatbots.
- David Evans, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and senior curator in vertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, speaks about the growing interest among wealthy art collectors in dinosaur fossils in Tatler Philippines.
- Department of Physics professor Stephen Morris explains how washboard roads form in the NPR podcast Ask Sam.
- Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies assistant professor Seika Boye discusses experiences of Black, Indigenous and people of colour dancers in a CBC story examining diversity in the arts.
December 12, 2020
- Department of English assistant professor Deirdre Baker offers recommendations of books for children of varying ages in the Toronto Star.
December 14, 2020
- John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, speaks about a cyber attack that targeted several American government agencies with regard to national security and the technology involved (paywall) in the Washington Post. Some of Railton’s comments are also repeated in Vanity Fair.
December 15, 2020
- Research by Department of Economics professor Philip Oreopoulos on the impact of tutoring during the COVID-19 pandemic is referenced in a story examining American schools and public education in The 74.
- Canadian Geographic reports on the acquisition of a sample of billion-year-old water discovered by Department of Earth Sciences University Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, by the parent company of Canada’s national science museums.
- Recent research led by Department of Ecology & Evolutionary assistant professor Chelsea Rochman is cited in a Daily Mail story about plastic pollution generated from Amazon delivery packages.
December 16, 2020
- Matti Siemiatycki, a professor in the Department of Geography & Planning and interim director of the School of Cities, comments on proposed transit infrastructure in Montreal in the Montreal Gazette.
- Siemiatycki also comments in CTV News on how public transit in Canada might rebound in a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Judith Taylor, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and the Women and Gender Studies Institute, discusses the arrest of Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard on CBC Radio’s Information Radio.
- Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies PhD student Erick Laming comments on the use of body cameras by Iqaluit RCMP in Nuntsiaq News.
- Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies professor Scot Wortley, along with University of Toronto Mississauga assistant professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, comment on calls for increased reporting of use of force by police in the Toronto Star.
- Professor emeritus Margaret MacMillan of the Department of History and the Munk School discusses her new book War: How Conflict Shaped Us on Al Jazeera’s The Stream.
December 17, 2020
- A post on Twitter by Jon Lindsay, an assistant professor at the Munk School and the Department of Political Science, is cited in a Wired story examining the challenges to American cybersecurity posed by the digital attack on several government agencies.
- Jo Bovy, an associate professor in the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, comments in Quanta magazine on newly reported ultra-precise measurements of the distances to stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.