A&S scholars sharing their expertise in the media this week

From the awarding of Canada’s top science prize for research into trapping light to a company that assists people with buying a home through an owner-resident arrangement, 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.

November 19, 2021

• Sajeev John, a University Professor in the Department of Physics, is celebrated in the Toronto Star and ahead of an appearance on CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks for being awarded Canada’s top science prize for the development of photonic crystals capable of trapping light.

November 20, 2021

• Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology PhD candidate Lisa Erdle speaks in CBC News about her research that demonstrated the effectiveness of adding filters to washing machines to reduce microfibre pollution in wastewater.

November 22, 2021

• Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics fellow Ziggy Pleunis comments in Scientific American on the growing understanding of the brilliant and brief blasts of radio waves detected throughout the universe known as fast radio bursts.
• Dan Breznitz, a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the Department of Political Science and co-director of the Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School, guests on TVO’s The Agenda to discuss economic and entrepreneurial innovation at a local level as presented in his book Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World.
• Department of Political science professor emeritus Nelson Wiseman speaks on CBC Radio’s Ontario Morning about the opening of the 44th Canadian parliament and the election of a new speaker of the House of Commons (listen at 29:50).
• Dante’s Indiana, a novel by Department of English professor and vice-dean, undergraduate of the Faculty of Arts & Science Randy Boyagoda about a desperate man who moves to a small town in Indiana to work for an evangelical millionaire building a theme park inspired by Dante's Inferno, is listed among 23 recommendations of funny reads for the coming holiday shopping season by CBC Books.

November 23, 2021

• Dan Breznitz is named in Quill & Quire and the Toronto Star as the inaugural recipient of the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy from the Writers’ Trust of Canada for his book Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World.
• Department of Sociology associate professor Jooyoung Lee comments in Montreal’s CityNews on the death of a Black teenager amid suggestions of a double standard in response by government leaders based on race.
• John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Munk School’s Citizen Lab, speaks in an NBC News story about a lawsuit brought by American tech corporation Apple against an Israeli software developer following the discovery of spyware on iPhones.

November 24, 2021

• Professor Scot Wortley, acting director of the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, comments in CBC News about racial disparity among arrests and mental health checks by police in British Columbia.
• Department of Geography & Planning and School of Cities professor Matti Siemiatycki speaks on Toronto’s CityNews about roadside signs that indicate the distance between cities along highways across Ontario.

November 25, 2021

• Sajeev John describes his research into trapping light for industrial applications and his quest to develop a high-efficiency material that converts sunlight to electricity in TVO.
• Matti Siemiatycki comments in the Toronto Star about a tech company that offers first-time homebuyers assistance in getting into the real estate market by sharing ownership in order to purchase a property.