October 29, 2021 by
A&S News
From an embattled newly elected member of parliament, to a 1978 murder in Toronto’s Gay Village, to lizards adapting to climate change, 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.
October 22, 2021
- For CBC News, Department of Political Science professor emeritus Nelson Wiseman comments on newly elected Liberal MP Kevin Vuong’s silence on dropped sexual assault charges against him.
- In the Windsor Star and Canada.com, David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics assistant professor Hilding Neilson explains the importance of the North Star to Indigenous people.
October 23, 2021
- Articles in the Toronto Star and Hamilton Spectator, about the 1979 police shooting of a Black man, cite the research of Scot Wortley, a professor in the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies. Wortley analyzed Toronto police data from 2013-17 revealing systemic disparities in the policing of Black people.
October 24, 2021
- Department of Sociology professor Jooyoung Lee shares his insights in the Toronto Star on the 1978 murder of nightclub manager Alexander (Sandy) Romeo LeBlanc and whether it may have been committed by a serial killer in Toronto’s Gay Village. Also in the Hamilton Spectator and the St. Catharines Standard.
October 25, 2021
- An article in Education News Canada describes research by a team from the Department of Psychology that shows we quickly assess whether an environment is safe or threatening through our perception of discrete lines in the scene. They suggest this skill may be an evolutionary trait that helped us survive.
- In an article in the Calgary Monitor, Department of Psychology associate professor Jed Meltzer describes the findings in a paper he co-authored that learning a second language can boost cognitive function.
- An episode of CBC Radio’s Ideas celebrates two 2021 Killam Prize winners: Douglas Stephan, a professor in the Department of Chemistry (listen at 00:45); and Arthur Ripstein, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Faculty of Law (listen at 24:30).
October 26, 2021
- An article in Education News Canada describes research by A&S undergraduate students Sophie Berkowitz and Simone Collier into how lizards can adapt to a changing climate.
October 27, 2021
- An article in the Toronto Star (paywall) cites research co-conducted by Jeremy Withers, a PhD student in the Department of Geography & Planning, which shows that a plan to create more affordable housing in new condominiums in Toronto is a missed opportunity. Also in the Hamilton Spectator.
October 28, 2021
- In the Globe & Mail (paywall), Bence Viola, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, discusses the drawbacks of a recent proposal to reorganize the human family tree by naming a new species that was the immediate precursor of our own, Homo sapiens.