Arts & Science news staff

The ��Ƶ is joining others around the world in remembering Natalie Zemon Davis, a renowned social historian who brought to life the lesser-known lives of workers, women and peasants.

The New York Times described Zemon Davis – a professor emerita of history in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science who died Oct. 21 at age 94 – as a researcher who drew insights from anthropology and literary criticism, as well as meticulous archival digging.

“Professor Davis both represented and inspired an emerging approach to history in the second half of the 20th century, often by filling in gaps in the historical record with informed speculations based on deep immersion in the period under study,” the Times said.

Zemon Davis chose not to focus on the history of royalty or aristocrats but rather on populations previously ignored by historians – workers, peasants, women and outsiders. Her work originally focused on France, but later broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America and the Caribbean.

She told U of T News in 2017 that she believed traits such as daring, a sense of wonder and passion were essential for a researcher to do their job well.

“That’s really something quite important: the unexpected, the surprise that satisfies or nourishes one’s curiosity,” she said.

One of the first female humanities professors at U of T, Zemon Davis was a mentor to a generation of historians. Her teaching career took her to Brown University, the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University. Zemon Davis was also president of the American Historical Association in 1987 – the second woman to hold the position.

She was a prolific writer, with more than a dozen books and essay collections. Her best-known book, The Return of Martin Guerre (1983), is the story of a 16th-century French peasant who abandoned his wife and lands – and later returns to discover an imposter has taken his place. The book generated worldwide attention and was translated into more than 20 languages. (A year earlier, she consulted on the French film of the same title.)

Her book of essays, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975), is regarded as a landmark in historical anthropology and the history of women and gender. It combined her intensive archival research with the study of cultural rituals, violent chapters of religious wars and social work of women’s religious groups.

At U of T, Zemon Davis was a supporter of fundamental research, joining a group of experts in 2017 who called on the federal government to implement the recommendations of Canada's Fundamental Science Review.

(photo by Ralph Alswang/National Endowment for the Humanities)

For her contributions to academic scholarship, Zemon Davis received several honorary degrees from universities around the world, including U of T, Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Edinburgh, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and others.

Among her many accolades and prizes, she was awarded the prestigious Holberg Prize established by the Norwegian parliament in 2010 and was named Companion of the Order of Canada in 2012.

In 2013, she received the National Humanities Medal from U.S. President Barack Obama.

“The president spoke of the humanities and hope, and his words rang in my ears as he put the medal around my neck,” said Zemon Davis in an interview with the Faculty of Arts & Science that year, “for I have tried my best to be not only a truth-teller about the past, but also to be a historian of hope."

Physicists create 'quasicrystals' that exhibit superconductive properties

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 18:11:09 +0000

Physicists create 'quasicrystals' that exhibit superconductive properties

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 10/18/2023 - 14:11

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MIT’s Aviram Uri, left, and U of T’s Sergio C. de la Barrera are part of a team that coaxed superconductivity from an enigmatic class of materials known as quasicrystals (photo by Eva Cheung)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Breaking Research

Faculty of Arts & Science

Physics

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

“We don’t yet fully understand the system. There are still quite a few mysteries.”

Researchers at the ��Ƶ and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a way to create new atomically thin versions of quasicrystals – an enigmatic class of materials – that exhibit superconductivity.

The work by Sergio C. de la Barrera, an assistant professor in U of T’s department of physics, and his MIT colleagues promises to jumpstart interest in quasicrystals by creating a new platform for further research. That, in turn, could lead to new physics insights and important applications such as more efficient electronic devices.

Recently published in Nature, the research and brings together two previously unconnected fields: “quasicrystals” and “twistronics.”

“It's really extraordinary that the field of twistronics keeps making unexpected connections to other areas of physics and chemistry – in this case the beautiful and exotic world of quasiperiodic crystals,” says Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT who pioneered the field of twistronics only five years ago.

Twistronics involves placing atomically thin layers of materials on top of one another. Rotating, or twisting, one or more of the layers at a slight angle creates a unique pattern called a moiré superlattice. And a moiré pattern, in turn, has an impact on the behaviour of electrons.

“It changes the spectrum of energy levels available to the electrons and can provide the conditions for interesting phenomena to arise,” says de la Barrera, one of four co-first authors of the recent paper who conducted the work while a postdoctoral associate at MIT.

A moiré system can also be tailored for different behaviors by changing the number of electrons added to the system. As a result, the field of twistronics has exploded over the last five years as researchers around the world have applied it to creating new atomically thin quantum materials.

Image of a moiré quasicrystal, center column, created by three overlapping sheets of atomically thin graphene (photo credit: Sergio C. de la Barrera)

In the current work, the researchers were tinkering with a moiré system made of three sheets of graphene. Graphene is composed of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in hexagons resembling a honeycomb structure. In this case, the team layered three sheets of graphene, but twisted two of the sheets at slightly different angles.

To their surprise, the system created a quasicrystal, an unusual class of material discovered in the 1980s. As the name implies, quasicrystals are somewhere between a crystal such as a diamond, which has a regular repeating structure, and an amorphous material like glass, “where the atoms are all jumbled, or randomly arranged,” says de la Barrera.

In a nutshell, quasicrystals “have really strange patterns,” de la Barrera says.

Compared to crystals and amorphous materials, however, relatively little is known about quasicrystals. That’s in part because they’re hard to make. “That doesn’t mean they’re not interesting; it just means that we haven’t paid as much attention to them, particularly to their electronic properties,” says de la Barrera, adding that the relatively simple quasicrystal created by the study’s authors could be used by other researchers as a platform to advance the field.

Because the original researchers weren’t experts in quasicrystals, they reached out to Professor Ron Lifshitz of Tel Aviv University, a co-author who helped the team to better understand what they were looking at, which they call a moiré quasicrystal.

The physicists then tuned a moiré quasicrystal to make it superconducting, or transmit current with no resistance at all below a certain low temperature. That’s important because superconducting devices could transfer current through electronic devices much more efficiently than is possible today, but the phenomenon is still not fully understood in all cases.

The team also found evidence of symmetry breaking – a phenomenon that “tells us that the electrons are interacting with one another very strongly,” de la Barrera says. “And as physicists and quantum material scientists, we want our electrons interacting with each other because that’s where the exotic physics happens.”

In the end, “through discussions across continents we were able to decipher this thing, and now we believe we have a good handle on what’s going on,” says Aviram Uri, a co-first author of the paper and an MIT Pappalardo and VATAT postdoctoral fellow, although he notes that “we don’t yet fully understand the system. There are still quite a few mysteries.”

The best part of the research was “solving the puzzle of what it was we had actually created,” de la Barrera says. “We were expecting [something else], so it was a very pleasant surprise when we realized we were actually looking at something very new and different.”

With files from Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT

Dissident literature: U of T researcher helps build 'an honest record' of Soviet history

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 22:29:52 +0000

Dissident literature: U of T researcher helps build 'an honest record' of Soviet history

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 03/22/2023 - 18:29

Cutline

Ann Komaromi has spent more than two decades working with the Russian human rights organization Memorial, which was recently shut down by a Russian court (photo courtesy of Ann Komaromi)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Global Lens

Centre for Comparative Literature

Slavic languages and literatures

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

Russia

Soviet

While the world continues to witness the exchange of bombs and gunfire in Ukraine, the ��Ƶ’s Ann Komaromi is involved in the exchange of underground journalism and literature about the former Soviet Union.

For more than 20 years, Komaromi, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of Slavic languages and literatures and the director of the Centre for Comparative Literature, has been involved with Memorial, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization that was founded in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union to collect facts about repressions and civil society activity during Joseph Stalin's reign (1924-1953) and its aftermath.

The organization consisted of two entities: Memorial International, which documented Soviet-era history, including crimes against humanity; and the Memorial Human Rights Centre, which was focused on the protection of human rights – especially in conflict zones in and around modern Russia.

The Russian government ordered Memorial shut down in December 2021 and forced its closure earlier this year.

“The historians at Memorial, some of whom were activists in the dissident period, were not well paid. It was not glamorous and they were not particularly rewarded within their society for what they were doing,” says Komaromi. “That’s why it's important to support what they do and make sure it's well known.”

Komaromi first became connected to Memorial in the late 1990s while working on her PhD dissertation when she was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“I went to Moscow to do some research and went to the offices and met people there,” she says. “I became fascinated with the materials and information they had. You couldn't find it anywhere else.

“Researching topics that were not part of official history – that became the history of repression in the Stalinist era. Memorial’s efforts to commemorate and gather information about the victims of Stalin era represented the flagship work they were doing for many years. It's enormously significant.”

A woman wearing a face mask with the logo of Russia's rights group Memorial is seen outside the Moscow City Court where a hearing to dissolve the group's Human Rights Centre was taking place (photo by Vasily Maximov/AFP via Getty Images)

Komaromi assisted with Memorial’s efforts to capture the history of dissidence after Stalin which included recording and preserving the unofficial texts Russian citizens produced and circulated. By the mid-2000s, she was deeply involved in a collaboration to further study this publishing network, called "samizdat."

"We collaborated to work on a catalogue of underground publications," she says. Those publications included art and literary journals, rare copies of which are kept in an archive in Bremen, Germany, at the Institute for the Study of Eastern Europe.

Now, electronic editions of those underground journals are available with timelines of dissident movements and published interviews with activists on Komaromi’s digital humanities project site through ��Ƶ Libraries.

Among the journals and publications shared and exchanged, the Chronicle of Current Events was regarded as the most widely read underground bulletin.

“They were recording facts about who had been arrested, who underwent interrogation,” says Komaromi. “It also shared what uncensored works were being passed around and what was being seized during searches. The emphasis was on facts. They wanted to keep emotion and politics out of it.

“But at the same time, there was this thriving poetry scene, there was theatre, fiction writing – all of this unofficial culture.”

Some of the fiction writing and poetry circulated included the works of some very well-known writers, such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky, who was exiled in the early 1970s for his poetry.

But most of the journalists and authors were relatively unknown.

To boost the exposure of their work, Komaromi published her book, Soviet Samzidat, last year, capturing the underground publishing scene between the 1950s and 1980s.

“It's about the publishing itself and the culture – and the rich content of that underground publishing network,” says Komaromi.

She continues to work with Memorial, despite it being shuttered by the Russian government.

“The Russian government needs to control the history of the Soviet Union for its political purposes today,” says Komaromi. “This was a very public signal that the government controlled the narrative about history and wouldn’t allow any independent work to be done.”

That won’t stop Komaromi.

“My research today has to do with dissident memoirs and looking at the ways that people who were involved with various kinds of rights activism described their lives and activities,” she says.

“There's still a form of Memorial functioning in Russia, but a lot of people needed to go abroad. In France, for example, the history of dissidence project is still going on through people working there. That's how I'm able to continue collaborating with them.”

For Komaromi, her work with Memorial has been the defining experience of her distinguished academic career and a reflection of her belief in democratic values.

“I find the commitment of the historians of Memorial inspiring, the way people have devoted so many years to the values they uphold,” she says. “I see what they do as deeply patriotic.

“They want to curate an honest record of the history of their own country for the good of their own people. I feel it's something that's crucially important for Russia and it’s also relevant globally – for all of us who care about fact-based discourse, individual rights and freedom of expression.

“We should all be concerned about the distortion of facts and violent suppression of rights to free speech because historical propaganda is being used to justify Russia's war in Ukraine.”

Reef 'hope spots' may help rescue coral habitats damaged by climate change: Researchers

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 15:54:01 +0000

Reef 'hope spots' may help rescue coral habitats damaged by climate change: Researchers

geoff.vendeville Thu, 08/04/2022 - 11:54

Cutline

A new study shows that connections between climate-resilient coral reefs can help recover biodiversity, even after projected mass bleaching events from climate change (photo by Renata Romeo)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Breaking Research

Climate Change

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

With coral reefs imperiled by climate change, coral refugia – reefs in habitats that are protected from environmental stressors – may hold the key to sustaining these diverse underwater ecosystems.

A new study by researchers at the ��Ƶ, Wildlife Conservation Society and National Research Council in Italy suggests these “coral reef hope spots,” connected to other reefs in networks that carry tiny larval coral on ocean currents, may help maintain and regenerate ocean biodiversity – even after projected mass coral bleaching events.

“Our results show how crucial it is to understand coral reef networks and how they may be affected by climate change, when designing future coral reef conservation strategies,” says Ariel Greiner, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science.

“We found that these coral reef networks may help maintain coral reef strongholds. We also encourage researchers to build off of this work and determine the locations of reefs that could act as stepping stones between these coral reef strongholds, as these reefs will hold the key to enabling these strongholds to preserve not just themselves but also the rest of the global coral reef habitat.”

In the study, which appeared in Global Ecology and Biogeography, scientists modelled coral larval dispersal connections between reefs. Also known as coral connectivity, these connections form networks that serve to transport larval corals over vast distances to shuffle the gene pool and help reefs recover from coral bleaching and other disturbances.

By modelling connectivity under different scenarios of climate change and future coral bleaching, the researchers provide a glimpse of how connections between reefs might change in coming decades – and the potential of those networks to reseed reefs that are lost. Their findings may help inform future conservation strategies as coral reefs suffer the effects of climate change, ocean acidification and overfishing. Alarmingly, some models predict 70 to 99 per cent of reefs risk long-term damage due to bleaching by 2100 or earlier, the researchers note.

The researchers' study pinpoints reefs that have the greatest potential to regenerate others, helping direct limited resources for conservation at a crucial time for climate action (photo by Matt Curnock)

Some existing climate-resilient coral reef strongholds are expected to have the best chance of surviving environmental stressors. If they do, the researchers found that present-day connectivity – grouped into six major networks of interconnected reefs worldwide – will be largely preserved, even if only the most climate-resilient coral reef strongholds (representing about 30 per cent of original coral reef cells) remain.

“Strategic conservation action is crucial in the face of climate change,” says Emily Darling, director of Coral Reef Conservation at WCS and an adjunct professor in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, as well as study co-author. “Our study shows that biological connections between reefs can increase the ability of corals to recover from climate shocks and are a call to action to boost the health and function of key “source” reefs in climate-resilient networks.”

However, the researchers strike a note of caution, saying that not all coral reef habitat can be restored if only about 30 per cent of coral reef habitat is preserved “even under an optimistic reseeding paradigm.” Even if stepping stone reefs are also preserved, it will still take “several generations to reseed all reachable reef cells,” they add.

Nevertheless, the researchers say the study will help inform conservation strategies by highlighting the importance of reef connectivity to ensure their resilience in the face of climate change.

This research was supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, and by the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Canada Graduate Scholarships and Canada Research Chairs.

With files from the WCS.

Anatole von Lilienfeld joins Acceleration Consortium as inaugural Clark Chair in advanced materials discovery

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 16:07:12 +0000

Anatole von Lilienfeld joins Acceleration Consortium as inaugural Clark Chair in advanced materials discovery

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 12/08/2021 - 11:07

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Anatole von Lilienfeld, a machine learning and physical chemistry specialist, will support the Acceleration Consortium’s goal of revolutionizing the field of materials science.

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Our Community

Acceleration Consortium

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Alumni

Artificial Intelligence

Chemistry

Computer Science

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Physics

Research & Innovation

Trinity College

Vector Institute

Machine learning and physical chemistry specialist Anatole von Lilienfeld has been named the inaugural holder of the Clark Chair in Advanced Materials at the Vector Institute and the ��Ƶ, becoming a pivotal faculty member at the Acceleration Consortium.

A leading expert in designing novel approaches for rapidly predicting chemical compound behaviour, von Lilienfeld will support the Acceleration Consortium’s goal of revolutionizing the field of materials science. Based in the Faculty of Arts & Science in partnership with the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the Division of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, the Acceleration Consortium is a global coalition of academia, industry, and government that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to accelerate the design and discovery of materials that do not yet exist.

“I am thrilled to be joining this exceptional community of researchers at the ��Ƶ and contribute to the Acceleration Consortium’s remarkable commitment to excellence in applying artificial intelligence to the chemical sciences,” said von Lilienfeld. “The pursuit to digitize chemistry is grand and requires many team-players, and the Acceleration Consortium is shaping up to become the perfect framework for this effort.”

Currently a full professor in the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna and previously associate and assistant professor of physical chemistry at the University of Basel, von Lilienfeld brings expertise in developing and applying machine learning methods that drive the design and discovery of new materials using quantum mechanics, big data, statistical mechanics and computing.

“Anatole is recognized as one of the visionaries and pioneers for the use of computers to understand the vastness of chemical space,” said Alán Aspuru-Guzik, director of the Acceleration Consortium and a U of T professor of chemistry and computer science. “I am excited that Anatole will be coming here to help build U of T as the global centre of excellence in the area of AI for molecules and materials.”

The Clark Chair is made possible through a generous gift from longtime U of T donor Edmund Clark, with additional support from the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. The donation from Clark epitomizes his long-standing commitments to both supporting excellence in teaching and research at U of T and recognizing the potential of AI to transform global society in innumerable ways.

“Canadians are looking to the Acceleration Consortium and the Vector Institute to tackle the immense challenges that impact their lives by driving the discovery of new materials for more environmentally friendly products, green energy and better medicine among other industrial applications,” said Clark, board chair of the Vector Institute and former president and CEO of the TD Bank Group. “We’re thrilled to welcome Anatole von Lilienfeld in this role as he will be a tremendous asset in supporting the consortium’s ability to accomplish that goal.”

Fran and Edmund Clark are U of T alumni and longtime supporters of the university.

As founding chair of the Vector Institute, Clark is a passionate advocate for advancing the application of artificial intelligence and improving machine research and development. He has long recognized the need for creating conditions to nurture and attract a critical mass of top AI minds.

“We are grateful to Ed Clark for establishing this chair and continuously investing in education and research,” said Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. “This realization of his vision demonstrates his commitment to solidifying Canada’s place as a leader in machine learning and deep learning. With Anatole assuming this role, we are only deepening U of T’s strength in artificial intelligence-based research across a variety of disciplines.”

Von Lilienfeld will play a key role in helping the Acceleration Consortium reach its goal of reducing the time and cost of developing new materials to as little as one year and $1 million, down from 20 years and $100 million.

“Von Lilienfeld brings the promise that we'll be able to think about problems in a new way and develop powerful solutions much more rapidly than through conventional approaches,” said Professor Robert Batey, chair of the department of chemistry, who played an integral role in attracting von Lilienfeld to U of T. “With his expertise, we’ll propose new materials, make them and test them much more quickly.”

Von Lilienfeld’s appointment at U of T is shared between the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the department of materials science and engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. He will also be affiliated with the department of physics and will be a Trinity College Fellow.

“This cross-disciplinary appointment epitomizes knowledge transfer across fields of deep expertise at U of T,” said Chris Yip, dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “The partnership allows faculty members and students from not only Engineering and Arts & Science, but from across the University and beyond, to collaborate and tackle key global challenges.”

With this appointment, von Lilienfeld also joins a community of researchers at the Vector Institute as a Vector faculty member, providing further opportunities for the exchange of ideas within a group of vibrant and innovative problem-solvers, working across disciplines on both curiosity-driven and applied research in AI.

“I am delighted to welcome Anatole to the Vector Institute and the ��Ƶ ecosystem,” said Garth Gibson, president and CEO of Vector Institute. “Vector has endeavoured to attract top talent to advance AI research and drive its application, adoption and commercialization. We look forward to collaborating with Anatole and the Acceleration Consortium team in advancing Toronto’s stature as a global centre for artificial based research.”

The Acceleration Consortium is one of many ventures in U of T’s Institutional Strategic Initiatives (ISI) program, a framework that enables the development and sustainability of cross-divisional, interdisciplinary collaborative research networks through partnerships with external industry, community and philanthropic partners.

“Thanks to the generosity of Ed Clark, and with Anatole assuming the inaugural Chair, U of T increases its capacity to answer some of the most pressing questions in the field of materials discovery,” said Christine Allen, U of T’s associate vice-president and vice-provost, strategic initiatives. “I am thrilled that we are pushing the envelope and securing U of T’s place at the forefront of developing solutions-oriented global research ecosystems.”

Sidney Smith Hall transformation project to create space for innovative learning, teaching and research

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 19:37:35 +0000

Sidney Smith Hall transformation project to create space for innovative learning, teaching and research

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/10/2021 - 14:37

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Veronica Bergstrom and Andrew Yin sit outside Sidney Smith Hall, which will undergo a transformative redevelopment project that will create a new home for U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Our Community

Scott Mabury

Buildings

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

Innis College

Undergraduate Students

The ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Arts & Science has announced plans to redevelop Sidney Smith Hall to create a transformative space for innovative learning, teaching and research.

The revitalization project, currently in early planning stages, will help redefine the university’s largest academic division – and one of the largest in North America – by creating a new home for it on the St. George campus.

“Our goal is to create a contemporary, accessible and state-of-the-art space for our students, staff and faculty, and the wider community,” says Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. “As dean, I am really pleased to launch this exciting project that will advance and grow our teaching and research mission.”

The project will provide a new facility while extensively renovating the north vertical portion of the building. It will address much-needed academic, administrative, student and ancillary space needs. They include: lounge, study and collaboration spaces; a community marketplace to gather and eat; event and meeting space; and state-of-the-art classrooms.

“As the ��Ƶ heads into its third century, we envision this new footprint will be a magnet for local and international engagement, and a hub to inspire thought-provoking events and respectful, authentic dialogue on the critical issues facing our society,” adds Woodin.

The renewal project aims to create a more recognizable identity for the Faculty of Arts & Science and foster greater connections across its community, comprising more than 70 academic departments, schools, centres and institutes in 40 academic buildings and colleges across the St. George campus.

“It’s really exciting to hear about this project. Better classrooms, more food options, more event space and the addition of common areas outside are all really beneficial to students in the long run,” says PhD student Veronica Bergstrom of the department of psychology.

U of T ’s Faculty of Arts & Science has grown in breadth and depth since the building opened in 1960. While the site is one of the most well-travelled places on the St. George campus due to its central location and teaching space, the building’s age and size are constraints on the faculty’s ability to fully realize its potential as a research and leadership centre locally, nationally and internationally.

The university will also address the building’s accessibility and improve student spaces as a central part of its redevelopment while designing and building a high-performance net-zero carbon certified building.

“From a user’s point of view, it's unfortunately difficult to navigate,” says undergraduate student Andrew Yin, who is in his final year at Innis College. “I've gotten lost in the basement and lost trying to get to the food hall; some areas are not connected. There are a lot of areas where improvement is needed. I'm quite glad the university has not only recognized these issues and is trying to rebuild the site, but also considering the students point of view and trying to hold consultation sessions.”

Scott Mabury, vice-president of operations and real estate partnerships, says like all major capital development projects, the process is lengthy and will include opportunities for viewing models, renderings and engagement with design ideas as architects are selected and the plan is developed over the next several years.

“This plan will allow growth for the Faculty of Arts & Science well into the future,” says Mabury. “It will be a thoughtfully designed, sustainable and accessible building complemented with a large, and welcoming open space serving our entire community for generations to come.”

Design team selection for this project is scheduled to take place over several months, starting in spring 2022.

‘Passionate, principled and caring’: U of T remembers math professor Alfonso Gracia-Saz

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 12 May 2021 20:26:10 +0000

‘Passionate, principled and caring’: U of T remembers math professor Alfonso Gracia-Saz

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 05/12/2021 - 16:26

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Arts & Science

Mathematics

Teaching

The ��Ƶ community is mourning the loss of Alfonso Gracia-Saz, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of mathematics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, who was renowned for his creativity, innovation and dedication to his students.

“Alfonso was a passionate, principled and caring mathematician and an educational leader,” said Professor Jeremy Quastel, chair of the department. “He taught large, challenging courses, reshaping and modernizing them with an intense focus on the learning experience of the students. His lectures inspired not only a love of mathematics, but also a rethinking of what was possible in the act of teaching itself.”

A memorial page has been created for Gracia-Saz, who died unexpectedly on May 6. Memories and tributes are being shared from across Canada and around the world.

Gracia-Saz’s research focused on Poisson geometry, Lie algebroids, active learning and inquiry-based learning. In recognition of his dynamic teaching style, attention to detail and his famous problem sets, the Canadian Mathematical Society had recently announced it was awarding Gracia-Saz with the 2021 Excellence in Teaching Award.

He was popular among students.

Bernardo Galvao-Sousa, an associate professor, teaching stream, said at the time that Gracia-Saz, “belongs to this rare breed of born teachers that possess not only the knowledge and creativity, but also the warm and dynamic personality that allows him to teach students in such a natural way that the barrier between teacher and student ceases to exist.”

Gracia-Saz maintained a YouTube channel for calculus, creating and posting 200 videos that have received more than 3 million views.

Peter Taylor, chair of the CMS Excellence in Teaching Award committee, called the videos “remarkable, both technically and conceptually ─ they give you an experience that is both challenging and joyful.”

A keen mentor and supporter of undergraduate research, Gracia-Saz also co-led recruiting and training for the U of T Putnam Mathematical Competition team, which placed fourth in the 2017 competition.

“Alfonso believed in the power of education and his dedication to teaching mathematics extended beyond the university,” Quastel said. “He was active in mathematics outreach through competitions, math camps and science fairs – his impact was felt throughout the mathematics community.”

For more than 10 years, Gracia-Saz was an academic adviser and an instructor for the Canada/USA Mathcamp. He also volunteered as an instructor for the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison (now Mount Tamalpais College).

Born in Zaragoza, Spain in 1976, Gracia-Saz lived and worked in Spain, the United States, Japan and Canada. Interested in mathematics and physics as a teenager, he was a winner of the V Spanish Physics Olympiad and participated in the international competition in Beijing in 1994.

He obtained a Licenciatura (BSc) in both physics and mathematics from Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain in 2000-2001 and a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006, where he was supervised by Professor Alan Weinstein. He held post-doctoral positions at Keio University in Japan and U of T before taking a faculty position at the University of Victoria. He joined the faculty of U of T in 2013.

With his beloved partner of six years, Nick Remedios, Gracia-Saz enjoyed contra dancing, complex board games and cooking.

In Spain, Gracia-Saz is mourned by his mother, Carmen; his father, Antonio; his sister, Rebeca, and her children, Mario and Carla.

The math department has created a scholarship in honour of Gracia-Saz and a memorial will be held online on Friday, May 14 at 3 p.m. EST. Details and links will be posted on the department of mathematics’ website later in the week.

U of T joins national consortium to address talent needs of post-pandemic economy

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 20:04:21 +0000

U of T joins national consortium to address talent needs of post-pandemic economy

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/08/2021 - 16:04

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U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science is partnering with non-profit Palette Skills and other academic and business organizations to upskill Canadians for high-demand roles in fast-growing parts of the economy (photo by ArthurHidden via Getty Images)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Meric Gertler

The ��Ƶ is partnering with Palette Skills, a national non-profit organization, and other major Canadian academic and business organizations to address the growing skills gap in the Canadian economy and advance an inclusive post-pandemic recovery.

The consortium, launched this week, will include U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science as part of its mission to create programs to rapidly upskill Canadians for high-demand roles in the fastest-growing parts of the economy.

“Collaboration between Canada’s businesses and its higher education partners will be a key factor in our ability to create good jobs and economic growth across the country,” said U of T President Meric Gertler.

“The ��Ƶ is proud to host this great initiative led by Palette Skills, and we look forward to collaborating with its member organizations and institutions.”

Along with U of T, other founding members of the consortium include the Business Council of Canada, the Council of Canadian Innovators, Business Council of British Columbia, the Brookfield Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and several Canadian universities.

U of T, which is also a co-founder of the Business/Higher Education Roundtable, will collaborate with the consortium’s partners to identify talent gaps and develop strategies for filling them as Canada works to recover from the economic impact of COVID-19. Together with Palette Skills, the partners will develop demand-driven, industry-led accelerated training programs aimed at rapidly transitioning more Canadians into high-demand roles.

“Canada has an extremely talented and diverse workforce, but we lack accessible pathways to transition large sections of the Canadian workforce into careers in industries that emerge from the pandemic ready to grow and compete on a global scale,” said Arvind Gupta, a computer science professor at U of T and the chief executive officer of Palette Skills.

“This newly announced consortium of business and higher education partners ensures that we can effectively provide a broad cross-section of opportunities to Canadians.”

U of T has been working with Palette Skills since last November to support individuals whose careers were disrupted by the shifting global economy. Palette Skills offers an integrated platform for mid-career upskilling aimed at training Canadians in technical skills that will allow them to thrive in growing industries.

“We’re excited to support Palette’s mission and to work alongside many leading organizations to address the skills gap across Canada,” said Melanie Woodin, dean of U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science and a member of the Palette board of directors.

“Palette is at the forefront of the talent industry and is having great success developing programs that help transition those who are underemployed into high-demand roles. We look forward to joining Canada’s top researchers and industry leaders to help improve the lives of Canadians by driving new solutions and creating unique opportunities for success.”

The consortium, which includes Simon Fraser University, University of Calgary, Dalhousie University, University of Guelph, Université Laval and the University of Saskatchewan, as well as U of T, is seeking to expand to other post-secondary colleges and universities, business associations and community partners from coast to coast.

“Close partnerships between educators and employers ensure that workers learn the skills they need to build successful careers,” said Goldy Hyder, president and chief executive officer of the Business Council of Canada.

“Palette is building the programs we need to create a better future and a higher quality of life for Canadians.”

U of T Centre for Ethics explores relationship between race, ethics and power

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 13:56:08 +0000

U of T Centre for Ethics explores relationship between race, ethics and power

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 01/21/2021 - 08:56

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Protesters march during a rally in Toronto after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis (photo by Arindam Shivaani/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Our Community

Centre for Ethics

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

Undergraduate Students

Woodsworth College

The ��Ƶ’s Centre for Ethics has launched a project that explores the complex themes of race, ethics and power through emerging scholars and interdisciplinary perspectives.

The Race, Ethics and Power (REP) project, which rolled out last fall in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, includes an emerging scholars series, undergraduate and graduate student reading and working groups, as well as public facing events.

The centre also brought on two research associates, as well as six undergraduate and graduate researchers, to help run the project.

Vasuki Shanmuganathan and Christopher Smith – the two research associates – are both PhDs with backgrounds in race, colonialism and health, as well as Black diaspora cultural studies, Black expressive cultures and practices, and queer and feminist theory, respectively.

“Seeing this project connect and engage with ongoing and current race matters as part of the greater community is different in design and approach,” said Shanmuganathan. “Being so close to the heartbeat of ongoing issues on the ground and providing a platform for discussions makes the centre a remarkable space to work, learn and be in.”

Alongside the centre’s Critical Race Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives series, which features interdisciplinary talks from established scholars in the field, the emerging scholars series brings together Canadian and international emerging scholars – graduate and doctoral students – whose work is at the cutting edge of race, ethics and power research to examine underrepresented histories and provide fresh perspectives.

“We want to challenge who we perceive as doing scholarly work and include presenters who combine academic and creative approaches converging on themes of race, ethics and power,” said Shanmuganathan.

To date, presentations have explored topics from Black LGBTQ+ identity politics in Brazil to “surface, abstraction and skin” in Black contemporary art.

Flash events have included a conversation with Jonathan Kidd and Sonya Winton-Odamtten, co-executive producers of the HBO television series Lovecraft Country.

“The speakers chosen for this series illustrate that concerns regarding race, ethics and power extend beyond theoretical debates normally assumed to happen in the university classroom,” said Smith.

“These conversations are already occurring on the ground and in all institutions.”

Markus Dubber, the centre’s director, says his goal for Race, Ethics and Power was to provide others with a space to build a project of their own.

“It wasn’t just that I wanted to focus on the subject matter,” he said.

Beyond the emerging scholars series, Shanmuganathan and Smith also run a Race, Ethics and Power reading group and working group for undergraduate and graduate researchers at the centre.

The reading group, which includes students from a range of disciplines, discusses publications related to race, ethics and power with the hope that students will learn how to pose strong research questions and consider how to apply what they learn to their own writing and life.

“The purpose of the group is to foster a critical conversation across disciplines by engaging the work of each speaker,” said Smith. “Each of the fellows is at a different stage academically, so a key function of the group is to enable each other to work through complex ideas and arguments by each author.”

Tsitsi Macherera, a fourth-year Woodsworth College pursuing a double major in ethics, society and law and book and media studies, is an undergraduate researcher at the Centre for Ethics.

She says the project has given her a greater awareness of the ethical impasses and questions present in other scholarly disciplines and a greater appreciation of interdisciplinary scholarship.

“I’ve been really energized by the discussions, especially the opportunity they present for engaging with people from different areas of the university,” said Macherera. “My time in the group has made me better appreciate the communal aspects of learning.

“I think the centre was purposive in making room for emerging scholars who are touching on a lot of age-old issues in fresh ways. It's always energizing to see scholars expanding the boundaries of their disciplines to include necessary conversations about race.”

The working group acts as a research hub that Shanmuganathan says provides student researchers with “a space to discuss research, benefit from mentoring and better navigate their learning process.”

Farhia Farah – an Race, Ethics and Power graduate student researcher and second-year master’s student in the department for the study of religion – focuses her research on Islam and gender from a sociology of religion perspective and explores the themes of ethics, race and power. She says she was drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of the project.

“I appreciate how the centre is big on collaboration and innovation, and in facilitating cross-disciplinary conversations between fellows who are from a variety of backgrounds. It allows us space to grow and engage with questions and ideas we may not necessarily have the space, time or funding for in other departments,” Farah said.

For Shanmuganathan and Smith the goal is to give students an opportunity to talk about race, ethics and power and participate in these discussions regardless of discipline.

“We hope that both the reading and working groups allow students to feel they are being supported in their work and are able to connect with others in REP. This is especially important during these uncertain times when we are only able to meet online,” said Shanmuganathan. “Community is centred in the REP project.”

Researchers at U of T, Northwestern use AI to accelerate discovery of industrial materials

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 15:51:47 +0000

Researchers at U of T, Northwestern use AI to accelerate discovery of industrial materials

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 01/13/2021 - 10:51

Cutline

(illustration by Ella Marushchenko)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Breaking Research

Artificial Intelligence

Chemistry

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Research & Innovation

Researchers at the ��Ƶ and Northwestern University are using machine learning to craft the best materials for different industrial uses.

The findings, published this week in Nature Machine Intelligence, demonstrated that the use of AI can help propose novel materials for diverse applications, helping to speed up the design cycle for materials. One example is the separation of carbon dioxide from industrial combustion processes.

With the objective of improving the separation of chemicals in industrial processes, the team of researchers including collaborators from Harvard University and the University of Ottawa, set out to identify the best reticular frameworks – for example, metal organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks – for use in the process. Such frameworks, which can be thought of as tailored molecular “sponges”, form via the self-assembly of molecular building blocks into different arrangements and represent a new family of crystalline porous materials that have been proven to be promising in addressing technology challenges in fields that range from clean energy and sensors to biomedicine.

“We built an automated materials discovery platform that generates the design of various molecular frameworks, significantly reducing the time required to identify the optimal materials for use in this particular process,” says Zhenpeng Yao, a post-doctoral researcher in the departments of chemistry and computer science in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science who is lead author of the study.

“In this demonstrated employment of the platform, we discovered frameworks that are strongly competitive against some of the best-performing materials used for CO2 separation known to date.”

The perennial challenges in addressing CO2 separation and other problems like greenhouse gas reduction and vaccine development, however, are the unpredictable amount of time and extensive trial-and-error efforts required in the pursuit of such new materials. The occasionally infinite combinations of molecular building blocks available in the construction of chemical compounds can mean the exhaustion of significant amounts of time and resources before a breakthrough is made.

“Designing reticular materials is particularly challenging, as they bring the hard aspects of modelling crystals together with those of modelling molecules in a single problem,” says senior co-author Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical Chemistry in the departments of chemistry and computer science and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

“This approach to reticular chemistry exemplifies our emerging focus at U of T of accelerating materials development by means of artificial intelligence. By using an AI model that can ‘dream’ or suggest novel materials, we can go beyond the traditional library-based screening approach.”

The researchers focused on the development of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that are now considered the ideal absorbing material for the removal of CO2 from flue gas and other combustion processes.

“We began with the construction of a large number of MOF structures on the computer, simulated their performance using molecular-level modelling and built a training pool applicable to the chosen application of CO2 separation,” said study co-author Randall Snurr, the John G. Searle professor and chair of the department of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University.

“In the past, we would have screened through the pool of candidates computationally and reported the top candidates. What’s new here is that the automated materials discovery platform developed in this collaborative effort is more efficient than such a ‘brute force’ screening of every material in a database. Perhaps more importantly, the approach uses machine learning algorithms to learn from the data as it explores the space of materials and actually suggests new materials that were not originally imagined.”

The researchers say the model shows great prediction and optimization capability in the design of novel reticular frameworks, particularly in combination with already known candidates in specific functions, and that the platform is fully customizable in its application to address many contemporary technology challenges.

The research was supported by the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy, the Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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