Guggenheim

For research projects in quantum condensed matter, the cultural history of wrestling and the formation of planetary systems, three University of Toronto scholars from the Faculty of Arts & Science have received prestigious 2022 Guggenheim Fellowships.

Fellowships are awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and this year – the 97th year of the competition – just 180 of 2500 applicants received the awards.

“When honours like the Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded to multiple Faculty scholars, I am always impressed and fascinated by the diverse disciplines of the winners,” says Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. “This year’s cohort is no exception. I am very happy that the fellowships will allow each to pursue their exciting and important work, and I congratulate them all.”

Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, congratulated the researchers.

“These fellowships will help support important work,” Cowen says, “from research into the proto-planetary disks of gas and dust around newly developing stars, to work on theoretical quantum condensed matter physics and a new book on the cultural history of wrestling.”

Here are the three U of T scholars who received Guggenheim Fellowships this year:

Yong-Baek Kim is a professor in the department of physics, as well as the director of the Centre for Quantum Materials and a member of the Centre for Quantum Information & Quantum Control. Kim’s research focus is theoretical quantum condensed matter physics, which involves the study of matter and its exotic behaviour when subjected to extreme conditions such as low temperature and high pressure. His work has potential applications for diverse quantum technologies, including quantum computing.

“I am particularly interested in emergent quantum phases of strongly interacting electrons in quantum materials which may serve as potential platforms for quantum technology,” says Kim.

"Receiving the Guggenheim fellowship is a great honor for me. It's wonderful to see that my work is appreciated by peer intellectuals. I have been privileged to meet and work with so many talented people, especially my former and current students, postdoctoral fellows and collaborators. I thank them for generously sharing their insights."

Yanqin Wu is a professor of theoretical astrophysics in the David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics. Throughout her career, she has studied planets – both in and beyond our solar system. Using data gathered by the Kepler planet-hunting space telescope and other observing programs, she studies their internal structure, motions and formation.

Wu’s Guggenheim Fellowship will allow her to focus on research into proto-planetary disks of gas and dust around newly developing stars – structures from which all planets arise. In particular, Wu is investigating an aspect referred to as segmented disks.

"The puzzle is that proto-planetary disks, when observed at sufficiently high resolutions, display prominent bright rings and dark gaps,” says Wu. “I am proposing ideas to resolve this puzzle and to understand how it affects planet formation.”

Says Wu about the fellowship, “It is a luxurious honour to be recognized for doing something that one enjoys and working with people one likes.”

John Zilcosky is a professor in the department of Germanic languages and literatures and the Centre for Comparative Literature. His expertise encompasses modern European literature, psychoanalysis, the art of travel and the history and philosophy of sports.

With the help of the fellowship, Zilcosky will be able to devote time to writing his next book, Wrestling: A Cultural History. In it, he attempts to answer big questions: Why do we wrestle? And why was wrestling humanity’s first sport? He will explain why wrestling is not only humankind's oldest sport but also its most significant. The book will trace the history of grappling from early civilizations and myths through the classical, Renaissance and modern eras – all the way to today’s “pro” wrestling.

It will also explore wrestling’s presence in Indigenous cultures and also women practitioners – from the Greek goddess, Palaistra, to today’s Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) television series. And it will delve into the “erotic violence that is always just beneath wrestling’s surface.”

Says Zilcosky: “What a thrill! This is a labour of love, returning me to my youth as a high school and U.S. collegiate wrestler. It’s exciting that the Guggenheim Foundation finds this project – which connects the histories of sport and of civilization – compelling. Such recognition reminds me of my conversation with the world and injects me with new energy.”

University of Toronto philosophers win prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships

ullahnor — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 14:49:44 +0000

University of Toronto philosophers win prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships

ullahnor Fri, 04/07/2017 - 10:49

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Cheryl Misak and Margaret Morrison, both professors in the department of philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Science, received a Guggenheim Fellowship (photo by Diana Tyszko)

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Guggenheim

Cheryl Misak and Margaret Morrison, both professors in the department of philosophy, have each received a Guggenheim Fellowship. The 2017 fellowship recipients were announced by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation today in The New York Times.

Guggenheim fellows are selected on the basis of impressive achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment, with more than 100 Guggenheim fellows going on to become Nobel laureates. This year, a total of 173 awards were awarded to mid-career academics and artists in the U.S. and Canada.

“Congratulations to Professors Misak and Morrison on this high honour,” said Professor Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation. “Receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship is a great career achievement for a scholar, and it will allow them each to continue their important work in different areas of philosophical inquiry. We are very fortunate to have them both at U of T.”

The fellowship will enable Misak to work on a book, Frank Ramsey: An Intellectual Biography, which will offer the first complete understanding of the work and life of the Cambridge philosopher, economist and mathematician, and maybe even offer some thoughts on the meaning of life.

Ramsey – who Misak described as “one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of the last century” – is well known in philosophy, economics and mathematics. His thinking underpins much of contemporary economics and decision theory, as he provided pioneering mathematical models in both disciplines. Ramsey died in 1930, just before his 27th birthday.

“One must not use the word ‘genius’ lightly, but in Ramsey’s case it is apt,” said Misak.

Beyond his scholarship – which had a huge influence on the work of economists such as John Maynard Keynes, and Nobel prize-winners Peter Diamond and James Mirrlees – Ramsey had a fascinating life, noted Misak. He began his Cambridge undergraduate degree just as the Great War was ending and was among the early wave of those keen to be psychoanalyzed in Vienna in the 1920s.

Ramsey was a close friend of – and influence on – Ludwig Wittgenstein and was a core member of the secret Cambridge discussion society, the Apostles, during one of its most vital periods. He was also was part of the Bloomsbury set of writers and artists and the Guild Socialist movement.

“I aim to shed light on these significant intellectual and cultural movements,” said Misak. “Indeed, I hope even to say something about the meaning of life, not only through an examination of one very special life, but also in thinking through what Ramsey himself in one of his most poignant papers said about the topic.”

After a dozen years as an academic administrator (Misak was a U of T provost and vice-president from 2009-2013, and dean at U of T Mississauga and chair of the department of philosophy before that), Misak has enthusiastically returned to her research on pragmatism, America’s most influential school of philosophy.

Her most recent books are Cambridge Pragmatism: From Peirce and James to Ramsey and Wittgenstein and The American Pragmatists. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Misak’s honours include the Humboldt Research Prize and her Experience, Narrative, and Ethical Deliberation was selected by The Philosopher’s Annual as one of the 10 best papers in philosophy in 2008.

Morrison is a world-leading scholar on the philosophy of science. Her work on various aspects of modelling in the physical and biological sciences has transformed our philosophical understanding and approach to the construction and evaluation of models as a source of reliable information.

Many of her papers focus on the question of how we are able to extract practical information from abstract mathematical models that often bear little relation to the concrete physical world.

“The topic that has motivated much of my work over the past 25 years is the role played by mathematics in shaping the world we live in and facilitating our knowledge, explanations and decision-making about that world,” said Morrison.

This question is of particular importance not only in the philosophy of science but also in economics, policymaking and all fields that rely on mathematical modelling.

Morrison’s work on theory unification in physics – the attempt to unite the disparate phenomena of nature under the umbrella of a single theory – has also had a profound impact by calling attention to the role that mathematics plays in producing unified theories and questioning whether these unifying frameworks change our understanding of the phenomena themselves.

The fellowship will enable Morrison to continue her research on the role of mathematical frameworks in explaining the behaviour of complex systems and to further delve into the area of econophysics – an interdisciplinary research field that applies theories and concepts from physics in order to study complex problems in finance and economics.

“Many people are skeptical about the value of econophysics,” said Morrison. “In particular, why should we think that interesting aspects of economic behaviour can be captured by methods that ignore specific features of the agents, treating them in a manner similar to molecules in a gas?”

Consequently, much of the criticism centres on what is seen as a lack of explanatory power with respect to the behaviour of economic agents, noted Morrison.

However, mainstream economics is very poor at predicting events like the 2008 stock market crash, so the question for Morrison is how the mathematical methods of econophysics improve predictive power in these areas.

“Because the financial markets affect us all in one way or another, explicating the assumptions underlying the methods used in econophysics is an important philosophical problem.”

Much of the criticism of econophysics stems from what Morrison sees as a misunderstanding of its foundations, and her goal for the fellowship year is to provide a philosophical analysis of the underlying aims and assumptions of econophysics, together with some clarification of its foundations.

“The hope is that this will help to neutralize some of the criticism while highlighting its methodological advantages,” said Morrison.

Morrison is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2004 was elected to the Leopoldina – the German National Academy of Science. A recipient of the Humboldt Research Prize (2014), her books include Reconstructing Reality: Mathematics, Models and Simulation and Unifying Scientific Theories: Physical Concepts and Mathematical Structures.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has offered fellowships to artists, scholars and scientists in all fields annually since 1925

German history expert receives both Killam and Guggenheim fellowships

sgupta — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 14:04:31 +0000

German history expert receives both Killam and Guggenheim fellowships sgupta Mon, 04/20/2015 - 10:04

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Professor James Retallack (photo by Peter Dusek)

Sean Bettam

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Sean Bettam

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U of T researchers take six honours overall

Professor James Retallack’s deep dive into pre-World War One Germany – illuminating a time when the promise of democratic reform and social justice was not yet derailed by fascism and communism – has earned both the Killam Research Fellowship and the Guggenheim Fellowship.

University of Toronto researchers took six of the prestigious fellowships in total – all from the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Retallack, of the department of history, will use the fellowships to research and write The Workers’ Emperor: August Bebel’s Struggle for Social Justice and Democratic Reform in Germany and the World, 1840-1913. A biography of the leader of the Social Democratic Party in pre-World War One Germany, the book will offer a life-and-times account of the country’s missed opportunities to implement liberalism and democracy and steer away from Nazism.

“Receiving both a Killam and a Guggenheim fellowship this year is a great honour,” said Retallack. “In the humanities, time to read and write is particularly precious. These fellowships will enable me and my graduate students to synthesize a vast array of sources and help us understand a crucial moment in German and world history.”

U of T took three of the six new Killam Research Fellowships, which are administered by the Canada Council for the Arts. The other recipients include atmospheric scientist Jonathan Abbatt and inorganic chemist Robert Morris, both of the department of chemistry.

Abbatt studies pressing issues in climate research, including the effect of changing temperatures and sea ice on aerosol particles in the Arctic. He is the principal investigator of NETCARE, a Canadian consortium of researchers that encompasses the broad scientific expertise needed to integrate our understanding of the Arctic atmosphere and its impact on climate change.

Abbatt says his Killam will enable him to advance his project, Aerosol Particles and Climate: Addressing Fundamental Connections in the Canadian Arctic. “The Killam Fellowship will allow me to visit different network co-investigators and to participate in fieldwork activities,” said Abbatt.

Morris works towards a more environmentally-sustainable chemical industry. His project, Developing Catalysts Based on Iron, focuses on better understanding newly-discovered iron compounds that promise to replace the rare, expensive and sometimes toxic platinum metal catalysts that are currently used for the synthesis of fuels, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and fragrances. Further development depends on the discovery of green, efficient and selective catalysts.

Morris is already responsible for major breakthroughs in this field and has helped lay the foundation for greener chemical processes. “With this award, we’ll be able to concentrate on the next big push in what has now become a very competitive field of catalyst discovery,” Morris said.

Retallack is also joined by Nikolai Krementsov of the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology and Thomas Keymer of the department of English in receiving Guggenheim Fellowships, administered by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and offered to just 175 of 3,100 applicants from across the United States and Canada.

Krementsov’s project, entitled I Want a Baby: The History of Bolshevik Eugenics, explores the unique history of eugenics in Bolshevik Russia after the 1917 revolution, where the discipline was not based on coercion or a desire to maximize the genetic fitness of the Russian people. “Why did eugenics fail to develop in Imperial Russia but flourish under the Bolsheviks, only to come to a screeching halt a decade later,” said Krementsov. “My goal is to examine this history in detail in its national and international contexts.

“Public discourse and state policies towards science often change when a state’s leadership changes, so drawing lessons from the Bolshevik Russia period may offer insights into the relationships between science and society that many nations grapple with today.”

Keymer’s interest in libel and censorship in literature grew out of an interest in the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries during periods of political upheaval. Print was the most powerful medium for sharing ideas, and authorities went to great lengths to silence writers, with repressive laws, intimidation and proxy arrests.

“There is so much to discover and explain about the distinctive features of 18th-century writing,” Keymer said, citing irony, ambiguity and innuendo as examples. “Authors dreamed up complex modes of expression to circumvent the constraints forced upon them at the time. It became all about how to write ingeniously.

“These techniques remain crucial into our own time, too, in a range of repressive or coercive situations,” Keymer added. “George Orwell used them. You could even say that when Ai Weiwei was jailed or when the Charlie Hebdo satirists were killed, it was because they didn’t use them.”

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