Larysa Woloszansky

Six undergraduate students at the University of Toronto are being recognized for their innovative research, including their use of library services, on topics ranging from music, poetry and film to neuroscience and architecture.

The students – Eric Yang, Rion Levy, Sapolnach Prompiengchai, Conorr Norquay, Nicollo Abe and Tessa Di Vizio – are all recipients of an undergraduate research prize awarded by U of T Libraries to students who make effective and innovative use of information sources.

Larry Alford, U of T’s chief librarian, says he was “deeply impressed” at the level of research undertaken by this year’s winners at the undergraduate level.

“This award allows U of T students to reimagine their undergraduate education through research experiences while also drawing attention to the libraries and our world class collections,” he said. “I’m grateful to faculty across all three campuses who are working to strengthen information literacy in our community.”

The Patricia and Peter Shannon Wilson Undergraduate Research Prize provides students with an opportunity to reflect on their information-seeking experience while showcasing their research skills beyond the classroom – all while promoting undergraduate excellence. It’s made possible due to an endowment by Patricia Wilson and Peter Wilson that supports U of T Libraries in promoting excellence in undergraduate research.

In recognition of their achievement, each winner – chosen by a panel of six judges – will be awarded $1,000 and their reflective essays and assignments will also be shared on TSpace, U of T’s research repository, highlighting the extraordinary undergraduate work happening at the university.

Here’s a snapshot of the six U of T undergraduates who were recognized for their research skills – and glimpses of what they learned about information-seeking and research along the way.

Eric Yang

First-year student in the Faculty of Music

Project: “Three Arias from Nixon in China (1987)”

Sponsoring faculty member: Associate Professor Mark Sallmen

“While doing research for this project, I was surprised by the amount of information you could find through the music library alone, especially for an obscure work such as this project. My biggest takeaway from this experience is to reach out for help. Using the library should be more about talking to the librarians than blindly looking for resources yourself. Trying to do research for this project without the support of my mentors would have been impossible for me to complete.”

Rion Levy

Second-year Victoria College student studying literature and critical theory in the Faculty of Arts & Science

Project: “Peter Orlovsky: The Surrealist Beat Poet”

Sponsoring faculty member: Professor Albert F. Moritz

“This was the largest research project I had undergone to date and I realized how scattered information still is. I was able to locate a few related archive boxes in the United States but, because of the pandemic, was unable to access them since they have not been digitized. As the pandemic eased toward the fall of 2021, I realized the value of accessing libraries’ physical and digital texts to develop the most holistic understanding of the question at hand.”

Sapolnach Prompiengchai

Second-year student studying neuroscience at U of T Scarborough

Project: “Combining Music Listening and Positive Reminiscence Reduces Acute Stress Response in Healthy Populations”

Sponsoring faculty member: Associate Professor George S. Cree

“One major takeaway I learned was that generating a good research question may involve using resources beyond the traditional databases like ProQuest/PubMed, etc. In this case, I formulated an impactful and feasible research question with the help of psychotherapy videos and bibliographies via databases like APA PsycTherapy and Psychology - Oxford Bibliographies. Although it took time to slowly make my way through tonnes of databases and resources, I would confidently say the time spent was priceless.”

Conorr Norquay

Third-year Victoria College student studying cinema in the Faculty of Arts & Science

Project: “An Unrealized History of Sound Film: Charles K. Cregier and the Talking Motion Picture Machine.”

Sponsoring faculty member: Professor Charlie Keil

“The most important takeaway is the necessity of digitizing our historical records and making them publicly accessible. So much of my investigation relied on older documents that were (or were not) preserved; I repeatedly ran up against the roadblock of non-digitized and non-accessible records that caused important details to become absent from the narrative. The prized technology at the heart of my project allegedly exists in the National Archives, yet without an accessible digital record its location and movement have been lost to time. This project has elucidated just how vital archival preservation and digitization efforts truly are to informing research and its conclusions.”

Nicollo Abe

Fourth-year student in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design

Project: “Architecture on Modern European Banknotes: In Search of Stability through Abstract Circulation”

Sponsoring faculty member: Sessional Lecturer Ipek Mehmetoğlu

“What I learned throughout this information-seeking process was the value of images and photos as I frequented the Eberhard Zeidler Library and U of T Libraries’ online database. Whether my primary or secondary sources were printed or digitally sourced, there were many times where I relied upon the images that are embedded in them. Perhaps this was due to the nature and scope of the research, but I found that photographs and illustrations are essential components in knowledge-making and research.”

Tessa Di Vizio

Fourth-year Trinity College student studying international relations and political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science

Project: “With More than a Little Help from ‘Our Canadian Friends’: Canada, the United States, and the Canadian Caper, 1979-1980”

Sponsoring faculty member: Assistant Professor Timothy Sayle

“Research is not a solitary process of scouring library stacks and databases for sources. I felt part of a scholarly community having worked with researchers, archivists and librarians to explore a wealth of primary sources as well as some secondary literature on my topic. It was fascinating to see the range of archival materials available (and easily accessible to undergraduates) at U of T, and I particularly enjoyed searching through the Victoria College and Trinity College archives for files for my research.”

India's water crisis: what Canada and India can learn from each other

ullahnor — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:18:58 +0000

India's water crisis: what Canada and India can learn from each other

ullahnor Thu, 09/29/2016 - 13:18

Cutline

Mumbai after a monsoon in 2008 (photo by McKay Savage via Flickr)

Larysa Woloszansky

Author legacy

Larysa Woloszansky

Topic

Global Lens

Water

India

Global Cities Institute

With a diverse population of 1.2 billion, India has the second highest population in the world, roughly 35 times higher then that of Canada. Yet, India is only one-third the physical size of our country. With such a large population, water has become a highly contested resource in the country.

In urban areas, drinking water supply and sanitation continue to be inadequate despite ongoing efforts by various levels of government to improve access to water. Furthermore, there are currently huge disparities of water access between cities and peri-urban areas, which are defined as quickly urbanizing rural areas on the outskirts of cities. These factors combined with a severe drought after two years of sparse monsoon rains have left many parts of western and northern India in the midst of a serious water crisis.

Bharat Punjabi, a research fellow at U of T's Global Cities Institute spent the summer researching water politics in India with Craig Johnson, a professor of political science and international development at the University of Guelph. U of T News writer Larysa Woloszansky asked Punjabi about the lessons he learned in India and how they can be applied here in Canada.

What were you researching in India this summer?

Our research, which is funded by the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, started in response to acute water scarcity in many parts of India in the last two years. We thought we would start with researching water governance at the metropolitan level with a focus on peri-urban areas. The objective was to find out how regions in India are coping with increased water demand and scarcity, and what kind of institutions at the metropolitan level have been formed to deal with the new challenges. We were especially interested in finding out whether municipalities in large metropolitan regions have the autonomy and freedom to sign agreements with each other to provide water to their citizens, or whether state governments, parastatal (owned or controlled by the government) corporations or metropolitan-level authorities (under state governments) continue to play a more important role in water provision in peri-urban areas.

What did you learn about how cities are coping across India?

We found there were diverse governance arrangements between municipalities at the metropolitan level. While some municipalities did have written agreements with each other, and there were some novel experiments in the Mumbai and Bangalore regions, the trend in Chennai (in the south) is to bring water provision under an all-encompassing organization. For example, Chennai Metro Water, which is an excellent organization working under state government. It is doing very good work in rainwater harvesting. This is in contrast to Mumbai where there are too many actors trying to coordinate water management.

In contrast, Chennai and Bangalore are trying to craft regional solutions with Chennai being more successful. Thus, Chennai has expanded its boundaries by amalgamating surrounding municipalities. Its success has been acknowledged by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has encouraged other city governments to replicate Chennai's work. My research findings in Chennai turned out to be the highlight of my trip.

What's causing these water issues? is it urbanization or global warming?

Water scarcity in Indian cities has a lot to do with the chaotic development in urban areas. In the large metropolitan cities, it also had a lot to do with the sprawling development of townships over groundwater aquifers. The problem was most acute in Chennai where the government has sought to tackle it by implementing a compulsory rooftop rainwater harvesting program within the city. Water scarcity is also serious in peri-urban Mumbai. Bangalore has seen similar problems with city sprawl, and this has also occurred with disastrous consequences in the Delhi region. The city witnessed flooding during the 2016 monsoon as some rivers and streams that had been built on were seriously flooded. The solution lies in building a greater social awareness of the negative effects of building cities over water aquifers and streams, but it also lies in developing better policies at the metropolitan level.

Are there any lessons to draw for Canada?

I think there is great potential for a two-way traffic of ideas between India and Canada on the subject of metropolitan governance of water. Recently, the Indian water policy expert and economist Mihir Shah submitted a significant report on urban water systems to the Indian Council of International Economic Relations (ICRIER), an economic policy think tank. The report advocates a two-pronged approach. The first is to regulate or even reverse urban sprawl over water aquifers and secondly, it advocates developing mechanisms that ensure qualitatively better and coordinated metropolitan governance around water. Like the Ontario source water protection policy, this report by Shah lays similar emphasis on crafting local solutions to anticipating and preventing threats to water quality and quantity. It advocates the creation of institutions that depend on co-operation between the municipalities and the local water department.

The irony is that we have already done this in Ontario and have also fully implemented source water legislation with the setting up of local source water protection authorities. This experience could be utilized in India. For instance Chennai, which depends on groundwater and water harvesting, could learn better urban water governance from Ontario because utilizing harvested rainwater in a built up urban area can create potential health risks.

Canada can also learn from India’s recent attempts to craft a new National Water Policy framework around groundwater. The bill has been already drafted at the federal level. For a long time, a number of Canadian water experts have been advocating a similar national water policy framework for this country.

U of T experts on why Fort McMurray is burning

lanthierj — Fri, 06 May 2016 17:38:19 +0000

U of T experts on why Fort McMurray is burning

lanthierj Fri, 05/06/2016 - 13:38

Cutline

(above photo of Fort McMurray taken by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta on May 4/ courtesy Premier of Alberta via flickr)

Larysa Woloszansky

Author legacy

Larysa Woloszansky

Topic

Subheadline

“Yes, we can expect more such fires in the future due to climate change”

The raging wildfire that has forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray and engulfed parts of the community has already burned through 100,000 hectares. Many parts of the city continue to be in danger.

The Fire Management Systems Lab at the University of Toronto has been involved in forest fire management research for more than 30 years. A decade ago the University expanded its partnership in forest fire research with the Canadian Forest Service to add expertise in the area of physical fire science to the lab. Based at the Faculty of Forestry, research at the Firelab focuses on improving the understanding of fire in boreal forest ecosystems and developing information and decision support tools for forest fire managers.

Mike Wotton, adjunct professor in the Faculty of Forestry and David Martell, professor in the Faculty of Forestry and Fire Management Systems Laboratory, have been monitoring developments in Alberta closely.

They spoke with U of T News writer Larysa Woloszansky about the science of wildfires.

What makes the Fort McMurray fire unique?

Martell: We are witnessing a great deal of media coverage of this fire because of its enormous impact on the residents of Fort McMurray and the surrounding communities – the massive evacuations in the face of the advancing fire, the loss of homes and the massive disruption of the lives of the people involved.

However, high intensity fires that grow to this size and larger occur in the forested regions of Canada every year. Forest fires burn about 2.5 million hectares of forest in Canada each year and the area burned during the last two years was well above average.

Fortunately, those fires do not always affect the communities that are dispersed throughout the vast forested areas of Canada. But when they threaten public safety and communities, they generate the kind of media attention we witnessed recently.

What produced this fire and why it has been so difficult to control?

Wotton: Forest fire behavior is influenced by vegetation (which fire managers refer to as fuel), current and past weather and topography.

There are several factors at play that have made this fire so intense and difficult to control. It occurred right after snow melt and the annual vegetation has not had sufficient time to even begin to‎ green up – for the new lush moist vegetation to emerge and help inhibit its spread.

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A large dry and quite warm air mass with relative humidities in the mid-teens has been dominating weather patterns in the area. Those very low relative humidities have made the surface fuels (e.g., dead grass and pine needles on the forest floor) extremely dry.

The winds associated with that air mass have been consistently very strong and gusty. Dry fuels ignite and burn vigorously and high winds cause fires to spread very fast.

Fast-moving fires typically generate high intensities and those high intensities produce the large flame fronts above the tops of the trees that we’ve seen in the photographs and videos coming out of the Fort McMurray area.

What will it take to bring the fire under control?

Wotton: A change in weather is needed: an extended period of higher humidities and lower wind speeds and some rain. The intensity of the fire needs to decrease before fire fighters can safely construct control line around its perimeter. As long as the relative humidity remains low, the unburned fuel will stay extremely dry and flammable and embers (e.g., burning bark and small branches) lifted by the convective action of the fire and then carried ahead of the fire by the wind, will ignite new spot or jump fires across existing control lines and render control action ineffective.

(Photo of Fort McMurray below taken by Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta on May 4/ see more photos at Premier of Alberta via flickr)

The faster a fire spreads and the more intense it becomes, the more difficult it is to establish and maintain control lines. Airtankers can drop water and fire retardants where it is unsafe for firefighters to work on the ground but eventually spotting renders even large airtankers ineffective.

When faced with intense fast-moving fires, firefighters have to step back, watch nature take its course, and wait for the weather to change. They then move in quickly to exploit natural barriers such as lakes and rivers and construct control line when and where it is safe to do so.

Could fires such as these become the “new normal”?

Wotton: The research that has been carried out over the past couple of decades indicates that with climate change, forest fuels will get drier. Projected increases in rainfall that Global Climate Models predict will occur in some areas but will not be sufficient to offset the increased drying of forest fuels due to the warmer temperatures.

Drier fuels will mean more fire ignitions, and more ignitions will pose greater challenges to fire management agencies. Put simply, yes – we can expect more such fires in the future due to climate change.

(Photo below courtesy Natural Resources Canada-Canadian Forest Service)

Can we prevent this from happening again?

Martell: We can reduce the likelihood of such events occurring but we cannot always prevent them from happening. As long as we have communities in forested areas some risk will remain. There are risk mitigation measures such as implementing fuel management programs (i.e., reducing flammable fuel accumulations) in and surrounding communities, enhancing fire prevention programs and investing in good fire detection and initial attack systems that are designed to contain fires while they are still small.

Fire is a natural ecosystem process that is essential to the health of Canada’s forest ecosystems. Fire destroys trees but it does not destroy forests. However, fire clearly does and always will pose a very significant threat to public safety and homes and other property and resources we value.

Canadian forest fire management agencies have, for several decades, been gradually moving away from their traditional fire exclusion policies that were based on the assumption that all fire is bad and that it was to be excluded from the forest at almost any cost – and towards the development and implementation of enlightened fire management policies. These call for achieving an appropriate balance between reducing the detrimental impact of fire on people, property and resources and letting fire play a more natural role when and where it is appropriate for it to do so.

Canadians should encourage their forest and wildland fire management agencies to continue to gradually embrace such change and help them deal with both the challenges and opportunities such change will bring.

Indigenous teens try out University of Toronto for March Break

sgupta — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 14:28:21 +0000

Indigenous teens try out University of Toronto for March Break sgupta Thu, 03/17/2016 - 10:28

Larysa Woloszansky

Author legacy

Larysa Woloszansky

Topic

Subheadline

SOAR introduces high school students to life on campus

For a small group of Indigenous youth, this March Break was a chance to experience what life would be like as a student at the University of Toronto, through a program called SOAR.

The Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) has been running SOAR since 2009. Open to Indigenous teens (14 – 17) from all across Ontario, the program is funded through the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Ontario, guided by the Council on Aboriginal Initiatives at U of T and supported by U of T's First Nations House.

Laurel Franks, a grad student at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at U of T, grew up in a Mohawk community in Northern Ontario. Franks says that for Indigenous children who grow up in isolated or remote environments, SOAR can help show them a safe and welcoming university community.

“If you are by yourself all the time, like I was, going to university sounds very discouraging,” Franks told Metro newspaper.

Terry Gardiner, assistant manager, co-curricular diversity and equity at the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, worked with a team of volunteers, university staff and coordinators around the clock to coordinate this year’s event. U of T News writer Larysa Woloszanksy spoke with Gardiner about the program; the interview below has been edited and condensed.

What will students take away from this week?

SOAR would like Indigenous students to experience and to know in a meaningful way that post-secondary education is a viable option and that university is a welcoming place where they can and will interact with other Indigenous people as well as Canadians from many different cultural backgrounds and identities.

We would also like students to become comfortable exploring higher learning so that they explore a number of academic and professional pursuits on the way to making the decision for their post-secondary path.

SOAR serves two purposes. First, to build awareness and interest for post-secondary education among Indigenous high school students, and second, to engage Indigenous students in leadership opportunities. So we also work with current Indigenous university students who we hire as coordinators and team members for the program. We build their leadership skills by allowing them to create, plan, promote, implement and evaluate the program with the support of KPE staff, and partners and SOAR collaborators including staff and faculty from First Nations House, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), the Faculty of Medicine, and the U of T Indigenous Education Network.

Ultimately SOAR hopes that all participants leave the weeklong event knowing that they are welcome at the University of Toronto. We want them to be better informed about the wide range of services and programs available to support their success at the university with a supportive Indigenous and University of Toronto community.

How do you get students to attend the SOAR program?

It’s a multi-pronged approach. The First Nations House Recruitment Officer travels to various communities during the autumn, speaks with local youth and distributes the SOAR postcard to the community. Partners from the Faculty of Medicine Summer Mentorship Program also carry the message. In the GTA, information about the program is distributed to the Toronto District School Board and the program coordinators visit local Indigenous organizations focusing on events such as community Pow Wows. In addition, email messages are sent to Indigenous organizations across the province to ensure we target all communities near and far.

Reaction has typically been very positive with strong interest from parents who are eager for their children to access any opportunities that might present themselves to support entry to university.

What are some of the highlights of the program?

Highlights of the program have been the opportunities for youth to participate in teaching and learning circles led by Elders who transmit knowledge in more culturally relevant ways. Elder Cat Criger led a session at Hart House which the students really responded well to.

Visits to U of T faculties to learn more about what the programs are always well received and a highlight is always meeting other youth and making new friends in the program – they can see that there are other students like them and there is a place for them in higher education.

Past SOAR participants have gone on to enrol in a wide range of post-secondary programs – at the University of Toronto and at colleges and universities across the province and a few in other provinces.

Our goal is to promote higher education no matter the institution. The feedback we often get from our Indigenous youth is reluctance to attend university. They often feel like there are no other students who look like them and share the same upbringing and beliefs. This program shows them that there is a place for them and they can achieve great things with a post-secondary education.

(Below: Leslie McCue and Lindy Kinoshameg lead a traditional dance workshop as part of SOAR Aboriginal Youth Gathering 2016)

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