This month Western celebrated the official opening of our new building, the Western Interdisciplinary Research Building. In addition to the Rotman Institute, the WIRB hosts the Brain and Mind Institute, BrainsCAN, dry laboratories, a public plaza, and teaching & research space. Members of the Western and London communities attended the opening ceremony, including Kate Young, MP London West and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, and Peter Fragiskatos, MP London North Centre.

We have a number of other exciting announcements to share–including grant announcements, awards & job news! All announcements are listed below in alphabetical order.

Mike Anderson and Klodian Coko were awarded a SSHRC Connection Grant in the amount of $24,554.00 for their project, titled “Understanding Replication Across the Sciences”. The grant will be used to fund a conference planned for this coming fall.

Rob Corless has been awarded the 2018 Fellowship in Teaching Innovation Award for his project, “Computational Discovery on Jupyter”;  Eunice Chan will be a collaborator on the project. A formal announcement was made at the Spring Perspectives on Teaching Conference.

Mike Cuffaro and Sam Fletcher’s co-edited volume titled, “Physical Perspectives on Computation, Computational Perspectives on Physics“, will be published this summer. The book’s contributors include Rotman members Adam Koberinski, Robert Moir, and Markus Müller. There is currently a 20% discount available on the book, see full details here.

The ethics of pragmatic trials research group has two new publications:

Horn AR, Weijer C, Brehaut J, Fergusson D, Grimshaw JM, Goldstein CE, Taljaard M. An ethical analysis of the SUPPORT trial: addressing challenges posed by pragmatic comparative effectiveness randomized controlled trials with usual care interventions. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 2018; 28(1): 85–117.
 
Horn AR, Weijer C, Hey SP, Brehaut J, Fergusson D, Goldstein CE, Grimshaw JG, Taljaard M. Thinking Clearly About the FIRST Trial: Addressing ethical challenges in cluster randomized trials of policy interventions involving health providers. Journal of Medical Ethics 2018 Apr 27. pii: medethics-2017-104282.

Anthony Skelton will take part in a work in progress seminar, titled Achievement and biomedical human enhancement, with former Rotman postdoctoral fellow, Lisa Forsberg. It will be held at The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics on June 8.

Rotman Director Chris Smeenk and Jim Weatherall, Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine, have been awarded a grant from the John Templeton Foundation for $1.37-million USD. Their project, entitled “New Directions in Philosophy of Cosmology“, will offer a new model for collaboration between philosophers and cosmologists.

Catherine Stinson has been hired as a Senior Policy Associate at the Mowat Centre, School of Public Policy & Governance, at the University of Toronto. Please join us in congratulating Catherine, and wishing her all the best in this new position!

Catherine Stinson was interviewed for an article in Western News about the 50th anniversary of the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, titled, Kubrick’s AI nightmare, 50 years later.