This month came with one particularly exciting piece of news–Sarah Gallagher, an associate faculty member of the Institute, was named as the first-ever Science Advisor to the President of the Canadian Space Agency. She will report directly to the CSA President, Sylvain Laporte, to shape Canada’s future direction in space science and champion Canadian space research. She will also work closely with Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer. To celebrate her appointment, we hosted a surprise reception in the Institute with colleagues from the Institute, BMI, the departments of Biology, and Physics & Astronomy. Please join us in offering hearty congratulations to Sarah on this exciting new position!
The Institute also hosted our third annual Research Fair in September–an open house event that gives an opportunity for individuals interested in learning about the Institute, and opportunities for graduate student membership, to visit our workspace and meet with us. Thank you, once again, to everyone who attended & helped to make the event a success!
Finally, Michael Anderson initiated what we can now look forward to as a monthly occurrence–joint Rotman-BMI coffee breaks. He gave a brief talk at the opening event, and for next month, the speaker will be Mel Goodale. Individuals interested in volunteering to speak at future Rotman-BMI coffee breaks can email Michael Anderson.
Other news from our members & alumni are listed below in alphabetical order.
Rotman alumnus Guillaume Beaulac has been hired as a Behavioural Insight’s Fellow at Canada’s Impact and Innovation Unit. An interview with him about the new position can be seen here.
Rotman alumnus Yann Benétreau-Dupin is now an associate editor at PLOS ONE, the generalist, online, open-access science journal, in San Francisco. He will be working in the ‘Behavioral and Social Sciences, Neuroscience, Mental Health’ section of the journal, and will be joining a team of ~25-30 editors.
Michael Cuffaro gave a talk, titled “From Mental States to the Objective World: Methodological and Ontological Approaches”, at the 2018 Workshop on Biological Mentality at the Center for the Physics of Living Organisms at Michigan Technological University in Ann Arbour, which happened from 24-26 September. (The CPLO website is here, but has not yet been updated with the 2018 edition of the workshop yet.)
Melissa Jacquart gave a talk, titled ‘Observing the Invisible: Dark Matter and Computer Simulations”, at the University of Montreal as part of À la Frontière de la Philosophy at la Physique / How to Link Philosophy and Physics, a workshop organized by Molly Kao. The event was held at the University of Montreal on September 21.
Vicente Raja presented a paper titled “Agency, Experience, and the Environment” at The Open Self—Investigating the Boundaries of the Self: Bodily, Social and Technological, a conference held a the Technical University of Berlin (Germany) from September 5-7.
Vicente Raja presented a paper titled “Radical Embodiment and the Political Philosophy of the Body” at the workshop The Political Philosophy of the Body. The workshop was part of a larger event on political theory called MANCETP 2018 that was held at the University of Manchester (UK) from September 10-12.
Rotman alumna Catherine Stinson was interviewed on CBC Radio’s technology show, Spark, about ethics education in an episode titled “Why computer science students are demanding more ethics classes“.
The Ethics of Pragmatic Trials research team published a new paper: Monica Taljaard, Charles Weijer, Jeremy M. Grimshaw, Adnan Ali, Jamie C. Brehaut, Marion K. Campbell, Kelly Carroll, Sarah Edwards, Sandra Eldridge, Christopher B. Forrest, Bruno Giraudeau, Cory E. Goldstein, Ian D. Graham, Karla Hemming, Spencer Phillips Hey, Austin R. Horn, Vipul Jairath, Terry P. Klassen, Alex John London, Susan Marlin, John C. Marshall, Lauralyn McIntyre, Joanne E. McKenzie, Stuart G. Nicholls, P. Alison Paprica, Merrick Zwarenstein and Dean A. Fergusson. Developing a framework for the ethical design and conduct of pragmatic trials in healthcare: a mixed methods research protocol. Trials 2018; 19: 525.
A new paper by Valérie Therrien, titled “The Axiom of Choice and the Road Paved by Sierpiński”, will be published in the Spring 2019 volume of The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.
Pictured above: Celebration of Sarah Gallagher’s new appointment as Science Advisor to the President of the CSA; the Rotman Research Fair; Michael Anderson speaking at the joint Rotman-BMI coffee break.
