UNews - Amandine Pras

Women scholars in the spotlight as popular speaker series goes virtual

trevor.kenney — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 15:38:33 +0000

The Women Scholars’ Speaker Series (WSSS) will open its 19th season in the virtual space this week, continuing to give a voice to outstanding women researchers and the ground-breaking work they are doing in the research community.

Drs. Amandine Pras and Athena Elafros, along with PhD student Grace Brooks (McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ) and undergraduate student Monica Lockett (U of L) are examining gendered experiences of discrimination and microaggression in the recording studio.

“We are very excited to present the Women Scholars’ Speaker Series: Virtual Edition. Through a series of online panels and presentations, we invite everyone to engage with the latest research around pressing and multifaceted topics including discrimination, equity, death and labour,” says Mia van Leeuwen, a professor in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Fine Arts and a WSSS organizer. “We may be at home, but we can still stay connected through our shared interest in engaging with ideas.”

The first session of the new season is titled, Gendered experiences of discrimination and microaggression in the recording studio, and will be presented Wednesday, October 7 at 1 p.m. Drs. Amandine Pras and Athena Elafros, along with PhD student Grace Brooks (McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ) and undergraduate student Monica Lockett (U of L), will discuss results from an international online survey of recording engineers, producers, and studio assistants' experiences of discrimination and microaggressions within the recording studio. They will explore their findings and how they highlight significant and systemic gender inequalities within the recording field.

The WSSS was launched in Fall 2002 by Dr. Shelly Wismath, dean of the School of Liberal
Education. Its focus is to highlight local, national and international cutting-edge scholarship by researchers who identify as women, and provide a venue for under-represented voices in academic research.

Dr. Julie Young, Tier II Canada Research Chair in Critical Border Studies and assistant professor in geography and environment is also organizing this year’s WSSS sessions. She says the series continues to have a dedicated following and by moving online could attract an even broader audience.

“Over the course of the last 19 years, the WSSS has been a great platform for researchers to present their work and stimulate conversations about some very important issues,” she says. “Not only is the series valuable for faculty members by giving them an opportunity to speak about their work, it allows the community to engage with that work and gain an understanding of the activities ongoing here at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and throughout post-secondary.”

The second session of the WSSS, ‘The Letters’: EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) and Tracing Work in the Academe, is scheduled for November 5, 2020 at 7 p.m.

This seminar is organized by the Support Network for Academics of Colour Plus (SNAC+), funded and co-sponsored by the WSSS and the Alberta Human Rights Commission's Human Rights Education and Multiculturalism Fund.

To learn more, visit the Women Scholars’ Speaker Series web page.

Digital Audio Arts student receives boost in funding for two research projects

trevor.kenney — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 19:32:22 +0000

Thanks to a boost in research funding, Digital Audio Arts (DAA) student Leonard Menon will combine his personal and scholarly passions, taking on two major research projects that will enhance his academic credentials and support the community through the development of an educational program for young music producers and artists.

The future is bright for Digital Audio Arts student Leonard Menon. PHOTO by Madison Johnson

This spring, Menon was selected for two academic awards, the 2020 Joyce and Ron Sakamoto Prize for Research and Development in DAA and the 2020 Chinook Summer Research Award, funding two separate, yet related, research initiatives.

“The goal of the (Sakamoto Prize) project is to spread the knowledge that I have obtained through conventions, research partnerships, the community and my personal life, and to amalgamate it into one cohesive program that is geared towards artist-producers,” explains Menon. The project is inspired by the research assistantship Menon is involved in, now funded by the Chinook Summer Research Award.

Menon will participate in a four month intensive research experience under the supervision of DAA faculty member Dr. Amandine Pras, supporting her SSHRC Insight Development Grant funded project, Practices and social aspects of the 21st recording studio. Throughout the summer, Menon will take part in hands-on research and receive one-on-one mentorship in writing academic papers to submit for presentation at the annual Audio Engineering Society (AES) conference in October. He will be participating in the online AES Europe convention in June and will have the opportunity to co-author an article to submit to Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology by the end of the summer.

“I’ve been assisting Dr. Pras on her ongoing research that explores the varying mixing techniques among successful West African producers,” says Menon. “My tasks include continuing the extensive video indexing that is needed to draw stable conclusions, as well as to complete a literature review that will enhance my digital audio understanding.”

Menon has been assisting Pras since last fall, hired to index and edit video data collected in Bamako recording studios, then taking on more demanding tasks, including conducting multidisciplinary collective analyses, designing a comparative approach, and reading and writing for a peer-reviewed journal paper submission. He presented his initial findings during the Social Distinction in the 21^st Recording Studio Symposium hosted at uLethbridge this spring, participating in the roundtable titled, Digital Ethnography of Recording Studios in Bamako (Mali).

“The research program requires strong inter-personal and communication skills to interact with other researchers at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, the Banff Centre and the School for Advanced Research in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, as well as rigor and persistence to complete intellectually challenging tasks,” says Pras. “I have consistently observed all these qualities in Leonard’s personality and work ethic.”

Pras’ research examines how upcoming generations use the recording studio from anthropological, music education and audio engineering perspectives. Studying how artists and producers with little to no formal training were developing new and exciting techniques has inspired Menon to take on a second research project, funded by his second award, the Sakamoto Prize for Research and Development in DAA.

“It has been fascinating to learn how these producers work with little to no formal training in the harsh political conditions of their country,” continues Menon. “I realized that they have used a variety of informal learning methods to learn how to arrange and mix in a digital audio workstation at a professional standard that is recognized by the rest of the world, a true milestone considering the scarce educational resources available to them.”

Menon's research is shedding light on how some individuals manage to produce and create with little or no professional training, using intuition and logic to manipulate the programs. He’s hoping to take what he learns and develop a curriculum to be taught to youth at Drop’n Beats, a local youth music program designed to build community through music creation and education.

Thanks to the support of Joyce and Ron Sakamoto, Menon has the next year to research and develop the program. The data gathered will be disseminated to the AES student chapter in a workshop in early 2021, and the results and footage of working with community members will be presented at the DAA Student Symposium in 2021.

The Joyce and Ron Sakamoto Prize for Research and Development in DAA is an annual research award presented to a student, or team of students, to acknowledge and foster research excellence in Digital Audio Arts at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. Recipients of the prize receive $5,000 for research-related expenses.

U of L symposium to focus on digital audio arts and music sociology

caroline.zentner — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 17:10:59 +0000

Audio engineers and researchers from around the world will gather at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge on Friday, Feb. 14 for a one-day symposium titled Social Distinction in the 21st Recording Studio.

Organized by Drs. Amandine Pras, a professor of digital audio arts, and Athena Elafros, a professor of sociology, the symposium features hip-hop and electronic music experts, sound engineers, sociologists and ethnomusicologists from Alberta, Bamako (Mali), Paris, New York, Montréal and Toronto talking about upcoming generations of studio arrangers and recording producers.

“We organized this symposium to bring different people we’ve been working with together to exchange ideas,” says Pras.

One of the roundtables during the symposium centres on the two professors’ collaborative research, which examines social discrimination in the recording studio.

“Initial results show that for women and individuals who identify as transgender or nonbinary, the experience of discrimination and microaggressions are very high,” says Elafros.

Another session will centre on research Pras is involved in as part of an international team of 18 researchers. Looking at culture mediation and youth in West Africa, the project focuses on music production and how young generations manage traditions with globalization.

“West African societies are managed by elders,” says Pras. “Digital technology is a way for youth to cut through the hierarchy of their society. It’s really challenging the structure of the society.”

U of L students have been involved in both research projects and have helped analyze the data.

Crossing Boundaries Symposium now in its fourth year

trevor.kenney — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 20:49:41 +0000

The fourth annual Crossing Boundaries Symposium, presented by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Fine Arts, brings together interdisciplinary members of the community, faculty, students and alumni to engage in a full day of presentations, discussions, displays and performances.

Brad Parker listens to the Aeolian Harp he built with music student Jess Tollestrup.

“Crossing Boundaries invites our community to experience the collaborations, creative activities and research across multiple disciplines,” says Dr. Mary Ingraham, Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts of the Saturday, Oct. 26, 2019 event. “It is about discovering and celebrating those cross-collaborative intersections and synergies and finding inspiration to explore new areas of thought and research in the fine arts and across the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.”

The theme for Crossing Boundaries 2019, Languages | Landscapes | Algorithms, is established with the keynote presentation by Leanne Elias (new media) entitled, Visualizing Agriculture, at 9 a.m. in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Recital Hall. Elias’s talk includes the premiere of the documentary of the same name, co-directed by Bryn Hewko (MFA '16) and his company Output Media, which revolves around the creative works and artist exhibition derived from agricultural data developed by Dr. Jaime Larson and Dr. Andre Laroche of the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre: Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. Visualizing Agriculture considers the counterpoints of art meeting science and investigates the effect of intensive collaboration. Discover how artists can use the scientific process to guide their art, and how scientists can use artistic ways of knowing to approach their data in new ways.

Jess Tollestrup works on the Aeolian Harp, on display at Crossing Boundaries.

Following Elias’s keynote presentation, MFA candidate Michelle Sylvestre will speak on her research, Physicalizing Control, Disruption and the Body, which examines the parallels and differences in contemporary pharma and contemporary technology in relation to control of the body. PhD candidate Migueltzinta Solis will then present on LandMarks: Site-Based Arts Pedagogy in Treaty 7 Territory. At 10:40 a.m., Department of Psychology faculty member, Dr. Javid Sadr, and Department of Drama faculty members, Dr. Aaron Taylor and Douglas MacArthur cap off the morning programme, discussing projects developing from the Screen Acting and Embodied Recognition Research Group.

Registrants are invited to observe and interact with student research displays and installations from 11:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., located in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Atrium and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Hess Gallery.

This year’s Crossing Boundaries Symposium is scheduled during the U of L Open House, which welcomes prospective students and their families to campus.

“Coordinating the symposium during this event gives future students the opportunity to see a sampling of the fascinating research opportunities and collaborative activities on our campus,” says Ingraham. “It allows these students to experience the types of work and study they will engage in and provides great interaction with many of the faculty who will also be in attendance at the symposium.”

Afternoon sessions include Dr. Amandine Pras’s (music) presentation focussing on compositional and improvisational tools used by studio technicians as part of her research in the recording studios in war-torn Bamako, Mali. Continuing on the theme of sound, language and landscape, a talk by MA candidate Tyler Stewart examines the role sound has played as a political instrument to silence dissenting groups and individuals, and in turn, how language and sound is used to resist and rise against such powers.

A panel discussion, Objects Dream comprised of Fine Arts faculty members, Dr. Dana Cooley (new media), Denton Fredrickson (art), Mia van Leeuwen (drama), and Dr. D. Andrew Stewart (music), rounds out the afternoon’s sessions. This discussion explores the relationships and interactions of material objects, and their associations as a link across artistic disciplines.

This year’s Crossing Boundaries Symposium showcases an evening finale of works by Dr. Arlan Schultz (music), Dr. Daniela Sirbu (new media) and a collaborative presentation by Bryn Hewko (new media), Dr. D. Andrew Stewart (music) and Jordan Berg. Schultz’s live demonstration highlights how new algorithms for real-time immersive audio can be used to enhance and augment real-time acoustic performances. Sirbu’s presentation incorporates algorithmic animation demonstrated through samples of live animation developed in interaction with an artificial life system. Hewko, Stewart and Berg’s collaborative performance, Crawlspace, combines film with live digital coding. Audience members are invited to use their own personal tablets to create their own viewing experience, with one lucky audience member outfitted with the Oculus Rift for a full virtual reality experience. This showcase begins at 5 p.m. in W420 (Centre for the Arts), preceded by a reception and cash bar at 4:30 p.m.

Registration for Crossing Boundaries is open to all, with early bird pricing active until October 20, 2019.

Visit the Crossing Boundaries webpage for the schedule of events and updated information as it arises.

MusiCounts Scholarship provides music student with week-long mentorship program

trevor.kenney — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 19:49:02 +0000

Digital Audio Arts (DAA) student Kierian Turner will kick-start his career in the music industry this fall when he joins five other senior post-secondary music students for a week-long mentorship program in Toronto, ON, after being named a recipient of the 2019 MusiCounts Scholarship.

Presented by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artists Project, Turner was nominated for the scholarship by Drs. Arlan Schultz, Amandine Pras and D. Andrew Stewart, all DAA faculty members.

Digital Audio Arts (DAA) student Kierian Turner will kick-start his career in the music industry after being named a recipient of the 2019 MusiCounts Scholarship.

“Kierian’s very high GPA, multidisciplinary achievements and leadership experience make him the ideal candidate for this significant scholarship program,” says Pras. “I have had the pleasure of observing Kierian in many different roles – a student, a researcher, a collaborator, and a leader. I appreciate his dedication, communication and interpersonal skills, and his efficiency in organizing and promoting events. The MusiCounts Scholarship will offer a highly valuable opportunity as he continues his education and pursues a career in the music industry.”

The MusiCounts Scholarship was launched in 2018 and is awarded annually to up to six senior post-secondary “high-potential” music students to help launch their careers through a $4,000 financial contribution and a week-long intensive mentorship program. From September 30 through October 4, Turner will have the opportunity to network with students and industry professionals including Marianas Trench guitarist, Matt Webb; Nathan Wiszniak, Head of Canada Artist and Label Marketing for Spotify; Anne Strik, Artist and Label Manager for Spotify; Margaret McGuffin, Executive Director of the Canadian Music Publishers Association; and more.

“I’m hoping I can make some lifelong connections who I can collaborate with in the future, both through the cohort of students and industry professionals,” says Turner. “Since I am graduating next spring, I would like to start exploring opportunities available to me after graduation. I hope this program will give me confidence in my ability to get out there and pursue a full-time career in music.”

From the beginning of Turner’s student experience, he has excelled at every project he’s tackled, inside the classroom and out. From planning small concerts, to taking on the Jamboree and Events Coordinator position for Fresh Fest, a two-day music festival, managing a student-run record label and taking on the role of student representative for the Students’ Union and the Department of Music, Turner has embraced each opportunity to get involved and build his resume.

Inside the classroom, Turner has taken on substantial research projects including the Joyce & Ron Sakamoto Prize for Research and Development in DAA funded research, and the creation of an augmented drum kit along with classmate Carter Potts (supervised by Stewart). He also presented a paper on binaural spatialization in relation to hip-hop music at the Exploring Sound DAA Student Symposium in March 2019. The paper, Is Binaural Spatialization the Future of Hip-Hop, was co-authored by Pras and has been accepted for presentation at the 2019 Audio Engineering Society (AES) Conference in New York in October.

With a jam-packed CV and one year of study to go, Turner is looking forward to narrowing his career aspirations and finding his fit in the industry. His current goal is to work as an artist manager or agent, getting involved in the business side of the music industry. His varied skill set will enable Turner to offer clients a complete package by assisting in the creative, recording and production processes while also understanding the legal side of contracts, financial management and business law.

“I know that I have a lot to learn about the industry and this mentorship week will serve as a major step in the learning process,” continues Turner. “I believe it is important to collaborate with, get feedback from, and learn from industry professionals, and also from peers. The financial award will allow me to pursue professional development opportunities in the music industry and contribute to my further education such as a second bachelor's degree in management, or an M.B.A.”

Chambers-Moranz buoyed by support from Sakamoto Research Prize and Chinook Summer Research Award

trevor.kenney — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 20:50:01 +0000

A solo musician, supporting guitar and banjo player for Leeroy Stagger, and former front-man of Sophomore Jakes, Ryland Chambers-Moranz is no stranger to a recording studio. At the end of May he hit the road for the first of his summer tour dates, supporting Leeroy Stagger at 17 shows across BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan. When he returns, he’ll start a different kind of musical tour visiting recording studios across Alberta to continue his applied research in digital audio arts.

Ryland Chambers-Moranz and Dr. Amandine Pras.

“As a touring musician I spend most of my time trying to get better at what I do by rehearsing and playing, but it also comes in expanding my horizons and seeking a greater understanding of things I’m not immersed in,” says Chambers-Moranz. “I’d made a few records in my first ten or so years in the music scene and realized I wanted to go deeper into becoming an audio engineer and it would be a great career for me that would accompany my touring life and provide opportunity to work when I wasn’t on the road.”

Entering the Bachelor of Music – Digital Audio Arts (DAA) program at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, Chambers-Moranz began studying and researching alongside Dr. Amandine Pras, looking at the practices of the 21^st century recording studio, analyzing the differences and preferences of analog versus digital technologies. With the hopes of expanding on an applied research project, Chambers-Moranz applied for and successfully received two prestigious undergraduate research grants: the 2019 Joyce & Ron Sakamoto Research Prize in DAA, and the Chinook Summer Research Award from the Office of Research and Innovation Services.

“The focus of this research will be to expand an experiment on the topic of mixing practices and perception,” explains Chambers-Moranz. “In particular, whether or not there is evidence of any perceptual differences between analog and digital summing of the same mix, and if so, what are they, and is there a correlation between preference and genre?”

Audio production practitioners continue to debate the superiority of analog versus digital technologies, often influenced by preferred musical genre, cultural background, personal taste, age and nostalgia. This study will serve to develop further understanding of these differences, provide insight into the advancements of digital audio technology and will show to what extent analog technology can remain relevant in an increasingly digital world.

“The project will also aid in the distinction between preferred musical genre and production approach,” continues Chambers-Moranz. “If a correlation is found between musical style and production method, it will allow producers and engineers to choose the best mixing format.”

The grant funding provides the opportunity to expand the reach of the study beyond the uLethbridge campus in both mixing capability and in the capacity to draw from a larger sample population. The initial study was completed in uLethbridge’s Studio 1 using the SSL Duality to create mixes, and trained listening participants were drawn from the student body.

“The new funding provides access to vintage analog gear from the Banff Centre and the National Music Centre in Calgary,” says Chambers-Moranz. “I'll also be able to reach a larger demographic of mixing engineers worldwide through my own contacts and through those of my colleagues.”

Working as a research assistant on Dr. Pras’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded study, “Practices and social aspects of the 21^st recording studio,” Chambers-Moranz’s research closely aligns with her own study, building on existing research in the academic community. Pras’s international study investigates how upcoming generations practice the recording studio from anthropological, music aesthetics, music education and sound engineering perspectives.

“My research expands on Paul Alkhallaf’s Master thesis, supervised by Dr. Pras at the Paris Conservatoire, on the perception of analog and digital summing by looking more deeply at analog versus digital mixing practices and perception. It also enhances her exploration of the development of the modern recording studio in the advent of the digital age and the huge surge of home recording studios,” explains Chambers-Moranz. “As the analog and digital question is one touted one way or another by the engineering community there's a lot to unpack in regards to engineer preference and what is becoming our societal norm.”

Throughout the project Dr. Pras will work closely with Chambers-Moranz as a supervisor and colleague.

“During the research project I will fully supervise the replication process as it takes two people and it involves many technical and methodological challenges,” says Pras. She’ll also connect him to industry experts, head engineers and studio technicians in Western Canada and beyond. Pras’s research also looks at cultural mixing practices around the world. Tagging onto the work Pras is already immersed in, the participants involved can be drawn from an international sample providing beneficial contributions to both Pras’ and Chambers-Moranz’s research.

“Coming to the U of L was an easy choice,” says Chambers-Moranz in closing. “It’s a great school with a world class studio, which also offers a broad musical experience, which is just what I was looking for. Ultimately my hope was that working in music in my real life while attending school would join the two in one symbiotic learning experience. I can confidently say that the simultaneous learning on the job, coupled with institutional learning greatly benefit one another.”

The Chinook Summer Research Award will support Chambers-Moranz work until the end of August, and the Joyce & Ron Sakamoto Prize for Research & Development in DAA will continue to support the project until its completion in April 2020. Chambers-Moranz will present the data and findings at the symposium “Social Distinction of the 21^st recording studio” with Dr. Pras and Athena Elafros (Sociology) February 14, 2020 as part of Celebrating Connection: A SSHRC Exchange Series.

In the meantime, follow Chambers-Moranz on tour by visiting leeroystagger.com/tour. For more information about the Digital Audio Arts program visit: ulethbridge.ca/future-student

DAA Students learn from JUNO award-winning Mastering Engineer Graemme Brown

trevor.kenney — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 22:12:16 +0000

Digital Audio Arts (DAA) students and members of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) student chapter had a recent opportunity to hear from and work one-on-one with JUNO award-winning mastering engineer Graemme Brown. Owner of Zen Mastering studio in Gabriola, B.C., Brown works with Canadian and international musicians, engineering a range of musical genres and audio formats with a strong expertise in mastering jazz and acoustic music.

Master engineer Graemme Brown, left, with Digital Audio Arts student Martin Suarez Tamayo.

“Graemme Brown provided an amazing experience that I didn’t expect to receive in my undergraduate degree,” says Carter Potts, DAA student and AES member. “His knowledge of the intricacies of music mastering, and his experience with the business aspects of the music industry are invaluable. He gave me expert feedback on how to further improve my work in order to be successful when I graduate from the Digital Audio Arts program.”

DAA faculty member, Dr. Amandine Pras, first met Brown at the Banff Centre in 2007, attending one of his master classes and then working with him to master the SACD Where is Pannonica? (Songlines, 2009) she produced in stereo and surround 5.0. She knew his experience and insight would be valuable and inspiring for students.

“Graeme presented to 27 students during his first session, discussing the business aspects and communication requirements of the profession of mastering engineer,” says Pras. “Another 18 students joined us for a second session where he went deeper into mastering techniques.”

Students also had the opportunity, through the AES, to meet one-on-one with Brown and work on mastering their own piece.

“The mastering sessions were fantastic,” says Nate Thomas-Wall, DAA student and AES member. “To be able to not only have my work mastered by someone with his experience, but to learn about mastering from him at the same time, was an opportunity that doesn't come around often. The man knows his stuff, and to listen to him talk about it is a privilege.”

Classmate Ryland Moranz agrees.

“To have an industry professional take part in theoretical classes as well as practical sessions expanding on important aspects of audio engineering was a rare opportunity,” says Moranz. “The one-on-one time provided in the mastering sessions was particularly illuminating and inspiring as the art of mastering is one properly commanded by a skilled few.”

Another experiential learning opportunity is coming up at the end of the month, where DAA students will participate in an all-day symposium, Exploring Sound, in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Recital Hall. Students will present on topics ranging from audio spatialization to video games. Dr. Adam Patrick Bell from Music Education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary will present a keynote entitled Music Technology, Design and Disability.

Early career researchers at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge secure SSHRC awards

caroline.zentner — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:06:39 +0000

A dozen ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers have been awarded more than $600,000 in new funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for diverse projects, including agricultural supply chain management and repatriating Métis music.

These Insight Development Grants, announced earlier this year, are designed to support emerging scholars and research in its early stages, with up to $75,000 available over one or two years.

From the Dhillon School of Business, Drs. Duckjung Shin, Adriane MacDonald, Jocelyn Wiltshire (Calgary campus) and Alireza Tajbakhsh have secured more than $187,000 in funding for their projects.

Shin’s research looks at human resource management as a social system within an organization. He examines the interference between work and life domains, the diminishing power of unions under modern human resource practices, widening status differences within an organization and its societal consequences.

MacDonald’s research will examine the potential of sense-making tools to improve communication and problem-solving in multi-stakeholder partnerships, an approach espoused in the United Nations’ global sustainable development agenda. Engaging multiple stakeholder perspectives in complex problem solving can create new problems and ultimately prevent groups from reaching their goals. MacDonald’s study will focus on how sense-making tools, such as boundary objects, metaphor and storytelling, can help individuals in these partnerships overcome the inherent difficulties of collaborating at knowledge boundaries.

Wiltshire’s research looks at the dark side of leaders’ influence behaviour in the workplace, known as dark political skill. To what extent do manipulative and deceptive leaders contribute to a political workplace climate and impact employee behaviours and well-being? Along with Drs. Kelly Williams-Whitt and Mahfooz Ansari, Wiltshire will conduct a series of surveys and interviews. Their findings will speak to effective managerial and organizational practices that may mitigate or neutralize these harmful consequences.

Tajbakhsh will examine the existing literature on agricultural supply chain management in both crop and livestock sectors in Canada. The agriculture sector is at the nexus of world hunger and climate change. Tajbakhsh’s research will look at successful sustainable practices adopted in Canada and what corporate and government sustainability regulations have influenced agricultural networks in Canada.

Five researchers in the Faculty of Fine Arts — Dr. Dana Cooley (New Media), Dr. Bryn Hughes (Music), Jackson Two Bears (Art), Dr. Amandine Pras (Music) and Dr. Devon Smither (Art) — have secured awards worth nearly $280,000.

Cooley’s project, To Hear a Shadow, is an interactive installation that translates a participant’s EEG (brain activity) data through a Rube Goldbergesque chain of digital and early scientific measuring devices that spin and flutter, turning the signals into light, sound, and movement. Behind a partial wall, a second participant tunes in to the audio transmissions through a specially equipped headset. Proximity sensors respond to the second participant’s movements which affect the colour and intensity of light in the room. The perceptual feedback loop constructed by Shadow draws our attention to the interconnectedness we have with each other and our environment.

Hughes plans to delve into the factors that allow people to activate different musical languages. He wants to determine what musical features contribute most to syntactic violations and why some musical gestures sound wrong in one kind of music but not in another.

Two Bears’ research will explore the ways in which the creative use of digital technologies can support the innovation, transmission and transformation of Indigenous creative and cultural practices, while providing a site for critical dialogue and reflection. Two Bears plans to create an immersive 360-degree video and audio art installation and a multimedia app that will feature mobile media artworks.

Pras' research focuses on the democratization of the 21st century recording studio and the production techniques and creative processes that define it. Her multidisciplinary project includes three complementary case studies — an ethnography on street recording studios in Bamako, Mali, a longitudinal survey in the international Audio Recording Engineer Practicum of the Banff Centre and an experiment that will examine the learning process of a young Malian studio practitioner when attending the Banff Practicum for one semester.

Smither is conducting a study that looks at the marginalization of women artists and artistic realism during the first three decades of the 20th century. Specifically, she will focus on Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and the women artists she collected and supported from 1905 to 1930. The works formed part of the founding collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, which opened in 1931.

The other recipients include Drs. Monique Giroux, Canada Research Chair and a professor in Indigenous Studies; Kara Granzow, a professor of sociology; and Julie Young, a professor of geography and Canada Research Chair.

Giroux’s research centres on the repatriation of Métis music. It includes three key elements: understanding what constitutes musical repatriation, creating an inventory of Métis musical belongings housed in archives and private collections, and determining the priorities of Métis communities for the repatriation of these musical belongings. Through consultations with Métis advisory boards, she will create a strategy for musical repatriation, including the possibility of establishing programs to support musical revival and resurgence.

Granzow and Dr. Amber Dean, co-investigator and professor at McMaster ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, seek to understand and contribute to preventing sexualized colonial violence through exploring the enduring relationships between an economy based on resource extraction and the ongoing high rates of sexualized violence against Indigenous women in Alberta.

Young’s research examines the impacts of Canadian refugee deterrence policies. Phase one analyzes how the Canadian government conceptualizes and operationalizes deterrence via the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement, the Mexican visa policy, the Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program and the recent information campaign in U.S. cities. Phase two involves fieldwork in Windsor-Detroit and Leamington to assess the local consequences of these policies.

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