Faculty expertise showcased in lineup of 2025-26 PUBlic Professor Series speakers

trevor.kenney — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 20:29:34 +0000

From legalized gambling to AI in the classroom, testing confidence in eye-witness testimony and more, the 2025-26 lineup of PUBlic Professor Series lecture topics have been finalized, with six intriguing and engaging talks planned for the season.

Initiated in 2014 by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Arts & Science, the PUBlic Professor Series lectures have grown to include the breadth of research expertise on campus, including representation from all its Faculties and Schools.

“The PUBlic Professor Series is one of our key opportunities to showcase the excellent work being done by our faculty members to the external community. It’s really an important example of the research activities taking place throughout campus and how impactful that work is on everyone’s daily lives,” says Dr. Dena McMartin, ULethbridge’s vice-president (research).

The 2025-26 season kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025, when Faculty of Fine Arts professor Dr. Anne Dymond presents, From a Communist Doctor to Madonna’s Cone Bra: Museums and Cultural Diplomacy in Troubled Times. Her presentation will take place in a community location to be finalized as the PUBlic Professor Series continues to visit new venues to connect with more community members.

“We started moving the talks around this past year, using venues that opened the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ up to new audiences, and found it to be very successful,” adds McMartin. “PUBlic Professor is for the public, we want to meet them where they frequent, especially when topics lend themselves to specific locations.”

Ensuing talks will take place in October and November, and then January, February and March 2026 and include speakers from the Faculty of Arts & Science, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Health Sciences and Dhillon School of Business. As has always been the case, all PUBlic Professor Series events are free and open to the public and available for viewing on the ULethbridge YouTube channel the following week.

Working with local venues and bringing research activities into the community also creates partnership opportunities. Corporate sponsors and community partners seeking to support creating connections and promoting activities that benefit and inform society are encouraged to connect with External Relations at external.relations@uleth.ca to learn more.

This season’s PUBlic Professor Series talks conclude with Dr. Robin Bright’s presentation, Does Reading even Matter Anymore?, 7 p.m. at the Sandman Signature Lodge.

The PUBlic Professor Series is an example of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Strategic Plan in action under the strategic direction to Challenge Boundaries and Inspire Curiosity. We value courageous conversation, learning from each other’s knowledge and experiences, and actively promote the safe, respectful, open and accessible exchange of ideas.

The series lineup is as follows:

2025-26 PUBlic Professor Series

From a Communist Doctor to Madonna’s Cone Bra: Museums and Cultural Diplomacy in Troubled Times — Dr. Anne Dymond, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025

Cockwombles, Cornucopias and the Curious Task of Economics — Dr. Danny Le Roy — Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025

Has AI Made Teachers Obsolete? — Dr. Richelle Marynowski (BEd ’94) — Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025

Playing Telephone with Eyewitness Evidence — Dr. Jamal Mansour — Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026

Indigenous Childhood Stories Transform Worlds – Want Some? — Dr. Don McIntyre — Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026

Legalized Gambling in Canada: Winners and Losers — Dr. Rob Williams — Thursday, March 26, 2026

Monkeys can barter but can they gamble, asks new study from ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researcher

trevor.kenney — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 16:33:17 +0000

You’re not likely to see them flooding casinos any time soon, but the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Dr. Jean-Baptiste Leca and his colleagues are embarking on a study that may turn a population of Balinese long-tailed macaque monkeys into gamblers.

Dr. J.B. Leca, pictured, is teaming up with Dr. Rob Williams, a gambling research expert in the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Dr. Elsa Addessi, a cognitive psychologist and primatologist at the National Research Center in Rome, Italy.

Leca, an associate professor in the U of L’s Department of Psychology, is teaming up with Dr. Rob Williams, a gambling research expert in the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Dr. Elsa Addessi, a cognitive psychologist and primatologist at the National Research Center in Rome, Italy, to explore whether monkeys have cognitive biases and behavioural responses that are different from, or similar to, that of humans when it comes to gambling activities.

“This is a follow-up on our object/food-bartering monkeys project, except that this time we are planning to implement some field experiments to test these monkeys’ abilities to engage in a series of gambling tasks,” says Leca, whose group is supported by a research grant from the Alberta Gambling Research Institute.

In the previous study, Leca made international headlines as he studied open-field macaque monkeys stealing objects from Balinese tourists and using the items as bartering objects for their real desire – food.

“This time around, unlike the bartering process, the gambling scenario will entail some level of uncertainty in the reward they receive,” says Leca, who will travel to Bali in July to begin the work. “Sometimes they won’t get any food reward, or a much smaller amount of food than they expect or are used to. Even after proffering their token to the experimenter, they lose. Other times, they will get more food than they expect, like a big win scenario at the casino.”

A typical object/food bartering interaction between a Balinese macaque (left, holding stolen eyeglasses) and a human (right, proffering a bag of local fruit as a food reward).

The researchers – in collaboration with Dr. Noëlle Gunst (an adjunct faculty and research associate in the U of L’s Department of Psychology), Dr. I Nengah Wandia (a Balinese veterinarian and primatologist from Udayana ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ), and students Matthew Gardiner, Caleb Bunselmeyer and Christian Dunn – will examine how the monkeys respond when uncertainty is introduced to the already established bartering system; whether they are susceptible, just like some human problem gamblers, to making less than optimal choices; if they tend to undervalue, or discount, larger rewards delivered after a delay and impulsively favour smaller but immediate rewards; and whether they are prone to choosing low-probability/high-payoff rewards over high-probability/low-payoff rewards, even when this strategy works against them in the long run.

Similar studies have been conducted in lab settings but lack an ecological validity because they use captive, lab-trained and socially isolated primates.

“To our knowledge, our study will be the first time minimally invasive experimental gambling research will be conducted on free-ranging nonhuman animals,” says Leca. “What’s more, our monkey subjects have an already established, spontaneously expressed, and culturally transmitted bartering propensity.”

If the group is successful in turning their bartering monkeys into gamblers, and the results are similar to lab research findings, the study will provide further support and validation to existing animal models of gambling and give greater insight to the evolution of irrational human economic behaviours – such as gambling.

UNews - Rob Williams

Faculty expertise showcased in lineup of 2025-26 PUBlic Professor Series speakers

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Monkeys can barter but can they gamble, asks new study from ��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researcher

Related Topics

Monkeys can barter but can they gamble, asks new study from ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researcher