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Parkland Institute and U of L partner to support diverse research projects

robert.cooney — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 20:12:39 +0000

Two ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge humanities and social sciences researchers studying vastly different projects will receive support for their work from the Parkland Institute, a not-for profit organization based at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta that supports the study of economic, social, cultural and political issues facing Albertans and Canadians.

Pictured from left to right, Dr. Trevor Harrison, Ann Holden and Dr. Suzanne Lenon

Dr. Suzanne Lenon (Women and Gender Studies), whose research interests are in the area of law, gender and sexuality, will receive $5,000 to further her research on the complex relationships between gender equality and the recognition of valid foreign polygamous marriages.

Ann Åsfrid Holden, graduate studies Master of Arts candidate in History, takes her research into the Subarctic and Arctic to compare legal policies that affect first Nations and Inuit people in Northern Quebec, and those of the Sami people of her home country of Norway. Both groups were affected by large-scale hydroelectric power developments that changed their land and lifestyles, and the legality of the expropriation of indigenous land for these developments was questionable. She will also receive $5,000 to further her studies.

“Parkland is excited to be able to support the diverse research represented by Dr. Suzanne Lenon and Ann Holden,” said Dr. Trevor Harrison, a U of L sociology researcher and Director of the Parkland Institute.

“Parkland’s emphasis has been, and remains, on research that is academically sound, that is important to the broad public and that dares to push the boundaries of our understanding. Both of these research projects fit that bill.”

Harrison added that though they are very different, both projects deal with legal issues and social policy.

“Dr. Lenon’s work will contribute to the body of knowledge that deals with immigration, polygamy, and gender equality, and how those concepts are intertwined, in an often confusing way, from a policy perspective. Ann Holden’s work will explore and explain how the respective legal systems of Norway and Canada have framed the implementation of hydroelectric projects on indigenous land. Though they are far apart geographically, there are some striking similarities that both parties could gain from knowing more about.”

SUZANNE LENON

In Lenon’s case, she is using the recent (2011) Polygamy Reference case in British Columbia as a springboard for discussion, which upholds the prohibition of polygamy in Canada as constitutionally sound. “As in the United States, polygamy is illegal in Canada, but people often immigrate to Canada from a number of countries in Africa and the Middle East where polygamous relationships are, in fact, legal,” Lenon said.

Lenon said that one of the reasons for the continued criminalization polygamous marriages in Canada (and in the West) is that of gender equality.

“The second spouse cannot be legally acknowledged, and has very few, if any, rights if the relationship breaks down. The same challenges apply to people in Canadian polygamous relationships in communities such as Bountiful, BC, where the law applies to the individual who is considered to be legally married, but not to other polygamous spouses. While this law is upheld in the name of gender equality, in these cases the law prevents women from being legally supported if there are problems, and this, ironically, has created gender inequality.”

There is, she says, vigorous debate as to whether continued criminalization of polygamous marriage is a viable public policy strategy to address the complex issues arising from it.

ANN HOLDEN

Holden’s work involves a topic that is just as complex, involves a number of inequality elements, and has affected people -- but in a different way.

The development of hyropower projects in both Norway and Canada a few decades ago and 1980scaused more grief for the politicians than they would have expected, because the negative reactions to it was so strong. Both the James Bay Cree, a fishing, hunting, and trapping community in eastern James Bay in Canada, and the reindeer-farming Sami people in Finnmark, Northern Norway argued that they had rights that stemmed from their immemorial usage of the land.

“Historically, land ownership, in the Western meaning of the word, was a foreign concept for both the Sami and the James Bay Cree,” Holden said. “The Norwegian and British legal systems suited a farming culture, and private ownership over land was the most common form of a legal connection to land, although not the only form of legal rights to land. When the Scandinavian legal traditions met the Sami traditions and the James Bay Cree met the English and later French traditions, the needs of both communities were written into the laws - but not equally.”

Holden said that her work will help Indigenous groups learn more about how the laws of land ownership -- and land management -- can apply to current issues where land is disputed, in particular in cases that involve oil, gas and mining exploration in the northern areas of several Canadian provinces and Territories, and also in northern Sweden, where similar activities are taking place.

“In Canada, resource extraction (i.e. mining) on indigenous land happens in several Provinces. In Sweden, civil disobedience that mirrors the actions the Norwegian Sami used in the 1970s and 1980s was used as a tool to put a mining project on traditional Sami reindeer herding ground on the political agenda. These events are taking place right now, and have significant parallels to the challenges I am looking at which took place decades ago. The historical context is important to understand current issues because changes to the law in both the cases I study were consistent with legal traditions in Canada and Norway.”

Ultimately for Harrison, funding projects that stimulate not only public conversation but social change -- and that allow researchers to explore topics of public interest -- is what makes him happy as a researcher and as a representative of the Parkland Institute.

“This is the second year that the Parkland Institute has partnered with the U of L to deliver the scholarships. I want to thank the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge for its tremendous support given to Parkland, in particular for making the awards possible.”

The project period is two years, and the researchers are expected to deliver a final report on their work to the Parkland Institute, which will make their findings public.

Contacts:

Dr. Suzanne Lenon, Women and Gender Studies (403) 380-1876
suzanne.lenon@uleth.ca
http://directory.uleth.ca/users/suzanne.lenon

Ann Åsfrid Holden, School of Graduate Studies Candidate (History)
ann.holden@uleth.ca

Dr. Trevor Harrison, Sociology / Director, Parkland Institute (403) 329-2552
trevor.harrison@uleth.ca
http://directory.uleth.ca/users/trevor.harrison
http://parklandinstitute.ca/home/

U of L researchers among Venture's Top 50

trevor.kenney — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 22:14:53 +0000

Two ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers from vastly different disciplines have been acknowledged by Alberta Venture Magazine as being among the province's 50 most influential people for 2013.

Drs. David Naylor (Physics and Astronomy) and Robert Sutherland (Neuroscience, Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience) made the 2013 list for their achievements in the lab -- outer space, in Naylor's case, and for Sutherland, advocating for the academic community as the President of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations.

Dr. David Naylor

As an instructor with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's physics department since 1981, David Naylor has taken his lab to the upper echelons of experimental astrophysics. Practically speaking, that means he designs and uses instruments that can measure incredibly small amounts of radiation and light.

His primary project for the last four years has been the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE), a telescope on the Herschel Space Observatory, which was launched in 2009.

The Herschel is winding down its mission as it runs out of liquid helium to cool its instruments, but its 25,000 hours of studying the universe have already led to 250 peer-reviewed articles, a better understanding of the galaxy and spin-off businesses in the Lethbridge area.

Naylor himself was instrumental in establishing Blue Sky Spectroscopy, a private company that has won several contracts from the European and Canadian space agencies and delivered complex instrumentation to leading research teams across the planet. And the SPIRE's legacy is still in its infancy. Astronomers will analyze the prolific telescope's legacy of data for years to come.

Dr. Robert Sutherland

Rob Sutherland's day job is as a professor and chair of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's department of neuroscience, but his public profile this year has come as a result of his role as president of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations.

CAFA represents academic associations at the province's four research-intensive institutions (��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta and Athabasca ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ).

They were all hit hard in the provincial budget in March, with cuts to their operating budgets of more than seven per cent. Sutherland was suddenly thrust into the limelight as a defender of tertiary education from both the budget cuts and the mandate letters sent to the institutions from Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.

You can be sure the battle will continue for years as the provincial government continues its austerity measures and the universities fight to get their funding back up to – and beyond – prior levels.

The complete list of Alberta Venture's 50 most influential people for 2013 is available here.

Wieden, Wetmore earn Compute Canada space

trevor.kenney — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:58:31 +0000

Two ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge chemistry & biochemistry researchers have been awarded over 2.6Mio (million) processor hours and storage worth more than $380,000 as a result of the Compute Canada resource allocation competition.

Drs. Hans-Joachim Wieden and Stacey Wetmore were successful in earning two of the 212 grants given out by Compute Canada to leading Canadian research projects across the country.

In all, Compute Canada Calcul Canada (CC), Canada's national platform of High Performance Computing (HPC) resources and partners,administered grants of nearly $72 million worth of state-of-the-art computing, storage and support resources.

"Our research would not be possible without theirinfrastructure," says Wetmore, whose research isprimarily focused on understanding deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) damage and repair processes in our bodies in order to aid the design of new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent disease.

"Calculations of the complicated structure and reactions of biosystems require substantial computer resources that can only be obtained through national computing consortiums."

The grants allocate nearly one billion processor hours and 10.4 petabytes of storage to the projects over the next year.

Researchers will also have direct access to more than 40 programming and technical experts who are critical to enabling the efficient use of these state-of-the-art HPC systems.

"Compute Canada's extensive network of computing resources, data storage facilities, research tools and expertise is supporting projects that feed into a thriving Canadian R&D sector and contribute important socio-economic benefits to Canada," saysBill Appelbe, CC's incoming CEO. "This year's allocations represent the diverse and leading-edge science taking place at research institutions across the country."

The projects — which range from aerospace design and climate modeling to medical imaging and nanotechnology — produce results and breakthroughs that in many cases simply wouldn't be possible without CC's resources.

Wieden's research program is focused on unraveling the design principles underlying communication processes within biomolecular machines responsible for their functional complexity. Understanding the basis of intra- and intermolecular communication will help to understand cause-and-effect relationships in a number of chronic diseases, such as cancer or cystic fibrosis.

"Without Compute Canada Calcul Canada, this research would not be possible," says Wieden. "The research approach we are using involves the intricate combination of computational and laboratory research. For our group, it would be impossible to obtain and even more important, maintain, the required computational resources."

Wetmore echoes Wieden, saying her group's work is dependent on these resources.

"Compute Canada Calcul Canada infrastructure is vital to our work since large-scale computer models of biosystems require significant computer resources in terms of the important factors of time, memory and disk space," says Wetmore.

CC's resources are granted based on scientific merit and computational need. In addition to the grants for above average computing requirements, all Canadian researchers have access to significant default allocations of computational resources and support expertise.

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Parkland Institute and U of L partner to support diverse research projects

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