Math / en Art, math and knowing yourself: Paris Ouma reflects on her journey from Kenya to 茄子直播 /news/art-math-and-knowing-yourself-paris-ouma-reflects-her-journey-kenya-u-t <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Art, math and knowing yourself: Paris Ouma reflects on her journey from Kenya to 茄子直播</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2023-09/d66670a9-1179-4622-bc42-eb41e4cceaca-main.jpg?h=a9ac921f&amp;itok=jDT8biEi 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2023-09/d66670a9-1179-4622-bc42-eb41e4cceaca-main.jpg?h=a9ac921f&amp;itok=bdzrS5O1 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2023-09/d66670a9-1179-4622-bc42-eb41e4cceaca-main.jpg?h=a9ac921f&amp;itok=vkqo_2xq 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2023-09/d66670a9-1179-4622-bc42-eb41e4cceaca-main.jpg?h=a9ac921f&amp;itok=jDT8biEi" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>mattimar</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2023-09-20T10:54:36-04:00" title="Wednesday, September 20, 2023 - 10:54" class="datetime">Wed, 09/20/2023 - 10:54</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item"><p><em>Paris Ouma, pictured here with her artwork,&nbsp;is beginning her studies at 茄子直播 Mississauga this fall with the support of the university鈥檚 Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship (all images courtesy of Paris Ouma)</em></p> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/mariam-matti" hreflang="en">Mariam Matti</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/back-school-2023" hreflang="en">Back to School 2023</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utogether" hreflang="en">UTogether</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/art" hreflang="en">Art</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/lester-b-pearson-international-scholarship" hreflang="en">Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/mathematics" hreflang="en">Mathematics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-mississauga" hreflang="en">茄子直播 Mississauga</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><strong>Paris Ouma</strong> says she always feels hesitant before she begins to paint, questioning herself and her artistic abilities.</p> <p>But her confidence inevitably returns with each brushstroke.</p> <p>鈥淲hat I love about art is how much it encapsulates so much of myself in every way,鈥 she says. 鈥淧ainting to me is a physical manifestation of how I re-learn over and over again to trust the process and myself.鈥</p> <p>Ouma, who lived hours away from her family at age 12 while attending boarding school in Kenya, will once again be looking within herself as she prepares to embark on her next big chapter: moving to Canada to attend the University of Toronto as a Lester B. Pearson scholar.</p> <p>鈥淒on鈥檛 get me wrong, I鈥檓 still going to cry a lot,鈥 says Ouma, who is enrolled in a social sciences program at 茄子直播 Mississauga. 鈥淏ut I鈥檓 ready for change more often than not.鈥</p> <p>Named after <strong>Lester B. Pearson</strong>, a 茄子直播 alumnus, former prime minister and Nobel Prize recipient, the Pearson scholarship was created by 茄子直播 to bring exceptional students from around the world to study at the university. Awarded to those who demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and are recognized as leaders within their high school, the scholarship covers four years of study for first-entry students in undergraduate programs, including tuition, books, incidental fees and residence support.</p> <figure role="group" class="caption caption-drupal-media align-left"> <div> <div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2023-09/6d3cab9e-253e-4d15-b53c-723e46ed02dd-crop.jpg" width="300" height="450" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> </div> <figcaption>Ouma says creating art teaches her how to trust herself and the artistic process</figcaption> </figure> <p>Ouma, <a href="https://future.utoronto.ca/pearson/meet-the-2023-pearson-scholars/">one of 38 students to be awarded the scholarship</a> this year, says attending boarding school in Molo, Kenya at such a young age taught her discipline, independence and, above all, the importance of speaking up for herself.</p> <p>The self-confidence she gained through the experience made it easier to trust her instincts and follow her interests, even when they pointed in seemingly different directions.</p> <p>That鈥檚 how she ended up becoming an artist with a passion for solving math problems, which she describes as 鈥渁 thrill.鈥</p> <p>鈥淚 used to be really bad at math, so my grandma tutored me. I got my first A in year eight and that鈥檚 when I started liking it,鈥 says Ouma, who studied art, math and history in high school.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 so satisfying when you get it.鈥</p> <p>While math and art may seem worlds apart, they share a range of creative and cognitive skills that are increasingly valued in a wide range of fields, from medicine to business.</p> <p>At 茄子直播 Mississauga, Ouma plans to pursue a degree that will lead to a career in wealth management or private equity 鈥 with a minor in art, of course.</p> <p>She is also keen to help others discover themselves.</p> <p>At her boarding school, she mentored younger students, empowering them to take pride in their native language and lending a helping hand in their exam preparations.</p> <p>鈥淚 like listening and sitting down and being in people鈥檚 presence,鈥 she says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 so much people can offer you and you can offer them.鈥</p> <p>Upon arriving in Canada, Ouma plans to explore the outdoors, including the natural beauty that surrounds the 茄子直播 Mississauga campus along the serene banks of Credit River. She has already made connections with fellow Pearson scholars through a group chat and says she鈥檚 excited to meet her soon to be roommate <strong>Natran Ambaye Tewoldemedhin</strong>, who is coming to 茄子直播 Mississauga from Ethiopia.</p> <p>As she was preparing for her flight, Ouma packed her life into three suitcases 鈥 bringing with her essential hair products, two puffer jackets to combat the Toronto winter and a secret ingredient to make every meal special.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 a seasoning blend called Royco 鈥 it鈥檚 Kenyan and I put it on everything.鈥</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:54:36 +0000 mattimar 302881 at Want to improve your HORSE play? Stats expert breaks down the popular basketball game's odds /news/want-improve-your-horse-play-stats-expert-breaks-down-popular-basketball-game-s-odds <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Want to improve your HORSE play? Stats expert breaks down the popular basketball game's odds</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/DanielJeffreyBball-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=EEIIOsJs 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/DanielJeffreyBball-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=DADCL_uD 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/DanielJeffreyBball-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=RsuGMvXd 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/DanielJeffreyBball-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=EEIIOsJs" alt="Daniel and Jeffrey Rosenthal hold a basketball together outside"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2022-06-16T11:03:09-04:00" title="Thursday, June 16, 2022 - 11:03" class="datetime">Thu, 06/16/2022 - 11:03</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Daniel and Jeffrey Rosenthal at Willcocks Common (photo by Margaret Fulford)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/josslyn-johnstone" hreflang="en">Josslyn Johnstone</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/statistical-sciences" hreflang="en">Statistical Sciences</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>For NBA stars and driveway basketball&nbsp;enthusiasts alike, the game HORSE conjures up memories of intense schoolyard competitions and boisterous neighbourhood hangouts.</p> <p>Now, a professor at the University of Toronto has delved into the&nbsp;statistical probabilities of the game&nbsp;鈥 and discovered that simplicity is often the way to go&nbsp;(even though it's not as fun to watch.)</p> <p>鈥淲hen I was growing up, I would play with my dad, and I remember that he would attempt these really easy shots,鈥 recalls <strong>Jeffrey Rosenthal</strong>, a professor in the&nbsp;department of statistical sciences&nbsp;in the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science.</p> <p>鈥淭hat goes against what most of us would think to do, which is to make a difficult shot in hopes that your opponent won鈥檛 be able to match it.鈥</p> <p>When shooting hoops together at the Willcocks Common just south of Sidney Smith Hall last summer, Rosenthal and his half-brother Daniel, a 茄子直播 alumnus who studied advanced mathematics as well as philosophy and psychology, wondered if they could mathematically determine the effect of shot difficulty on the probability of winning points.</p> <p>鈥淚t may not be the deepest mathematical analysis we鈥檝e ever done,鈥 Rosenthal says.&nbsp;鈥淏ut trying to justify the rules of HORSE presented us with an interesting question about the probabilities: What is the optimal shot to take&nbsp;to increase your chances of winning?鈥</p> <p>The co-authors published their results <a href="https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202206/rnoti-p1014.pdf">in the&nbsp;June/July 2022 issue of the journal&nbsp;<em>Notices of the American Mathematical Society.&nbsp;</em></a></p> <p>For those who need a refresher on the rules: HORSE is a game for two or more players who take&nbsp;turns attempting to land certain shots.</p> <p>If player one calls a shot and makes it 鈥&nbsp;for example, a hook shot, or a shot that hits the backboard 鈥 player two must match it. If they don't, player two is assigned a letter and the other player scores a point. If a player calls a shot but misses, their turn is over and it's their opponent's turn.&nbsp;The game goes on until one player has five points while the other has five letters 鈥 H-O-R-S-E.</p> <p>鈥淲here the controversy comes in is, if you make your shot, and the other player also makes the shot, nobody gets a point 鈥 but whose turn should it be after that?鈥 Rosenthal says. 鈥淎ccording to the traditional rules, it's your turn again to call and make the shot.鈥</p> <p>鈥淣ow as a statistician, I see how my dad鈥檚 strategy of attempting an easy shot affects the probability and works to his advantage,鈥 says Rosenthal, whose dad is a retired 茄子直播 prof.&nbsp;鈥淵ou are more likely to sink an easy shot and ultimately score a point. But that makes for a pretty boring and predictable game鈥 鈥 nothing like the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQT8pRvh7Ic">2020 NBA HORSE Challenge</a>, where pros took unusual shots to show off their skills and beat their opponent.&nbsp;</p> <p>Is there a way to improve the rules of the classic game?&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淭here isn鈥檛 a commissioner of HORSE enforcing official rules or anything, so our logic is to modify the rules to have the turn pop over to the other player. That way the opponent gets a chance to call a shot,鈥 Rosenthal&nbsp;says.</p> <p>For the sake of mathematical analysis, the researchers had to make some assumptions 鈥 they didn鈥檛 account for&nbsp;variables like height that could influence the outcome, for instance. The first analysis in their paper supposes that both players are of equal ability, which means that each shot will be equally challenging for both players.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淯nder the traditional rules, it鈥檚 smart to take an easy shot 鈥&nbsp;like standing next to the net and hitting it off the backboard 鈥&nbsp;because if you both get it in, then at least you get to take another turn,鈥 Rosenthal explains. 鈥淓ventually one of you will miss and the probability will be nearly 50/50 鈥&nbsp;you鈥檒l have almost a 50 per cent chance of scoring a point and giving a letter to your opponent.鈥</p> <p>Under the modified rules, where the turn switches to the other player if both players make the shot, he says it is best for one player to choose a trickier shot where they have a good chance of getting it in, but their opponent has a good chance of missing. 鈥淲hatever difficult shot you choose 鈥&nbsp;standing further away on the three-point line, a reverse lay-up, shooting with your weaker hand 鈥&nbsp;the optimal shot is one that has a 50 per cent probability of making it.鈥</p> <p>To make it more mathematically intricate, the co-authors next looked at other scenarios.</p> <p>鈥淥ne assumption we made is that with every shot, player one has a certain probability of making it and player two鈥檚 probability is a certain multiple of that, say 80 per cent,鈥 says Rosenthal. 鈥淪o, if player one has an easy shot, it's not quite as easy for player two. If player one has a hard shot, it鈥檚 a bit harder for player two. Then we tried to mathematically say, what's the optimal shot for you to choose in those cases, too?鈥</p> <p>Though the mathematics get a little more complicated, the basic idea for how to win HORSE remains the same: under the traditional rules, choose easy shots for the best chance of scoring points. Under the modified rules, shots with a medium level of difficulty are optimal.</p> <p>With the NBA playoffs nearly over, and warmer days ahead, Rosenthal is looking forward to hitting up the Willcocks Common once again. As a go-to spot for pick-up games in the university community, the court was recently outfitted with new nets and rims.</p> <p>As Rosenthal puts it, fun papers like this one increase understanding of esoteric mathematical concepts by bringing them to life through relatable&nbsp;examples.</p> <p>鈥淪ome people play sports in the schoolyard and others do math problems in the classroom,鈥 he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e showing how you can connect these two worlds, using mathematical thinking to figure out what to do on the basketball court.鈥</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Thu, 16 Jun 2022 15:03:09 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 175260 at COVID-19: Hundreds of incoming students enrol in new 茄子直播 Mississauga math workshop /news/covid-19-hundreds-incoming-students-enrol-new-u-t-mississauga-math-workshop <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">COVID-19: Hundreds of incoming students enrol in new 茄子直播 Mississauga math workshop </span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/UofT19610_UTM-Maanjiwe-nendamowinan-11-lpr_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=uyunpt_q 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/UofT19610_UTM-Maanjiwe-nendamowinan-11-lpr_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=D_dF4Diw 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/UofT19610_UTM-Maanjiwe-nendamowinan-11-lpr_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=M5GInWWH 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/UofT19610_UTM-Maanjiwe-nendamowinan-11-lpr_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=uyunpt_q" alt="exterior photo of Maanjiwe-nendamowinan"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2020-07-06T13:14:21-04:00" title="Monday, July 6, 2020 - 13:14" class="datetime">Mon, 07/06/2020 - 13:14</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">The&nbsp;Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre at 茄子直播 Mississauga&nbsp;is offering a free math workshop in response to the disruption high school students and teachers faced during COVID-19 (photo by Drew Lesiuczok)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/patricia-lonergan" hreflang="en">Patricia Lonergan</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/coronavirus" hreflang="en">Coronavirus</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-mississauga" hreflang="en">茄子直播 Mississauga</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/undergraduate-students" hreflang="en">Undergraduate Students</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Hundreds of incoming students at the University of Toronto Mississauga will be enhancing their math skills and filling in knowledge gaps before they jump into their first-year calculus classes this fall.</p> <p>For the first time, the&nbsp;Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre&nbsp;is offering a free math workshop to help students better prepare for post-secondary learning.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Andie Burazin</strong>, assistant professor in the department of mathematical and computational sciences, says the initiative was launched in response to the disruption high school students and teachers faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p> <p>鈥淚t was a very turbulent time for high school teachers as well as students,鈥 she says, referring to classes suddenly moving online. 鈥淢ath is a big hurdle for many students&nbsp;鈥 it creates a lot of anxiety. Even in regular situations, math is just one of those things they struggle with.鈥</p> <p>Mindful that incoming students may not have the usual level of preparation before they enter first year, the dean鈥檚 office reached out to the academic skills centre to create an experiential learning unit to assist students who will be taking a first year calculus course. The two-hour workshops, which will run over six weeks starting July 13, are designed to help students better prepare their foundational math skills while giving them the knowledge and confidence to succeed at university.</p> <p>Called&nbsp;Foundational Math Skills for University, the course will go beyond reviewing and practising pre-calculus high school material.</p> <p>Burazin says the first week will explore how to succeed in a math course, what to expect when taking a course at 茄子直播 Mississauga&nbsp;and offer tips to improve if students come across challenges.</p> <p>There will also be reminders that learning math is a cumulative process.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 like building a house,鈥&nbsp;Burazin says. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 have the third floor if you didn鈥檛 build the first floor. You need to have that foundation under your belt before you talk about more advanced topics in a first-year calculus course.鈥</p> <p>Each lesson will start with a discussion about academic integrity, a topic that came up when Burazin surveyed high school teachers while preparing this course. She says she feels it鈥檚 important to discuss accountability and the consequences of cheating.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 important students know they can鈥檛 cheat. They have to do their work honestly,鈥 she says. 鈥淭his is not like high school where you get a second chance.鈥</p> <p>The course will mimic what students are likely to experience in the fall. They will have access to Quercus, the university鈥檚 online learning environment, get a feel for how classes are taught, and learn how to address professors and teaching assistants in emails.</p> <p>They鈥檒l also get a chance to meet peers.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 supposed to help them develop a sense of community [and a]&nbsp;familiarity with what is going to potentially happen when they take a course at UTM,鈥 Burazin says. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 important given the situation.鈥</p> <p>There鈥檚 an added incentive for registered students to attend the classes. Burazin says participants will be entered into a draw to win a $100 gift card for the UTM Bookstore.</p> <p>The six-week program has received a strong response from incoming students. Burazin says 500 students registered when the course was first rolled out so they expanded the program to meet demand. Now there are 700 students registered for 14 sessions that will take place over Zoom and Quercus.</p> <p>Whether they are taking the Foundational Math Skills for University course or not, Burazin has some advice for students who will be taking a first-year math course this fall.</p> <p>鈥淲hen you鈥檙e stuck, reach out. Get the help,鈥 she says. 鈥淎nd practise, practise, practise. It鈥檚 the only way you can do well in math.鈥</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Mon, 06 Jul 2020 17:14:21 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 165284 at In memoriam: mathematician Cathleen Synge Morawetz /news/memoriam-mathematician-cathleen-synge-morawetz <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">In memoriam: mathematician Cathleen Synge Morawetz</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-08-16-cathleen-morawetz-fields.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=stsJBjjc 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-08-16-cathleen-morawetz-fields.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=oSahsNik 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-08-16-cathleen-morawetz-fields.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=1niHSsIV 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-08-16-cathleen-morawetz-fields.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=stsJBjjc" alt> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-08-16T13:01:23-04:00" title="Wednesday, August 16, 2017 - 13:01" class="datetime">Wed, 08/16/2017 - 13:01</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Cathleen Synge Morawetz (right) with mathematician Peter Lax at a 2008 math conference at 茄子直播, which was dedicated to her 85th birthday (photo courtesy of the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences located at 茄子直播)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/alumni" hreflang="en">茄子直播</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>茄子直播 alumna&nbsp;<strong>Cathleen Synge&nbsp;Morawetz</strong>, a professor emeritus of mathematics at New York University,&nbsp;died last week. She was 94.</p> <p>Morawetz's work on partial differential equations helped describe the motion of fluids and waves in water, sound, light and vibrating solids. A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/science/cathleen-morawetz-dead-nyu-mathematician.html?emc=eta1"><em>New York Times</em> obituary</a> on Aug. 11 described her research&nbsp;as&nbsp;鈥渟olving real-world engineering problems.鈥</p> <p>For example, her study of the flow of air around airplanes flying close to the speed of sound has helped aerospace engineers design wings to minimize shocks. She studied the scattering of waves off objects and came up with a method to prove what is now known as the Morawetz inequality 鈥 it&nbsp;looks at the maximum amount of wave energy near an object at a given time.</p> <p>Morawetz was a trailblazer, setting a path for female math scholars in the 1950s.</p> <p>Born in Toronto in 1923, the daughter of a physicist/mathematician, she&nbsp;earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in mathematics at the University of Toronto in 1945.&nbsp;</p> <p>Despite the lack of opportunity at the time, she received a master鈥檚 degree in mathematics at MIT&nbsp;and then her PhD from&nbsp;New York University in 1951.</p> <p>In 1998, she became the first female mathematician to receive a National Medal of Science in the United States, and in 2012, she became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.</p> <h3><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/science/cathleen-morawetz-dead-nyu-mathematician.html?emc=eta1">Read more about her at the <em>New York Times</em></a></h3> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 16 Aug 2017 17:01:23 +0000 ullahnor 112588 at Making an impact: 茄子直播 undergrad co-authors important machine learning study at Google /news/making-impact-u-t-undergrad-co-authors-important-machine-learning-study-google <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Making an impact: 茄子直播 undergrad co-authors important machine learning study at Google</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Aiden%20Gomez%2006212017%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=7EXO2QMg 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/Aiden%20Gomez%2006212017%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=q5dv-B-q 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/Aiden%20Gomez%2006212017%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=J8KljcgI 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Aiden%20Gomez%2006212017%28web%20lead%29.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=7EXO2QMg" alt> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-06-21T12:38:23-04:00" title="Wednesday, June 21, 2017 - 12:38" class="datetime">Wed, 06/21/2017 - 12:38</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">茄子直播's Aidan Gomez co-authored research at Google that turned a single neural network loose on eight problems simultaneously (photo by Nina Haikara)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/nina-haikara" hreflang="en">Nina Haikara</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Nina Haikara</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/computer-science" hreflang="en">Computer Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/undergrad" hreflang="en">Undergrad</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><strong>Aidan Gomez</strong> has yet to finish his undergraduate degree, but he鈥檚 already doing research at Google that could lead to dramatic improvements in&nbsp;machine learning 鈥 a thriving subfield of artificial intelligence.</p> <p>Gomez, who took a semester off from his University of Toronto studies in computer science and math&nbsp;to work at Google Brain in Silicon Valley, recently<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.05137"> released a paper</a> on multitask learning by a single neural network with lead author and senior Google researcher Lukasz Kaiser.</p> <p>While most existing machine learning techniques focus on a single task 鈥 identifying objects in images, interpreting natural language or recognizing audio 鈥 Kaiser and Gomez showed that a single neural network could successfully be turned loose on multiple tasks simultaneously.</p> <p>The paper, titled "One Model to Learn them All,"&nbsp;even showed evidence of overall improved performance.</p> <p>鈥淟ukasz and I basically stepped back and asked: Why shouldn鈥檛 one particular class of models be able to solve all these problems at the same time?鈥 Gomez says. He compared&nbsp;the approach to the way humans carry cognitive tools&nbsp;acquired through previous experience.</p> <p>&nbsp;鈥淲e've shown that this network does precisely that 鈥 not only does it apply these tools, it makes performance on new tasks&nbsp;significantly better.鈥</p> <p>Kaiser and Gomez trained their model to solve eight problems at the same time. That included the ImageNet classification contest that <strong>Geoffrey Hinton, </strong>a Google engineering fellow and&nbsp;茄子直播 <a href="http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/awards/uprofessors.htm">University Professor</a>&nbsp;Emeritus, and his graduate students,&nbsp;<strong>Alex Krizhevsky</strong> and<strong> Ilya Sutskever,</strong>&nbsp;<a href="/news/google-acquires-u-t-neural-networks-company">won in 2012 </a>with deep learning neural networks.</p> <p>Sutskever&nbsp;is now<a href="/news/u-t-alum-leading-ai-research-1-billion-non-profit-backed-elon-musk"> leading artificial intelligence research at a $1 billion non-profit, OpenAI</a>, backed by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.&nbsp;</p> <p>Gomez calls the ImageNet task 鈥渧ery difficult鈥 because it involves 1,000 categories and more than one million images.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;鈥淲e were frightened, initially, that the model simply wouldn't have the capacity to learn ImageNet along with anything else 鈥&nbsp;that it would dedicate all its resources to ImageNet, but it turns out not to be the case,鈥 he says. 鈥淭here appears to be symbiosis within the tasks, each feeding to the other and improving the overall performance considerably.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;鈥淭hese neural networks are in fact capable of learning an array of different tasks, at the same time, on the same parameters, similar to how you or I approach a new task.鈥</p> <h3><a href="https://research.googleblog.com/2017/06/multimodel-multi-task-machine-learning.html">Read more about the machine learning&nbsp;study on Google's research blog</a></h3> <p>Gomez says their work primarily addresses "transfer learning,"&nbsp;the term given to the re-application of learned knowledge to new tasks. Their model also solved simultaneous problems in language translation, imagine captioning, English audio transcription and grammar parsing 鈥 breaking sentences into their grammatical tree.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淓ven if the tasks are seemingly unrelated, like grammar parsing and image classification, it will get notably better performance in both, by training them together, as opposed to separately.鈥</p> <p>Gomez expects this method could help improve performance where data is limited.</p> <p>鈥淟ack of data can be a devastating hurdle when training models,鈥 he says. 鈥淎nd so with this work we demonstrate that a good source of more data is more tasks 鈥 the work suggests throwing more tasks into it, seemingly regardless of how closely related these tasks are, will make performance better.鈥</p> <h3><a href="https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/19/google-advances-ai-with-one-model-to-learn-them-all/">Read more about Google's machine learning study&nbsp;at VentureBeat</a></h3> <p>Gomez is one of more than 50 students taking part in the department of computer science鈥檚 undergraduate summer research program.</p> <p>While the Google paper is of broad interest, Gomez says he and his research supervisor, Assistant Professor&nbsp;<strong>Roger Grosse</strong>, a co-founder of the <a href="/news/toronto-s-vector-institute-officially-launched">Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence</a>, will later be releasing work that should also be of significance to machine learning researchers.&nbsp;</p> <p>Thanks to the pioneering work of Hinton and others, 茄子直播 has emerged as a global centre for research into artificial intelligence and deep learning in particular. Such technologies are expected to have a profound impact on a wide range of industries, improving everything from cancer detection to the way lawyers litigate cases.</p> <p>Uber, for one,&nbsp;said earlier this year it was launching a research centre for self-driving cars in Toronto that will be headed by 茄子直播 Associate Professor <strong>Raquel Urtasun</strong>.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淯ndergrad is fantastic, but I鈥檓 ready to move on to my PhD,鈥 says Gomez. 鈥淚 really don鈥檛 think I would have pursued this to the extent that I have, without going to 茄子直播.</p> <p>"The inspiration that comes with going to a school that has been instrumental in defining my field has really propelled me forward.鈥 &nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 21 Jun 2017 16:38:23 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 108557 at Annual 茄子直播 Scarborough event inspires girls to pursue math /news/annual-u-t-scarborough-event-inspires-girls-pursue-math <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Annual 茄子直播 Scarborough event inspires girls to pursue math</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2016-12-05-math-in-motion-lead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ZWntpW0h 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2016-12-05-math-in-motion-lead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=paHE8w75 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2016-12-05-math-in-motion-lead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=j32LHFMi 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2016-12-05-math-in-motion-lead.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ZWntpW0h" alt="Photo of students at math in motion"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2016-12-05T15:46:55-05:00" title="Monday, December 5, 2016 - 15:46" class="datetime">Mon, 12/05/2016 - 15:46</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Grade 9 students participate in the "egg drop" during Math in Motion at 茄子直播 Scarborough </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/don-campbell" hreflang="en">Don Campbell</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Don Campbell</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utsc" hreflang="en">UTSC</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/stem" hreflang="en">STEM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/education" hreflang="en">Education</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><strong>Gobika Sithamparanathan</strong> was always encouraged to study math.&nbsp;</p> <p>A second-year human biology and neuroscience student at 茄子直播 Scarborough, Sithamparanathan says her parents valued a math education. She also worked as a math tutor to fellow students in Sri Lanka&nbsp;where she grew up.&nbsp;</p> <p>So when her first-year calculus instructor&nbsp;<strong>Sophie Chrysostomou</strong>&nbsp;asked her to volunteer with <a href="https://www.mimgig.com/">Math in Motion鈥irls in Gear!</a> an annual event aimed at inspiring young girls to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs at the post-secondary level, she didn鈥檛 hesitate.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淭hese girls are at a critical time in their lives when it comes to what they want to pursue academically. They may be interested in math, but they really need that extra encouragement to really go for it,鈥 says Sithamparanathan, who also helped plan this year鈥檚 event.&nbsp;</p> <p>Nearly 100 Grade 9 girls from the Durham, York and Toronto school boards took part in this year鈥檚 event at 茄子直播 Scarborough on Nov.&nbsp;26. The event&nbsp;included interactive math demonstrations and fun activities like the 鈥渆gg drop鈥 engineering design challenge.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing to see these mini-engineers come up such creative designs,鈥 says Sithamparanathan.<br> &nbsp;&nbsp;<br> Chrysostomou, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of computer and mathematical sciences at 茄子直播 Scarborough, organized the event.</p> <p>鈥淎 big part of what we do is addressing some of the negative stereotypes about girls studying math,鈥 says Chrysostomou.&nbsp;鈥淲e do this by introducing girls to women who have careers in STEM-related fields and to show them they can have successful and meaningful careers if they stick with math.鈥 &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Math in Motion has deep ties to 茄子直播 Scarborough. <strong>Judy Shanks</strong>, a high school math teacher in Pickering, helped organize the first event in 2004 and is a former student of Chrysostomou.&nbsp;</p> <p>Shanks points to recent studies that show only 22 per cent of girls with high school math marks in the 80 to 89 per cent range choose STEM programs compared to 52 per cent of boys with equivalent marks.</p> <p>She says it鈥檚 鈥渄isheartening鈥 to see girls in high school with immense talent for math not pursuing STEM programs at the university level. She hopes more girls can feel empowered to pursue these programs by having strong role models to look up to.&nbsp;</p> <p>Since its inception more than 1,200 girls have taken part in the program. This year鈥檚 event was sponsored by Google, Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS), the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), the Scarborough Association of Mathematics Education (SAME) and 茄子直播 Scarborough. It also included presentations and keynote addresses from women with careers in various STEM-related fields.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淪TEM is such a large field, and the skills you learn can be transferred across a range of different disciplines and jobs,鈥 says Sithamparanathan.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淚 think parents play a crucial role in encouraging young girls&nbsp;but so does mentorship. If these girls have someone to look up to, it can make all the difference.鈥&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Mon, 05 Dec 2016 20:46:55 +0000 ullahnor 102704 at Quantum Information and Quantum Control, Centre for /node/8709 <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Quantum Information and Quantum Control, Centre for</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2016-01-07T15:47:18-05:00" title="Thursday, January 7, 2016 - 15:47" class="datetime">Thu, 01/07/2016 - 15:47</time> </span> <div class="field field--name-field-url field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">URL</div> <div class="field__item">https://cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-above clearfix"> <h3 class="field__label">Tags</h3> <ul class="links field__items"> <li><a href="/news/tags/cqiqc" hreflang="en">cqiqc</a></li> <li><a href="/news/tags/engineering" hreflang="en">Engineering</a></li> <li><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></li> <li><a href="/news/tags/physics" hreflang="en">Physics</a></li> <li><a href="/news/tags/chemistry" hreflang="en">Chemistry</a></li> <li><a href="/news/tags/computer-science" hreflang="en">Computer Science</a></li> <li><a href="/news/tags/materials-science" hreflang="en">Materials Science</a></li> <li><a href="/news/tags/electrical-engineering" hreflang="en">electrical engineering</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-campus field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Campus</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/6953" hreflang="en">St. George</a></div> </div> Thu, 07 Jan 2016 20:47:18 +0000 sgupta 8709 at These undergrad interns are helping to power Nanoleaf: Jeanny Yao and Josh Hwang /news/these-undergrad-interns-are-helping-power-nanoleaf-jeanny-yao-and-josh-hwang <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">These undergrad interns are helping to power Nanoleaf: Jeanny Yao and Josh Hwang</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-11-02T05:59:15-05:00" title="Monday, November 2, 2015 - 05:59" class="datetime">Mon, 11/02/2015 - 05:59</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">(image courtesy Nanoleaf)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/brianna-goldberg" hreflang="en">Brianna Goldberg</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Brianna Goldberg</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/nanoleaf" hreflang="en">Nanoleaf</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/undergraduate-education" hreflang="en">Undergraduate Education</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/undergraduate-students" hreflang="en">Undergraduate Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/undergrad" hreflang="en">Undergrad</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/lighting" hreflang="en">Lighting</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/engineering" hreflang="en">Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/bbcie" hreflang="en">BBCIE</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utsc" hreflang="en">UTSC</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/features" hreflang="en">Features</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Why would a fast-growing LED lighting startup&nbsp;hire a statistician and a scientist as business development interns?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Nanoleaf 鈥 a global startup from 茄子直播 Engineering alumni&nbsp;鈥&nbsp;says it was for their&nbsp;different perspective&nbsp;and critical mindset.<a href="http://www.nanoleaf.me/"> (Read more about Nanoleaf)</a></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>鈥淭he 茄子直播 presence is still very strong at Nanoleaf, and I believe it always will be,鈥 said spokesperson&nbsp;<strong>Leslie Chen</strong>. 鈥淲hen we were looking for interns to join our team, the first place we looked was at 茄子直播.鈥</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The interns,&nbsp;who hooked into Nanoleaf's team through a specialized new venture internship course called<a href="http://www.impactcentre.ca/undergraduate/imc390"> IMC390</a>, get to earn course credits while exploding all conventions of what they can do with their degree.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <h2><a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/nanoleaf-launches-new-product-apple-home-system">Read more about Nanoleaf on 茄子直播 News&nbsp;</a></h2> <div><em>茄子直播 News</em> is profiling some of the&nbsp;interns helping to power the company as it continues to innovate with clean tech products in Canada and around the world. Below,&nbsp;writer <strong>Brianna Goldberg</strong> talks with&nbsp;<strong>Jeanny Yao</strong>,&nbsp;a fourth-year science student at 茄子直播鈥檚 Scarborough campus and&nbsp;<strong>Josh Hwang</strong>,&nbsp;a fourth-year mathematics and statistics student who just began working with Nanoleaf this September.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div> <hr> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>How did Nanoleaf recruit you and why did you want to work with them?</strong></div> <div><strong>Yao</strong> IMC390 is a venture course that allows students to work in a startup company for eight months, gaining entrepreneurship experience as well as university credits. I recently co-founded a biotechnology company that aims&nbsp;to save the oceans&nbsp;so I was very excited about this business learning opportunity. Nanoleaf particularly caught my eye because of their belief in green technology and sustainable energy, which perfectly align with my values and interests. <a href="http://www.impactcentre.ca/undergraduate/imc390">(Read more about IMC390)</a></div> </div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Hwang</strong> I applied for an internship at Nanoleaf through the Impact Centre at 茄子直播<a href="http://entrepreneurs.utoronto.ca/"> (read more about the Impact Centre and the vast network of accelerators and startup supports at 茄子直播)</a>. I thought this was a great way for me to gain new experiences and learn outside of the classroom while earning one course credit. The IMC390 course allows students to gain work experiences with a startup while in school and I鈥檓 fortunate to be able to contribute to the business development of such a cool green-tech company.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Does your work at Nanoleaf connect with or supplement what you鈥檝e learned at 茄子直播?</strong></div> <div><strong>Yao</strong> Indirectly, yes. I am a science student a 茄子直播. My role at Nanoleaf is in business development. The two may not seem connected&nbsp;but definitely complement one another. The technical side of an idea or research project is essential but there are countless number of technicalities that could keep a person occupied. To be able to bring this research to the real world, there must be an appropriate market fit and strategic plan. I believe in the importance of academic research for fundamental understanding of how the world functions but I also believe that application is the key to bringing benefit to society through science.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Hwang</strong> My work at Nanoleaf as a business development intern is quite different from my studies in mathematics and statistics at 茄子直播, but I鈥檓 able to supplement my hard skills with varied soft skills. I haven鈥檛 had any experiences with group work at university, but my work at Nanoleaf allows me to work in a team and interact with many different people, such as potential clients, and further develop my people skills.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>What have you learned in working with Nanoleaf that surprised you?</strong></div> <div><strong>Yao</strong> Everyone is extremely intense and passionate about his/her work but the setting is quite casual and the atmosphere is friendly. When physical and laborious work needs to be done fast, everyone gets on the ground and helps out.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Hwang</strong> As an intern, I expected I would have to give a lot to the company, but the company is also interested in helping the interns learn and grow, and make the most out of the internship. Everyone at Nanoleaf is very friendly and supportive, and the managers have been invested in my personal growth as well.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <h2><a href="http://entrepreneurs.utoronto.ca/">Interested in learning more about startups and entrepreneurship at 茄子直播? Visit the Banting &amp; Best Centre for Innovation &amp; Entrepreneurship</a></h2> <p><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HCFg5n1JI2M" width="640"></iframe></p> <p><em><a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nanoleaf-smarter-kit-lights-you-control-with-siri#/">(Video courtesy Nanoleaf's Smarter Kit Indiegogo)</a></em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-10-27-nanoleaf-interns-1_0.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 02 Nov 2015 10:59:15 +0000 sgupta 7387 at Canada Research Chairs: government backs leading scholars in mental health, human rights and more /news/canada-research-chairs-government-backs-leading-scholars-mental-health-human-rights-and-more <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Canada Research Chairs: government backs leading scholars in mental health, human rights and more</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-04-10T07:10:27-04:00" title="Friday, April 10, 2015 - 07:10" class="datetime">Fri, 04/10/2015 - 07:10</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item"> CRC Julie Lefebvre, CRC Leonardo Salmena</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jane-stirling" hreflang="en">Jane Stirling</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jenny-hall" hreflang="en">Jenny Hall</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/nicole-bodnar" hreflang="en">Nicole Bodnar</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/nicole-bodnar" hreflang="en">Nicole Bodnar</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Jenny Hall, Jane Stirling and Nicole Bodnar</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/our-faculty-staff" hreflang="en">Our Faculty &amp; Staff</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utm" hreflang="en">UTM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/physics" hreflang="en">Physics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/medicine" hreflang="en">Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/law" hreflang="en">Law</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/kinesiology" hreflang="en">Kinesiology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/engineering" hreflang="en">Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/dalla-lana-school-public-health" hreflang="en">Dalla Lana School of Public Health</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/chemistry" hreflang="en">Chemistry</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Minister of State for Science and Technology visits UTM to award 11 new, eight renewed chairs</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p> University of Toronto researchers made a grand showing April 9 in the federal government鈥檚 announcement of $139 million for the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, $17.6 million of which will go to 11 new and eight renewed chairs at 茄子直播.</p> <p> Ed Holder, Canada鈥檚 Minister of State for Science and Technology, visited the University of Toronto Mississauga campus to make the announcement. 鈥淭hrough our government鈥檚 updated science, technology and innovation strategy, we are making the record investments necessary to push the boundaries of knowledge, create jobs and opportunities, and improve the quality of life of Canadians,鈥 he said.</p> <p> Launched in 2000, the <a href="http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/about_us-a_notre_sujet/index-eng.aspx">Canada Research Chair program</a> is aimed at helping the country attract and retain research leaders in engineering and natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences. <strong>Leonardo Salmena</strong> of 茄子直播's&nbsp;department of pharmacology and toxicology and holder of the new CRC in Signal Transduction and Gene Regulation in Cancer, spoke on behalf of the chairholders.</p> <p> 鈥淭he Canada Research Chairs program will allow my team to build an infrastructure to conduct excellent science,鈥 Salmena said. 鈥淢ore importantly, it will allow me to have a hand in training Canada鈥檚 future researchers.鈥</p> <p> Salmena is researching the molecular basis of acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer originating in bone marrow. Through his role as a chairholder, he hopes his research can be used to develop new strategies for preventing and treating this form of cancer.</p> <p> 鈥淲e are grateful to the government of Canada for this investment,鈥 said Professor <strong>Vivek Goel</strong>, 茄子直播鈥檚 vice-president, research and innovation. 鈥淭he CRC program has enabled universities across Canada, 茄子直播 among them, to attract and retain the best researchers from around the world. As such, the program is critical to the long-term prosperity of our nation.鈥</p> <p> The diverse array of researchers backed by the program includes such leaders as <strong>Lisa Forman</strong>&nbsp;of 茄子直播's&nbsp;Dalla Lana School of Public Health&nbsp;and the&nbsp;University of Toronto Mississauga's <strong>Joel Levine</strong>.</p> <p> Levine&nbsp;studies the social interaction of fruit&nbsp;flies (<a href="http://www.peoplebehindthescience.com/dr-joel-levine/">hear Levine in a People Behind the Science podcast with Marie McNeely</a>) in a bid to understand&nbsp;the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie innate patterns of social interaction. (<a href="http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/main-news/utms-latest-canada-research-chair-recipient-flies-new-heights">Read more about Levine</a>.) Forman,&nbsp;a leading international human rights law scholar, is leveraging her Canada Research Chair to advance health as a human right for all as an integral component of responses to global health equity.</p> <p> 鈥淭he right to health is a fundamental human right recognized in international law that can help political and health leaders to better address global health inequities,鈥 said Forman, Lupina Assistant Professor in Global Health and Human Rights.</p> <p> Supported by CRC funding, Forman鈥檚 research seeks to strengthen the international legal framework on the right to health to better respond to global health inequity in a number of ways.</p> <p> 鈥淔or example, there鈥檚 a loophole in the right to health argument that permits states to deny health care on the basis of limited resources, including for the poorest and most vulnerable populations,鈥 said Forman, who is also director of the Comparative Program on Health and Society, a health fellowship program funded by the Lupina Foundation, which supports graduate research across 茄子直播 on the social determinants of health.</p> <p> International lawyers have tried to fix this loophole by developing the idea of 鈥渕inimum core obligations鈥 to meet essential health needs that cannot be denied under any circumstances, said Forman. But she added the definition of minimum core obligations does not specify the health needs it covers and fails to specify the obligations of wealthier countries to assist poor countries to meet core obligations.</p> <p> 鈥淭hese gaps in the definition limit the ability of the right to health to protect people's health against government inaction and cuts in international health funding. My research proposes to fill this gap by analyzing how courts and scholars around the world have interpreted this concept, and using this analysis to reconceptualise how we define and implement minimum core obligations.鈥</p> <p> (<a href="http://www.dlsph.utoronto.ca/page/professor-lisa-forman-receives-crc-research-chair-and-jus-prize-ground-breaking-human-rights">Read more about Forman's work</a>.)</p> <p> 茄子直播鈥檚 new chairholders are:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/engineering-better-healthcare-system-placing-defibrillators-where-theyre-needed-most-redesigning-cli"><strong>Timothy Chan</strong></a>, department of mechanical and industrial engineering 鈥 CRC in Novel Optimization and Analytics in Health</li> <li> <strong>Lisa Forman</strong>, Dalla Lana School of Public Health 鈥 CRC in Human Rights and Global Health Equity</li> <li> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/researchers-create-black-box-use-operating-rooms-improve-patient-care"><strong>Teodor Grantcharov</strong></a>, department of surgery and St. Michael鈥檚 Hospital 鈥 CRC in Simulation and Surgical Safety</li> <li> <strong>Monica Justice</strong>, department of molecular genetics and the Hospital for Sick Children 鈥 CRC in Mammalian Molecular Genetics</li> <li> <strong>Larissa Katz</strong>, Faculty of Law 鈥 CRC in Private Law Theory</li> <li> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/recognizing-u-t-s-rising-stars"><strong>Julie Lefebvre</strong></a>, department of molecular genetics and Hospital for Sick Children 鈥 CRC in Developing Neural Circuitries</li> <li> <strong>Joel Levine</strong>, department of biology, 茄子直播 Mississauga 鈥 CRC in Neurogenetics</li> <li> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/understanding-depressed-mind-how-brains-new-mothers-may-hold-keys-treatment"><strong>Jeffrey Meyer</strong></a>, department of psychiatry and Centre for Addiction and Mental Health 鈥 CRC in Neurochemistry of Major Depression</li> <li> <strong>Elizabeth Page-Gould</strong>, department of psychology 鈥 CRC in Social Psychophysiology</li> <li> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/workout-buddies-helping-cancer-survivors-get-exercise"><strong>Catherine Sabiston</strong></a>, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education 鈥 CRC in Physical Activity and Mental Health</li> <li> <strong>Leonardo Salmena</strong>, department of pharmacology and toxicology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (University Health Network) 鈥 CRC in Signal Transduction and Gene Regulation in Cancer</li> </ul> <p> In addition to funding the new chairs, eight chairs were renewed:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>Patricia Brubaker</strong>, department of physiology 鈥 CRC in Vascular and Metabolic Biology</li> <li> <strong>George Elliott</strong>, department of mathematics 鈥 CRC in Mathematics</li> <li> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/2014-killam-prize-winners-andreas-mandelis-and-sajeev-john"><strong>Sajeev John</strong></a>, department of physics 鈥 CRC in Optical Sciences</li> <li> <strong>Tony Lam</strong>, department of physiology and University Health Network 鈥 CRC in Obesity</li> <li> <strong>Andras Nagy</strong>, department of molecular genetics and Mount Sinai Hospital 鈥 CRC in Stem Cells and Regeneration</li> <li> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/ozin-wins-albert-einstein-award-science-0"><strong>Geoffrey Ozin</strong></a>, department of chemistry 鈥 CRC in Materials Chemistry and Nanochemistry&nbsp;&nbsp;</li> <li> <strong>Nicholas Rule</strong>, department of psychology 鈥 CRC in Social Perception and Cognition</li> <li> <strong>Elise Stanley</strong>, department of physiology and University Health Network 鈥 CRC in Cellular Neuroscience</li> </ul> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-04-10-crc.jpg</div> </div> Fri, 10 Apr 2015 11:10:27 +0000 sgupta 6945 at Recognizing 茄子直播鈥檚 rising stars /news/recognizing-u-t-s-rising-stars <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Recognizing 茄子直播鈥檚 rising stars</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-02-24T07:03:51-05:00" title="Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - 07:03" class="datetime">Tue, 02/24/2015 - 07:03</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Medicine's Julie Lefebvre studies mechanisms of brain development and disorders (photo by Robert Teteruck)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/sean-bettam" hreflang="en">Sean Bettam</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/sean-bettam-files-marit-mitchell" hreflang="en">Sean Bettam with files from Marit Mitchell</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jim-oldfield" hreflang="en">Jim Oldfield</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/marit-mitchell" hreflang="en">Marit Mitchell</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jim-oldfield" hreflang="en">Jim Oldfield</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Sean Bettam, with files from Marit Mitchell &amp; Jim Oldfield</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/medicine" hreflang="en">Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/engineering" hreflang="en">Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/computer-science" hreflang="en">Computer Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/chemistry" hreflang="en">Chemistry</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Sloan Research Fellowships reward faculty members for early-career achievements</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p> The Cannes Film Festival may have&nbsp;the Cam茅ra d'Or for&nbsp;debut&nbsp;filmmakers 鈥 but&nbsp;the research world has the Sloan Research Fellowships. &nbsp;</p> <p> And, of the eight fellowships&nbsp;awarded to faculty at Canadian universities this year, six are going to University of Toronto scholars.</p> <p> The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has named 茄子直播鈥檚 <strong>Artur Izmaylov</strong>, <strong>Natalie Enright Jerger</strong>, <strong>Julie Lefebvre</strong>, <strong>Jacob Tsimerman</strong>, <strong>Daniel Wigdor</strong> and <strong>Hau-tieng Wu</strong> among 126 oustanding young researchers from across Canada and the United States.</p> <p> <img alt src="/sites/default/files/2015-02-24-daniel-wigdor-sloan-fellow.jpg" style="width: 150px; height: 183px; margin: 10px; float: right;">The US $50,000 prizes are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as among the next generation of scientific leaders.</p> <p> 鈥淐arrying on a research agenda today means building great teams,鈥 said Wigdor (pictured at right),&nbsp;a researcher with 茄子直播鈥檚 computer science department. (<a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/university-toronto-ranked-first-canada-24th-world">Read&nbsp;about 茄子直播's top-ranked computer science department</a>.)</p> <p> 鈥淚 hope this recognition will serve as a beacon to continue to attract talent to the lab, and that my team of talented and hard-working undergraduate and graduate students, post docs, staff, and collaborators both within and outside 茄子直播 today, sees this as a wonderful vindication of many late nights.鈥</p> <p> The six 茄子直播 Fellows are exploring a wide range of topics:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>Artur Izmaylov </strong>(department of physical &amp; environmental sciences,&nbsp;UTSC) focuses on understanding and modeling chemical dynamics involving multiple electronic states in molecules and materials. Such processes are ubiquitous in solar energy harvesting, photoactive protein functioning and catalytic reactions on metallic surfaces.</li> <li> <strong>Natalie Enright Jerger</strong> (Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical &amp; Computer Engineering) investigates more efficient ways for networks on computer processor chips to communicate as computing systems grow larger and more complex. She focuses on tackling three challenges: improving communication between cores, caches and memory, streamlining caching protocols and improving parallel programming.</li> <li> <strong>Julie Lefebvre</strong> (department of molecular genetics and The Hospital for Sick Children) aims to identify mechanisms of neural circuit development in the healthy brain, and to understand how changes in these mechanisms contribute to abnormal brain function and neurodevelopmental disorders. Her focus is studying cellular strategies and molecular pathways that shape neurons and direct their assembly into neural circuits, and testing how defects in connectivity patterns cause circuit function defects.</li> <li> <strong>Jacob Tsimerman</strong> (department of mathematics) works at estimating how many solutions there are to a system of polynomial equations using integers 鈥 whole numbers that do not have a fractional or decimal component. His work is rooted in the fundamental concepts of number theory and algebraic mathematics.</li> <li> <strong>Daniel Wigdor</strong> (department of mathematical &amp; computational sciences,&nbsp;UTM), department of mechanical and&nbsp;industrial engineering) explores human-computer interaction and specifically how to remove the delay experienced when using smartphones and tablets. Computing performance has improved significantly in recent decades though the delay of touchscreens has stalled at 100 milliseconds, which is why they feel 鈥榮pringy鈥. Wigdor wants to reduce that response time and make digital devices feel more like physical ones 鈥搇ike writing on real paper.</li> <li> <strong>Hau-tieng Wu</strong> (department of mathematics) focuses on mathematical study and statistical big data analysis and their medical applications, particularly in the areas of anesthesia/sedation/sleep analysis based on different physiological signals, breathing/heart-rate variation analysis and coupling effect, ECG waveform analysis, as well as seasonal diseases.</li> </ul> <p> Enright Jerger said it is rare for researchers in her particular area of computer architecture to receive a Sloan Fellowship. (<a href="http://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/ece-professor-natalie-enright-jerger-wins-sloan-research-fellowship/">Read more about Enright Jerger鈥檚 work</a>.)</p> <p> 鈥淚 wasn't expecting it when I heard the news,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 was thrilled. It's a great honour."</p> <p> Awarded annually since 1955, Sloan Research Fellowships span&nbsp;eight scientific and technical fields 鈥 chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, evolutionary and computational molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences&nbsp;and physics. Recipients are often in their first appointments to university faculties and are working to set up laboratories and establish independent research projects.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-02-24-julie-lefebvre-sloan.jpg</div> </div> Tue, 24 Feb 2015 12:03:51 +0000 sgupta 6820 at