TORONTO, February 22, 2001 -- York University will honour its first chairholders in the federal government’s Canada Research Chairs Program at a reception Friday, February 23 at 2:30 p.m. Chairholders at York will advance research into a range of important scientific and social issues, from the study of air-quality and the chemistry of carbon monoxide poisoning, to the cultural and political consequences of extending intellectual property laws in a global information society.
"The distribution of Canada Research Chairs across the spectrum of disciplines at York is a credit to our liberal arts and cross-disciplinary traditions," said Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Stan Shapson. "York’s renown in the social sciences and its international reputation in the natural sciences is reflected in the achievements of our chairholders."
In December, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced the first recipients of Canada Research Chairs at universities across the country. About 400 Chairs will be named each year for the next five years, with recruitment from both inside and outside Canada.
The reception at York will take place in the Faculty Club, Ross Building, Keele Campus, 4700 Keele St. A guest list will be made available prior to the event. Background information on York chairholders is attached.
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For further information, please contact:
Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22091
YU/014/01
Physics: Eric Hessels
Hessels, a professor of Physics and Astronomy at York, is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of precision atomic physics measurements. As Canada Research Chair in Atomic Physics he will work on a method for producing anti-matter, and will continue to develop more accurate measurement of atoms and molecules. The molecular work has applications in testing air quality, and the atomic work will lead to tests of quantum electrodynamics and to a measurement of a fundamental constant of physics.
Hessels will be trying to provide the most accurate measurement to date of the "fine structure constant", the fundamental constant of nature that determines the strength of electromagnetic forces. Understanding electromagnetic forces is not only relevant to magnets and electricity, but also to how atoms, chemicals and solid objects are held together. A simple example of an electromagnetic force is the attraction between positively-charged and negatively-charged objects. The fine structure constant determines the strength of that attraction.
Hessels will also be examining a method that he developed for producing anti-hydrogen. This work is part of an international collaboration led by a group at Harvard University, and aims to produce cold anti-hydrogen atoms that can be stored by suspending them within a magnetic field. Precision study of these atoms will show how precisely the properties of anti-matter mirror the properties of matter.
Physical Chemistry: Diethard Böhme
Diethard Böhme is a Distinguished Research Professor at York and a chemical scientist of international repute who has published extensively in the field of gas-phase ion chemistry. As Canada Research Chair he will work to advance the frontiers in biological chemistry, revealing how metal atoms in biological molecules contribute to activity such as oxygen absorption and carbon monoxide poisoning. "We are mimicking at the fundamental level what actually goes on in living systems to better understand how they live and try to unravel some of the mysteries of real life processes," says Böhme.
A co-founder of York’s Centre for Research in Mass Spectrometry, Böhme and his research team have assembled a unique type of mass spectrometer, the only instrument of its kind in the world that can measure the physical and chemical activity resulting from the interaction of atomic metal ions with biological molecules.
Advancements in chemistry have focused on developing more accurate and reliable tools to clarify chemical reaction and synthesis at the molecular level. A mass spectrometer can identify unknown compounds, quantify known materials, and clarify the molecular structure and physical properties of molecules at very high levels of sensitivity. Employing its own innovations in the technology, Böhme’s team is now able to assess the dynamics of any known metal atom either as a free atomic ion or attached to a biological molecule.
Interdisciplinary Studies: Rosemary Coombe
York’s research program in intellectual property in the Faculty of Arts is a flagship of the university’s strategic research plan, crossing the disciplines of comparative political economy, international studies, communication and cultural studies, environmental studies, and law and society. As the Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Cultural Studies, Rosemary Coombe ensures a broadening of the research agenda from a narrow focus on information technology and the marketplace, to encompass the cultural conditions, social consequences, and political implications of the global expansion and imposition of intellectual property rights.
Coombe is author of The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties (Duke University Press, 1998), and a leader in developing guidelines to help individuals, peoples, and nations protect and distribute their ideas in the new information-based economy. Intellectual property is fundamental to the processes we understand as globalization, says Coombe. It forms the basis for a new political economy; shapes the preservation global biological and cultural diversity; influences structures and circuits of communication; poses serious issues about the future of democratic accountability in transnational institutions of governance, and has profound implications for Third World environmental sustainability, food security and gender equity.
"Ultimately, global food security and the protection of human health may be contingent upon our capacities to make our intellectual property laws equitable ones which acknowledge the creativity of the poor as well as investments in capital; the innovative work done by farmers as well as by pharmaceutical companies, by women in forests as well as scientists in laboratories, by the custodians of folklore as well as the producers of blockbuster films. We need to remember that intellectual property rights are human rights. The granting of such rights in the developed world must be divorced from and preclude the further exploitation of the world’s disenfranchised peoples, their knowledge, and the unique genetic resources they hold in their bodies, in their fields, and on their ancestral territories. Our survival may be integrally related to their self-determination.
Political Science: Leah F. Vosko
Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy, Leah Vosko, is a leading Canadian thinker on the changing dynamic of women’s paid work. Her appointment will further York’s reputation as an international centre for the study of feminist political economy. Vosko is already a pivotal Canadian researcher in the field. After receiving her Ph.D, she became a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Research Fellow at the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University and then took up a position in the labour studies program at McMaster University. She is author of the first in-depth analysis of temporary work in Canada, Temporary Work: The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship (University of Toronto Press, 2000). Her analysis of the relationship between gender, work, and global restructuring extends across the disciplines of history, law, geography, political science, social science, social work, sociology, women’s studies and environmental studies.
As Canada Research Chair she will continue her study of the feminization of employment in the European Community and in North America and the effects of social policy restructuring on women. She will also direct a Community-University Research Alliance project involving three universities and seven community groups, examining the nature and extent of contingent work in Canada.
History: Paul Lovejoy
Paul Lovejoy is a Distinguished Research Professor at York and a world leader in the history of the slave trade and the related African diaspora. He has spent the last 30 years exploring the dynamics of the diaspora in an environment of multiculturalism and anti-racism at York that has made it a world leader in social science and humanities research. Lovejoy’s 1983 book, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, is a classic text on the subject.
As Canada Research Chair on the African Diaspora, Lovejoy will continue a number of major international collaborative research efforts already underway to build a database of biographical information on enslaved Africans in the Americas. The database is part of the York/UNESCO Nigerian Hinterland Project, which coordinates international research by 28 scholars on the African Diaspora, focused on the Nigerian region. Lovejoy is also directing construction of a historical atlas of slavery, and a project on the Underground Railroad and the role of Canada in the abolitionist movement.
"The fate of Black refugees who came to Canada via the Underground Railroad is an important part of the history of Ontario, as well as more widely in Canada, especially Nova Scotia, and is very little appreciated or studied except within the Black community," says Lovejoy, whose own ancestors have a connection to the Underground Railroad. He has recently brought to public attention the biography of the refugee Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, written in Ontario in 1854, and the novels of Cyrus Francis Perkins who wrote in Brantford, Ontario in 1855. Lovejoy will also continue his examination of the transatlantic connections that fueled the slave trade.
Through the Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP) the Government of Canada supports excellence in university-based research. Chair holders are world leaders, or rising research stars, in the natural sciences and engineering, health sciences, and social sciences and humanities. When CRCP is fully implemented, there will be 2000 Chair holders in universities across Canada.
