TORONTO, June 27, 2001 -- Canada Research Chairs awarded to York University professors Nantel Bergeron, Sylvie Morin, Vincent Tao, and Jianhong Wu will help to advance research in mathematics, electrochemistry, and geomatics engineering that is already pushing the envelope in these fields.

Federal Industry Minister Brian Tobin today awarded the Chairs at York in an announcement of the latest round of Chair recipients at universities across Canada. The federal government's Canada Research Chairs program supports and promotes leading-edge research at Canadian universities and is intended to help secure Canada's competitive position in the 21^st century. The Canada Foundation for Innovation provides infrastructure funding for this effort.

"The specialized achievements of York researchers in the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences and humanities are linked to, and frequently leading international developments," said York University President Lorna R. Marsden. "Research at Canadian universities is keeping Canada on the map in the most significant revolutions now taking place in the world, and York University's own strategic plan is sharply focused on that," said Marsden.

At York, Nantel Bergeron is developing new mathematical structures that generate and count new patterns in nature and the cosmos, and are an essential tool for advancement in many scientific fields. Jianhong Wu, an applied mathematician, is attempting to predict the long-term status of ecosystems made up of interacting species, by developing and applying the mathematical theory of dynamical systems and non-linear analysis. Wu's work in the dynamics of neural networks (artificial intelligence systems of information processing that mimic the human brain), and its applications to pattern recognition and associative memory has attracted considerable attention from the data mining and analysis industry.

In search of the next generation of electrodeposited electronic materials, Sylvie Morin is using scanning tunnelling microscopy to characterize the formation of metal nanostructures on semiconductor and metal surfaces. Vincent Tao's pioneering work in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing has resulted in the first Airborne Laser Imaging Thermal Mapping System for forestry and ecology in Canada. His work on distributed, open GIS has advanced research in spatially-enabled internet computing and resulted in licensable software to industry. His work has also made Canada a recognized leader in the use of GIS technology to manage, track and report on nuclear material with the software system, GeoATOMS, currently licensed to the government nuclear safety agency.

-30-

For further information, please contact:

Susan Bigelow Media Relations York University  (416) 736-2100, ext. 22091 sbigelow@yorku.ca

YU/081/01

Canada Research Chairs at York University

Nantel Bergeron
Chair in Algebraic Combinatoric Structure

Nantel Bergeron is a recognized leader in the new and rapidly growing branch of mathematics known as Algebraic Combinatorics, a vital tool to advancement in many of the sciences that defines the art of counting. As problems faced by scientists and mathematicians at the highest level of study are ultimately reduced to the ability to count new or unknown objects or patterns in nature and the cosmos, algebraic combinatorics creates the mathematical structures that enable one to count. Bergeron's research achievements include development of the theory of Pieri operations for study of Schubert calculus, which has been discovered to have many applications and has generated much discussion and new results in the field. Bergeron is also known for his study of Descent Algebras, and his results in this field have stimulated research in many areas, including the work of Bayer and Diaconis on how many times a new deck of cards must be shuffled to be thoroughly mixed. Bergeron's work with A.M. Garsia (On Certain Spaces of Harmonic Polynomials in Hypergeometric functions on domains of positivity, Jack polynomials, and applications) was key to enabling Garsia and M. Haiman to develop the theory of n! conjectures, which Haiman has very recently proved, and which has generated results in combinatorics, in alegebraic geometry, and in physics.

Jianhong Wu
Chair in Applied Mathematics

Jianhong Wu is internationally recognized as an authority in delay differential equations, non-linear analysis and infinite dimensional dynamical systems -- the branches of modern mathematics used in analyzing neural network systems, or artificial intelligence systems of information processing that mimic the human brain. He is working on a new neural network architecture for finding patterns in huge data sets with large variables that has already attracted considerable industry attention and is expected to improve the global competitiveness of Canada's data mining and analysis sector. Wu is also studying the dynamics of partial differential equations with time lags that arise in population biology, and his book, Theory and Applications of Partial Functional Differential Equations is a standard reference in the fields of differential equations and theoretical biology. His findings will lay the theoretical mathematical foundation for predicting the long-term status of ecological systems containing species that interact, compete and move around or disperse in the search for limited food and resources that are replaced slowly over time.

Sylvie Morin
Chair in Surface and Interfacial Electrochemistry

Sylvie Morin is the only physical chemist in Canada studying the structure and form of electrodeposited metal nanostructures formed on semiconductors and metal surfaces. She is also one of the few Canadian electrochemists to use the non-traditional method of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) in a liquid to study deposition processes. In search of the next generation of electrodeposited electronic materials that could reduce the cost of semiconductor processing, her goal is to understand the growth modes of these nanostructures and to relate their structures and form to their mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties. Morin is also working with Roger Lew, a cell biologist at York University. They are interested in the electrostatic properties of living cells using current sensing atomic force microscopy (AFM). Their proposed research will break new ground in interfacial bioelectrochemistry, as indirect evidence shows that electrostatic properties are essential to cell growth and to the emergence of a new area of research. In her work with David Harrington at the University of Victoria, B.C., Morin is using STM on materials related to the development and study of a new catalyst for electrochemical processes.

Vincent Tao
Chair in Geospatially Enabled Information and Communication Technology (GEO-ICT)

In the world of information commerce, data is a valuable commodity, from the recording of customer purchases through "loyalty cards", to nationally organized consumer and market surveys and national census-taking. It is estimated that 70 per cent of all information collected is geospatial. That is, information produced by multiple sources to common interoperable data standards, and presented in a variety of print and digital formats, such as maps and charts, or simulation and modelling databases. Geomatics is an evolving discipline that concerns the acquisition, transformation, management and distribution of this data. Vincent Tao has proposed an integration of geomatics spatial data handling and information/communication technologies to provide better tools for handling geoinformation and to produce better quality information products. This integration opens up an entirely new avenue of fast data acquisition, efficient data management, and enhanced geospatial decision making. It also defines a new emerging technology -- Geospatially Enabled Information and Communication Technology (Geo-ICT)-- stemming from Geospatial (or geographic) information systems (GIS), with an emphasis on the integration of information and communications technologies. The worldwide geomatics industry, which contributes significantly to the emerging markets applications for E-Commerce, E-Government, Digital Earth and others, is forecast to grow by several billion dollars each year. As a pioneer in the development of GIS and remote sensing, Vincent Tao is well-placed to lead this effort. He and his research group will investigate the issues, methodologies and procedures that are critical to the development of geomatics data and information products.

Douglas Crawford
Chair in Neuroscience

Douglas Crawford, a professor of psychology and a member of theYork Centre for Vision Research, is interested in how the brain transforms visual information into behavioural commands. In a series of recent papers published in the Journal of Neuroscience , he has shown how the brain enables us to recognize what an object is and where it is relative to ourselves and other objects. This work has significant implications in the treatment of medical conditions related to brain function, and in the development of prosthetic devices that can effectively duplicate human visual and motor function. More recent findings have appeared in NatureNeuroscience . "We are reaching the point in history where it will soon be possible to use the brain's signals to control prosthetic devices, and conversely to use devices to provide sensory input to the brain," says Crawford. His work is known for its synergy between theory and experiment, and use of cutting-edge computer technology for recording three-dimensional motion in behaving subjects. His work is multidisciplinary, cutting across the departments of biology, kinesiology and health science, computer science, and biomedical engineering, and is the seed for developing a motor control health research group at York's Kinesiology and Health Science Program with Prof. Lauren Sergio. Crawford runs a large laboratory staffed by five post-doctoral research fellows and five graduate students. Three of the senior graduate students - Denise Y.P. Henriques, Michael Smith, and Eliana M. Klier- have made significant contributions to his work.

Eric Hessels
Chair in Atomic Physics

Hessels, a professor of Physics and Astronomy at York, is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of precision atomic physics measurements. He is working on a method for producing anti-matter, by 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. Hessels is also continuing 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 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.

Diethard Böhme
Chair in Physical Chemistry

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. He is working 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.

Rosemary Coombe
Chair in Law, Communications and Cultural Studies

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 of 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," says Coombe.

"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."

Leah Vosko
Chair in Feminist Political Economy

Leah Vosko is a leading Canadian thinker on the changing dynamic of women's paid work. Her appointment furthers 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. She is continuing 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 is also directing a Community-University Research Alliance project involving three universities and seven community groups, examining the nature and extent of contingent work in Canada.

Paul Lovejoy
Chair on the African Diaspora

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. He is involved in a number of major international collaborative research efforts to build a database of biographical information on enslaved Africans in the Americas. The database effort 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 is also examining the transatlantic connections that fueled the slave trade.

-30-