Lakehead University’s Research and Innovation Week will run from Feb. 27 to March 2
Lakehead's President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Moira McPherson, will participate in this year's Research and Innovation Week, running from Feb. 27 to March 2.
February 23, 2023 – Thunder Bay, Ont.
Lakehead University will hold its 18th annual Research and Innovation Week from Monday, Feb. 27 until Thursday, March 2.
For the first time since before the pandemic, nearly all Research and Innovation Week events will be in person.
The theme for this year’s Research and Innovation Week is Improving Our Lives Through Research.
“Curiosity propels researchers to discover life’s mysteries, and research enables them to improve every aspect of society,” said Dr. Andrew P. Dean, Lakehead’s Vice-President, Research and Innovation.
“Researchers strive to make the world an exceptional place, and work to make the present and future brighter as they learn from the past.”
Dr. Dean is excited to see people on campus again for Research and Innovation Week.
He is expecting a large turnout at the opening ceremonies on Monday, Feb. 27 at 11:30 am in the Agora.
Then, at 12:30 pm keynote speaker Julie Angus will describe what it was like to row across the Atlantic Ocean and the importance of setting goals to achieve your dreams. Her keynote talk will be in the Faculty Lounge. Registration is required.
Also on Monday – at 2:30 pm in Senate chambers a panel will discuss three current opportunities for employers, employees, students, and researchers to get involved with community-based research.
The following researchers will participate from the Enhancing the Prevention of Injury and Disability at Work research centre: Drs. Kathy Sanderson, Deborah Scharf, and Vicki Kristman.
The public will learn about new projects on mental health stigma, improving sleep for high-risk workers, and an upcoming cohort study.
At 4 pm on Monday, everyone is invited to join curator Pauline Sameshima for an inspiring tour of Lakehead's new juried and featured art in the CASES Building.
Select artists will be on hand to discuss their works. This tour will include a wide variety of creative pieces of art. You can chat with the artists about their creative processes, and learn how arts and integrated research can engage, provoke and share research through different mediums.
On Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 4 pm in the Faculty Lounge, Lakehead University’s Office of Innovation, Partnerships and Economic Development will host Ignite – Trivia Edition, where three speakers will showcase their research, project, innovation or journey.
Speakers will include Dr. Nathan Basiliko, from the Faculty of Natural Resources Management; Maxwell Robinson, an Ingenuity Ascend Graduate; and Dr. Anna Koné from Health Sciences.
The event will incorporate interactive presentation software that will allow you to learn more about current research and partnerships while participating in a fun and interactive way.
This will provide participants with an opportunity to network, form teams, and win prizes. Registration is required.
On Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 7 pm in ATAC room 1001, Prof. Vijay Mago will discuss large language models and the changing landscape of natural language processing research.
In this research presentation, Prof. Mago will introduce the applications and novelties of natural language processing-based solutions to better tackle the computational, as well as ethical issues arising from the domains of education, political discourses on social media and news channels, and the emotions expressed in conversation.
On Thursday, March 2 at 11 am, Lakehead English professor Monica Flegel will discuss how the internet changed fandom and how fandom changed politics.
Media fandom has been an object of academic inquiry since the 1990s, with much of the early theories of fandom describing it as a largely subversive subculture. However, media fandom became increasingly mainstream with the rise of digital culture in the second decade of the 21st century.
This has led to conflicts between fans, and between fans and producers, over who gets to speak for fans, and what power they should have to shape contemporary popular culture.
Prof. Flegel will discuss the history of media fandom and its transformation over time, with a focus on how the mainstreaming of fandom has influenced current political discourse in the U.S. and Canada.
Lakehead University will hold Prof. Flegel’s talk in the Ingenuity Theatre located in the CASES building.
Visit lakeheadu.ca/ri to register for events and for more information.
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Media: For more information or interviews, please contact Brandon Walker, Media, Communications and Marketing Associate, at (807) 343-8110 ext. 8372 or mediarelations@lakeheadu.ca.
Lakehead University is a fully comprehensive university with approximately 9,700 full-time equivalent students and over 2,000 faculty and staff at two campuses in Orillia and Thunder Bay, Ontario. Lakehead has nine faculties, including Business Administration, Education, Engineering, Graduate Studies, Health & Behavioural Sciences, Law, Natural Resources Management, Science & Environmental Studies, and Social Sciences & Humanities. Lakehead University’s achievements have been recognized nationally and internationally, including being ranked in the top half of Times Higher Education's 2023 World Universities Rankings for the fourth consecutive year, and the number one university in the world with fewer than 10,000 students in THE’s 2022 Impact Rankings (which assesses institutions against the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals). Visit www.lakeheadu.ca.