Dr. Andrew P. Dean, Vice-President of Research and Innovation, speaks with Dr. Kathy
Sanderson, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business Administration, during a taping
of Research Matters.

July 26, 2022 – Thunder Bay, Ont.

Lakehead University is partnering with Shaw Spotlight on a new Community Link television program that will connect the public with university researchers.

Research Matters, a monthly 30-minute talk show, will be hosted by Lakehead's Dr. Andrew P. Dean, Vice-President of Research and Innovation, and have university researchers share their journeys and research outcomes with the public.

"Community-engaged research is an important priority for Lakehead University," said Dr. Dean. "Our faculty and student researchers are often the ones behind the scenes innovating and discovering and making meaningful contributions towards our communities and regions. This series will allow us to raise their profile within the community and publicly share their research's impact beyond the University's walls. We are grateful to Shaw for its support of this programming."

The program will feature interviews with Lakehead researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines – from natural sciences, engineering, and health to social sciences and humanities. Through conversation, the show will examine the context of research, explore community connections and industry partners, and delve into the relevance and potential impact on society from a regional, national, and international perspective.

Research Matters will be accessible to viewers in Thunder Bay, Atikokan, Fort Frances, Nipigon, and Terrace Bay on Shaw Spotlight channel 10 and can be seen Monday to Friday at 9 am, 2 pm, and 8 pm.

The series is streaming on Lakehead's YouTube channel.

Funded by Shaw Communications Inc., Shaw Spotlight supports community members, local groups and volunteers to create programming and establish a forum for the sharing of locally relevant stories and information. Our passionate local producers bring to life compelling human-interest stories from their communities in diverse short-form documentaries.

Shaw Spotlight supports individuals and groups within our communities to produce content that keeps viewers connected with coverage of local events, festivals, sports and more, and offers opportunities for individuals interested in video production to benefit from training and participate as volunteers.

More information about Shaw Spotlight can be found at shawspotlight.ca. 

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Media: For more information or interviews, please contact Jaclyn Bucik, Media, Communications and Marketing Associate, at 705-330-4010 ext. 2014 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, once again, among Canada's Top 10 primarily undergraduate universities in Maclean's 2021 University Rankings; as well as included in the top half of Times Higher Education's 2022 World Universities Rankings for the third 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.

Before he became a university professor and author, Dr. Kunle Akingbola had a successful career as a Human Resources (HR) professional. He was the HR manager for the Canadian Red Cross in Toronto while working on the second of his three Master’s degrees. As he grappled with choosing a thesis topic, his research advisor made a suggestion that would change the course of Akingbola’s work and his life.

At the time, the Red Cross had just taken over managing a homeless shelter over the winter for the City of Toronto, which was downsizing services to the non-profit sector. On top of their regular programs, Red Cross employees had to create and staff a completely new program that they would give up in six months time, only to bring back another six months after that.

Akingbola took his advisor’s advice and used the Red Cross case study as the basis for his Master’s thesis on non-profit HR management. That line of study eventually led to his Ph.D. dissertation, which examined the entire strategy of non-profit organizations across Canada and the impact of government funding and the environment.

Akingbola’s growing expertise led to part-time university teaching. He eventually left his HR career to become a full-time professor. Today he is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management and Organizational Behaviour in the Faculty of Business Administration at Lakehead University’s Orillia campus.

With numerous publications including books, chapters in edited books, and articles in leading journals, research continues to be a large part of Akingbola’s work, which looks at ways to optimize the effectiveness of non-profit organizations while increasing employee satisfaction and improving outcomes for the communities they serve. He encourages his students to get research experience by helping him do surveys and data sorting.

“Prior to my study, no one had ever looked at HR management in non-profit organizations, says Akingbola. “There had been research on volunteers, but not employees of non-profit organizations that make up a major part of the Canadian social sector and account for about nine per cent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”

His vast personal experience in HR in non-profit and healthcare sectors combined with his extensive ground-breaking research give Akingbola rare insight and expertise into social purpose enterprises. He understands the fine line organizations are forced to walk to secure the funding that is essential to support their services. It’s especially frustrating in the face of what Akingbola calls “mission drift.”

“How do you manage people who joined your organization because they believe in your mission, but now you have to go in a different direction because that’s where the funding is dictating you go?” says Akingbola.

One thing he is certain of is the importance of the human component in non-profit activities.

“The nature of service is emotional and it is human based,” says Akingbola. “You can install an ATM on Jarvis Street in Toronto that gives out blankets and coffee to the homeless on a cold winter’s night. But it can’t dispense compassion. In that regard you can’t replace human capital.”

Dr. Kunle Akingbola is the lead author of the book "Change Management in Nonprofit Organizations: Theory and Practice" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and the author of "Managing Human Resources for Nonprofits" (Routledge, 2015).

As the negative climate effects of fossil fuel-based energy sources become more apparent, governments, scientists and industries around the globe are putting more resources into developing sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives.

Locally, Dr. Mohammad Nasir Uddin is contributing to the effort with his research, funded through Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grants, on optimizing the efficiency of wind energy and electric motor drives.

A professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Lakehead University, Uddin and his graduate students are working on wind energy conversion systems to achieve maximum power extraction from the wind and maximum output from wind generators. They do this by creating intelligent algorithms that mimic the human brain by telling the system what to do in any given circumstance.

To illustrate what an algorithm is, Uddin gives the example of a commuter on the way to work in Toronto. “As she heads down the highway, her brain has planned out the shortest and fastest route. That’s an algorithm. Then she hears on the radio that there is an accident up ahead. Her brain takes that new information and creates an alternate route. That’s another algorithm.”

Uddin’s team has also developed control algorithms that improve the power quality and dynamic performance of wind generators by responding appropriately and quickly to unpredictable abnormal variations of wind speeds or power system fault conditions. Thanks to this kind of research the creation of a cost effective and sustainable wind energy system can be achieved.

Another area of Uddin’s research involves loss minimization in electric motors. “Fifty-five per cent of the total electric energy produced in the world is consumed by electric motors,” says Uddin. “If we use the algorithms to force the motor to follow certain conditions so that voltage and current give the minimum loss, then we can improve the overall efficiency of the system and achieve the best motor performance.”

Uddin has shared his findings in 228 papers that have published or accepted in refereed journals and conferences including 53 papers in IEEE Transactions which is considered the top ranking journal in his area of research. In 2010 he won the Lakehead University’s Distinguished Researcher Award.

Uddin’s impact in the field of Electrical Engineering goes beyond his own research. After more than 25 years of teaching and research experience at various universities in Canada, the United States, Bangladesh, Japan and Malaysia he has mentored and inspired many students. They include 50 highly qualified engineers (nine Ph.D., 24 Master’s, 14 Research Associates and three Postdoctoral fellows) and 82 undergraduate students. Most have gone on to work for companies like General Motors, Mercedes Benz, Rockwell Automation, AMEC, Caterpillar and Schneider Electric where they continue to develop optimization algorithms that improve efficiencies in motor drives used in transportation, robotics, automotive and oil industries.

Dr. Mohammed Nasir Uddin is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Lakehead University; Coordinator of the Electrical Engineering program under the Lakehead-Georgian Partnership; and the Director of the Renewable Energy, Power Systems and Drive Research Lab located in Barrie.

If you haven’t heard of Henry Aldrich, the famous 17th century composer, architect and Oxford dean, you’re likely not alone.

But Lakehead University music professor and Orillia campus principal Dr. Dean Jobin-Bevans wants to convince you to tune in.

“I was immediately drawn to his work as it’s the music I love to hear and perform myself,” says Jobin-Bevans, who came across Aldrich’s archived manuscripts in 2013 during a sabbatical researching in the Christ Church Library, Oxford. “There is also a modern appeal to his music – it’s still accessible and relevant all these centuries later.”

Aldrich’s music, most of which are anthems composed for the cathedral at Christ Church, was written for both unaccompanied choirs or those singing with an organ accompaniment. Typically thought of as an English style of church music, choral anthems have a long history of performance in the Anglican tradition and are almost exclusively sung in English.

Henry Aldrich collected, transcribed and composed as many as 8,000 scores of choral music for cathedral performances during his career at the University of Oxford’s Christ Church college, as a way to inspire his own creative work and religious musical expression. A prolific 17^th century English writer, theologian, philosopher, composer, and architect, he also served as Dean of Christ Church and as the University of Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor.

Intrigued by Aldrich’s unique approach to choral music, Jobin-Bevans set out to transcribe select pieces from the 300-year old collection, editing and creating musical scores for contemporary church choirs, instrumentalists, and music scholars. Working his way through original leather-bound, handwritten manuscripts, Jobin-Bevans spent six years editing and digitizing 20 different scores, updating elements such as time signatures and adding musical bars and vocal clefs.

A CD of the new editions was released in November of 2019 and some of Aldrich’s original manuscripts are also captured on the project website. Jobin-Bevans says that hearing the music performed for the first time by the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church, who also recorded the music for the CD, was hugely rewarding and speaks to the lasting quality of Aldrich’s work.

Viewing history through the late composer’s musical lens is another takeaway of the project, says Jobin-Bevans. “Aldrich grew up, was educated and appointed Dean during the period of the English Restoration, a time of great upheaval, politically and socially. His work reflects that history and tells us a lot about what his creative mind was thinking concerning the role and function of Restoration church music and liturgy.”

Jobin-Bevans also agrees a parallel can be drawn between himself and Aldrich that goes beyond the music.

“He was passionate about connecting architecture, logic, and math through music to both teach and inspire,” reflects Jobin-Bevans. “His work has been an inspiration to me and has kept me engaged in new ways to teach, lead as a principal, and continue building this lasting digital archive of his legacy.”

Dr. Dean Jobin-Bevans’ research is a partnership with the Christ Church Library, Oxford. Samples of the music are available at:https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/library-and-archives/henry-aldrich-project. The full album, Henry Aldrich: Sacred Choral Music, can be purchased on iTunes or borrowed from the NAXOS Music Library through your local library.