York University gains one renewed and five new Canada Research Chairs

One renewed and five new Canada Research Chairs (CRCs) from York University were announced on June 14 by the Government of Canada. They are:

• Professor Mary Bunch, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design – Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Vision, Disability and the Arts;
• Professor Theodore J. Noseworthy, Schulich School of Business – Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Entrepreneurial Innovation and the Public Good (renewal);
• Professor Gillian Parekh, Faculty of Education – Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Inclusion, Disability and Education;
• Professor Nikolaus Troje, Faculty of Science – Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Reality Research;
• Professor Manus (Johnny) Rungtusanatham, Schulich School of Business – Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Supply Chain Management;
• Professor Joel Zylberberg, Faculty of Science – Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Computational Neuroscience.

“The CRC Program supports some of the most important and exciting research currently being undertaken at York University,” said Rui Wang, interim vice-president research & innovation at York. “I congratulate Professors Bunch, Noseworthy, Parekh, Troje, Rungtusanatham and Zylberberg on this major accomplishment.”

Tier 1 Canada Research Chairs

Manus (Johnny) Rungtusanatham, Canada Research Chair in Supply Chain Management

Rungtusanatham, who will be joining the Schulich School of Business as a professor, researches supply chain breaches – for example, the removal or diversion of goods flowing towards or from a manufacturer (e.g. cargo theft), introduction of a substitute good (counterfeit) or a second good (contraband) into the physical flow of another good, and/or contamination of the good that is physically flowing (tampered goods). This research program advances a theory of supply chain securitization involving people, processes, and technology, informed through the lenses of immunology, military strategies and criminology.

Nikolaus Troje, Canada Research Chair in Reality Research

Troje, professor in the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science, is a core member of Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) team within York’s Centre for Vision Research. In his BioMotionLab, he uses motion capture and 3D scanning technology to generate individualized avatars to be used in mixed realities. Using virtual reality (VR), he studies how we perceive objects and communicate with other people, how we experience and take ownership of our own body, and how we situate ourselves in the space that we seem to occupy.

Tier 2 Canada Research Chairs

Mary Bunch, Canada Research Chair in Vision, Disability and the Arts

Bunch, assistant professor in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, is an associate member of VISTA. Her teaching and research interests include interdisciplinary and collaborative critical disability, feminist and queer studies as well as critical theory and arts-based methodologies. Bunch asks how critical disability frameworks, peripheral perspectives and digital media arts can be employed to understand vision differently to challenge the cultural frameworks that treat vision as a neutral and objective route to knowledge. Starting from the premise that vision is partial, situated, embodied and connected to other senses, she explores the relationship between vision, the creative imagination and political praxis.

Gillian Parekh, Canada Research Chair in Inclusion, Disability and Education

Parekh, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, explores institutional and structural barriers related to equitable access to education, particularly for students with disabilities. She conducts both quantitative and qualitative research investigating demographic, programmatic and experiential trends between public and post-secondary education. With a focus on special education and academic streaming, her work explores how schools construct and respond to disability. Her research addresses current issues in education and will make a difference in the lives of young people in the GTA and beyond.

Theodore J. Noseworthy, Canada Research Chair in Entrepreneurial Innovation and the Public Good (renewed)

Noseworthy, an associate professor in the Schulich School of Business, has research interests in new product design and innovation. He explores how people make sense of new innovative products and how marketers can better facilitate adoption. Noseworthy is also interested in product categorization, category ambiguity and visual processing. In 2012, he was appointed Scientific Director of the NOESIS: Innovation, Design, and Consumption Laboratory, a scientific lab specifically developed to explore the psychological and behavioural consequences of innovative goods and services.

Joel Zylberberg, Canada Research Chair in Computational Neuroscience

Zylberberg, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science, is a core member of VISTA. He studies the way the brain represents information about the outside world, and the way in which those representations are learned. His immediate goal is to build on his expertise in machine learning and sensory neuroscience to create a camera to brain translator that could restore sight to the blind and could be used in computer vision systems.

To read the CRC announcement, visit the Government of Canada website.