Knowledge Now: Grad Research @ York showcases graduate scholars in the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) who are undertaking cutting-edge and socially engaged research.
Throughout March, FGS will showcase short videos offering a glimpse of some of the exciting research taking place at York University, welcoming graduate students the opportunity to talk about their journey, research, impact and future endeavours.
From Indigenous knowledge, immersive 3D technology, and human rights to environmental sustainability, students address some of the most pressing issues in society and explain how their research contributes to a better understanding and creative solutions.
“The initiative of Knowledge Now has just begun to showcase the incredible diversity, relevance and impact of graduate students’ research and scholarships developed at York University in the Faculty of Graduate Studies,” says Thomas Loebel, dean and associate vice-president graduate. “The audience is broadly public, and already we are receiving appreciative comments from prospective students, community members, and alumni about the students’ conversational, explanatory delivery of what has enormous complexity of research behind it.”
Some of the graduate scholars featured this year include Natilie Richer, a Socio-Legal Studies PhD student, who is also earning a diploma in Art History & Visual Culture. Richer’s project aims to decolonize sites of institutional power such as the museum and the gallery. Her research involves collaboration with Indigenous artists and a multimodal investigation including digital art creation, opening new possibilities for what it means to carry out research.
“Through a collaborative engagement with Canadian Indigenous visual artists, I hope to gain insight into localized knowledges that will help to contextualize the cultural objects that will be used in our completely digital artistic outcome via SketchUp, a 3D modelling software,” says Richer. “In exploring the potential of the transgressive and emancipatory nature of Indigenous artistic representations, I hope to illustrate the need to draw more than text to demonstrate the ensuing necessity of grappling with the exhibitionary space including as comparable to or directly linked to sociolegal and the academic and their distinct ways of knowing and knowledge production... I hope to bring to my field new possibilities for questioning the ontological status of text and standard research practices to make way for the reimagining of traditional notions of what it means to carry out research."
Balikisu Osman, an Environmental Studies PhD student, is focusing on food security for farming households in northern Ghana. Her data collected during an extended period of fieldwork reveal seasonal fluctuations in food access among these communities and inform policy responses.
“We need proper investments in the rural food systems in ways that we can transform smallholder activities into profitable and productive ventures. My research is actually contributing to knowledge on food security and food security systems. It is also serving as a reference guide for development policy for governmental governance investment and for grassroots level awareness creation on food insecurity,” says Osman.
The 2022 Knowledge Now campaign will host events throughout the year, bringing scholars together to share ideas and perspectives about their research and how it is responding to societal needs.
From video-recorded interviews to live panel discussions on pressing social issues and stories highlighting grad students, Knowledge Now presents a collection of new ideas and technologies in development and possibilities for a better future.
“York graduate students want their research and scholarship to be of benefit to the world, which is something we seek to nurture at York. That benefit includes ensuring that anyone can understand the content, significance and implications of one’s research. Doing so takes a whole other set of skills which require developmental practice. At the very least, and arguably the very best, these include the confidence which comes from deep expertise alongside the clarity and approachability which comes from openness and true appreciation of others," says Loebel.
For more information about Knowledge Now and to discover more research projects by graduate students, click here.