�첥��Ƶ will play a leading role in a new national program supporting Canada’s first-ever Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Scientists – a program that funds early-career astronomers contributing to an international radio astronomy research initiative. 

Announced by the National Research Council Canada (NRC), the Canadian SKA Scientist Program supports future leaders in conducting cutting-edge research to explore some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. 

Fengqiu (Adam) Dong will conduct advanced research on radio pulsars in �첥��Ƶ’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science, as part of the Canadian SKA Scientist Program. 

Dong, currently a National Radio Astronomy Observatory Jansky Fellow at the U.S.-based Green Bank Observatory, completed his PhD at the University of British Columbia. 

Dong’s research focuses on pulsars – dense, rotating remnants of massive stars that emit rhythmic bursts of radiation. At York, he will work with mentor Paul Scholz, assistant professor in the Department of Physic and Astronomy, whose work explores pulsars, magnetars and fast radio bursts – brief, powerful flashes of radio waves from beyond our galaxy. 

Together, they will contribute to the global Square Kilometre Array (SKA) initiative over a term of three to five years. 

"I'm honoured and excited to play a role in bringing Canada to the forefront of this once-in-a-lifetime instrument,” says Dong. “SKA is the future of radio astronomy for the next decade. It will revolutionize our understanding of the universe, much like the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes have done for optical and infrared astronomy." 

The SKA is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope arrays, with facilities in South Africa and Australia. Once operational, the SKA Observatory (SKAO) is expected to transform understanding of the universe. Canada is one of the project’s member countries, represented by the NRC and supported through national partnerships with universities and researchers. 

“The Canadian SKA Scientists will be the future leaders in the revolutionary science that will come out of the SKA,” says Scholz. “In his role, Adam will enhance and broaden the radio astronomy expertise at York and significantly bolster our involvement in the SKA.” 

Canadian SKA Scientist participants receive mentorship from both a university-based expert and the NRC, with the goal of building a national network of researchers contributing to the SKA.  

According to NRC program lead Michael Rupen, the initiative is designed to support early-career scientists while ensuring Canadian researchers have equitable access to SKA science. Dong joins Alice Curtin, a PhD candidate at McGill University, as the first two researchers selected for the program. 

A second call for applications is expected in fall 2025, with subsequent rounds to follow annually.��

Courtesy of Yfile

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�첥��Ƶ professors Kohitij Kar has received Ontario’s Early Researcher Award, a competitive provincial honour that supports promising early-career faculty leading innovative research.

The Early Researcher Award recognizes faculty at publicly funded Ontario institutions within their first 10 years of an academic career. It supports advancing knowledge and building strong teams of graduate and undergraduate trainees to develop future research leaders in Ontario.

Kar, a professor of biology in the Faculty of Science and Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience, received the Early Researcher Award for work exploring how the brain might process sensory information differently in autistic adults, focusing on how they see and understand the world.

Kohitij Kar By combining computer simulations with brain activity studies, the team models how changes in specific brain areas might lead to autism-like behaviours, specifically by adding controlled “noise.” The findings aim to enhance diagnosis and develop more effective support strategies, reinforcing Ontario’s investment in autism services and assisting community organizations.

“There is an urgent need to develop testable computational models of the neural basis of autism, particularly the sensory differences,” says Kar. “This award is a critical boost for our project, allowing us to expand our research and accelerate the development of tools that can better understand sensory processing differences in autism. It brings us closer to real-world impact for individuals and families affected by autism.”

Kar’s current project builds on his award-winning work studying visual object processing. His research appears in leading journals including Nature Neuroscience and Science. He leads a research program at York and has earned awards such as the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award. His combined expertise in neuroscience and artificial intelligence makes him well positioned to lead this innovative effort.

The achievement reflects York’s growing leadership in interdisciplinary research with real-world impact, says Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation.

Courtesy of YFile

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From advances in arthritis treatment to transformative accessibility solutions for vulnerable populations, �첥��Ƶ researchers are driving real-world impact. 

These innovations in critical and groundbreaking work were recognized during the University’s annual Research Awards Reception on April 30. The event celebrated the work of more than 70 faculty members. 

"Across a broad array of disciplines, York researchers have been driving progress, pushing boundaries, shaping policy, sparking innovation and changing the way we understand and engage with the world," says David Peters, interim provost and vice-president academic. 

Driving positive change in their respective fields, the research undertaken at York demonstrates the University's commitment to knowledge mobilization and research excellence across science, technology, engineering, mathematics, social sciences, humanities and the arts. 

Amir Asif, York’s vice-president research and innovation, says York researchers have “played pivotal roles in many important discoveries and influential scholarship.” 

From extracting DNA from the air, to studying biodiversity to develop cutting-edge pharmaceutical technology, innovations from York researcher’s help to shape the future. 

“Our faculty are fundamental to the core mission of �첥��Ƶ – the steadfast pursuit, preservation and dissemination of knowledge,” says Asif. 

Awards

The President’s Research Excellence Award (PREA)��
�ʰ��Ǵڱ�����ǰ���Kean Birch��from the��Faculty of Science��is the recipient of this award that recognizes senior established, full-time, active faculty members with distinguished scholarly achievements, who have had a notable impact on their field. As Ontario Research Chair in Science Policy, Birch's work connects science and technology studies with political economy. His extensive publication record includes four books, 52 peer-reviewed articles and 27 book chapters, with significant citation impact.��

Asif emphasizes the University's pride in its research community, saying: "As brilliant scholars, gifted artists and innovators, (our faculty members) have all demonstrated a level of excellence and creativity that they should take great pride in.”��

Visit the��Research & Innovation��website to learn more about the University’s research excellence.

Courtesy of��YFile

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In the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, an asteroid measuring up to 1.5 kilometres across quietly traces its orbit, tilted 15 degrees from the planetary plane.

This celestial body, officially named Marshall McCall, honours a �첥��Ƶ Faculty of Science professor emeritus whose research has illuminated the intricate structures of galaxies and their evolution.

For McCall, the recognition carries personal significance. “I was deeply honoured,” he says. “The recognition makes me feel that my work in astronomy had some value.”

The initiative to name the asteroid was led by Canadian astronomers Paul Wiegert (a former postdoctoral fellow at �첥��Ƶ) and David Balam, who sought to recognize McCall’s contributions to astronomy. “Marshall McCall’s research has had a lasting impact on our field,” says Balam, an asteroid hunter based in British Columbia who first encountered McCall’s work decades ago.

McCall’s fascination with the universe began on Vancouver Island, where he pursued an undergraduate degree at the University of Victoria before earning his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1988, he joined �첥��Ƶ’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he not only advanced research, but also helped shape academic programs that have inspired generations of astronomers.

Among those mentored by McCall was Wiegert, now a professor at Western University. “My time at York deeply shaped my career,” Wiegert says. “It’s a true pleasure for me to have been involved in naming an asteroid after Marshall McCall. This feels like a meaningful way to give back to that community.”

McCall’s scientific career is marked by discoveries that have revealed hidden gems in the cosmos. While studying galaxies whose light is obscured by interstellar dust within the Milky Way, McCall and Ronald Buta of the University of Alabama identified four previously unknown celestial objects. Named MB 1, MB 2, MB 3 and MB 4 – after their initials – the discoveries include two nearby galaxies (MB 1 and MB 3) located just 10 million light years away. MB 2, once thought to be a galaxy, turned out to be an unusual nebula within the Milky Way whose origin remains a puzzle. MB 4 is another nebula, likely formed from gas expelled during the birth of twin stars. “You never know what you will find when you penetrate the fog,” McCall says, capturing the thrill of exploring the unknown.

Building on his discovery of MB 1 and MB 3, McCall’s work mapping galaxies within 30 million light years of Earth uncovered larger patterns that reshaped how astronomers view the cosmic landscape. Among these findings, he confirmed that the Milky Way is embedded in a vast, flattened arrangement of galaxies known as the “Local Sheet,” a structure stretching 34 million light years across but only 1.5 million light years thick. 

He also identified the “Council of Giants,” a ring of massive galaxies 24 million light years in diameter encircling the Milky Way and its companion Andromeda. These galaxies act as cosmic gatekeepers, siphoning intergalactic material away from the “Local Group” and limiting its ability to grow.

McCall’s work reflects a deep curiosity about the universe’s interconnected structures.

In a public lecture, he outlined how the Milky Way fits into the broader celestial arrangement: “We live on a planet around a star in a galaxy in the ‘Local Group,’ encompassed by the ‘Council of Giants of the Local Sheet’ next to the ‘Local Void’ at the periphery of the ‘Local Supercluster of Laniakea.’”

While these terms are technical, they describe how galaxies like ours are shaped by their surroundings – how gravitational forces and spatial patterns influence their evolution within the vast cosmic web.

For those who have worked alongside him or followed in his footsteps, McCall’s contributions transcend scientific achievements; they represent landmark discoveries that inspire further exploration and wonder. Now immortalized by an asteroid bearing his name, his legacy reaches beyond Earth into the cosmos he has spent his life studying.

“It is nice to feel that my efforts were not completely in vain and that there will be a memory of them up there when I am gone,” McCall says. “Most importantly, I feel privileged to have had even had this chance – to seek knowledge for its own sake as part of a society willing to enable such pursuits.”

McCall joins a distinguished group of �첥��Ƶ faculty members who have had asteroids named after them, including: Professor Emeritus Paul Delaney, Professor Michael Daly, Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering; Professor Patrick Hall, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Faculty of Science; the late Professor Emeritus Kim Innanen, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Faculty of Science; and the late Professor Richard Jarrell, Department of Science, Technology & Society, Faculty of Science.

Courtesy of��YFile

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York Science students had a rare opportunity to work with cutting-edge brain imaging technology used in both research and clinical settings thanks to a $150,000 collaboration with NIRx Medical Technologies.

The week-long learning opportunity in the fourth-year course Biophysical Techniques (BPHS 4090; Biomedical Physics Program) provided students with access to the NIRSport 2, a high-tech portable brain imaging device that uses light to measure blood oxygenation, pooling and brain activity.

Read more in YFile.

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The Excellence in Educational Leadership Awards, Excellence in Teaching Awards, and Excellence in Research Awards were announced at the event, which was emceed by Gerald Audette, associate dean, Faculty Affairs, and included welcome remarks by Rui Wang, dean of the Faculty of Science and a keynote speech by Scott Tanner, winner of a 2024 �첥��Ƶ Alumni Award.

More than 300 students were also invited and honoured at the event for the awards and scholarships they received in 2023-2024.

The recipients of this year’s Faculty of Science Excellence Awards are:

Excellence in Educational Leadership Award (Faculty category)

• Professor Tamara Kelly, Department of Biology

Excellence in Educational Leadership Award (Graduate category)

• MSc student Milong Wang, Faculty of Health

Excellence in Teaching Award (Junior Tenure Stream Faculty category)

• Assistant Professor Jade Atallah, Department of Biology
• Associate Professor Robin Marushia, Department of Science, Technology and Society

Excellence in Teaching Award (Senior Tenure Stream Faculty category)

• Associate Professor Hovig Kouyoumdjian, Department of Chemistry
• Associate Professor Nicole Nivillac, Department of Biology

Excellence in Teaching Award (Contract Faculty category)

• Contract Faculty Angela Cope, Department of Science, Technology and Society

Richard Jarrell Award of Excellence for Teaching Assistants

• PhD student Britney Picinic, Department of Biology
• PhD student Emily Anacleto, Department of Chemistry

Early Career Research Award

• Associate Professor Trevor VandenBoer, Department of Chemistry

Established Research Award

• Distinguished Research Professor Sergey Krylov, Department of Chemistry
• Professor Wendy Taylor, Department of Physics & Astronomy

Read the full story in YFile.

For more details about the awards and a full list of recipients honoured at the event, view the ceremony program booklet.

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Congratulations to postdoctoral fellow Chapin Korosec, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, who has received the Michelson Postdoctoral Prize Lectureship for his exceptional early-career research achievements during his PhD in physics.

Read the��full story in YFile.

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With efforts led by Biology Professor Gary Sweeney from the Faculty of Science, the new laboratory will focus on integrating clinical research with biomedical laboratory studies to improve human health, particularly in the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic diseases like diabetes and heart disease, as well as conditions related to aging.

Read the full story in��YFile.

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“A lot of people, when they think about math, think about geometry and Pythagoras’ theorem,” says Iain Moyles, an associate professor in York’s Department of Mathematics & Statistics. “Math is a language of structure and logic and science that can help you test a hypothesis. So we’ve designed a mathematical model to understand the cause and effect of peer influence in smoking.”

The idea came from PhD student Sarah Machado-Marques in response to a class assignment to experiment with math modelling to explain the psychology behind human behaviour.

Although she has never vaped, she says she wanted to understand why so many of her peers took up the e-cigarette craze when they were in high school.

“I’m really interested in why people do what they do, what drives people to make certain decisions,” she says. “I was walking around campus and noticed that vaping is still relevant in both my age group and also younger age groups, and so I started thinking, how can we use math to address this problem?”

Ten years ago, the surge in vaping among adolescents was considered an epidemic. In 2018, the number of U.S. high-school students vaping nearly doubled in a single year, according to the American Heart Association. More recent data, from Statistics Canada, shows that vaping is still popular among Canadian youth. In 2022, one in 10 Canadians aged 20 to 24 and one in 15 aged 15 to 19 vaped every day, compared with one in 50 Canadians aged 25 and older.

Moyles says the vaping epidemic is not a classic disease like COVID-19 but a social contagion that behaves like one.

“In a standard disease, you might walk past someone and infect them with an actual virus or bacteria,” he says. “In vaping or similar behaviours, an adolescent can pressure someone and you change your behaviour because you were ‘infected’ by the influence of your peer.”

Machado-Marques says it can be a subtle pressure, where teenagers and young adults feel the need to fit in or mimic the behaviour of their friends.

What their research suggests is that while teenagers can be influenced to vape because their friends are, equally so, they may be influenced to quit the habit because their friends are. Their mathematical model shows that the long-term trajectory of vaping is a cyclical pattern of starting and quitting depending on what their cohort is doing.

“We see this re-emergence in society all the time – things that were cool when we were kids, then weren’t cool,” says Moyles. “Our kids and our grandkids eventually find them again and once again they become cool.”

The findings from Machado-Marques and Moyles can apply to any adolescent trend where friends have influence on each other. The same cycle can be seen in the pendulum between bell bottoms and skinny jeans, and curly and straight hair, for example.

Moyles says math modelling can be used by parents, teachers and public health authorities to identify cycles of undesirable adolescent behaviours influenced by peers and look for opportunities to intervene.

“The key learning I would say from our modelling would be to recognize the cycle and to start to saying, ‘OK, when do we think this sort of thing is happening and how do we get ahead of it?’”

The researchers say that while prevention is always best, attempts to influence more positive behaviour among adolescents may be strongest coming from other adolescents.

“If a parent or teacher encourages a certain behaviour, adolescents might do the opposite, just because it's not coming from within their influence group,” says Moyles. “The key from the influence structure of our model is to find a way to have that information coming through the peer network.”

Courtesy of YFile

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A team of �첥��Ƶ researchers has uncovered a critical flaw during the drug development process that, if addressed, could make drug discovery faster, more reliable and less expensive – and ultimately save lives.

The findings by a team led by Sergey Krylov, a Distinguished Research Professor of chemistry at �첥��Ƶ, reveal that measurement errors in the early stages of drug discovery can lead to further errors – in decisions – as pharmaceutical companies work to develop new drugs.

“People are used to doing things a certain way, and they just keep at it, even when it’s not working,” Krylov says. “We need to make people aware of these measurement errors and why it’s so important to fix them. It’s time to stop and think about the damage these mistakes cause and start making changes.”

His team is now working to raise awareness of the findings, urging drug developers and academic researchers to change their practices.

“If we can cut down bad decisions in drug development by even half, we’d see twice as many drugs making it to market,” Krylov says. “That means saving twice as many lives and making much better use of time and money.”

Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars a year on drug-discovery research. The process begins with identifying disease-related proteins and then searching for molecules that can bind to those proteins and change their function. For example, fever-reducing drugs work by lowering the production of chemical signals that cause the body’s internal thermostat to raise its temperature during inflammation.

Vast libraries of chemical compounds are screened and measured to see how strongly each one binds to the target protein. The strength of the binding is quantified and molecules with the strongest interactions go to the next stage of development.

Despite advances in technology, this process remains painstakingly slow, costly and prone to errors.

Krylov’s team has discovered that these binding measurements are often grossly inaccurate, sometimes off by as much as a factor of 1,000. The molecules identified as having the strongest bindings are particularly susceptible to these large errors.

“These mistakes mean promising drug candidates get rejected too soon,” Krylov says. “When the strongest binders are ruled out, it sets off a chain reaction of missed opportunities and expensive delays in research and development.”

To address this, Krylov’s team developed a practical method to verify whether specific molecules are measured accurately. Their approach allows researchers to flag compounds for reassessment under more rigorous conditions, potentially salvaging overlooked drug candidates.

The team’s discovery, made just a year ago, has yet to gain widespread traction in the pharmaceutical industry or the academic community. However, Krylov is optimistic about the potential for change.

In the coming years, the researchers plan to publish the findings of their ongoing research in scientific journals, engage with industry partners and present their work at conferences. They have also created a free online software tool that evaluates the accuracy of binding measurements and can even reassess data for molecules previously discarded, offering a second chance for overlooked candidates.

“This is a long game,” Krylov says. “There’s no quick fix here. It’s going to take years of education and getting the message out. But if we stick with it, we can really change how drugs are discovered and save a lot of lives."

Courtesy of��YFile

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