IoT devices are everyday objects that connect to the internet so they can send, receive and act on data. They range from home thermostats and baby monitors to traffic sensors, medical equipment and industrial controls. Many operate quietly in the background and are rarely updated or closely monitored, making them especially attractive targets for cybercriminals.

“As devices proliferate globally, so do the botnets that exploit them,” says Arash Habibi Lashkari, a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and Canada Research Chair in Behaviour‑Centric Cybersecurity (BCCC). Botnets are networks of compromised devices that have been quietly taken over by attackers and can be coordinated to carry out cyberattacks, often without the device owner’s knowledge.

While cybersecurity tools already exist to protect IoT systems, Lashkari says many struggle to keep pace with today’s threat landscape. Designed for specific networks or environments, these tools are often not suited to the scale or complexity of a borderless digital world, where malicious activity moves easily across regions and frequently reuse similar behaviours in different contexts.

As a result, security frameworks often rely on AI to sift through vast volumes of data and spot patterns too complex or fast‑moving for humans to catch. This, however, comes with a shortcoming: AI can flag suspicious activity, but without explaining how or why a particular behaviour is considered malicious.

“That’s the primary gap of the ‘black box’ nature of AI in cybersecurity,” says Lashkari, referring to systems that can produce answers without making their reasoning visible to humans. “Understanding these gaps is critical, because a detection system that cannot explain why it flagged a behaviour is difficult to trust.”

Lashkari set out to resolve that gap. He and his colleagues aimed to find a way to analyze how botnets operate and build an identification approach to act on that knowledge. In doing so, it can produce results that human analysts can interpret, trust and apply across different networks.

In research now published in Supercomputing, Lashkari and his colleagues built and tested a recognition and profiling system using real‑world IoT network traffic. Working through BCCC, the team examined how compromised devices communicate across sustained activity, focusing on patterns that could be clearly interpreted.

This allowed the researchers to move beyond individual attacks and focus on broader behavioural patterns, including whether botnets operating in different environments might still act in similar ways.

Lashkari says they expected to see some similarities across botnets, but were still surprised by how consistently those patterns appeared. Even when attacks targeted different technologies or deployments, compromised devices tended to follow the same underlying behaviours, including recognizable bursts of activity. That consistency matters, he explains, because knowing how one botnet operates can help identify and defend against others, even in very different settings.

Lashkari says the real importance of that finding lies in what it enables. “It suggests that a breakthrough in understanding a specific botnet profile – the recurring patterns in how compromised devices communicate and behave – can be generalized to protect critical infrastructure worldwide,” he says.

That potential is not theoretical. To act on it, Lashkari and his colleagues developed a system that identifies IoT botnets based on behavioural patterns observed across repeated interactions. The system flags suspicious activity while also showing which specific behaviours triggered the alert, giving security teams visibility into why a device was identified as malicious.

While the system itself is presented as a research framework rather than a ready‑to‑deploy product, much of the underlying IoT data and profiling resources developed through the BCCC are publicly available, allowing other researchers to study, test and build on the approach.

Lashkari says this approach is especially important because malicious cyber activity is constantly evolving. As security systems improve, attackers adapt their tactics, often reshaping malicious activity to blend in with normal internet traffic. By focusing on patterns that persist across sustained behaviour, rather than relying on fixed indicators that quickly become outdated, the behaviour‑based system can help security teams recognize emerging threats even as attackers change how they operate.

“The hope is that this work will serve as a cornerstone for more transparent, collaborative security frameworks,” Lashkari says. By promoting explainable tools and shared datasets, the team aims to shift industry practice away from simply blocking IP addresses, and toward understanding and anticipating how adversaries behave.

Lashkari says that need is unlikely to fade. As attackers continue to adapt, often operating slowly or subtly to avoid detection, focusing on behavioural patterns across time may become increasingly important. In an internet‑connected world, he says, effective defence will depend not just on smarter identification, but on tools that help security teams know what they are dealing with.

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Max Rudakov is a co-founder and business lead of Lapis Research, an AI-powered research management platform built to help research teams keep all their work – documents, lab notes, datasets, experimental decisions and project timelines – in one place. It was developed by a five-student team from York, Queen’s University, Western University, the University of Guelph and the University of Waterloo.

When notes, datasets and decisions are dispersed across emails, shared drives and personal laptops, there's no centralized place to see what's been done, why it was done or what the current project status is.

The idea sparked about a year ago with a Reddit post from the team asking whether people were struggling with how documents were organized and used. The strong response – 187,000 views and 350 comments – prompted the team to dig deeper, and conversations with researchers soon showed the issue was pronounced in academic research.

More than a year of interviews with over 100 professors, lab managers and researchers, along with about 20 design partners, kept surfacing the same issues: poor visibility across projects, fragmented documentation and knowledge departing when team members moved on.

For Rudakov, the path to Lapis was as much personal as practical. At Schulich, he found himself questioning the traditional routes into finance and looking for something that better matched his strengths.

"I realized that my skill set belongs in building something from the ground up," he says. "It feels good to know that I can make a change, especially in such a rigorous industry like research."

York's contribution to the development of Lapis is concrete. Rudakov led the business strategy, growth planning and early outreach from his side, and many of the early interviews were conducted with York-based researchers – including people working in kinesiology and oncology research – whose feedback helped shape core features.

The real-world insights helped inform the design of the tool, tailoring it to the specific needs of the academic community.

Lapis works by structuring research projects into linked workspaces. When a researcher finishes an experiment, they can save their data and notes directly to Lapis. The tool automatically records who added the notes and when, creating a clear record of progress.

This means a professor or lab lead can view the activity of multiple projects without sending a single email.

When a new team member joins, they can ask the Lapis AI system, Neural Core, questions such as "What approach did we try for this and why did we change directions?" and receive a summary drawn from the project's files.

“Onboarding can drop from months to a couple of weeks or even days because everything is preserved – the data, the decisions and the reasoning behind why things were done a certain way,” says Rudakov. “A new researcher can open the project and understand the full picture without having to ask everyone what happened before they got there.”

During development, York-based researchers found value in helping to shape those features. Duygu Biricik Gulseren, an associate professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, reviewed the platform and provided insight on how academics manage multiple projects, supervise students at different stages and keep track of different versions of documents and files as multiple people work on them.

"A platform like this can improve coordination and also make the work more transparent and traceable across people and projects," she says.

Eric Ginzburg, an undergraduate student completing an independent study in York's biomechanics lab, also shared feedback, noting he sees the appeal of more centralized system.

"It simplifies the process of handling a team and a larger research project," he says.

Lapis is currently running pilot programs at the University of Guelph and Queen's University.

Rudakov hopes to bring Lapis to York research teams in the next stage of its growth – a natural fit given its development was informed in part through York connections and conversations.

"York has over 50 research teams and the problems we solve are the same ones they deal with every day," he says. "We want the York research community to know Lapis exists, and that it was partly built by York students and shaped by York researchers."

With files from Mzwandile Poncana

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Throughout his more than 15 years as an investment analyst and strategist, Adjunct Professor Nadeem Kassam, at the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, says he interviewed hundreds of new graduates eager to start their careers in capital markets.

Over time, he noticed a recurring pattern: students often arrived with strong theoretical knowledge, but struggled to present that knowledge in ways that clearly demonstrated their abilities to potential employers.

“They would have all this knowledge, but it wouldn’t be packaged yet in a way that showcased their abilities and skills to a potential employer,” says Kassam.

Earlier this year, Kassam – who teaches advanced portfolio management at York – partnered with York’s Finance Student Association to give a group of undergraduate students the chance to produce an industry grade report modelled on the kind of research produced by investment firms, as part of a new .

Under Kassam’s supervision, the project challenged students to analyze real world market data and synthesize and present their findings clearly and concisely under guidelines similar to those used in the industry. The goal, Kassam says, was to give students hands-on exposure applying classroom theory in ways that mirror real capital-markets work while helping them build tangible evidence of their competencies.

Those interested in participating were required to apply as they would for a job. Kassam reviewed applications from an employer’s perspective and provided individualized feedback – whether students were selected or not – to help them better understand how they might strengthen future applications. By the end of the process, he selected 14 students.

Among them was Abishek Daryanani, a fourth-year Bachelor of Commerce student specializing in finance. “I wanted to step outside of standard textbook coursework and gain practical, hands-on experience in macroeconomic analysis,” says Daryanani.

The same motivation drew Sidonia Sin Ying Wu, also a fourth-year Bachelor of Commerce student. “As someone pursuing a career in finance, I believe it’s not enough to simply know how to analyze data – you also need to know how to present that information clearly and explain the reasoning behind your interpretation to others,” Wu says. “The project’s combination of technical work and commentary writing was what really attracted me to this opportunity.”

Students began by learning to work with industry-standard tools such as the Bloomberg Terminal and Capital IQ, using real-world market data. With the S&P Capital IQ plug-in, they built live Excel dashboards that automatically updated as markets changed – a foundation they would rely on throughout the project.

From there, the focus shifted from working with data to turning analysis into insight that could be clearly communicated to others. Kassam asked students to apply the theories they had learned in class to the information in front of them, using those frameworks to understand what was happening in global markets, and why.

In practical terms, that meant answering questions investors ask every day: Why were stock markets moving the way they were? Why were bonds or commodities behaving differently? Which assets were acting as safe havens during periods of uncertainty, and how could those trends be explained using economic and financial theory?

“That foundational understanding of financial markets, reinforced with real-world application, was the main core,” Kassam says.

Students were then tasked with consolidating their assessment into a single report. Kassam imposed professional style constraints, requiring teams to work within fixed templates, page limits and formatting rules – boundaries designed to force prioritization and clarity.

“That process was much harder than I initially expected,” says Wu. “It wasn’t just about gathering data – it was about deciding what actually mattered and making it easy for readers to interpret.”

That process was exactly what Kassam had hoped students would experience. “That’s essentially the job that I’ve had to do for many years,” he says. “You’re given a lot of information. You have to take it away, figure it out, and then come back with a clear and concise report – often with just one slide and five bullet points.”

Collaboration was also central to the project. While students worked in small groups covering different areas of the markets, they were collectively responsible for contributing to a single, unified report – one Kassam expected to read as though it had been produced by a single analyst.

To achieve that cohesion, he took a hands-on role throughout the process, holding regular meetings where students presented findings, discussed market developments and received feedback to ensure consistency in analysis, tone and presentation.

The work culminated in the group’s inaugural report, released publicly in February. A second edition followed in March, with additional reports planned as part of the eight-month program. Students in future cohorts, he adds, will continue the series.

For students, seeing the work move from interpretation to a finished, public-facing report was a significant payoff. “It felt like all of our effort had turned into something tangible and professional that others could actually read and benefit from,” says Wu.

Daryanani agrees. “Seeing the final product come together and knowing that it mirrors the analytical rigor and formatting you would expect from a real strategy team is incredibly rewarding,” he says. “It’s something you just can’t get from a lecture hall.”

The project is also proving beneficial in other ways. Kassam says some students have used the reports in job applications as concrete examples of their skills.

“If you put this type of product in front of an interviewer, it shows the polish of a very clean, professional quality piece of work,” Kassam says. “It speaks volumes. It says, ‘I have experience. I work well in a team. I’m detail‑oriented – and here’s the proof.’”

Having hired hundreds of graduates over his career, Kassam says that kind of clarity helps remove uncertainty for employers evaluating early‑career candidates. “It’s about removing the guesswork for a potential employer,” he says.

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Several times a month, a small drone rises above the trees at Swan Lake, following a precise path over the water. Parkgoers who enjoy walking, jogging or birdwatching might assume it’s there to capture scenic footage. Instead, the drone is part of a �첥��Ƶ-led effort to understand – and help restore – the health of an urban lake under pressure.

Swan Lake, a former gravel pit transformed into a stormwater pond and community green space, faces ongoing water quality challenges. As rainwater flows into the site from surrounding roads and neighbourhoods, it carries excess nutrients, road salt and other pollutants. Over time, this can fuel frequent algae growth, cloud the water and reduce oxygen levels, stressing fish and wildlife, limiting recreation and, in some cases, raising public health concerns.

Since April 2025, �첥��Ƶ researchers, led by CIFAL York, have been turning concern about the lake’s health into measurable data and practical action through the Swan Lake Citizen Science Lab (SLCS Lab). The initiative brings together York research centres, including ADERSIM and the One WATER Institute, with local partners such as Friends of Swan Lake Park, a community‑based volunteer organization dedicated to protecting and improving the area’s ecological health.

“Communities often know when something is not right with a local ecosystem, but it’s hard to act without clear, comprehensive and consistent information, as well as meaningful community engagement” says Ali Asgary, director of CIFAL York and professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. “The goal of the lab is to support those concerns with reliable data that can guide real decisions.”

"To assess a lake is to assess ourselves," adds Satinder Kaur Brar, director of the One WATER Institute and professor at the . "Its health card is a mirror of our environmental stewardship."

One way the lab is assessing the lake is through advanced technology, such as the use of multispectral and thermal drones operated by York research teams.

Equipped with special cameras that capture different types of light – including some invisible to the human eye – the drones can detect potential algae growth and subtle changes in water clarity as they scan the lake from above. Flying low and on demand, they provide detailed, up-to-date views of trends across the entire water body, offering a clearer picture than satellite images and a broader perspective than scattered and spot‑by‑spot water sampling.

The drones have already yielded valuable insights, recently shared in a York‑led, under-review study that monitored patterns from spring through fall 2025. By flying the drones roughly once a month and analyzing the findings over time, researchers were able to pinpoint where algae forms, how blooms shift across the seasons and how changes in water cloudiness are driven by biological growth rather than stirred‑up sediment.

The findings confirm what many residents and park managers have long suspected: the lake is rich in nutrients and prone to recurring algae growth. The drone data, however, also reveal something new.

Conditions vary significantly from one area to another, suggesting that targeted, location‑specific interventions may be more effective than broad, one‑size‑fits‑all treatments applied across the entire lake. Knowing where problems emerge helps guide chemical treatments, shoreline naturalization projects and future restoration efforts – and provides a better way to measure whether those interventions are working. "Interconnecting drone data with on-ground water quality can turn ecological signals into informed action that is vital for communities," says Brar.

“What the data made clear is that this isn’t a uniform problem,” adds Asgary. “When conditions vary so much from one part of the lake to another, it changes how you think about solutions. This kind of information allows us to be more precise, more proactive and more strategic in environmental management.”

In addition to monitoring Swan Lake, York‑led teams are working to make the data easier to interpret and use in planning. Researchers are developing AI tools to identify patterns in the drone imagery, anticipate conditions such as algae outbreaks and translate complex trends into clearer insights.

Other teams are using virtual reality and simulation to help users visualize the lake over time and explore how different interventions might affect conditions. Meanwhile, geographic information system (GIS) specialists are turning the results into interactive maps and dashboards that help the public and those involved in lake management understand what is happening across the site.

A core goal of the Swan Lake Citizen Science Lab is to encourage meaningful community engagement and shared stewardship.

“From the start, this was never about researchers working in isolation,” says Asgary. “The goal of the Swan Lake Citizen Science Lab is to create a shared process, where community knowledge and scientific tools come together.”

Local partners are not just observers; they are active partners in the research. Residents take part in field checks, help interpret findings, attend workshops and contribute to outreach efforts that share findings. Alongside them, �첥��Ƶ students gain hands‑on experience applying classroom learning to a real environmental challenge, working with researchers and resident members in a local setting.

For CIFAL York, which is affiliated with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, the work at Swan Lake is a pilot that could inform other communities facing similar pressures on small urban lakes and wetlands.

“The impact here is very tangible,” says Asgary. “Through drones, data and collaboration, we’re building a deeper understanding of how this ecosystem functions and how it can be protected over time. That kind of shared knowledge is what allows stewardship to last.”

Find out more about the SLCS Lab, and see it in action, in the video below.

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In the course, students are asked present industry‑ready marketing campaigns directly to industry representatives. When Rachel Saarony's turn was up, she noticed her hands trembling as she walked into the offices of Penguin Random House Canada (PRHC).

The fourth-year professional writing student was about to present a full-scale marketing plan to the country’s largest book publisher, completing the final assignment for PRWR 3004/4004 – an upper-year course designed to bring real-world publishing exposure into the classroom.

For Saarony, the moment felt significant. “I felt a lot of pressure to leave a strong impression in front of industry professionals,” she says. It was her first encounter with the publishing industry, and the stakes felt real.

That opportunity was exactly what Matthew Bucemi, director of �첥��Ƶ’s Book Publishing Specialization in the Writing Department, had in mind when he helped reshape the program in 2022. Among his efforts was the desire to create meaningful connections between academic learning and the industry realities students would face after graduation.

“My goal was for students to get a level of hands-on experience that a classroom can’t provide,” Bucemi says.

As part of that push, Bucemi drew on industry connections at Penguin Random House Canada and approached Polly Beel, director of marketing and publicity, to explore collaborations. The result was PRWR 3004/4004, a course grounded in a shared idea that students learn best when they are asked to meet professional standards and should have the opportunity to present their work beyond the classroom. “What does it feel like to really present something to senior staff at a publishing house?” says Bucemi.

First, however, it was Beel’s who would present. In January, she and members of PHRC's marketing team visited Bucemi’s class to introduce a project where students would develop original, comprehensive marketing plans for Spoiled Milk, a debut supernatural gothic horror novel scheduled for release.

While students were given broad creative freedom, Beel outlined the same expectations a marketing team like theirs would face, including deliverables, timelines and creative standards. “It reframed the project from a classroom exercise into something that felt professionally real,” says Saarony.

The class was divided into five teams, each responsible for a different piece: a preorder push, influencer outreach, paid digital advertising, organic social media content and an in-person reader event. Over the course of three months, students worked collaboratively to build a unified, multichannel strategy that blended digital marketing with immersive, experiential ideas.

The final campaign leaned heavily into the gothic atmosphere of Spoiled Milk. Elements were timed around culturally resonant moments, such as Friday the13th and Halloween, with the aim of extending the novel’s eerie tone beyond the page. One proposed initiative – dubbed a “Summer-ween” reader event – imagined bringing the book’s haunted boarding school setting into the real world.

Saarony served as one of two team leads on the influencer mailer project, which focused on creating a tactile, interactive experience for book-focused creators on TikTok and Instagram. She and her team designed a themed mailer inspired by the novel’s setting.

The package took the form of a vintage steamer trunk and included story-linked objects such as tarot cards, a custom bookmark and a painted compact mirror featuring a rotting apple. Interactive elements encouraged recipients to explore the contents over time, including hidden messages revealed with a UV Ouija planchette (also known as a spirit board pointer).

“Our goal was to give influencers something they could return to,” Saarony says, “objects they could explore, decode and interact with.”

Another student, Lauren Russell, co-led the digital ads team, which developed a cross-platform advertising strategy tailored to online book audiences. The team identified platforms such as Goodreads and Book Riot, and created a range of static and animated banner ads, alongside short-form video content for social media.

For Instagram, Russell took on an acting role, posing as a fictional student from the novel’s boarding school in a character-driven mock interview. The team also produced a TikTok-style video showcasing gothic horror recommendations, positioning Spoiled Milk within a broader reading community.

At the end of March, students visited Penguin Random House’s Toronto offices to deliver their pitch.

After months of preparation, Russell says the key was stepping into the room with confidence. “We kept reminding ourselves that we knew our work was strong,” she says. “Our job was to show it clearly and enthusiastically.”

For Saarony, the nerves subsided quickly. “Once we started, I went into autopilot,” she says. “I trusted the preparation, and it went better than I could have hoped.”

Following the pitch, PRHC staff provided detailed, industry-aligned feedback to each group. Students were encouraged to think critically about their creative choices, audience targeting and feasibility. One piece of feedback resonated strongly across the class. “We were told that the presentation we had put together was corporate level,” says Russell. “I felt like all our hard work culminated in that moment.”

With the project complete, students reflected on what they gained. For Saarony, the opportunity helped build confidence in her ability to contribute to large projects, and to lead them – which sparked a new interest. During a post-pitch conversation with PRHC’s managing editor, Saarony mentioned her curiosity about the legal side of publishing – an exchange that led to an offer for her to connect with the company’s legal team to learn more.

Russell similarly described the experience as a turning point, noting how it sharpened her leadership, communication and research skills while demystifying how much planning and coordination goes into launching a book.

For Bucemi, those outcomes reflect the program’s broader purpose. Giving students the chance to apply their skills in a real-world context helps them see how theory translates into practice, and how their interests might evolve once they engage directly with the industry. “Understanding what professional life looks like before you graduate makes a real difference,” he says.

At the same time, he was pleased when Beel noted that the students demonstrated a level of ambition and creativity that would get them a job at any company in the industry.

“The biggest thing for me is helping students get practical opportunities that will support them as they enter the job market,” he says. “My hope is that putting something like this on their resume will be a real X-factor when they're looking for a publishing job."

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As cities around the world grapple with mounting waste crises, researchers at the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) are exploring a critical but often overlooked question: who does the work of managing waste and under what conditions?

At �첥��Ƶ, this question is shaping an emerging area of interdisciplinary research that connects environmental change with labour, inequality and shared global priorities.

Research efforts led by Shubhra Gururani, a political ecologist, associate professor of anthropology and director of YCAR, examine how waste is a technical or environmental problem, but also a deeply political one, structured by histories of colonialism, race, caste and gender.

Waste is increasing at an unprecedented rate, expected to grow by around 80 per cent by 2050, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. “The systems that manage that growth still often rely on precarious labour performed by socially marginalized groups, including migrants, women and caste-oppressed communities,” says Gururani, who explores how these dynamics are embedded in broader processes of urban change and development. "This raises urgent questions about whether shifts to more environmentally sustainable systems may reproduce, rather than resolve, entrenched inequalities.”

A key contributor is Harsha Anantharaman, a postdoctoral Asian studies fellow at YCAR who focuses on informal waste workers – those who make a living by collecting and recycling waste outside formal, regulated systems – in urban India.

Drawing on extensive ethnographic and archival research across four cities for an ongoing book project – To Caste Away Waste: Racialized Labour and the Political Economy of Commodity Detritus in Urban India – Anantharaman studies how policies aimed at formalizing waste work often have contradictory effects. “As formalization policies reshape urban waste economies in India, the efforts to include marginalized groups can paradoxically deepen labour precarity and reproduce entrenched caste hierarchies,” he says.

His research shows that initiatives framed as inclusive, such as bringing waste pickers into formal waste management systems, can make working conditions more insecure. As municipal waste becomes increasingly controlled by governments and corporations as a private resource, informal workers are incorporated into systems that offer recognition without security. These processes reproduce caste-based hierarchies, reshaping labour relations. Anantharaman describes this as informal labour being absorbed into systems while caste-coded recognition continues.

By situating these dynamics within global political economic transformations in urban governance and political economy, his work highlights both the structural constraints faced by workers and the potential for more equitable alternatives. His findings suggest models such as the formal recognition and integration of waste pickers into municipal systems, cooperative-led recycling initiatives and policies that ensure fair wages, social protections and decision-making power for frontline workers.

Through these efforts, Gururani and Anantharaman’s work can contribute to a growing international conversation on the global politics of waste. It brings into focus how environmental governance, labour regimes and social hierarchies intersect in ways that challenge dominant narratives as municipalities and corporations transition to green and sustainable efforts.

“It is critical to remain cognizant of the ways in which such transitions often rely on the invisibilized labour of marginalized communities and reproduce existing inequalities even as they claim ecological progress,” says Anantharaman.

YCAR will continue this dialogue by hosting an international symposium in April titled . Organized by Gururani and Anantharaman, the two-day event will bring together scholars and practitioners working across regions, including South Asia, North Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America.

While the symposium is a closed academic gathering, it will feature two public keynote lectures that are open to the wider community. These talks will extend YCAR’s ongoing engagement with questions of labour, inequality and environmental change, offering an opportunity for broader public dialogue on the stakes of global waste economies. The symposium also contributes to a forthcoming special issue of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.

“Through initiatives like this, YCAR continues to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and public engagement around some of the most pressing challenges of our time, highlighting how questions of waste are inseparable from questions of justice,” says Gururani.

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Emergency management at airports is uniquely demanding because of the complex, diverse and dynamic systems involved, says Ali Asgary, professor of disaster and emergency management in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

With dense traffic, multiple vehicles and operations often unfolding during changing or extreme weather, coordinating airside and landside activity remains a major challenge.

“Even a small emergency at an airport can have significant political consequences and cascading impacts,” Asgary says. “These are the dynamics that shape airport emergencies, runway incidents and large‑scale disruptions to air transportation.”

Asgary's research has gained renewed relevance amid the March 22 Air Canada collision between an aircraft and a fire truck on a runway at LaGuardia Airport. While investigations are ongoing, the fatal incident underscores how seconds matter during runway operations.

While it’s still too early to determine what led to the tragedy, Asgary says events often involve factors that emergency managers and aviation operators routinely study: real-time hazard assessment, workloads, communication and warning systems.

“Runway incidents often involve overlapping risks, including split‑second decision‑making, heavy controller workload and limited redundancy in warning systems,” he says. “When warning systems rely on a single communication channel, missed messages can quickly escalate into serious incidents.”

Asgary is executive director of – the Advanced Disaster, Emergency and Rapid Response Simulation lab at �첥��Ƶ – where researchers and students simulate disasters and test response plans before they emerge in real‑world settings.

At ADERSIM, researchers use agent-based models to simulate aviation scenarios and examine how decisions by pilots, passengers, crew and ground emergency responders influence outcomes.

The lab incorporates virtual reality to help emergency managers visualize airport events and uses AI to analyze disruption patterns. It also explores how tools such as drones could support airside emergency response and risk assessment.

ADERSIM has also developed AeroHaz, a web-mapping application that identifies major hazards for airports worldwide to support hazard awareness and planning.

“Through a combination of computer modelling, human‑in‑the‑loop simulations, extended reality and AI, we can test how emergency response systems behave when multiple risks converge and conditions change rapidly,” says Asgary. “The work of ADERSIM contributes to York's leadership in disaster and emergency management.”

Major runway incidents can yield lessons for emergency preparedness – but only if they are researched, documented and incorporated into revised procedures. The incident also highlights the need for more research into the technological and human factors driving airport safety.

“Simulation-driven research allows emergency planners and responders to review how decisions are made, how workflows unfold in crisis situations and how to improve preparedness,” says Asgary.

In addition to leading ADERSIM, Asgary is also director of CIFAL York, a UNITAR centre that connects academia with leaders and organizations to tackle global challenges through specialized training in disaster management, sustainability, health and entrepreneurship.

Together with Maleknaz Nayebi, associate professor at the and associate director of CIFAL, he is leading a project to develop AI solutions for airports to minimize risks and enhance response operations. Using AI can help predict weather conditions, coordinate workforces and more.

ADERSIM and CIFAL York also share this research through training and professional learning for airport and emergency management leaders, and through public events.

Those who are interested in learning more can attend a two-part webinar series titled Airport Operations, Passenger Management, and Technology in the Face of Geopolitical Crises. Presented by CIFAL York and ADERSIM, in collaboration with UNITAR, the event runs April 15 and 25.

CIFAL York and ADERSIM will also contribute to UNITAR’s Airports Global Training Programme, when Nayebi will host “Future-Ready Airports: Preparedness for Mega Events Through Safety, Sustainability, and Smart Innovation” on April 22 and 23 in Atlanta, Georgia.

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In 1965, File – then a young United Church minister – accepted an important invitation.

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had issued a call for clergy, activists and citizens to travel to Selma, Alabama, to support the voting rights movement.

File joined thousands who answered that call, taking part in the historic Selma to Montgomery marches. He was among the nearly 25,000 people who completed the final march to Montgomery, driven by a profound passion for justice work and activism.

That passion would shape the rest of his career.

A few years later, File brought that passion to �첥��Ƶ, where he taught social science at Atkinson College until 1999.

The discipline was a natural extension of his values, says his daughter, Patricia File, “because of the analysis that comes from better understanding how social and political structures either foster or prevent true equality and social justice.”

For File, the classroom was a two-way street: he imparted his principles and was continually inspired by those he taught.

“He always spoke of how much he enjoyed teaching the students at Atkinson College,” she says. He particularly admired the determination of the part-time students, many of whom balanced their studies with full-time commitments, such as careers or parenting.

Throughout his time at York, File continued to show up for the causes he had championed in Selma.

He remained dedicated to addressing urban poverty, developing programs through the Canadian Urban Training Program in partnership with the United Church of Canada to equip both clergy and laypeople with training to tackle urban poverty and other pressing social issues.

File also co-founded Winnipeg’s first halfway house for formerly incarcerated people, worked in solidarity with Indigenous communities and travelled internationally with the World Council of Churches – Urban Rural Mission, advancing social justice globally.

A lifelong focus for File was working with the Taiwanese community through the Taiwan Urban Rural Mission, advancing principles of democracy and human rights. Taiwan, under martial law from 1949-87, had restricted political freedoms, and human rights initiatives were needed both locally and abroad to support democratization and civic engagement. File led numerous programs in Canada and Taiwan, fostering cross-cultural understanding and supporting democratic development. In recognition of his three decades of dedication, in 2014 he was named the inaugural recipient of the Albert J.F. Lin Human Rights Award by the Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada, honouring his key role in Taiwan’s peaceful democratization.

Even after he stepped back from teaching and assumed professor emeritus status, his impact continued to resonate through awards, and also with his students. “I met people later in life who had been his students, and they spoke with great affection about how inspiring and eye-opening they found his courses to be,” his daughter says.

Whether through his teaching, his human rights advocacy or marching in Selma as a young minister, File leaves a lasting legacy.

He is survived by his life partner of 45 years, seven children, 15 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

The post Passings: Edgar File appeared first on YFile.

The Mercator Fellowship is a competitive award that supports international research collaborations, allowing scholars to work with leading experts and research centres abroad. For Shivener, the fellowship connects him to an international project at the University of Konstanz: a Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) titled “Silence, Noise and Signal in Language.”

Funded by the German Research Foundation, the CRC brings together more than 25 academics across 17 multi-year projects to explore how silence and disruption impact communication in settings such as gaming, social media and institutional life.

The project is organized around three key concepts. “Noise” refers to anything that interferes with or complicates interactions – such as ambiguity, misunderstanding or conflicting cues. “Silence,” meanwhile, is not just the absence of communication, but can carry meaning depending on context. “Signal” refers to the message that emerges through – and is shaped by – these conditions.

Shivener’s path toward this international and interdisciplinary collaboration began in 2025, when he participated in the Ontario Baden-Württemberg Faculty Research Exchange – a program funded by the Ontario Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security. While conducting a pilot study on virtual reality and social deduction gaming at Konstanz, he was invited to review the CRC proposal.

His involvement was requested due to his ongoing research into how people create and interpret meaning in technologically mediated environments through writing and conversation. He has examined this topic in studies about emotional writing practices, virtual reality and digital games and through books such as Living Digital Media and Digital Literacies for Human Connection.

The Konstanz researchers saw a conceptual fit and went a step further than their invitation to review the proposal; they asked him to join the project as a collaborator, if it was funded.

Shivener, who teaches in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, was intrigued. He had observed in interviews how absence of noise can create space for participants to reflect and respond. In virtual or in-person social deduction games, focused on reading and influencing others, he had also seen how players use noise to redirect blame or build trust.

Shivener was also enthusiastic about the chance to work across disciplines and across countries. “International collaboration is a chance to meld our theories and methods in ways that simply don’t happen when you’re working within a single institution or tradition,” he says.

Now that the CRC has been approved and funded, Shivener has been appointed as a fellow through to 2029. He will contribute to the sub-project “Ambiguous Signals: Exploring Noise and Silence in Gaming.”

“Silence and noise are powerful means of persuasion. They also function differently depending on the context,” explains Shivener. His work will focus on both analog and digital games as sites for exploring how those elements influence communication.

For example, in the video game Among Us, players take hidden roles on a spaceship. They try to identify who is sabotaging the crew while keeping their own role secret. In this kind of game, players use silence, misleading statements and other cues to influence others and interpret intentions, showing how noise and silence carry meaning and affect interactions. Synchronized video recordings and close observation of people playing will be used in the research inquiry to see how these elements emerge, are interpreted and influence the flow of play.

Insights from his work will feed into the broader goals of the CRC, and help researchers understand how silence, noise and signal operate in other social context – from online discussions and social media to workplace and institutional communication. In these settings, ambiguity and interpretation similarly affect human interaction.

Therein lies the impact Shivener hopes his work – and the CRC’s – may have over the next years on a broader level.

“The results of studying social deduction games, for example, have relevance to understanding how we speak and write to each other in times of political and interpersonal conflict,” he says. “I hope that we can call further attention to the problems and affordances of silence and noise across everyday situations.”

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CIFAL York is expanding its work in climate innovation with a new focus on how AI can support real‑world solutions to some of the most pressing environmental challenges.

Since its establishment in 2020, CIFAL York, part of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) global network, has been at the forefront of climate change, disaster management and sustainable development. It offers innovative approaches to climate challenges, including training on emergency management, workshops on disaster risk reduction and programs that help local leaders prepare for both climate and health crises.

With the rapid evolution of emerging technologies showing great potential to support efforts in climate solutions, the centre is now expanding its mandate. “We want CIFAL York to be a leader in exploring the intersection of AI and climate change,” says Ali Asgary, CIFAL director and professor of disaster and emergency management in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

Its first step toward that work is the launch of the Climate AI Innovation Hub, an initiative designed to explore how AI can support creative approaches to addressing climate challenges. Its goal, says Asgary, is to create a network for knowledge sharing, innovation and collaboration that can achieve real-world impact.

The hub’s first initiative – a monthly speaker series running until November – sprang from the idea of leading conversations that explore what is possible with AI.

“These computational powers can help us understand and analyze changes in climate. Maybe they can even prevent them by allowing for proactive – more than reactive – approaches,” says Maleknaz Nayebi, associate director of CIFAL and assistant professor in the . “It’s not that there is one answer that can be given. For us, it’s about raising those questions. That’s how we came up with the speaker series.”

The series will showcase, for example, how AI, IoT (the Internet of Things) and satellite technologies are being used to tackle pressing environmental risks – from predicting and managing wildfires to designing low-waste, circular buildings. It will introduce participants to the broader climate innovation ecosystem and highlight the role of innovators and entrepreneurs creating scalable solutions for sustainability, resilience, circular economies and low-carbon transitions.

The series will raise awareness about climate entrepreneurship, explore sector opportunities and obstacles, and empower students, early-career professionals, founders, researchers and community innovators to take an active role in environmental research leadership.

“Our goal is to help people understand how these technologies are being developed and used, and to encourage the sharing of innovations,” Asgary explains. “We hope to inspire the next generation of climate innovators and show potential users – particularly government agencies – what tools and solutions are available to them.”

The speaker events are the hub's first step in engaging the community, and Asgary says past CIFAL series have served as a foundation for building networks of researchers and practitioners through live group discussions. Recorded content available on also becomes a knowledge repository that draws in new audiences.

“Many of our research projects in recent years have been fed by our speaker series,” says Asgary. Other outcomes have included white papers, book chapters, courses, certificate programs, short courses, community events and more.

Feedback from the first session in February suggests the new series is cultivating projects informed by the insights and networks it generates, highlighting the promise of what CIFAL aims to achieve.

“The hub is about creating connections, sparking new ideas and ultimately applying AI responsibly to make a tangible difference,” says Asgary. “At the end of the day, the goal is to contribute to solving climate change.”

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