Professor Bridget Stutchbury spoke about the danger posed by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to migrating birds on CBC Radio’s “Metro Morning,” and other local programs across Canada, July 9. The clip is available on Metro Morning's website and runs under 5:30 minutes. Stutchbury is the Canada Research Chair in Ecology and […]
Over the past year, the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) has reviewed the way its funding programs are structured to provide researchers with a simpler, more flexible and more effective system of application and assessment. SSHRC president Chad Gaffield addressed this process during a town hall meeting held with faculty and students […]
George Dashwood Sr., a resident at Simon Fraser Lodge, is now the namesake of the rare Lasioglossum dashwoodi bee species in BC, wrote the Prince George Citizen July 7. Lincoln Best, a graduate student at York University, is one of several researchers who found this bee in the Okanangan in 2008: "There are hundreds of […]
Professor Laurence Packer, professor of biology in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, spoke to Bob McDonald, host of CBC's Quirks & Quarks on June 26 about his research on international bee populations. He is the author of Keeping the Bees: Why All Bees Are at Risk and What We Can Do to Save Them. […]
Much of what informs environmental thinking springs from a view that equates nature with sexually straight and queer with unnatural. The editors of a new book Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire, turn those notions upside down. Co-editors Bruce Erickson (PhD 09’) and York environmental studies Professor Catriona Sandilands, Canada Research Chair in Sustainability & […]
A biologist and researcher is asking why none of the six men on the board regulating oil activity off Newfoundland lists environmental expertise as a prime credential , wrote The Canadian Press June 6: The head of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has stressed that environmental protection is a top goal. But Gail […]
After an eight-year absence, North America’s largest swallow has returned to High Park, wrote the Toronto Star June 7. An excerpt of the complete article follows: Two pairs of purple martins, known for the purple-black feathers of mature males, are cohabiting in a colony house on the south edge of Grenadier Pond. The birds are […]
Six York students have won five awards for their research on Asia or Asian diaspora this year from the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR). Vanessa Lamb (right), a second-year doctoral candidate in geography, is the 2010 Vivienne Poy Asian Research Award recipient. Her research interests include the politics of the environment and development, feminist political ecology […]
Newfoundland & Labrador is proceeding with the high-risk game of oil exploration in ultra-deep water, as regulators in the province express confidence in industry’s safety practices despite the ecological catastrophe of BP PLC’s Gulf of Mexico blowout, wrote The Globe and Mail June 3: Canada’s East Coast is now the only region in North America where […]
The birds and the bees, the bats and the butterflies all need a little help doing it these days – pollinating that is. So Sabrina Malach, a master in environmental studies student at York, has helped organize several events in Toronto for International Pollinator Week, which will run from June 21 to 27. The events give […]
Bee expert urges public to create bee-friendly gardens in their yards Breakfast may be toast if we don’t take action to save the bees, according to York biology Professor and bee expert Laurence Packer. “Consider breakfast. Eggs, maybe a slice of watermelon, toast with butter and jam, and a cup of coffee with a dash of […]
Professor Emeritus Jerome (Jerry) Durlak, a mentor to many generations of York students in numerous programs, died on Friday, May 21, in Toronto. For more than 50 years, Prof. Durlak worked on applied research and development projects internationally. He introduced innovations ranging from hybrid corn in Costa Rica to agricultural television programs in Guatemala and […]
Bridget Stutchbury, author of Silence of the Songbirds, recently stopped in Fredericton to warn that the bird population is dwindling, reported the Fredericton Telegraph-Journal May 20. A Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology at York University, Stutchbury says the Canadian bird population has been declining by one to two per cent a year […]
Peter Victor, an ecological economist who teaches at York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, rejects the idea that economic growth is essential to progress, wrote BC’s Grand Forks Gazette May 19 in an article about replacing the growth economy with a more sustainable model: To prove his point he created a computer model that duplicated […]
At 77 years of age, Elizabeth Pitt is heading back to school and she couldn't be happier. A grandmother of a York University fine arts student, Pitt is a member of the York Circle, a legacy initiative of York University’s 50th anniversary. The York Circle is an ongoing program that offers curious people like Pitt […]
The suburbs have often been dismissed as cultureless wastelands of cookie-cutter housing and strip malls. But York environmental studies Professor Roger Keil, principal investigator of a major international research initiative, says there’s a lot more happening in suburbia than people think and researchers have ignored it for far too long. Most urban growth these days […]
Markham councillors are facing new questions on developer influence after voting by a razor-thin margin to kill the town’s foodbelt proposal, wrote the National Post May 15. Professor Jose Etcheverry has been involved in efforts to preserve the land: Debate ran late into the night at this week’s council meeting and drew a series of […]
The morning serenades of nature in New Brunswick have quieted down over the years and a declining songbird population is to blame, according to a conservation biologist, wrote the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal May 14: “Both at the provincial level, and even at the national level, you have dozens of species of songbirds that are in […]
A professor of women’s studies at Washington State University (WSU), Noël Sturgeon will lecture and conduct research in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) in the fall 2010 term after being awarded a Distinguished Fulbright Lectureship. Sturgeon’s internationally known research on the relationship between environmental and social justice movements, her planned collaborative research with York faculty […]
Professor Bridget Stutchbury was interviewed on The National by CBC broadcaster Colleen Jones about the sex lives of birds May 12. Stutchbury, a Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology and a professor in the Department of Biology, published The Bird Detective: Investigating the Secret Lives of Birds in April 2010. It explains how […]