York researchers receive $10 million in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Researchers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at York University have been awarded over $10 million from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The grants, part of $190.5 million in funding and awards invested across the country, will support over 220 innovative York research projects to improve Canadians’ quality of life while […]

York Centre for Education & Community's 2010 Summer Institute to explore engaged education

How can schools and communities work together to create innovative avenues to engage students in their education? That is the central theme of this year’s Summer Institute offered by the York Centre for Education & Community (YCEC) in the Faculty of Education. Presented Aug. 17, 18 and 19 at York’s Keele campus, this year’s program […]

Professor Mark Winfield on eaked report blaming tank-to-tank propane transfer for Toronto's Sunrise explosion

A leaked report from the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office on the eve of the second anniversary of the massive Downsview explosion at Sunrise Propane blames a tank-to-tank transfer of propane for the blast, wrote the North York Mirror Aug. 4: The transfer, which Sunrise had previously been ordered to cease performing, caused liquid propane to […]

Work for a municipality? Professor Norman Yan's study has a better way to battle mosquitoes

Protecting ourselves from backyard mosquito bites may come down to leaving the vacuuming for later, a study from York University shows. Rather than vacuuming the grass clippings out of catch basins before adding treatments to control mosquitoes, municipalities should leave the organic waste in place, the research found. “Catch basins are a permanent source of […]

Professor Pablo Idahosa: Canadian World Cup fans shift allegiances as tournament unfolds

The quadrennial World Cup that kicks off Friday may be the planet's biggest excuse for a party, and Canadians will be joining in with gusto, wrote The Canadian Press June 10 in a story picked up by the Guelph Mercury, TheSpec.com and the Times & Transcript (Moncton): With its ethnic diversity and soccer-crazy immigrants, cities […]

Professors examining differences in how immigrant Torontonians speak English based on ethnicity

Differences in the way Torontonians speak English may have more to do with how people express their ethnic identity than with any problems they are having learning to speak Canadian English perfectly, a study from York University suggests. Michol Hoffman and James Walker, professors of sociolinguistics in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics in York's […]

Researcher and City Institute director shifts the lens to suburbs around the globe

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 […]

Professor Gail Fraser comments on conflict of interest in Canada's offshore oil and gas regulations

Newfoundland and Labrador’s natural resources minister is rejecting calls for the overhaul of the agency that regulates the province’s offshore oil industry, even as the United States moves to distance its regulator from the companies it oversees, wrote The Globe and Mail May 12: Scientists and environmentalists argue that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum […]

Third novel by English prof wrestles with what people believe

York English Professor Michael Helm likens writing novels to driving bumper to bumper at 120 kilometres an hour for half a day, and being emotionally and physically spent by the end. That’s on good days. “You have to concentrate so hard, but when you get out of the car, you’re just so exhausted. I always […]

Panel to highlight two suburbia research projects based in York Region

A lunchtime panel featuring presentations by York researchers and urban planning professionals will wrap up two recent research projects tomorrow – "In-Between Infrastructure: Urban Connectivity in an Age of Vulnerability", based out of the City Institute at York University (City), and geography Professor Lucia Lo's "Infrastructure in York Region: A GIS Analysis of Human Services". The panel discussion, […]