There are moments when a research community steps back to reflect on its progress and direction. The 3rd Annual Connected Minds Research Retreat, held at York University’s Second Student Centre, brought together members, trainees, partners, and collaborators from York and Queen’s for two days was one of these. Over the course of the Retreat, a shared sense emerged that Connected Minds is really hitting its stride, marked by strong internal structures and a more deliberate approach to collaboration.
The retreat opened with reflections from Scientific Director Pina D’Agostino. She returned to a core principle that has guided the program from the beginning, that research at Connected Minds is strongest when it is built through co-creation. Equally central is a commitment to ensuring that these technologies are shaped with the communities they affect, particularly those whose perspectives have too often been absent from technological development.
A central focus of the retreat was the continued deepening of co-creation as a design principle and of the importance of partnership. Executive Director Caitlin Mullin offered a comprehensive overview of the program’s trajectory and achievements to date, highlighting how Connected Minds has grown into a network where partnership is embedded across funding streams.
This emphasis on intentional collaboration was further explored in a presentation by Research Associate Michelle Charette, who introduced the Connected Minds Co-Creation Resource, developed through a review of 245 peer-reviewed texts. The guide offers researchers a structured cycle and a set of reflective questions designed to support meaningful engagement with partners at different stages of the research process. Rather than treating collaboration as an informal aspiration, the resource encourages researchers to approach co-creation as a deliberate methodological practice that informs how projects are designed, evaluated, and sustained.
The implications of this approach became visible in the Team Grant projects presented at the retreat. Across these initiatives, researchers and partners grappled with a common question: how to build intelligent technologies and creative systems in ways that remain accountable to the communities they touch. Maya Chacaby, co-leading the Biskaabiiyaang Indigenous Metaverse at York University, with partners Erin Lovis and Yolanda Nawakamik from the Nokiiwin Tribal Council, spoke to the responsibility of ensuring that digital spaces uphold community authority rather than dilute it. In parallel, sustained engagement with older adults, caregivers, and clinicians has directly influenced how decision-making structures are forming within the Co-creating Intelligent Neuro-Technologies for Healthy Aging (CINTHeA) project, as described by co-lead James Elder from York University and partner Allison Sekuler of the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation at Baycrest. Creative Collectivities brought another perspective to the discussion. Project co-lead Laura Levin from York University and partner Adrienne Wong from SpiderWebShow are exploring how theatre and neuroscience can inform one another through shared experimentation. At Queen’s University, co-lead Gavin Winston’s work on a wearable EEG system for personalized epilepsy management has been shaped through collaboration with Epilepsy South Eastern Ontario, whose feedback has influenced both design and testing processes.
Working across institutions and communities brings difficult questions into view, particularly around ownership, authority, and sustainability. Institutional policies do not always align, and communities rightly expect control over their knowledge and contributions. Participants reflected on what it takes to build projects that can endure within those realities and extend beyond a single funding cycle. Partnership, in this context, is not a symbolic gesture but an ongoing responsibility requiring transparency, shared decision-making, and long-term trust.
Several Seed Grant projects illustrated how these responsibilities take shape in research practice. Elham Dolatabadi, Usman Khan, Kayrel Edwards, and Laleh Seyyed-Kalantari, shared work unfolding across domains as varied as multimodal AI systems for healthcare decision-making, machine learning applications for water treatment in refugee contexts, racial bias in optical technologies, and fairness benchmarks in large language models. What came into focus was how much influence early design decisions carry. The selection of data, the framing of evaluation metrics, and the assumptions built into modelling approaches shape outcomes long before implementation. Engaging clinical and community partners at that formative stage allows those assumptions to be examined and, when necessary, redirected before they become embedded in practice.
These questions also surfaced in conversations with the program’s newest Research Enhanced Hires. Anne Sullivan, Sze Yuh Nina Wang, Aimi Hamraie, Hannah Tarder-Stoll, and Shweta Mahajan reflected on the techno-social challenges shaping their work. Rapid technological change is altering how people experience community, identity, and public life, often in ways that outpace our ability to fully understand their social consequences. Their discussion touched on persistent bias in technical systems, the limits of viewing technology as neutral infrastructure, and the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in confronting these issues.
Turning ideas into tools that people can actually use brings its own set of challenges. During the Prototyping Panel, Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh, Doug Munoz, and Niloufar Beyranvand reflected on what it takes to move innovations beyond controlled research settings. Their work spans AI-based periodontal disease assessment, eye-tracking systems for early detection of neurological disorders, and evaluation frameworks for trustworthy legal AI. The discussion highlighted the practical realities that emerge once technologies leave the lab, including questions of interpretability, user trust, institutional partnership, and the adjustments required as prototypes encounter real-world conditions.
Interdisciplinary work at Connected Minds extends beyond science and engineering into artistic practice. Connected Minds’ 2026 Artist-in-Residence, Mani Mazinani, shared his project Solar Organ, a six-channel synthesizer designed around pentatonic scales that allows anyone to create melodies and layered soundscapes. Drawing on the fact that pentatonic music appears across cultures worldwide, the project explores how sound connects human experience through shared biological and perceptual pathways. The work served as a reminder that innovation within Connected Minds does not only take the form of algorithms or clinical tools. It can also emerge through artistic practice, where sound, memory, and embodied experience open new ways of thinking about connection, care, and technology.
Alongside these discussions, the retreat also highlighted the work of the Connected Minds community. A poster session brought members, partners, and collaborators into conversation with trainees, Seed Grant recipients, and Prototyping Award winners, sharing projects still in development. These exchanges provided trainees with direct feedback from across disciplines while also offering the broader community a glimpse into the next wave of research emerging within the program. Intentional networking time was also set aside for trainees to connect with one another. A dinner during the retreat brought trainees together from across Connected Minds, creating space for conversation and relationship-building across institutions and disciplines.
The retreat also brought together a wide range of industry, community, and research partners, with representatives attending from Baycrest, bluemouth inc., CIGI, Dynamiris, Fable, the Institute for Neuroscience & Neurotechnology (SFU), Mitacs, Neron AI, NIRx, Nokiiwin Tribal Council, Oasis, the Ontario Brain Institute, Seasons Retirement, SpiderWebShow, The Builders Association, Theatre Conspiracy, Trellis Transit Technologies, Unionville Home Society, and United Against Colonization. Partners engaged with Connected Minds members and trainees, while forming new connections across sectors. Several partners noted that the retreat offered a clearer view of the breadth of work underway within the program and opened new possibilities for collaboration and engagement moving forward.
Members and partners were also invited to connect at a salon co-hosted by Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art and Technology and Connected Minds. The gathering brought together Connected Minds researchers and collaborators involved in Laura Levin and Michael Wheeler’s Creative Collectivities Team Grant, who were in Toronto for their research residency, as well as the broader Connected Minds community. Bringing these groups into the same space created an opportunity to spend time together beyond the day’s sessions and to deepen relationships across artistic, technological, and research communities.
The retreat also marked a moment of renewal in Connected Minds’ leadership. A new Leadership Committee was introduced to guide the program’s next phase of growth, with Elham Dolatabadi leading Research, Murat Kristal overseeing Innovation and Commercialization, Sylvia Bawa heading Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Matthew Pan leading Knowledge Mobilization, and Natalie Coulter guiding Training. Together, the committee brings expertise that spans engineering, health, social sciences, policy, and education, reinforcing the interdisciplinary foundation that defines Connected Minds.
As Pina D’Agostino concluded her term as Scientific Director, her role in shaping Connected Minds’ governance structure, strengthening partnerships, and integrating legal and policy perspectives into the program’s work was also acknowledged. Beginning March 1, Shayna Rosenbaum stepped into the role of Scientific Director. Having served as Vice-Director and having played a central role in shaping the program’s direction to date, she brings deep expertise in cognitive neuroscience and a long-standing commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration. Under her leadership, Connected Minds will continue building on its existing foundation while exploring new ways to sustain the program’s impact beyond the current CFREF cycle.
The retreat concluded with EDI Awards presented to Sari van Anders (Queen’s University), Frederic Fu (York University), and Jonathan Coutinho (Queen’s University), recognizing their contributions to advancing equity across research, policy engagement, and community practice within Connected Minds.
Connected Minds is entering the next phase of its work with a clearer sense of how research, community engagement, and technological development must evolve together. Across the retreat, discussions returned to a shared understanding that responsible innovation cannot be separated from the people and contexts it affects. As the program moves into the second half of its CFREF cycle, the work ahead will continue to test new ways of designing technologies alongside the communities they are meant to serve.