Dr. Anna Agathangelou teaches in the areas of international relations and women and politics. Some of her areas of expertise are time and temporality in global politics, the body, time and ecology, international feminist political economy and feminist/postcolonial and decolonial thought. She is the co-director of Global Change Institute, Cyprus and was a visiting fellow in the Program of Science, Technology and Society at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard (2014-2015). She is currently involved on two multinational SSHRC partnership research projects focusing on sexual violence and human security, global governance, and biotechnology. She has researched ethnic conflict in Cyprus, as well as reconstruction in post-conflict societies with a focus on sexual violence, displaced peoples and the missing.
Dr. Kristin Andrews is York Research Chair in Animal Minds and Professor of Philosophy at York University, where she also helps coordinate the Cognitive Science program and the Greater Toronto Area Animal Cognition Discussion Group. Kristin is on the board of directors of the Borneo Orangutan Society Canada, a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, and the author of several books on social minds, animal minds, and ethics.
Dr. Ines Arous is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Mila - Quebec AI Institute and McGill University, where she worked on optimizing the usage of human feedback in large language models. Dr. Arous’s research lies at the intersection of human-AI collaboration, natural language processing, and generative AI. Her work aims to develop frameworks that leverage human intelligence to enhance AI models and tailor them for applications with significant societal impact. Her work has been published at top conferences, including the Web Conference, AAAI, and ACL.
Dr. Melanie Baljko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in Lassonde School of Engineering at York University. She is the director of Practices in Enabling Technologies (PiET) Lab. Her research interest includes human-centered Dr Melanie Baljko is the director of the Practices in Enabling Technologies (PiET) lab at York University, where she directs a transdisciplinary program of research to create and mobilize knowledge about the creation, development, and consequences of digital media/technology in its social contexts, with a particular focus on the diversity of bodies and minds and the just exercise of power. Her projects employ hybrid research-design approaches, including Research through Design (RtD), co-design, and software and interactive device design. She is a member of the graduate program in Science and Technology Studies, with a primary appointment as associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at York University, and graduate appointments in Digital Media and Critical Disability Studies..
Dr. Kelly Bergstrom is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University. Dr. Bergstrom’s research examines drop out and disengagement from digital cultures, with a focus on digital games and social media. Her current project investigates how digital labour platforms are changing our relationship to leisure and work/life balance.
Dr. Kean Birch is the Ontario Research Chair in Science Policy, and a Professor in the Department of Science, Technology & Society and Graduate Program in Science & Technology Studies at York University, Canada. He's interested in how ‘things’ – ranging from personality through knowledge to personal data – are turned into assets; that is, into techno-economic entities whose value is derived from the capitalization of future revenue streams and the extraction/exaction of ‘durable economic rents’. Current research focuses on personal data, Big Tech, and other digital technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, Blockchain, etc.) and previous research has looked at biotechnology, biofuels, infrastructure, and low-carbon technologies.
Dr. Sarah Blacker is a Sessional Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University. Her current book project, Warding off Disease: Racialization and Health in Settler Colonial Canada, investigates the relationship between biomedical pronouncements on race and their social repercussions, including ongoing colonial and systemic racist practices.
Dr. Natalie Coulter is an Associate Professor in Communication and Media Studies and Director of the Institute for Digital Literacies (IRDL) at York University, Canada. She is co-author of Media and Communication in Canada (9th ed) and co-editor of Youth Mediations and Affective Relations (2019) and author of Tweening the Girl (2014). She is currently working on a book project entitled Kids and Digital Capitalism. She has published such topics as tween girls, academic research harassment, children’s digital cultures, family media practices as well as Canadian media, masculinity and Playboy.
Rachel da Silveira Gorman is Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Critical Disability Studies at York University. Gorman is an interdisciplinary scholar, choreographer, curator, and poet. Gorman interests focus on dance and VR; aesthetic ideologies of disability and race; disability, climate change, and co-design; community-led AI applications; disability data justice, biochemical mechanisms of health inequity; social movement learning; and metabolizing collective fear through poetry.
Dr. Tesh Dagne holds the Ontario Research Chair in Governing Artificial Intelligence at York University. He earned his Doctorate from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University and served as an Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Law. He teaches at the School of Public Policy and Administration and Osgoode Hall Law School. His research explores legal, regulatory, and ethical aspects of AI, focusing on innovation and knowledge governance in Indigenous and local communities. He examines how intellectual property, privacy, and data governance rules and norms influence societal outcomes, either perpetuating or mitigating inequities in AI deployment.
Dr. Shital Desai is an Assistant Professor in the School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design. She heads the CFI-funded Social and Technological Systems (SaTS) lab and is York Research Chair in Accessible Interaction Design. Her research and design practice focuses on the UN Sustainable Development Goals of Good Health and Wellbeing, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Partnerships using design research methods, human-centred design and systems design approaches. Her research and design practice addresses focuses design research methods, human-centred design and systems design approaches. She codesigns accessible technologies, services, and governance policies for healthcare and global health, especially focusing on the experiences and needs of marginalized populations such as older adults, children and people with disabilities.
Dr. Conor Douglas' research explores the co-production between science/technology (particularly new genetic medical technologies) and society; patient and public participation in science and technological development (particularly in clinical trials, research studies, and pharmaceutical policy); governance of science and technology (particularly new genetic medical technologies); social and cultural factors constraining or enabling the translation –or development and deployment- of science and technologies; as well as global health & governance (particularly as it relates to new medical technologies). These research interests are currently being deployed in a new project Social Pharmaceutical Innovation (For Unmet Medical Needs), or “SPIN.”, which he is the named Project Leader and Canadian national team Principal Investigator.
Dr. Brandee Easter is an Assistant Professor in the Writing Department at York University. Her research focuses on rhetorical theory, feminist media, and critical code studies.
Denielle Elliott is a socio-cultural anthropologist at York University where she holds a York Research Chair in Injured Minds. She is Interim Director of the Institute for Technoscience and Society (2025-2026). She is a co-editor of Naked Fieldnotes (2024, UMP) and A Different Kind of Ethnography (2017, UTP). She teaches in Anthropology, Health and Society, and the STS graduate program. Her research focuses on the anthropology of medicine, science and social suffering and has an interest in arts-based methods including film, sound, and multimodal installations. See more about her current work here.
Dr. Christo El Morr is a Professor of Health Informatics and the Director of the Center of Feminist Research at York University. He is also a Research Scientist at North York General Hospital, Toronto. Dr. El Morr’s research focuses on equity informatics, addressing issues like equity AI (patient readmission, disability advocacy), patient-centered virtual care (chronic disease, mental health), and global health promotion. His intellectual work extends to social justice, defending human dignity and freedom from oppression, exploitation, and alienation. Through poetry and theological insights, he explores themes of solidarity, liberation, and the celebration of life.
Dr. Mahtot Gebresselassie is an Assistant Professor at Environmental and Urban Change (EUC). Her research interest focuses on smart mobility and equitable transportation for people with disabilities and low-income earners.
Dr. Robert W. Gehl is a Fulbright scholar and award-winning author whose research focuses on contemporary communication technologies. He received his PhD in Cultural Studies from George Mason University in 2010. Before joining York University as an Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance for Social Justice, he previously held an endowed research chair at Louisiana Tech University. His books include Reverse Engineering Social Media (Temple UP), which won the Nancy Baym Book Award from the Association of Internet Researchers, Weaving the Dark Web (MIT Press), and Social Engineering (MIT Press).
Dr. Markus Giesler is a consumer culture theorist and Professor of Marketing at the Schulich School of Business at York University. His research examines how markets dynamically shape human behaviour, often in the context of new technologies. His current research focuses on consumer artificial intelligence, responsibilization, and surveillance.
Dr. Jan Hadlaw is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts, Media, Performance, & Design at York University, where she is appointed to the STS and ComCult graduate programs. Her research interests focus on the history and material culture of modern technologies. She’s PI of the SSHRC-funded xDX Project, working with partners in academia, archives, and museums to develop a linked-open-data resource for the study of Canada’s design history. She’s an executive member of the Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA) and International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), and the editorial board of the peer-reviewed journal ICON.
Dr. Ernst Hamm's work in the history of science considers several areas, including the history of the geosciences, Enlightenment and Romantic science, the interactions of the natural and human sciences.
Dr. Aimi Hamraie is Canada Research Chair in Technology, Society, and Disability, and Associate Professor of Social Science at York University. Hamraie’s research on disability and design has helped form the fields of critical access studies and crip technoscience. They are the director of the Critical Design Lab. Hamraie is author of Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) and host of the Contra* podcast on disability and design.
Dr. Alison Harvey is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Communications Program at Glendon College, York University. Her research and teaching focuses on issues of inclusivity and accessibility in digital culture, with an emphasis on gender and labour in digital games. She is the author of Gender, Age, and Digital Games in the Domestic Context (2015, Routledge) and Feminist Media Studies (2019, Polity).
Dr. Brandon Takayuki Hillier is an economic geographer and urban researcher. His current work examines the complementarity between the Canadian educational system and American industry, with a special interest in empirically investigating the flow of engineering graduates from the Kitchener-Waterloo region to the Bay Area and New York. Key theoretical interests include conceptualizing cross-border labour markets and inter-regional labour regimes, educational and occupational decision-making, elite formation, and work culture. He previously studied Japan’s industrial development, central banks, and smart cities. His work is supported by SSHRC and DAAD.
Dr. Sileshi Bedasie Hirko is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow affiliated with Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University. Focused on the governance of emerging digital technologies, his postdoctoral research project explores approaches for inclusive and equitable regulation of AI-enabled health devices in Canadian healthcare. Dr. Sileshi is also an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law. He holds a PhD in Law from University of Ottawa, an LLM from Harvard Law School) and another LL.M in IP and Competition Law from (MIPLC) (Germany). He has published books & scholarly works in reputable national and international journals.
Dr. Mai Ibrahim is a recipient of the LA&PS Postdoctoral Fellowship and is working with Professor Kelly Bergstrom. Her current research explores toxicity in video games, aiming to identify strategies that self-identified toxic players believe could deter their toxic behaviour and to develop genre-specific definitions of toxicity. Her work aims to guide game developers in addressing toxic behaviour and reveal how genre and non-representational features might unintentionally encourage toxic tendencies. Ibrahim holds a PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media from North Carolina State University, where her dissertation examined the tension between objects and relations in social VR spaces.
Dr. Korina Jocson is Associate Professor of Digital Futures in the Faculty of Education at York University. Her scholarly interests include youth cultural studies, digital media technologies and learning ecologies, race and ethnic studies in education, and critical methodologies. She is the author of award-winning Youth Media Matters: Participatory Cultures and Literacies in Education and a forthcoming book on race, gender, and technologies in the school-work nexus. Current research draws on knowledge-making processes and pedagogies guided by technocultures and creative learning. She holds a PhD in Education from UC Berkeley and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University.
Dr. Eric Kennedy is an Associate Professor of Disaster & Emergency Management at York University, where he teaches on and researches issues related to emergency planning, preparedness, and response. He also serves as Associate Director of York University’s newly-launched Emergency Mitigation, Engagement, Response, and Governance Institute (Y-EMERGE). Dr. Kennedy’s work focuses on decision-making, science advice, policy/governance, and knowledge production in disaster and emergency contexts. He holds a PhD in the Human & Social Dimensions of Science & Technology from Arizona State University, where his dissertation examined the use of science, evidence, and data in the context of wildfire management in Canada. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Kennedy was principal investigator on a longitudinal project monitoring Canadian attitudes, experiences and adaptations, as well as led an international working group on survey research methodologies in the pandemic context. His ongoing research explores issues related to expert judgement and knowledge synthesis in the context of emergency response.
Dr. Kenton Kroker is an Associate Professor in the Health & Society Program in the Department of Social Science at York University. His research examines how professional, technological, and sociopolitical developments have transformed biomedical knowledge over the past two centuries. His current research topics include the history of epidemic encephalitis, the interactions of sleep medicine and health care policy in late twentieth-century Canadian society, the history of sleep as a scientific object, and the role of visual rhetoric in the emergence of North American public health in the 19th century.
Quintin Kreth, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Visitor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at York University, working with Professor Kean Birch. His research examines both science and innovation policy and higher education policy, with a focus on capacity-building for research, skilled workforce, and economic development. He specifically explores academic research capacity and productivity in disadvantaged regions and at Emerging Research Institutions, and how career-related postsecondary education can support economic mobility. Quintin holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dr. Ganaele M. Langlois is an Associate Professor in Communication and Media Studies. Ganaele's areas of research include digital technocultures, philosophy of technology, critical theory, and digital methods.
Dr. Nathaniel Laywine is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies. He is an interdisciplinary scholar, who works at the juncture of intercultural communications, critical pedagogy and media studies. Nathaniel's work considers how the increasing mediatization of solidarity work undertaken by student activists offer post-secondary education institutions an opportunity to rethink interventions in the Global South beyond current models of international experiential education. He also writes critically about the inability of chatbots to tell culturally specific jokes and the technocultural assemblages that exist within fitness spaces (like gyms) as potential sites for potential intersubjective learning.
Dr. Bernard Lightman is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities Department at York University, and Past President of the History of Science Society. Lightman’s research focuses on the cultural history of Victorian science and transnational history of science involving Britain and China.
Dr. Elisha Lim (they/them) is an Assistant Professor of the Technological Humanities at York University and researches the intersection of social media platforms, theology and critical race theory. Lim is currently working on a book called Pious about how corporate algorithms drive vigilant conduct.
Dr. Margaret MacDonald is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at York University in Toronto. She trained as a medical anthropologist and specializes in research on reproductive health. She has conducted ethnographic research within the global maternal health community, a community development NGO in Senegal, and amongst midwives and their clients in Canada. In each of these settings her interests lie in how cultures of biomedicine, science, and technology -- and their alternatives – shape our ideas and practices concerning health, illness and the body.
Dr. Aryn Martin researches how renderings of biological phenomena, and the material phenomena themselves, shape and are shaped by "the social" including through language and experiment. Martin has published articles and chapters about genetic chimeras, maternal-fetal microchimerism, the so-called "placental barrier" and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in violent sport. Mundane ordering practices (counting, naming, classification) and their world-making effects are central to her works.
Dr. Merouan Mekouar is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University, Canada. His research examines political and cultural change in North African and Middle Eastern societies, including the adoption of new authoritarian tools after the 2011 Arab Uprisings. His forthcoming Oxford University Press book addresses native scholars' challenges conducting research in repressive and illiberal countries. Dr. Mekouar is also working on an upcoming co-edited volume on utopian responses to datafication and surveillance.
Dr. Hélène Mialet is a Professor in the Department of Science Technology and Society and is the co-director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) global program "Future Flourishing." She is a philosopher and anthropologist of science and technology interested in questions related to the body, subjectivity, creativity, cognition, animals and human-machine interaction.
Dr. Roxanne Mykitiuk is a Full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where she engages in research and teaching in the areas of Disability Law, Health Law, Bioethics and Family Law. Roxanne is nationally and internationally recognized for her work in disability law and the legal construction and regulation of embodiment, and the regulation of reproductive and genetic technologies and reproductive health more generally. She was Senior Legal Researcher for the Canadian Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies; a member of the Ontario, Advisory Committee on Genetics; a member of the Ethics Committee of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada; scholar in residence at the Law Commission of Ontario working on the Disability and Law Project. She has been consulted by a range of actors in policy making and litigation contexts and provided expert opinions related to her areas of expertise.
Dr. Jeff Nagy is an Assistant Professor of AI and Critical Data Studies at York University. He is a historian of computing and AI focused on the intersection between AI development, the psy- sciences, and disability. He holds a PhD from Stanford University and was a DISCO Network Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan from 2022-2024.
Dr. Emilia Nielsen is the author of Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives: Stories of Rage and Repair (University of Toronto, 2019), which won an Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize for feminist folklore studies. She is also the author of two noted collections of poetry: Body Work (Signature Editions, 2018), a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and a winner in the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry; and Surge Narrows (Leaf Press, 2013), a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She is an Associate Professor in York’s Health and Society Program.
Dr. Kennedy Opande has a PhD in Anthropology; in his PhD, he focused on the anthropology of life, revealing how life and land are interconnected among indigenous Luo rice growers of Kenya. From this study, he proposed a cosmo-juridical agency, being life formed through co-association and co-negotiation between human and nonhuman species through commands, demands, fulfillments through rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices among others. Kennedy has been published in Social Analysis and Cultural Anthropology journals among others.
Dr. Mary Ott is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at York University. Drawing on sociomaterial, posthuman, and complexity orientations, she explores the agency of space, time, and materials in curriculum design and pedagogy. A current focus is on understanding the unintended consequences of technology in teaching and learning. Mary completed her PhD in curriculum studies at Western University with a focus on multiliteracies, and postdoctoral work in health sciences education in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University. She also holds an appointment as a centre researcher in the Centre for Education Research & Innovation at Western.
Dr. Selçuk Özyurt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at York University. He received his PhD in economics from New York University. His research is primarily centered on alternative dispute resolution in its broadest sense, with a particular emphasis on algorithmic (online) dispute resolution mechanisms. Dr. Özyurt applies market design approach to address failures in dispute resolution. For this purpose, he utilizes tools from game theory, mechanism design, information design, and experimental economics to design efficient, impartial, and fair algorithmic dispute resolution mechanisms that are resilient against manipulation or exploitation by users.
Dr. Lina Pinto-García is a postdoctoral fellow of the Connected Minds program. Her research explores how the context of armed conflict in Yarumal, northwestern Colombia, has shaped the experience of hereditary Alzheimer's, the production of neuroscientific knowledge, and the technological solutions under development. Lina is about to publish her first book with the University of Chicago Press, titled Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia. It is an ethnographic examination of the relationship between leishmaniasis, a vector-borne disease, and the Colombian war. Her research has also been published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Critical Public Health, and Tapuya, among others.
Dr. Anetta Proskurovska is a Postdoctoral Visitor at Institute for Technoscience & Society and a course director in the Development Studies Graduate Program at York University. She works with Kean Birch (PI) on a SSHRC-funded project titled “Digital Data Value Paradox”. Before moving to Canada, she led the ABTALS project, a public-private collaboration at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), investigating the re-making of property and financial markets through blockchain and its socio-economic impact. Her interests focus on FinTech, emerging trends in digital data valuation, the tokenization of property rights, and broader information infrastructure shaping these processes.
Dr. Joanna Robinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the School of Public and International Affairs, Glendon Campus. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of social movements, climate change, labour and inequality, environmental and social justice. She has published books, journal articles and book chapters on social movements, climate change, environmental politics and labour, including the recently published Routledge Handbook on the Green New Deal. Her work was recognized by the Glendon Principal’s Award for Research.
Dr. Antulio Rosales is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Science, Business and Society program, at York University. His research interests focuses on international and comparative political economy, natural resource extraction/environmental politics, and global development. Antulio's new research agenda is concerned with the expansion of emerging financial assets such as cryptocurrencies and their linkage to energy infrastructures and political incentives in the Global South. His current research project deals with the infrastructure, energy, and policy incentives for the expansion of cryptocurrencies in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, El Salvador, Argentina, and Puerto Rico.
Dr. Sarah Rotz is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (FEUC). Her research focuses on land, food and environmental systems and justice, and situates political economic processes – such as agri-food industrialization, financialization, and technology – within a lens of settler colonial patriarchy and racial capitalism.
Dr. Gabi Schaffzin is an artist, educator, and researcher based in Toronto. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Design at York University's School of Arts, Media, Performance, and Design. He holds a PhD in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the University of California San Diego and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art & Design's Dynamic Media Institute. His current research project combines design history, disability studies, and a history of computing to trace the history of designed pain scales throughout the 20th century.
Dr. Yifat Shaik is an Assistant Professor in Computational Arts at York University and an indie game developer whose focus is on creating personal autobiographical work and the use of systems, data, and game mechanics in social interaction and political activism.
Dr. Yan Shvartzshnaider is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Lassonde School of Engineering at York University. He leads the the Privacy Rhythm Research Lab that develops privacy-enhancing methodologies and tools to help incorporate a socially meaningful conception of privacy which meets peoples' expectations and is ethically defensible.
Dr. Sachil Singh is an assistant professor at York University's School of Kinesiology & Health Science, specializing in medical sociology, critical race studies, and algorithmic inequality. His interdisciplinary research illuminates how stereotypes and misinformation about race and ethnicity impact life chances, particularly in healthcare. Dr. Singh's work reveals how health technologies can perpetuate social inequality, uncovering unintended racial biases in patient care. Committed to social justice, he teaches courses on algorithmic bias, socio-cultural history, racial discrimination, and surveillance, framing them from a social justice perspective. Additionally, Dr. Singh offers a Karate-Do course that integrates social justice principles.
Dr. sava saheli singh (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Digital Futures with the Faculty of Education at York University. As an interdisciplinary scholar and filmmaker working at the nexus of education, technology, surveillance, speculative futures, and intersectional marginality, sava has a strong commitment to community-based public scholarship and critical digital literacy. She co-produced the award-winning Screening Surveillance series of four short films, a public education and knowledge translation project that calls attention to the potential human consequences of big data surveillance.
Dr. Ian Stedman is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration. He is cross-appointed to the graduate programs at Osgoode Hall Law School and in Science and Technology Studies. Being a person who lives with a rare genetic condition, Ian advocates for the rare disease community and has a growing research program focused on technologies and policies driving greater personalization in healthcare. He serves on the Executive of the Canadian Rare Disease Network, as Vice Chair of the CIHR Institute of Genetics' Institute Advisory Board and on the Canadian Drug Agency's Advisory Committee on Rare Disease-based Registries.
Dr. Joan Steigerwald's scholarship, graduate supervision, and teaching explores the relationships between science and technology studies, the history of the life sciences, the history of philosophy, Romantic studies, and contemporary theory. Her work is interdisciplinary, regarding different modes of inquiry as offering critical reflection on its others, exposing their boundaries and incompletions and yet also opening each to what is unthought within it.
Dr. Kate Tilleczek is a Professor who holds the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Youth, Education & Global Good in the Faculty of Education at York University. She is an educator, founder (in 2009), and Director of the Young Lives Research Laboratory which employs global, intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches to collaborative research with and for young people and their communities. Professor Tilleczek’s research garners new understanding about the wellbeing of young people and how we might re-design quality education and whole-of-society supports with/by them.
Dr. Özgün E. Topak is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Science at York University. He is an Associate Editor of Surveillance & Society, and an Executive Committee Member & Resident Scholar at York's Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS). Dr. Topak is an interdisciplinary social scientist interested in topics of surveillance technology, migration, authoritarianism, social theory and human rights.
Dr. Amanda van Beinum is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at York University. Her research sits at the intersection of the sociology of health & medicine, science and technology studies, critical posthumanism, and medical ethics. Her current work explores embodied social and technological aspects of brain stimulation technologies as emerging therapies for the treatment of psychiatric illnesses.
Dr. Alexandra Widmer is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department. She has held a research scholar position at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Her research interests are Colonial and postcolonial science and medicine; Indigeneity and well-being; reproductive justice and critical studies of demography and population control; digital health; precision medicine; critical microbiome studies; and science in food cultures.
Dr. James Williams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University and a member of the undergraduate program in Criminology and the graduate programs in Sociology and Socio-Legal Studies. He is interested in the intersections between technology, finance, and regulation as well as the impact of finance (and emerging forms of assetization) on the social and public sector. James is also working on developing a new research project on supply chain digitization and its implications for the regulation of corporate supply chains.