Blind Date with Knowledge

Daniel Woolf

Principal and Vice-Chancellor

Synopsis: Dr. Daniel Woolf is the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University, as well as a Professor in the Department of History. His research has focused on early modern British intellectual and cultural history, and the global history of historical writing. He is the author of four books and co-editor of several others, and his most recent books are volumes 3 and 5 of the five-volume Oxford History of Historical Writing, a series of which he is editor-in-chief, and a one-volume history of historiography, A Global History of History. In this episode, Dr. Woolf discusses the history of historiography and how he became interested in this topic during his undergraduate and graduate careers. He explains how early modernists usually study the past as constructed through texts and documents, and that what a scholar makes of the text changes over time. Dr. Woolf also discusses his work on the Tudors and Stuarts, where he looks in unlikely places, such as materials from country record offices, to study this history. Please visit Daniel’s website for more information.

Tony Noble

Professor, Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy

Synopsis: Dr. Tony Noble is a Professor in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy whose research focuses on astroparticle physics and the search for dark matter. He is involved in the DEAP-3600 liquid argon experiment and the PICO experiment at SNOLAB, both of which are looking for dark matter. In this episode, Dr. Noble explains how the field of particle astrophysics came to be, and gives the example of the solar neutrino problem where scientists were trying to understand the basic properties of one of the most ubiquitous particles in the universe. There are a billion neutrinos going through your thumbnail every second! Dr. Noble also explains the history of the SNO project, which was designed to study solar neutrinos, as well as the new projects happening at SNOLAB. Please visit Tony’s website for more information.

Antonio Nicaso

Lecturer, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Synopsis: Professor Antonio Nicaso is a researcher who studies Mafia and mafia-type criminal organizations. He is regularly asked for input on organized crime activities by international governments and law-enforcement agencies. He has recently had his true crime novel Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto’s Last War turned into a television series called Bad Blood on City TV. In this episode, Nicaso explains how he came to research Mafia and other organized crime. While he does use empirical evidence, such as court documents, to gather information, he also collects data from the “under world and the upper world” to show all sides of the issue. Nicaso then discusses how he handles confidentiality and meetings with those involved in this area, as well as his own findings on how organized crime creates connections to the “upper world.”

Please visit Antonio’s website for more information about his research.

Alana Butler

Assistant Professor of At-Risk Learners and Student Success, Faculty of Education

Synopsis: Dr. Alana Butler’s area of research is at-risk children and their families in elementary and secondary school settings, as well as equity, diversity, and inclusion policies and practices at all levels of education. Her doctoral research focused on the experiences of Black students in Canadian and American higher education, and she has a taught in many different settings. Dr. Butler discusses the components of defining “at-risk,” including mental health, overall wellbeing, and the risk of failure. For children in primary school, low socioeconomic status can bring extreme risk factors and place them on a negative pathway. She also describes “at-risk wealthy” students who can also experience risk, but typically have better access to resources to support them. Dr. Butler combines structural factors and sociocultural factors to study the situations of at-risk students in her research. Please visit Alana’s website for more information about her research.

Gregory Jerkiewicz

Professor, Department of Chemistry

Synopsis: Dr. Gregory Jerkiewicz’s research is focused on surface and materials electrochemistry as well as molecular-level electrocatalysis. He directs an international research project (Ni Electro Can) that is developing nickel-based materials for applications in fuel cells and other technologies. In this episode, Dr. Jerkiewicz explains the science behind electrochemistry, which creates chemical reactions that generate electrons and uses electrical energy to direct chemical reactions that would not occur spontaneously in other settings. He also gives fuel cells as an example of electrochemistry in action, as fuel cells power devices from cars to cell phones. His current project looks at how to mimic the qualities of platinum as a catalyst in nickel instead. He is hoping to reignite (almost literally, since it has been used in several space missions before) interest in using nickel in fuel cells. For more information about Gregory’s project, visit the Ni Electro Can project webpage.

Leela Viswanathan

Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Planning

Synopsis: Dr. Leela Viswanathan is studying the intersection of planning, equity and diversity, and her team is trying to educate municipalities about how cities are located on Indigenous traditional and treaty territories. She has an ongoing SSHRC-funded project that aims to improve Indigenous-Municipal relations in the context of land use planning in Southern Ontario. In this episode, Dr. Viswanathan discusses the importance of enhancing relationships between municipalities and Indigenous peoples when involved in land use planning. She emphasizes that planning must occur within terms that both sides agree on together, and that both history and context are important for all communities. Indigenous peoples have been historically displaced from lands and excluded from land use planning, and Leela’s project is seeking to understand and change provincial policies surrounding planning consultation. For more about her research, please visit Leela’s website.

  John Smol

Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change and Professor, Department of Biology

Synopsis: Dr. John Smol is world-renowned paleolimnologist (someone who studies long-term environmental change using lake sediments), and he has received over 60 awards for his research, outreach and teaching. He has conducted studies around the world on the impacts of humans on the environment, with a particular focus on the Arctic. In this episode, Dr. Smol describes how the study of paleolimnology allows humans to study the difference between natural and human changes to the environment. The changes in lakes are often “under the radar,” and Dr. Smol explains how these subtle changes are affecting fish populations and altering the ecology of lakes. Dr. Smol sees his duty as providing both scientific knowledge to public policy-makers and tools for science translation to the general public so that everyone can understand the science behind climate change. To read more about his research, visit John’s website.

Patricia Smithen

Assistant Professor, Paintings Conservation, Department of Art History and Art Conservation

Synopsis: Patricia Smithen is an art conservator and Queen’s alumna who teaches in the Master of Art Conservation program at Queen’s. Prior to pursuing doctoral studies, she worked as a paintings conservator at the Canadian Conservation Institute, as a private practitioner in Montreal and at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and as the Conservator of Modern and Contemporary Paintings at the Tate Conservation Department. In this episode, Smithen describes what the “science” is behind art conservation, as well as the study of paint itself. Her research focuses on the use of acrylic paint in many settings, including by famous artists like Jackson Pollock. She also discusses the future of street art and the mediums used to create and preserve it, as well as the ethics of graffiti art. For more about her research, please visit Patricia’s website.

Adrian Baranchuk

Professor, Department of Medicine

Synopsis: Dr. Adrian Baranchuk studies electrocardiography, sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease, and complex ablation. In this episode, Dr. Baranchuk discusses his motivation for entering the field of cardiology, including his intense curiosity to understand the mathematical modelling of cardiac arrhythmias. With the help of two students, Sohaib Hasseb and Bryce Alexander, he assembled an exciting study about the links between alcohol and cardiovascular health, which was recently published in the top journal Circulation. The eam looked at the different recommendations put forward by multiple countries to see if there was consensus on the subject. Dr. Baranchuk then discusses the recommendations for wine specifically, with the magic number being two standard drinks (150ml) per day for men, and one standard drink per day for women according to the American Heart Association.

Adrian and his students wrote about their wine study for The Conversation. Visit Adrian’s website for further information.

Lynda Colgan

Professor of Elementary Mathematics, Faculty of Education

Synopsis: Dr. Lynda Colgan’s lifelong mission is to make science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fun. She has published award-winning books about mathematics education, created toolkits for educators and students, inspired several television series for children, and directed the wildly successful Science Rendezvous Kingston for over seven years. Dr. Colgan discusses the anxieties of North American adults surrounding math literacy, even though many use mathematics in everyday situations without realizing it. Ontario students as early as Grade 3 are already taking on negative attitudes towards math, and scores on standardized mathematics tests are dropping rapidly. Dr. Colgan is concerned that less than 50% of Ontario high school students are graduating with math and science credits. She has seen that students who see their mistakes as opportunities to learn instead of feeling discouraged by failure are able to perform better in the classroom. The song “The New Math” by Tom Lehrer can be found on YouTube, and more information can be found on Lynda’s website.