Lecture

Critical Tech Talk 12: Vibe Coding with AI for Cancer Detection - Building Mini Medical Machines in the Shadow of “Big Tech”

Wendy Philpott — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 19:57:25 +0000

Critical Tech Talk 12: Vibe Coding with AI for Cancer Detection - Building Mini Medical Machines in the Shadow of “Big Tech” Wendy Philpott Mon, 06/23/2025 - 15:57

Join the Critical Tech Talk series to hear about how “vibe coding”, a flexible, intuition-driven approach to prototyping can empower people from non-computing backgrounds to shape the medical tools they actually need.

About the talk

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in healthcare and creative workflows, the boundary between expert and end-user is blurring. This talk explores how “vibe coding”, a flexible, intuition-driven approach to prototyping can empower people from non-computing backgrounds to shape the medical tools they actually need. Drawing from experience building fast, lightweight AI utilities for cancer detection and clinical documentation, the speaker examines how small-scale code experiments can unlock agency and challenge institutional inertia. In this session, the speaker hopes to generate discussion on how personal toolmaking can offer an alternative to extractive models of technological development, fostering more grounded and human-centered applications of technology in medicine and beyond.

About the speaker

Dr. Josh Del Papa is a resident physician in Diagnostic and Molecular Pathology at the University of Western Ontario. He completed medical school at Queen’s University and holds a PhD in biochemistry with a specialization in human and molecular genetics from the University of Ottawa. His research bridges diagnostic dermatopathology, physician-centered interface design, and artificial intelligence, with a focus on transparent, clinician-empowering tools. He is currently developing a fully offline AI platform that classifies skin cancers in real-time. The system is designed to augment intraoperative consultations through a human-in-the-loop approach, without relying on the cloud or opaque black-box systems.

Respondents

Dr. Helen Chen is Director of the Professional Practice Centre in Health Systems and serves as Program Lead of the Master of Health Informatics and Analytics program. Her expertise lies in health data analytics and the interoperability of health information systems. Dr. Chen’s research explores the application of machine learning and generative AI to enhance the accessibility and usability of real-world health data, supporting evidence-based decision-making in healthcare and public health.

Dr. Jim Wallace is Professor in the School of Public Health Sciences with a cross-appointment in the Cheriton School of Computer Science. His research explores the intersection of human-computer interaction and health. He has published widely on topics including human-centered design, games for health behaviour change, and AI support for qualitaitve research. His work has received awards at the CHI and CSCW conferences, and is funded by NSERC, NRC, and CFI-JELF.

Dr. Plinio Morita is Director of the Ubiquitous Health Technology Lab (UbiLab). His research interests are in the areas of population-level surveillance using IoT data, mHealth and wearable technology design, ubiquitous sensors for smart homes, usage data and health data analytics, precision medicine, and technology for aging. He focuses on personalized medicine technologies that can prevent unnecessary visits to hospitals and drive our healthcare system toward community care and telehealth.

Moderator

Dr. Marcel O'Gorman, University Research Chair, professor of English, and founding director of the Critical Media Lab (CML), University of ��ݮ��Ƶ. Professor O'Gorman leads collaborative design projects and teaches courses and workshops in critical media studies and responsible innovation. He has published widely about the impacts of technology on society, and he has an international portfolio of exhibitions and performances.

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Visualizing the EV3 Solar Panels

Wendy Philpott — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 19:15:41 +0000

Visualizing the EV3 Solar Panels Wendy Philpott Mon, 06/09/2025 - 15:15

This event begins with a brief talk by Professor Ian Rowlands about the deployment of solar panels on the top of ��ݮ��Ƶ’s EV3 building, placing this within the context of solar energy policy and use in Ontario more broadly. A guided tour around EV3’s atrium will follow and – weather-permitting – its exterior and roof for an up-close look at the building’s solar panels

Next, participants will work with Professors Anne Pasek (Trent University) and Marcel O’Gorman to design a solar energy visualization project using data from the EV3 solar panels. No technical or artistic expertise is required, but an interest in alternative energy, sustainability and critical-creative design is a must.

Please register for this event

Solar Futures Hands-On Workshop

Wendy Philpott — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 19:08:45 +0000

Solar Futures Hands-On Workshop Wendy Philpott Mon, 06/09/2025 - 15:08

In this workshop co-directed by Anne Pasek (CRC in Media, Culture and the Environment at Trent University), Marcel O’Gorman, and Adan Jarrett-Poole, participants will work in groups to build a small solar power station and write/design a future world-building scenario for its deployment.

No technical or artistic expertise is required, but participants must be willing to think critically and creatively as they work in a supportive solar futures community.

Co-directors

Dr. Anne Pasek is an Assistant Professor at Trent University, dividing her time between the Department of Cultural Studies and the Trent School of the Environment. Her work explores the environmental impacts of digital technologies, the cultural politics of climate change, and critical making/artistic practices that might provide new avenues through these tricky problems. Her books include Digital Energetics (Meson Press 2023) and Low-Carbon Research Methods (Goldsmiths, forthcoming 2025)

Dr. Adan Jerreat-Poole is a queer/trans/crip writer and scholar. Their YA fantasy novels, The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass (2020) and The Boi of Feather and Steel (2021), were published with Dundurn Press. Their short fiction has appeared in Space and Time Magazine, The New Quarterly, Qwerty Magazine, and Soliloquies. Adan is an Assistant Professor of Communication Arts at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ working at the intersection of disability justice and digital media.

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Critical Tech Talk Pop-Up: An Energy History and Future of Big/Little Tech

Wendy Philpott — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 18:54:04 +0000

Critical Tech Talk Pop-Up: An Energy History and Future of Big/Little Tech Wendy Philpott Mon, 06/09/2025 - 14:54

Join this Critical Tech Talk Pop-Up event to hear Anne Pasek, CRC in Media, Culture and the Environment at Trent University.

About the talk

This talk will survey two trajectories for computing in North America. The first, grounded in an energy history of major players in the tech sector, explores how energy efficiency has been both a driving economic force of our digital present and an insufficient means to mitigate its rapidly growing environmental impacts. The second, drawn from artists and hackers experimenting in degrowth computing, 'small tech,' and solar-powered networks, explores how energy constraints are producing an alternative and dissonant path. Thinking these trajectories together, the talk will outline a politics and practice of digital energetics.

About the speaker

Anne Pasek is an Assistant Professor at Trent University, dividing her time between the Department of Cultural Studies and the Trent School of the Environment. Her work explores the environmental impacts of digital technologies, the cultural politics of climate change, and critical making/artistic practices that might provide new avenues through these tricky problems. Her books include Digital Energetics (Meson Press 2023) and Low-Carbon Research Methods (Goldsmiths, forthcoming 2025).

Moderator

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Abortion, Authoritarianism, and Reproductive Justice

Elizabeth Rogers — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 20:06:22 +0000

Abortion, Authoritarianism, and Reproductive Justice Elizabeth Rogers Tue, 04/22/2025 - 16:06

This talk will explore how a reproductive justice framework can inform our thinking about abortion, and bodily autonomy more generally, in the current authoritarian context of the United States.

This event will be held online and in person. Please register.

About the speaker

Naomi Braine is a Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of NY. Prior to joining the faculty at CUNY, she worked in the non-profit research sector on issues of drug use and HIV and consulted for community-based organizations. Her political and intellectual work addresses gender, sexuality, reproductive justice, wars on drugs and terror, and health and collective action. Her current work focuses on self-managed abortion as a transnational feminist movement.

This event is hosted by the Politics of Reproduction Research Group and by the Migration, Mobilities, and Social Politics Research Cluster.

Global Engagement Seminar's 2025 Desmarais Family Summit

Olivia Vanderwal — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:08:04 +0000

Global Engagement Seminar's 2025 Desmarais Family Summit Olivia Vanderwal Wed, 03/26/2025 - 15:08

Everyone is invited to join us for our annual Desmarais Family Summit.

The Summit is an interactive exhibition featuring projects by our Global Engagement Seminar students on this year's course theme, Finding our Future City, and contributions from our six distinguished 2025 Jarislowsky Fellows. 

Starting at 6:45 pm at United College’s Alumni Hall with a Smudging Ceremony, we'll hear from panel speakers Juanie Pudluk, Tai Huynh, and Helen Kerr and interact with the student projects. Refreshments will be served!

Summit details and registration.

Please email Brooke Barnes with any questions.

A Discussion with Author Tess Chakkalakal

Elizabeth Rogers — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 18:08:27 +0000

A Discussion with Author Tess Chakkalakal Elizabeth Rogers Mon, 03/17/2025 - 14:08

About the Event

Join us for an engaging discussion with Tess Chakkalakal, author of A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt, as she speaks with moderator Dr. Vay.

Whether you're interested in doing some learning over your lunch hour or a student looking to explore literary history, this is a great opportunity to hear about Chakkalakal’s work and insights.

Presented in partnership with the ��ݮ��Ƶ Public Library.

About the Author

Tess Chakkalakal teaches African-American and American Literature at Bowdoin College. Her writing has appeared in The New England Quarterly, J19, American Literary History, and many others. She is the author of Novel Bondage: Slavery, Marriage, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century American (Illinois UP, 2011) and co-editor of Jim Crow, Literature, and the Legacy of Sutton E. Griggs (University of Georgia Press, 2013) and Imperium in Imperio: A Critical Edition (West Virginia UP, 2022) She lives in Brunswick, Maine.

About the Book

In A Matter of Complexion, Tess Chakkalakal gives readers the first comprehensive biography of Charles W. Chesnutt. A complex and talented man, Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleveland to parents who were considered “mixed race.” He spent his early life in North Carolina after the Civil War. Though light-skinned, Chesnutt remained a member of the Black community throughout his life. He studied among students at the State Colored Normal School who were formerly enslaved. He became a teacher in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction. His life in the South of those years, the issue of race, and how he himself identified as Black informed much of his later writing. He went on to become the first Black writer whose stories appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and whose books were published by Houghton Mifflin.

Through his literary work, as a writer, critic, and speaker, Chesnutt transformed the publishing world by crossing racial barriers that divided Black writers from white and seamlessly including both Black and white characters in his writing. In A Matter of Complexion Chakkalakal pens the biography of a poor teacher raised in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction who became the first professional African American writer to break into the all-white literary establishment and win admirers as diverse as William Dean Howells, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, and Lorraine Hansberry.

About the Moderator

DR. VAY, moderating the event, is a professor in the departments of Communication Arts and English Language and Literature at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ, where he is also the inaugural director of Black Studies. He research focuses on the intersections of race and masculinity in US and Canadian literature, rhetoric, performance, and sociolinguistics. He is currently completing a book of essays on teaching Black language and literature in what he terms Ameri-Canada.

Non-binary Lives in Divided Times

Elizabeth Rogers — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 20:18:43 +0000

Non-binary Lives in Divided Times Elizabeth Rogers Mon, 03/10/2025 - 16:18

��ݮ��Ƶ Centre for German Studies Book Prize Lecture with Andrea Rottmann

Divided postwar Berlin was home to people of different non-binary genders. They found or made spaces for living dignified lives, even in the deeply queerphobic societies of Cold War Germany. In her talk, Andrea Rottmann will introduce us to some of them and to the pleasures and problems of writing their histories.

Event Details

This lecture is being held in cooperation with German Studies Canada.

When: Wednesday, April 2, 2025

12:30pm EDT (��ݮ��Ƶ time)/ 18:30 CEST (Berlin time)

Where: Zoom

By registering, you give us a way of providing you with a secure link to the online transmission.You will receive the Zoom link a couple days prior to the lecture.

Please note: this lecture will be recorded, and all registrants will receive a link to the recording when it is uploaded to the UW Arts YouTube channel.

Queer Lives across the Wall: Desire and Danger in Divided Berlin, 1945–1970 (University of Toronto Press) by Andrea Rottmann was awarded the ��ݮ��Ƶ Centre for German Studies Book Prize for first books published in 2023.

Political Science Speaker Series - Red River Onto-Sovereignties: On Radical Refusal, Fish Conservation & Quantum Relationality

Elizabeth Rogers — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 19:40:43 +0000

Political Science Speaker Series - Red River Onto-Sovereignties: On Radical Refusal, Fish Conservation & Quantum Relationality Elizabeth Rogers Fri, 02/28/2025 - 14:40

Dr. Zoe Todd is a Red River Métis scholar from Edmonton, Alberta who studies the relationships between freshwater fish futures and Indigenous sovereignty in Canada, with a particular focus on freshwater fish relationships in Todd's home province of Alberta.

Drawing on various scholars, Todd critiques the push to 'braid' Indigenous and settler paradigms in conservation. As a Red River Métis scholar, Todd advocates for the radical refusal of systems based on white possession and individualism, urging western institutions to embrace Indigenous practices and global anti-imperialist solidarities.

Political Science Speaker Series: Permanent Marginality - Indigenous Identity and Academia

Elizabeth Rogers — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 22:02:00 +0000

Political Science Speaker Series: Permanent Marginality - Indigenous Identity and Academia Elizabeth Rogers Thu, 02/20/2025 - 17:02

Rachelle Besaw is a Descendant Member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, and veteran of the United States Navy. She is currently working on her Doctorate in Sociocultural Anthropology from Arizona State University.

As a Descendant Member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, raised in Phoenix, AZ, Rachelle was culturally and geographically displaced from her Tribe while growing up. In this lecture, she will discuss the marginal space she now inhabits as a linguistic anthropologist, indebted to the oftentimes cruel and violent history of anthropological and linguistic research inflicted upon Indigenous Nations, and her own Tribe, in the name of Science. She will discuss her own journey through an academic system built on the oppression and subjugation of her people, and how she has had to rely upon extractive and exploitative research on her path to reclaiming her Indigeneity.

Join the meeting: MS Teams link