Digital transformation benefits students at Saint Mary’s University

Saint Mary's University, one of Canada's foremost primarily undergraduate universities, is building the learning environment of the future that will give current and future students a world-class engaging and immersive experience. A digital transformation, backed by a series of technology investments, will place Saint Mary's in a leading position for student experience, student choice, and blended learning in Canada and around the world. 

Saint Mary's has partnered with industry-leading experts D2L and Ellucian to innovate and improve the learner experience in an approach that is on the cutting edge for post-secondary institutions. Saint Mary's integrated learning environment will be one of the most sophisticated in Canada. It will bring together all aspects of virtual and in-person learning into a seamless whole, including the management of learning, data records, academic and financial services, credentialing, and learner support. 

“The digital transformation will be a game-changer for our students, removing barriers to higher education related to scheduling, learning style and preferences, finance, accommodation, and location,” says Saint Mary's University President Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray. "New technology and digital services will mean that Saint Mary’s students will be able to learn and engage fully with their professors, fellow students, and research partners in the classroom, from their home and from anywhere in the world. This investment will open up doors for completion of degrees online for some students. For others, their courses and experiences will be the perfect mix of in-person, virtual and online. Our students have spoken, and building on what we have learned during the pandemic, we know they want these options and this flexibility. This is the future and this strategic partnership puts Saint Mary’s in a leadership position nationally." 

Saint Mary's will use D2L's Brightspace platform and leading-edge technology to create the most interactive course content for learners anywhere in the world, provide individualized learning pathways, give learners personalized feedback, and engage them in their learning through gamification, social tools, and video. 

The university's new integrated learning environment will be hosted in the cloud to provide a seamless service to learners across a lifetime of learning. The transformation will encompass all courses, programs, and certificates, and all 6,500 students will benefit from this $9.3 million investment over five years.  

"This investment will lead to significant improvements in the teaching and learning experience and the general operations and systems of the university that will be felt by everyone," says Saint Mary's University's Vice-President, Finance and Administration, Michelle Benoit. "We are removing duplication and increasing student and faculty access to the services of the university while providing them more tools and pathways to enhance their experience. We are automating processes to provide faster response times for students, freeing up staff time to focus on other service delivery areas. This is a very significant moment for our institution." 

Over the project's term, the university's data management system, Ellucian Banner, will be integrated with the university's online learning platform, Brightspace by D2L. Both Ellucian and D2L are key partners for this digital transformation.  

"We are excited to expand our relationship with Saint Mary's University to further accelerate their digital transformation journey," said Laura Ipsen, President and CEO, Ellucian. "SMU's investment in modern systems in the cloud will enhance operational efficiencies enabling more resources to focus on what's most important -- students. Their unwavering commitment to improving the student experience, paired with their vision to become a truly global institution, sets them apart as an innovative leader in higher education." 

"What Saint Mary's University has done is nothing short of remarkable," said John Baker, President and CEO of D2L. "Creating a truly learner-centered, fully integrated learning environment can only happen when you're absolutely committed to student success. It's a real honour for all of us at D2L to be part of such a progressive, innovative and student-centered success story." 

"This investment is about improving supports for teaching and learning and improving processes and data management to allow students, faculty, and staff to focus more on the primary reason we are all here—the creation and the dissemination of knowledge," says President Summerby-Murray.

Learn about applying to Saint Mary’s.

Learn about employment opportunities at Saint Mary’s.

Hackathon to address human trafficking in Atlantic Canada begins

Saint Mary’s University, in partnership with Volta and supported by the Government of Canada, is hosting the 
SMU Community Hackathon — Addressing Human Trafficking in Atlantic Canada.  

Human trafficking and sexual exploitation are devastating to survivors, families, and Canada’s most vulnerable populations. It is with this understanding that the Saint Mary’s University Entrepreneurship Centre (SMUEC) and partners aim to create awareness about human trafficking while bringing youth together with key stakeholders to explore ways technology can be used to tackle this issue. 

“I was pleased to participate in Saint Mary’s University’s virtual hackathon today,” said The Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. “With the help of almost $55,000 in federal funding, the University is building on the important work it is doing to raise awareness on the signs of human trafficking, through technological innovation and collaboration. Through projects like this one, we are working together to build a safer and more resilient Canada, where all people are protected from human trafficking and its harms.”

The funding for the hackathon is made available under the Contribution Program to Combat Serious and Organized Crime.

This two-day virtual event brings together post-secondary students from across Atlantic Canada, as well as service providers, law enforcement and others, to explore innovative ways that technology can be used to raise awareness of human trafficking. In teams, participants will develop innovative solutions in combating human sex trafficking from a preventative perspective. The event will feature speakers, panel sessions, brainstorming workshops and hands-on opportunities for participants to work with peers and mentors in bringing their ideas to life.  

After the hackathon, teams move on to the project’s second phase. Teams will receive weekly mentorship and attend skill development sessions as they develop their ideas over the month before delivering final pitches to an expert panel.

“At Saint Mary’s University, community is at the heart of all that we do,” said Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray, President and Vice-Chancellor, Saint Mary’s University. “We are committed to research and innovation that improves the wellbeing of our communities. This hackathon is an example of this work and we are pleased to partner with the Government of Canada as we raise awareness of human trafficking, find ways to combat this crime, and improve the lives of Canadians.”

Additional information:

• Government of Canada announces funding for project to raise awareness of human trafficking

• SMU Community Hackathon: Addressing Human Trafficking in Atlantic Canada  

Dr. Evangelia Tastsoglou recognized for research excellence

The 2020 recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Research is Dr. Evie Tastsoglou, Professor of Sociology.

Dr. Evangelia (Evie) Tastsoglou is the recipient of the 2020 President’s Award for Excellence in Research at Saint Mary’s, to be recognized during the virtual Winter Convocation ceremony on February 13.

A highly regarded leader in Sociology research, Dr. Tastsoglou has legal training and expertise spanning other fields such as Women and Gender Studies and International Development Studies. Much of her current research focuses on the urgent issue of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in migration.

Dr. Tastsoglou currently leads as principal investigator the Canadian research team of a major international research program that is analyzing causes and impacts of violence against women migrants and refugees, with a view to shaping effective policy to address it. Working “remotely yet at full speed,” her Canadian team of scholars at four institutions is supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The program was developed in response to a call from GENDER-NET Plus, a consortium of 16 organizations from 13 countries, aiming to strengthen transnational research while promoting gender equality through institutional change.

With a team of academics in Canada and Greece, Dr. Tastsoglou is also the principal investigator of a SSHRC-funded project, with preliminary results now in review for publication. This research seeks to understand gender-based violence and precarity “in the forced migration journeys of asylum-seeking women toward the EU through what is known as the Eastern Mediterranean route, in the tumultuous, second decade of the 21st century,” she says. “Our findings locate five points in this forced migration journey where precarity interweaves with violence, reinforcing one another, as well as show their gendered forms: border crossing, the asylum determination process, living conditions, services, and state response to GVB.”

Additionally, she is co-investigator in a project on the impacts of the pandemic on Canadians’ mental health, as analyzed through social media. Funded by NSERC Alliance COVID-19, the project includes industry partner Diversio and research teams from Dalhousie’s Faculty of Computer Science and Department of Psychiatry.

“This is a truly rewarding collaboration not only in terms of building substantive knowledge but also in pioneering interdisciplinary methodology that combines, with sociological input, machine learning methods applied to text mining, followed by qualitative analysis. Team members learn how to negotiate a common ‘language’ across very different disciplines,” says Dr. Tastsoglou.

Interdisciplinary approaches have always been vital to her research but the NSERC Alliance COVID-19 project is further expanding those horizons, she says. “My educational background is in law and sociology and although I appreciate the distinct lenses of the two disciplines, I consider them complementary in approaching complex social phenomena. This project takes me one step further in the direction of addressing research questions in the social sciences by using artificial intelligence methodologies to assist in coping with large amounts of text.”

Since arriving at Saint Mary’s in 1993, Professor Tastsoglou has served as a mentor for many undergraduate and graduate students. She was Chair of the former Department of Sociology and Criminology from 2006-2012. Cross-appointed since 2017 to the International Development Studies Program, she serves as its undergraduate coordinator.

“It has been a privilege to have spent most of my academic career working at Saint Mary’s University,” she says, adding she is deeply honoured to receive the research excellence award. “I have learnt and continue to learn a great deal from my colleagues and students. Working out of a smaller university has some unique advantages in terms of having less pressure to produce and more freedom to engage your passions, which can ultimately enrich both your work and life. I am very grateful to the Saint Mary’s community, which I have experienced as personable, caring and supportive throughout my career.”

Currently president of the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association, Dr. Tastsoglou was proclaimed “Sociologist of the Month” by the international Current Sociology journal in July 2018, and received a Fulbright / Niarchos Fellowship in 2017. She was an elected member of the Research Council and Executive of the International Sociological Association (2014-2018), and former President of the ISA’s RC 32 (Research Committee on Women in Society (2006-2014). She is the single author, co-author, editor and co-editor of numerous publications, including 11 peer-reviewed volumes, in national and international venues.

Established in 1989, the annual President’s Award honours outstanding research conducted by a full-time faculty member at Saint Mary’s. Recipients must have a record of continued and exceptional contribution to research and scholarship, as well as national or international recognition as an authority in a major field of knowledge.

History graduate receives prestigious SSHRC scholarship

Alex Myrick

It’s an interesting time of transition for Alex Myrick, whose master’s level research is now evolving to the doctoral level.  

Myrick will graduate from Saint Mary’s with a Master of Arts degree in History on February 13. The M.A. program in the History department gave him a great foundation for his next steps: he’s already working on his PhD at the University of Ottawa – remotely from his current home in Halifax – and recently received a prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).  

In October, Myrick successfully defended his master’s thesis, titled ‘From Isolated Asylums to the Medical Mainstream: Psychiatry's Journey Towards Normalization within Somatic Medicine, 1900-1970’. His research focuses on the once isolated practice of psychiatry and how it became more integrated into medical schools and general hospitals. Psychiatry had been separated from general medicine and was mainly practised in overcrowded asylums up until the mid-twentieth century.

Myrick first became intrigued by the topic in 2017, during a journalism project in his undergraduate years at the University of King’s College. “I wanted to know how, as a society, we got to the point of a quiet crisis in mental health care, with an overburdened system,” he shares. “What intellectual ideas have created the system we live in today? I hope to at least understand how psychiatry and mental health care have developed over the century.” 

He concentrated his master’s research on the prominent  20th century psychiatrist Adolf Meyer, whose theory of psychobiology specified that the mind and body are indivisible aspects of the whole human organism. Through psychobiology, an individual’s health could be based on the premise that the body’s anatomical and physiological nervous apparatus work in conjunction with its mental activities and behaviours, and all are part of the human organism’s adaptive response to stimuli in their environment.

Meyer’s influence also extended to Nova Scotia’s medical history, which provided a case study in Myrick’s thesis. Dr. Robert O. Jones, a student of Meyer’s at John Hopkins University, developed a curriculum and post-graduate program for psychiatry at Dalhousie Medical School. Jones became an advocate for Meyerian ideas in the province while teaching the specifics of Meyer’s approaches to psychiatry and medicine. Through Jones and his work, psychiatry was established as a discipline on par with other medical specialties in Nova Scotia.

Myrick is expanding the scope of analysis for his doctoral research to include other Canadian cities that saw psychiatry integrated into their health care systems between 1900 and 1970. He will also further examine the debates among psychiatrists and “the rest of medicine” over psychiatric treatment in hospitals.  

He is delighted to be the recipient of a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship. This will provide federal funding of $35,000 annually for three years of his PhD program.

“The funding frees up so much financial stress,” says Myrick. “The nature of the scholarships means that I can focus entirely on my research. With this funding I also hope to travel to the United States or England to visit the institutions where Meyer’s students worked.”

A Passion for Storytelling

PhD graduate Shelley T. Price has a long-standing relationship with Saint Mary’s University. For the past 28 years, she has been active in the university as a student, instructor, and staff member. A true Santamarian, Price also obtained her Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and her MBA in Human Resources at Saint Mary’s.

“I am a loyal person, and I made Saint Mary’s my home,” explains Price. “I felt like I always had something more to learn, and I am passionate about learning. Somewhere along the way, I saw myself continuing to pursue degrees at Saint Mary’s until I finished a PhD.”

Born in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, and raised in Southwest Nova Scotia (Mi’kma’ki), Price’s inspiration comes from Indigenous peoples’ stories and lived experiences. Her great-grandmother’s work, Woman of Labrador, was a catalyst to explore her peoples’ memories and stories through her PhD in Business Administration.

“I found a world of possibilities in academia that I never knew existed,” says Price. “The multi-paradigmatic approach allowed me to explore my voice and the wisdom of my peoples. I was so grateful to have found a space in business academia, where all of me was welcome: my fears, my anxieties, my hopes, and my dreams toward sustainable, just, and equitable ways of managing and leading organizations.”

Price’s passion for storytelling and her identity as a bi-racial Inuk woman has informed her research. Her dissertation title is Storytelling leadership: Connecting heart, mind, body, and spirit to stories of the old ways and old days of Labrador. The focus is on exploring a plurality of sustainable, just, and equitable practices of being, doing, knowing, and relating in leadership.

“Discrimination, harassment, exploitation, and oppression are still far too common in organizational contexts, and I think it is important to explore trauma-informed and culturally safe and humble approaches to decolonize management and leadership practice and education,” says Price. “I want to continue helping Indigenous peoples through my research. I think it is important to make space in academia for the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples.”

Currently, Price is an Assistant Professor at St. Francis Xavier University in the Department of Management. Over the years, she has worked at Saint Mary’s in various roles, including an instructor in the Management Department, as the Manager of Custodial Administration and Sustainability in Facilities, and in the Continuing Education and Teaching English as a Second Language departments.

“Saint Mary’s was my home. There were far too many wonderful experiences to count, and I am sad to see the adventure come to an end.”

As an advocate of social and environmental justice, Price wishes to extend a call to business leaders to engage in reflecting on how they will respond to #MMIWG2S #IndigenousRights #MeToo #Pride #MentalHealthAwareness #MakeMuskratRight #ClimateAction #BlackLivesMatter.

Saint Mary's Engineering Team Victorious at Atlantic Engineering Competition

Saint Mary’s students Amy Kehoe and Andrew Ollerhead

Congratulations to Amy Kehoe and Andrew Ollerhead for winning the Junior Design competition at the Atlantic Engineering Competition, hosted virtually by the University of Prince Edward Island last month. The pair were competing in a field of 11 Atlantic university teams.  

Only knowing in advance that their topic would focus on either Prince Edward Island aquaculture or agriculture in some way, the Atlantic competitors received their instructions and a box of supplies that included cardboard, coat hangers, Styrofoam balls, straws and duct tape. Then, teams had just six hours to build a prototype to solve this agricultural problem facing Island farmers and present it to the judges:

Problem

Due to the lack of natural pollinators, many personal gardens and greenhouses suffer from poor plant health and low crop yield. To fix this, humans have developed artificial pollination methods. A device that can mechanically pollinate a tray of plants is required.

Challenge

Design a device or system that is capable of pollinating the provided tray of plants. The priority is to pollinate the highest number of plants with a sufficient amount of pollen under the designated time limit. 

The pair quickly got to work brainstorming ideas on a white-board, narrowing their ideas down to three before coming up with their strategy.

“Within the first hour, we chose a design and started working out the mechanics of building it,” Kehoe says.

Their project design consisted of a cardboard frame with two poles to allow a set of three hoppers that would slide open or closed depending on the position of a sliding plate with holes that would align.

“Our goal was to cover the bottom of nine Styrofoam cups with salt; the cups were on a three-by-three grid, which is why we chose the shape we did,” Kehoe adds. “We used an elastic to make sure each position was the one we wanted; we had to use string to make anything move on the machine.” 

Contest rules specified that the device had to remain on the table, and only one person could operate the device. The teams could not physically touch the tray of cups, and the pollen had to be dispensed in a controlled manner. 

“Our pollinator can pollinate nine plants, but since a greenhouse doesn’t normally have nine plants, we have to be able to scale it up easily,” the team explains. “We had to think of those things in the design process. That’s why we chose this design. We made ours out of cardboard, but we discussed that we would use plastic in real life, and we looked up costs of materials.”

“The prototype is part of it, but a big part is the presentation,” Kehoe adds. “Talking in front of an audience, and more importantly, coming up with the design and thinking of how to translate this to a real-world application.”  

In preparation for this event, Engineering instructor Luke MacDonald coached the Saint Mary’s teams on creating professional presentations. He ran a practice competition to help the students prepare to work under pressure. 

“These competitions give students the opportunity to use the skills they have learned in various courses on real-world problems,” MacDonald says. “Students work on a design problem in teams to come up with solutions—it’s a good experience for them, and helps build useful skills which they can use in their future careers.”

Both Kehoe and Ollerhead are in their second year of Engineering. Ollerhead plans to finish a Bachelor of Science in Engineering before continuing onto studies in Mechanical Engineering.

As for Kehoe, she plans to take Electrical Engineering after finishing her BSc but first hopes to travel next year to volunteer in her role as a Council Youth Commissioner for Nova Scotia at an international scouting centre if Covid-related travel restrictions are lifted by that time.

The pair will virtually compete at the Canadian Engineering Competition 2021 later this month, which will be hosted by the University of New Brunswick.

Dr. Edna Keeble moderates U.S. - Canada Relations event

Dr. Edna Keeble

It’s a virtual event fitting the times. “Congress to Campus: U.S.-Canada Relations” on January 28 promises to be an engaging discussion directed to those in academia and beyond in Canada.  

The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States will have an impact on countries all over the world. Just hours after taking office this week, he revoked the permit that would have enabled western Canada’s Keystone XL oil pipeline project to expand into the U.S. On his first day, President Biden also indicated that his administration’s relationship with Canada is a priority – his first phone call to a foreign leader will be with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Congress to Campus event, which aims to explore many of the questions Canadians might have right now, is part of the outreach program of the United States Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC). It’s timely, as the effects of the recent U.S. election and the attack on the Capitol are still very fresh in the minds of the world. The event also has a connection to the Saint Mary’s community, with Dr. Edna Keeble serving as the discussion’s moderator.  

“It is important not only to discuss the possible directions of Canada-U.S. relations under the new Biden administration, but also to understand the future prospects of bipartisanship from those who have served in the halls of the U.S. Congress,” says Dr. Keeble, a professor in the Department of Political Science.

The two speakers for the event are former members of the U.S. House of Representatives, from both the Democratic and Republican parties:

• The Honorable Elizabeth Esty, who was the U.S. Representative for Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District covering central and northwest Connecticut from 2013 to 2019.

• The Honorable John J. Faso, who represented the 19th Congressional District in upstate New York from 2017 to 2019.

Dr. Keeble’s current teaching and research interests focus on Canadian foreign policy, re-definitions of security, and linkages between politics, gender and sexuality. She served as Chair of the Political Science department for six years (2003-2004; 2009-2014).

“I was invited to moderate by the U.S. Consulate General in Halifax, which was organizing the event with the Former Members of Congress organization before the horrific January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol,” she says.   

All are welcome to attend Congress to Campus, to be held Thursday, January 28 at 1:00 pm on Zoom. For more details about the speakers, see the SMU Events Calendar and sign up in advance for the webinar link.

Saint Mary's University celebrates African Heritage Month

This February, Saint Mary's University is celebrating African Heritage Month. This year's theme is Black History Matters: Listen, Learn, Share and Act, recognizing the important legacy of people of African descent and the long-standing history in the development of Canada.  

"We are proud to be hosting a series of events that our students and community can attend virtually to celebrate African Heritage Month," says Charisma Grace Walker, the African Nova Scotian/Black student & community liaison at Saint Mary's. "I encourage everyone to join us as we discuss the past, present, and future of our communities."  

The university’s live online African Heritage Month launch event takes place on Monday, Feb. 1, 2021, at 11 a.m. The event will feature greetings and performances from members of the African Nova Scotian and Black community. The university is excited to welcome Candace Thomas BA'86, Deputy Minister, Department of Justice, who will participate and provide the keynote address. The launch event, and several upcoming events celebrating Saint Mary’s African Heritage Month, have been made possible through the generous support of Emera Inc.

A live stream of the launch event can be accessed at smu.ca/blackstudent. This event is open to all, and no sign-up is required. 

"African Heritage Month is an important time for our community to come together and celebrate," says Saint Mary's University President Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray. “Intercultural learning and the diversity of our institution is one of our greatest strengths. Saint Mary’s is committed to ensuring we are a community focused on the importance of equity, representation, and inclusion.”  

For more information on African Heritage Month events at Saint Mary's, including a keynote address-style event with Dr. Angela Davis and a music-infused poetry session, visit smu.ca/blackstudent/events. 

Saint Mary’s University professor takes high-tech 3D sensing to sensational new dimensions

Dr. Jiju Poovvancheri is making his Saint Mary’s University students think differently about the power of 3D sensing and virtual and augmented reality. - Photo Courtesy Mike Dembeck.

Students at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax are working on immersive, ground-breaking innovations in three-dimensional (3D) sensing and virtual and augmented reality —and they’re having fun too.

Dr. Jiju Poovvancheri, their Computing Science professor, currently has four projects set to influence industries and change entertainment dramatically, including the reconstruction of large-scale cities into “lightweight” 3D models.

“3D digital models of urban scenes can be used for city planning, emergency response training, assessment of solar energy potential, robotic navigation, entertainment, among many other applications,” says Poovvancheri, whose research focuses primarily on computer graphics and 3D computer vision.

Dr. Jiju Poovvancheri currently has four projects set to influence industries and change entertainment dramatically, including the reconstruction of large-scale cities into “lightweight” 3D models. - Photo Courtesy Mike Dembeck.

But creating these models from defect-laden 3D scans acquired via Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors is a technical challenge, says Poovvancheri. 

Drones scan buildings and other towering objects in the city from the top and sensors mounted on vehicles (such as Google Street View cars) scan point clouds (trillions of data points captured), representing all the objects. This data is then converted into a 3D model by specialized urban reconstruction algorithms.

“A point cloud is turned into a triangular mesh (for visualization and navigation purposes). But because city-scale 3D meshes contain trillions of triangles, storage is a huge concern, which makes the application slow to navigate or takes ages to render over web interfaces,” explains Poovvancheri.

Instead, he is working on a way to create lightweight 3D models that consume less storage without compromising the quality of the models.

Generated from LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) point clouds, these three-dimensional models are used to map urban areas. The top row is of a textured building model from Google Earth 3D, the second column: Model without textures, third column: Building model with enhanced geometric details, fourth column: Detailed models placed in Google Earth 3D. The area considered here is the downtown of Lexington, Kentucky, the U.S. And the second row are buildings generated from airborne laser scans of Toronto city dataset, left: Less detailed models (LOD1), middle: Moderately detailed (LOD 3), right: Highly detailed models (LOD5), where LOD stands for Level of Detail. - Photo Contributed.

The next frontier for Poovvancheri is the creation of volumetric videos for the benefits of face-to-face communication, like the holograms in the television series Star Trek.

“By 2025 or 2030, video conferencing communication platforms like Skype, Zoom, etc. may be replaced by holograms that recapture all my facial expressions and actions, while communicating with a person anywhere in the world,” said Poovvancheri.

To interact in real time, the remote participant will wear AR glasses such as Microsoft HoloLens glasses that superimpose a digital picture and enhance it onto a user’s view of the real world. 

“One major question we are addressing in my lab is real-time compression of volumetric videos. A multi-camera system captures my actions frame by frame, where each frame consists of billions of points that represent my body pose, which is slow across the computer network when transferred. We are working on the real-time compression of the scanned data without compromising the quality of the 3D models,” he says. 

AR glasses will reflect and amplify the full 360-degree breadth and complexity of the human experience. Workers can also wear AR glasses to perform tasks while viewing real-time, task-relevant information within their visual field.

“We are working on a machine learning algorithm to infer the spatial position and orientation of the digital overlays in the dynamic setting, i.e., head movements of the technician, that too in the presence of occlusions,” said Poovvancheri.

“For example, a technician can wear AR glasses to repair heavy and complex machinery with the help of digital overlays of 3D machinery models.”

Undergraduate and graduate students can apply for funding to work with Poovvancheri on these innovative projects, which “gives them great insight into the industry,” he says, adding the university administration is very supportive in undertaking such futuristic projects and encourages interdisciplinary research. 

His former students have accepted employment offers at Amazon and IBM, as well as Nova Scotian companies such as Perennia. “When I see my students succeed, I feel a great sense of pride.”

“Mr. Sumesh Thakur, one of my graduate students is working on a LiDAR-based pedestrian and bicyclist detection algorithm which may be used as a part of the 3D perception system in a fully self-driving car,” he says. 

“If you go through the 3D object detection accuracies on KITTI, an online standard benchmark where various companies and academic labs are continually uploading new data, you can see that the current best for pedestrian detection is 46.88 per cent on moderately difficult data,” explains Poovvancheri.

“It’s a long way to go to reach 90 or 100 per cent. We are working on a graph neural network for pedestrian and bicyclist detection.”

Pictured are qualitative 3D detection results of a graph neural network designed and developed by Dr. Poovvancheri’s group on the pedestrian and cyclists’ categories of the KITTI vision benchmark test dataset. Detected objects have red 3D bounding boxes and green 2D bounding boxes. - Photo Contributed.

The goal is to improve the accuracy statistics of the state-of-the-art in 3D object detection over the next couple of years and extend the detection system for smaller objects. e.g., trash bins or mailboxes, keeping in mind the possibility of autonomous robots for garbage collection or mail delivery.

“It comes down to 3D deep learning algorithms,” he says. “Essentially, we design deep neural networks, train the network with the labelled data available in standard benchmark suites, e.g., KITTI or Google Waymo, which eventually make the neural network capable of identifying the difference between a car versus a pedestrian or road markings. With accurate perception systems, the autonomous vehicles can help a driver avoid collisions.” 

Poovvancheri is passing his enthusiasm for 3D imaging and sensing technology on to his students to help the world in more ways than one.

This story first appeared on the Chronicle Herald website.

Saint Mary's science researcher part of global soil biodiversity network

Dr. Erin Cameron

Dr. Erin Cameron, Saint Mary’s researcher and professor in the Department of Environmental Science, is a co-author of a just-published paper in Science Magazine titled “Tracking, Targeting, and Conserving Soil Biodiversity.”  

This international project follows a paper Cameron authored in Conservation Biology last year, which determined that there are mismatches between aboveground and soil biodiversity globally, and thus protecting aboveground diversity may not sufficiently reduce threats to soil biodiversity.

“We are working on building a global biodiversity network focusing specifically on soil,” says Cameron. “Tracking the biodiversity of soil is an important part of global environmental conservation work, and this is a long-term project that’s just beginning.” 

“There is still a lot to discover about soil biodiversity and how human activities are impacting it. Organisms that live in the soil are a vital part of a functioning ecosystem.”  

Cameron also had a paper published as the cover story in Science Magazine last year, in which she explained her work studying the global diversity and biogeography of earthworms. 

Statement: Informing the SMU Community of a positive test for COVID-19

The following statement was shared with the Saint Mary’s University community.

Informing the SMU Community of a positive test for COVID-19

Dear SMU community,

Public Health has informed the university of one positive case of COVID-19 in our residence community. The case is travel-related, and the person has been following protocols. They have been in self-isolation since their arrival, and they will continue to self-isolate. The procedures we have put in place to protect our community are being followed. 

The university and this individual received this news due to following the travel and testing protocols for post-secondary students entering Nova Scotia. Specifically, through scheduling a test between days 6 to 8 of their self-isolation period. We encourage all students entering the province and self-isolating to schedule a test through the COVID-19 self-assessment website.

Out of respect for their privacy and in-keeping with privacy legislation, no other details will be shared at this time. We pass along our best wishes to them on their recovery and thank them for following the proper procedures to self-isolate, which minimized the risk of exposure to others and helped protect our community.

The university website has more information regarding the protocols in place on campus. For more information on the public health protocols in place for Nova Scotia for COVID-19, click here.

Saint Mary’s will continue to work with Public Health to keep our students and our community safe.
 

Sincerely,

Michelle Benoit
Vice-President, Finance & Administration

Saint Mary’s University professor goes above and beyond with astronomy research and teaching

Dr. Luigi Gallo is a professor in the Department of Astronomy and Physics at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

Black holes are voracious eaters that gulp up everything they can, from stars and dust clouds to other space debris. Supermassive black holes are hundreds of thousands of times the mass of the sun. Understanding the behaviour of these astronomical objects can be complicated.

Dr. Luigi Gallo’s research can attest to that. Through his research on black holes and supermassive black holes, Dr. Gallo, a professor and researcher in the Department of Astronomy and Physics at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, has helped gain new understanding of the topic.  

“Certain kinds of black holes eject material, and this is more widespread than initially thought,” said Gallo. “We have found that black holes and their host galaxies have an interesting relationship that grows and evolves together,” he says.

Gallo is part of an esteemed international team working with NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and is also part of XRISM, the international X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission. His work has led to groundbreaking discoveries that altered scientists’ understanding of black holes.

Sophia Waddell – Faculty of Science from Saint Mary's University.

“We are studying high-energy X-rays emitted from the region around the black hole. Fundamentally, these X-rays are just light you cannot see with your eyes,” explained Gallo.

Since the X-rays do not penetrate Earth’s atmosphere, NASA and JAXA, are building the XRISM satellite, which is set to launch into space in February 2022, to study X-ray sources in the universe.  The primary instrument on XRISM is a calorimeter called Resolve.

It’s like a supersensitive prism that breaks white light into colours,” he explained. “But we are looking at X-ray colours as opposed to visible colours. How a prism will separate the white light into 6-7 distinctly coloured band, the calorimeter is so sensitive it will show separations within each of the bands.”

Gallo says the XRISM will perform high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy in the medium around black holes and in clusters of galaxies, and can reveal the composition of the material, temperature and how it moves — smooth, spiralling, or turbulent.

These missions can take decades to launch, but a revolutionary observation from the previous 2016 Hitomi (ASTRO-H) satellite mission pushed the timeline of XRISM into production.

“We learned through Hitomi while observing the Perseus cluster [a cluster of galaxies] that the environment was not as turbulent as we might have expected,” said Gallo. “The composition of the material was different, so all these kinds of things showed us that our models needed to be improved.

Passing it on 

Dr. Gallo completed his PhD at the prestigious Max Planck Institute in Garching, Germany, followed by postdoctoral research in Japan. He later joined the Saint Mary’s faculty and works with the Canadian Space Agency on these missions.

His passion for astronomy was born at an early age, and he shares his love for space with his students. “I was one of the kids that always looked up instead of looking down,” he said.

“One of my favourite parts of being a teacher is working with students on research projects. You measure your success through the success of your students, seeing them figure things out and even find better solutions.”

Dr. Luigi Gallo is a professor in the Department of Astronomy and Physics at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. - Photo Contributed.

A professor at Saint Mary’s University since 2007, Dr. Gallo has invited students to work with him on his current projects as a way to learn more about current research methods, and has helped many students get their own original papers successfully published, an exciting milestone.

But one of the greatest aspects of teaching at Saint Mary’s University is the smaller classroom environments, says Gallo, where students appreciate the opportunity to stand out from the crowd in a warm, welcoming setting.

“As a smaller university with around 7000 students, Saint Mary’s is unique because it has a level of excellence in research that stands up to any large institution in the country,” he said. “Our astronomy department has as many researchers as much larger schools.”

“It often shocks the undergraduate students when I know their names, even if they haven’t taken a class with me,” said Gallo. “We have a strong sense of community, where students feel they can immediately begin making vital contributions.”

This story first appeared on the Chronicle Herald website.