On A Tangent

Episode 12: Fostering Mentorship in Science with Julia Pia

Mentorship can be a critical ingredient for success in the academic journey, offering students guidance, career opportunities, network connections, and sometimes even leading to lifelong relationships. Inspired by her own mentorship journey, Faculty of Science alumna Julia Pia (Chemistry ‘20) founded Ment Projects to provide accessible mentorship resources for students and professionals. Ment Projects launched in 2023 with The Mentorship Podcast, featuring diverse industry professionals discussing their field and career path. This fall, they launched their mentorship app, Ment, through a pilot with the Undergraduate Science Society at TMU. In this episode, we discuss why mentorship is so important in science and explore the range of mentorship tools and programs available to students within the Faculty of Science at TMU. Discover mentorship resources in the Faculty of Science at TMU: * Ment - Free for TMU’s Faculty of Science [https://www.ment-projects.com/the-app⁠ ] * PALS (Peer Academic Leaders in Science) [https://www.torontomu.ca/science/current-undergraduate-students/first-year-science/science-peer-mentors/⁠ ] * SciMentorship Program [https://www.torontomu.ca/science/science-mentorship-program/⁠] Why is mentorship important in science? 2:07 | Julia’s journey with mentorship 4:16 | Mentorship resources in the Faculty of Science at TMU 11:18 | Ment Projects and the Ment App 13:42

Episode 11: Bridging the Diversity Gap in Computer Science with Dr. Preeti Raman

Why does the computing industry struggle with representing Canada’s diversity? In this episode, Dr. Preeti Raman, Computer Science professor and pedagogy researcher at TMU, highlights the critical issues surrounding the gender and diversity gap in computer science. It starts early – a lack of support or exposure to computing in grade school can leave women and underrepresented groups feeling unsupported in their career path, a trajectory commonly known as the "leaky pipeline." Leaning on her expertise in integrative analytics and care-centred pedagogies, she discusses why it is more critical than ever to make computer science accessible to all. What is the diversity and gender gap? 1:38 | Why should we care about diversity? 3:10 | What does the data say? 4:12 | The “leaky pipeline” and its barriers 7:45 | How can we bridge the gap 15:22

Episode 10: Decolonizing Science Education with Brooke Filsinger and Alacea Yerxa

While Indigenous Peoples can be considered the first scientists, the current Canadian curriculum is rooted in Euro-Western science, overlooking and excluding centuries of Indigenous Knowledges. In this episode, we sit down with Brooke Filsinger and Alacea Yerxa, two changemakers in the scientific and Indigenous community at TMU to learn about what decolonizing science education is and how they hope to change the system to include Indigenous perspectives. What is Indigenous science? 2:55 | Inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: Indigenizing the Canadian Academy 6:22 | The future of Indigenous science education 11:23 | How they’re changing the system 12:51

Episode 9: Dr. Bryan Koivisto on Earth Hour and environmental awareness

Every year on the last Saturday of March, millions of people across the world turn off their lights for Earth Hour to raise awareness for the urgency of nature loss and climate change. But is ‘awareness’ enough? In this episode, we ask: Is it too late to change course? Are we headed towards environmental disaster? Whose responsibility is it to help save our planet? Our conversation with Dr. Bryan Koivisto takes an interesting approach as we explore this topic from different perspectives and consider how socio-economics, politics, and social media play a role in the mix. Bryan is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biology and his research is in Organic-based Renewable Energy. He is also the Graduate Program Director for the Environmental Applied Science and Management Program and he is involved in mentorship in scientific discovery at the university. What is Earth Hour? 3:10 | The Urgency of Climate Change 9:06 | Environmental Justice and Racialized Communities 11:01 | Can We Turn this Ship Around? 14:15 | Who’s Responsible: Individuals or Corporations? 16:31 | What We Can Do to Help 22:02

Episode 8: Shadan Ghaffaripour on protecting personal data

Every year on January 28th, Canada and many countries around the world participate in Data Privacy Day. On this day in 1981, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection was signed. Today, we use the anniversary as an opportunity to bring forward discourse around the value of protecting personal privacy in our digital society. In this episode, Shadan Ghaffaripour, a PhD candidate in computer science, explains what data privacy is, why we should care, and how users and corporations can protect personal data. Shadan currently works in the Information and Computer Security lab under the supervision of Dr. Ali Miri and her research area is in privacy-preserving technologies. What is data privacy and why should we care? 1:10 | How can users & corporations protect personal data? 7:30