The second annual Alumni and Student Pow Wow, May 11 to 13 at the Toldo Lancer Centre, is a fun opportunity for the campus community and local youth to celebrate Indigenous culture, says Kat Pasquach, aboriginal outreach and retention co-ordinator in the UWindsor Turtle Island centre.

Hosted in partnership with St. Clair College’s Indigenous Student Services, the free event will be a chance for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students and alumni to connect to their cultures and community in Windsor-Essex, including more than 1,500 Indigenous students from five local school boards.

“Many Indigenous students may not have had the opportunity to travel and participate in pow wows,” Pasquach says. “We are excited to host the event this year, to continue building relationships and preserving our culture right in Windsor-Essex. Everyone is welcome to attend, learn and engage.”

Funded in part by the Gordie Howe International Bridge Community Benefits plan, the three-day event will include drumming, dancing, crafts, traditional food, and a special guest performance.

Details are available on the event website.

“It makes sense to be prepared” when it comes to the possibility of a new pathogen or new COVID variant infecting people in Windsor-Essex, says Kenneth Ng, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

That is why Dr. Ng joined seven fellow UWindsor researchers from various disciplines on a project to improve the surveillance and detection of new potentially harmful pathogens and to develop a flexible framework for dealing with challenges from future pandemics.

“To meet the urgent challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, our group rapidly established a surveillance-based informative framework combining saliva-based PCR screening, wastewater testing, pathogen genome sequencing and a real-time dashboard to efficiently communicate information to decision-makers and the community,” says Ng, principal investigator on the new grant.

“Now that the public health emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, our group is hoping to learn from what worked and what did not work, so that a more effective pathogen surveillance system and improved public policies can be put in place to prepare for the emergence of pathogens with the potential to cause disruptive pandemics in the future.”

The team is funded with a two-year, $500,000 Research for Postpandemic Recovery grant from the New Frontiers in Research Fund, under the strategic direction of the Canada Research Coordinating Committee.

The researchers include: Ng and Yufeng Tong from chemistry and biochemistry, Kendall Soucie in psychology, Marta Leardi-Anderson and Laurie Tannous of the Cross-Border Institute, Pooya Moradian Zadeh in computer science, Mike McKay of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, and Lisa Porter in biomedical sciences and executive director of the WE-Spark Health Institute.

The multidisciplinary team brings together expertise in molecular virology, genome sequencing, assay development, wastewater testing, participant uptake, compliance, and satisfaction, social computing, big data analysis, and border relations and policies.

Windsor-Essex sits at the busiest border crossing in North America where more than 6,000 residents commute routinely to the U.S., making the region particularly sensitive to emerging pathogens and their many far-ranging social and economic impacts.

“The main idea is that before another pandemic-capable pathogen comes along, we need to set up a better monitoring system and put in place robust evidence-based policies to help avoid the need for drastic measures like shutting down the border,” says Ng.

Ng says the project is focused on designing better ways to monitor pathogens, collect samples, and test samples from the people most affected by pandemic restrictions, like cross-border health-care workers: “A great strength of this project is the close collaboration between experts in public policy, science and social science.”

Dr. Soucie is a co-principal investigator on the project and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology.

Her role involves collecting data on participant interest, willingness, and engagement in the screening platform and consulting with the Canada Border Services Agency and Detroit area hospitals. Her contribution provides the foundation on which the testing and analysis will build.

“All of these perspectives will be integrated so that we build a consumer-friendly sustainable platform that best serves the needs of these populations,” says Dr. Soucie.

Yufeng Tong, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is also a co-principal investigator. With funding from the WE-Spark Health Institute and the CIHR COVID-GAP program, he has already produced a saliva-based COVID detection program on campus and started to make reagents necessary for detecting other respiratory pathogens.

“For this project, our rapid COVID detection method will be updated to test for new pathogens, and this will be coupled with Dr. Mike McKay’s wastewater COVID testing to provide a flexible and multi-pronged platform to monitor the spread of emerging pathogens,” says Dr. Tong.

The specific goals of the collaborative project are:

• to monitor a broad range of pathogens with pandemic potential by extending existing wastewater testing and genome sequencing platform;
• to evaluate threats from novel pathogens by extending the capabilities of a combined computational and experimental platform;
• to expand the pathogen monitoring dashboard to rapidly and effectively communicate critical public health information to border communities in a transparent manner that addresses the potential for misinformation; and
• to conduct a behaviour analysis of cross-border commuters that will inform public health leaders on effective ways to increase compliance on voluntary public health measures including saliva-based PCR screening for emerging pathogens.

“I think we have a very collaborative group with complementary expertise in different fields,” says Tong. “Bringing together experts from different areas will be important to meet the challenges posed by pathogens with pandemic potential in the future.”

—Sara Elliott

A panel of graduate students of English will discuss their research in a public session Thursday, April 27. Titled “Netflix and Chill,” the event will begin at 1 p.m. in room 2101, Chrysler Hall North.

Presenting are:

• Julie Hang, “Fantastical Finds: Netflix original series and the fan cultures that grow around them,”
• Maya Jessop, “It’s Different when it’s Real People: Translating trauma in Calliope,” and
• Doxa Zannou, “Embodying the Future through Radical Presence: an Afro-Presentist approach to Audre Lorde’s work.”

Professor Nicole Markotic will chair the discussion.

A reception Wednesday, May 10, will celebrate the recipients of the 2023 Mary Lou Dietz Equity Leadership Award: Tricia Carmichael, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and nursing professor emeritus Barbara Thomas.

The award is bestowed by the Windsor University Faculty Association’s Status of Women, Diversity and Equity Action Committee to honour individuals who demonstrate leadership through their contributions to creating an equity culture on campus. It award is named after Mary Lou Dietz, a late UWindsor faculty member and head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology, in recognition of her contributions to the advancement of women in Canadian universities and colleges.

Dr. Carmichael is recognized as a leader within her male-dominated field of materials chemistry and an inspiring role model for women in STEM. She spearheaded an effort in the Faculty of Science to secure funding and help develop an action plan using a research-based approach to identifying barriers to equity, diversity, and inclusion. She has also worked to improve the visibility of the LGBTQ2S+ community and seeking support for mental health and work-life balance in STEM.

Dr. Thomas stood out as a trailblazer for women’s equity and health related issues who began her advocacy work in the 1970s. She was the only female in the Faculty of Science when she joined the Faculty of Nursing in 1969, and was a founding member of the Faculty Association Status of Women Committee. During her tenure, Thomas made many significant contributions to equity for faculty women, including being part of a study on salary discrepancies between men and women that led to the creation of an Anomalies Fund.

Learn more about the achievements of both honourees on the WUFA website.

The May 10 celebration will open at 4 p.m. in Assumption University’s Freed-Orman Centre. To join, RSVP by email to wufa@uwindsor.ca by May 5.

The Lancer women’s hockey team will host a camp for prospects May 6 and 7 at the Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex.

The camp is open to athletes graduating from high school in 2024, 2025, or 2026, with the goal of introducing prospective Lancers to the City of Windsor, the University of Windsor, and its women’s hockey program. Attendees will enjoy ice time to showcase their skills, a program review, fitness, campus tours, and lunch.

Find more details and registration info at goLancers.ca.

Staff orientation and training will close the Toldo Lancer Centre to public use on Sunday, April 30. The facility will return to regular hours of operation on Monday, May 1.