May 26, 2022
Bi-weekly news from Spark: a centre for social research innovation at McMaster University
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The Spark Co-Lab is Re-Opening!
McMaster has a free coworking space designed for research teams in LR Wilson 5803. If you’re looking for a space to work, meet as a team, or engage with partners, you may wish to join The CoLab.
At Spark, we are excited by the energy that develops when people working on diverse projects interact, and so have built a coworking space where you can both focus and engage with other faculty, research staff, RAs and grad students across disciplines.
Who can use it? Graduate students, research staff or research assistants (undergrad, grad, post-doc) and faculty from across McMaster as well as community research partners are eligible to join the CoLab.
When can it be used? Those who join the CoLab can access it any time the building is open, which is 6:15 am to 11:15 pm, Monday-Friday and 6:30 am to 5:30 pm on Saturdays. LR Wilson is closed on Sundays and holidays.
Cost? It’s free for use as a work space.
What’s in The CoLab? In addition to an open space with fifteen 2-4 person tables and a conversation area, we have two 2-person offices, two small conversation rooms, and a meeting room that can seat 12. All of these spaces are available to use first come, first served via our Booking System. We also have two large television screens for research teams to use when considering material together.
I'm interested. How do I join? It's simple. You can stop by for a brief (15 minute) orientation any time between 8:30 and 4:30 Tuesday and Thursday. Just ring the bell and someone will answer, or email us at talk.to.spark@mcmaster.ca to schedule a time to visit. We'll ask you to sign a user agreement, arrange for access to the space, and get you set up on our Booking System to reserve private spaces in the CoLab.
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Midweek Meditation - Starting June 1st
Biweekly beginning June 1st, Spark will host drop in guided meditation from 3:00-3:45 pm on Wednesdays in LR Wilson 5803. Led by Spark's own Allison Van, who is a longtime meditator and has taught meditation for the last seven years, this is a no pressure time and space to let your thoughts settle.
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Who do you want to speak at Spark Talks 2022-2023?
Spark's weekly research talks (Fridays at 10:30-11:20 am) are back in fall 2022. Planning is already in the works for an academic year full of informative sessions by some great researchers. As always, we want to provide you with engaging content from people whose work or skills spark an interest!
Do you want to share your work?
Great! This is a supportive starting place for sharing your work across disciplines
Maybe share your experience with a method, technology or research area?
Yes, let's build our collective research toolkits and find others with the same interests
Expose others to someone whose work or career you admire?
This is an easy initial engagement with Mac (and we pay stipends to external speakers)
Speakers can be anywhere in the world. All Spark Talks will be hybrid with a group convening in LR Wilson 5803 and available via Zoom. We have lots of open seminar slots from Sept 2022-April 2023, so can accommodate schedules!
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After another year of engaging seminars, Spark will be taking a break from Spark Talks during the summer months (May-Aug).
With excitement for Spark Talks return in Fall 2022, we will feature some of our favourite talks from this year in a weekly social media campaign on Twitter @Spark_McMaster. Join us on twitter every Friday at 10:30am during the summer for #SparkResearchReplay!
Check out the latest #SparkResearchReplay video below:
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Resources for Researchers
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Looking to pool software licences?
Now you can! Fill out this form and we will reach out if we can match you with others looking to pool licences.
We are also attempting a pilot in fall term allowing for virtual desktop access to several licenses for major Qualitative Data Analysis software, and will be seeking volunteers to test out the viability of this option. FSS faculty, please email talk.to.spark@mcmaster.ca if you're interested in participating.
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Research Conversations
We provide up to 4 hours of free support each year to all McMaster researchers (students, staff and faculty) on every social research topic imaginable. If we can't help you, we'll help you find someone who can.
Qualtrics Licences
If you are an FSS researcher who would like to request access to Qualtrics survey software, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/Gn2KvYgdebjo8d2W8.
Brighter Spark Applied Research
Spark offers custom research and evaluation, as well as highly skilled assistance in implementing virtually any social research method. Our cost-recovery services include methods and software training, custom research, state-of-the-art facilities, and taking on elements of your project to support its completion.
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Help us profile your research, publications, job ads, opportunities, and upcoming events by sending them to: talk.to.spark@mcmaster.ca to be showcased in our following newsletter.
CANSSI Ontario: Top-ups for Postdoctoral fellows Data Science
Upcoming deadline: May 30th 2022
CANSSI Ontario offers top-up opportunities for trainees with Ph.D. degrees interested in pursuing multidisciplinary, data-driven research. Top-ups are for $10,000 for two years ($5,000 per year) for highly competitive applicants to attract the best talent to Ontario.
Eligibility
- Ph.D. in a quantitative field.
- Two proposed supervisors from Ontario universities/research institutes from two distinct fields; where at least one is a faculty member appointed to a statistics/biostatistics unit (department, division, or school) or is a biostatistics/statistics scientist appointed to a mathematics department.
Learn more and apply online here: https://bit.ly/380iVb7
Compute Ontario Summer School
Jointly organized by the three consortia: Centre for Advanced Computing, SciNet and SHARCNET. The Summer School is a free series of workshops on skills and technologies for compute and data intensive research delivered by experts in these fields.
The Summer School will begin on May 30th, 2022 and will run until August 5th, 2022, offering virtual (online) workshops on a variety of topics, including advanced research computing basics, high performance computing tools, programming languages, machine learning, visualization, programming GPUs, and bioinformatics. The Summer School workshops are at the beginner-to-intermediate levels of difficulty. Prerequisites are listed in each workshop description.
Learn more and register here
Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship Workshop
"Content Creators, Digital Labour, and Online Identities: A Panel Discussion with Sherman Centre Graduate Students"
May 30th 2022 at 12:30-2:00 pm (Online event)
At this virtual panel, Sherman Centre Graduate Residents will share their in-progress research and address these timely questions. Drawing from exciting interdisciplinary fields such as Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Automedia, and Human-Computer Interaction, the papers in this session consider the on and offline impacts of affective labour and attention economies, self-branding practices, and the mediation of identity.
Register here: https://libcal.mcmaster.ca/event/3673424
After the success of last terms workshops, the Sherman Centre is delighted to host 10+ sessions in Winter 2022. There is something for everyone (data visualization, StoryMaps software, two workshops on Microsoft Excel, and more). See the full event lineup and register here
Reframing Disability in Healthcare: A Presentation and Panel Discussion
Hosted by: McMaster University Health Sciences, Faculty Affairs
June 1st 2022 at 1-3pm
Panelists: Aisha Wilks, Ameil J. Joseph, Shaila Kumbhare and Celeste Suart
Moderated by: Kate Brown, Jessica Blackwood
A presentation and panel discussion on the importance of reframing disability as identity/ diversity of experience in healthcare education and practice. This discussion will introduce participants to the social model of disability, as well as theoretical concepts of medical ableism/ Saneism, racism, misogyny, and fatphobia through historical and contemporary frameworks of white supremacist, eugenicist, and/ or colonial practices in medicine.
Register for the panel discussion/presentation here
2022 ICPSR Summer Program
For summer 2022, the ICPSR Summer Program will offer its renowned training program either in-person in Ann Arbor, or as a fully online format. The 2022 Program will feature a broad curriculum ranging from introductory to advanced courses in a variety of methods and techniques.
Registration for the First Session will close on Sunday, June 12, 2022. Registration for the Second Session will close on Sunday, July 10, 2022.
Learn more about the summer program here
Data Matters : Data Science Course Series
A week-long series of one and two-day courses aimed at students and professionals in business, research and government. Data Matters gives students the chance to learn about a wide range of topics in data science, analytics, visualization, curation and more from expert instructors. Registration is now open, reserve your spot now!
Data Matters will be held virtually via zoom on August 8th-12th 2022
Learn more and register here
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In this new section, we want to celebrate the achievements of colleagues, friends, and those doing important social research with the potential to spark a brighter world. We welcome recommendations for kudos features (including for yourself). Please send them to: talk.to.spark@mcmaster.ca.
A big congratulations to The Indigenous Studies Program, which is transitioning into a department that will be home to the Indigenous Studies Undergraduate Program, a planned Graduate Program and will conduct research and community-focused activities.
Read more about the new department in the Daily News Article here
Kudos to the recipients of the 2022 Undergraduate Student Research Awards: Maham Afzaal (Political Science), Isabel Sealey (Anthropology), Alexandra Irvine (Political Science/Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour), Abby Keesmaat (Health, Aging & Society), Xin Huang (Social Work), Florencia Saposnik (Health, Aging & Society), Sophia Cupello (Health, Aging & Society), Aleem Mohammed (Anthropology), Hiya Goyal (Economics), Selby Westbrook (Anthropology), Tegan Wilson (Health Aging & Society). These Awards are intended to cultivate and support research partnerships between undergraduate students and faculty members.
Read more about the award/recipients here
Shout- out to Vass Bednar (Master of Public Policy in Digital Society) and colleague for the opinion piece "Canada has lagged on policing Big Tech. That may be about to change" in the National Post.
Read the full article here
Kudos to Nicole Andrejek, Tina Fetner, and Melanie Heath (Sociology) whose research on the reasons for the orgasm gap is featured in the opinion piece on The Independent.
Read the Article from The Independent titled "Voices: Women are being short-changed when it comes to orgasms" here
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