The Manitoban: U Of M Hosts Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference

April 6, 2022 —

The upcoming Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference, June 14-16, 2022 hosted by the Faculty of Science was recently featured in the Manitoban.

As the Manitoban reports:

Cultural traditions and language shape the ways people learn and view the world. For too long, Indigenous perspectives and traditional knowledge have been excluded from scientific discussions. Professors at the University of Manitoba have organized the upcoming Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference to explore the legacy of Indigenous contributions to science.

In recent decades, there has been a reckoning in academic and STEM fields about their exclusionary histories. Indigenous scholars have been at the forefront of the movement toward inclusion in scientific and academic spaces, calling on researchers to embrace Indigenous perspectives and to acknowledge the legacy of Indigenous scientific contributions.

One of the event’s organizers is Myrle Ballard, an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and an Indigenous scholar. She spoke to the Manitoban about what participants can expect.

“This will be a great conference and is the first of its type at the University of Manitoba,” said Ballard.

Named after a creation story shared among many Indigenous peoples, the conference will host interactive workshops and sessions to explore science through an Indigenous perspective. Among the topics for discussion are the value of applying the principle of two-eyed seeing in modern scientific research.

Two-eyed seeing, or Etuaptmumk, encourages scientists, teachers and students to consider questions from two viewpoints: the traditional scientific view and the Indigenous way of knowing. A principle of cross-cultural understanding, Etuaptmumk was developed and popularized by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall. The word Etuaptmumk comes from the Mi’kmaw language and translates to “the gift of multiple perspectives.”

“Two-eyed seeing is very important, because it enables people to see from both the Indigenous lens and the western lens,” said Ballard.

“It gives someone an improved perspective of both methods of inquiry where similarities and gaps can be better understood, and to understand each other better.”

UM Researchers join NASA’s AXIS Mission to explore deep space

NASA recently announced their selection of the “Probe” (1 billion USD) mission concept to be adopted in the next decade. Two missions (one for infrared light and another for X-ray light) were selected to compete next. The winning concept for probing the X-ray Universe is the “Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite” or AXIS, whose Principal Investigator (PI) is Dr. Chris Reynolds from the University of Maryland. Through rigorous competition for the next mission of the 2030’s, these proposals have the potential to answer burning questions in high-energy astrophysics, including understanding the mechanism and progenitors of supernova explosions that impact the chemical and dynamical evolution of galaxies and understanding our cosmic origins.

How studying shrews and bats can help us develop treatments for diastolic heart disease

“The story just seemed too perfect. It was just too ideal to go from the smallest mammals with the highest heart rates on the planet, to potential therapeutic applications to humans”, says Dr. Kevin Campbell, professor at the department of biological sciences at the University of Manitoba. Campbell has done research on the comparative physiology and evolution of mammals ranging from the smallest shrews to the largest whales over the past two decades and has published his recent findings in the multidisciplinary journal Science.

Protecting Canada’s number one crop through genetics

Dr. Mark Belmonte, professor at the department of biological sciences, in collaboration with other researchers at the Faculty of Science, is using genetics to develop a species-specific molecular fungicide and win the battle against sclerotinia.