Graduate Student Services Fair | Friday, May 12, 2023

All graduate students are invited to our FREE Graduate Student Services Fair in the Weldon Library Community Room from 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

DATE: Friday, May 12, 2023
TIME: 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
LOCATION:  The D.B. Weldon Library (WL) Community Room

Chat with staff members from across campus and learn about the services and supports offered through the summer and beyond, including (but not limited to):

• Career Education
• Indigenous Student Centre
• Learning Development & Success
• PSAC 610
• School of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies
• Society of Graduate Students
• Western International
• Western Libraries
• Writing Support Centre
• ...and more!

Attendees will also be eligible to win one of two Grad Club gift card prizes!

We look forward to seeing you there!

*NEW* A Guide for Inclusive Language

The Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion has released a new Guide for Inclusive Language.

This comprehensive resource provides practical guidance on using inclusive language in the workplace and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE FOR INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE

Apply for Office Space

Are you looking for a quiet space to focus on your research?
Apply for your own personal, private space at Western’s main library, Weldon.

Fill out the online application or visit the Info Desk at Weldon to submit an application.

Applications are due by 11:59 p.m., April 15, 2023

Apply now.

Questions? Email [email protected].

INSPIRING MINDS | Mateo Balmes, MBA candidate, Ivey Business School

Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.

---

Mateo Balmes
MBA candidate, Ivey Business School 

Growing Digital Equity Through Accessible Blockchain Applications to Grow Low-Tech Spaces

My venture team uses the power of blockchain to empower the real-world economy by leveraging the digital potential of commonly low-tech spaces such as social services, civic engagement, and small-business creation. We do this by creating low-cost mechanisms to generate, promote and sell virtual assets that could serve as records, contracts, or simply signed media. As a social business and laboratory, the team is entering the space and its complementary niches to further the lowering of barriers to understanding cryptocurrency—causing synergies with even more untapped industries in the endeavor of organizational growth in the physical and digital worlds.

---

LEARN MORE

INSPIRING MINDS | Michael Ridley, PhD candidate, Faculty of Information and Media Studies

Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.

---

Michael Ridley
PhD candidate, Library and Information Science, Faculty of Information and Media Studies

Folk Theories and Explainable Artificial Intelligence

If artificial intelligence is so smart, why can’t it explain itself? Machine learning systems, the leading-edge of AI, are powerful, complex, consequential, opaque, and not very forthcoming. Systems like Amazon, Google, and others are part of our everyday experience. We need them to explain themselves. “I can’t tell you” or “I don’t know” aren’t an acceptable answers. The field of “explainable AI” (XAI) is about getting machine learning systems to tell us what they did, why they did it, and why they didn’t do something else instead. How can we help machine learning systems make better explanations? Enter folk theories. Folk theories are the beliefs people hold about how machine learning systems work. They may be not fully accurate, but they are functional. They help people use the system. Having folk theories and XAI work together allows machines to better understand humans and humans to better understand machines. Win-win.

---

LEARN MORE

Doctoral student Ethan Allers joins Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

Congratulations to doctoral student Ethan Allers, cello, who has recently accepted a position with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and will be joining them for their fall 2023 season.

Ethan was one of five strings students selected this year as part of the inaugural London Symphonia Fellowship program, and while also performing as section leader and serving as a teaching assistant with the Western University Symphony Orchestra.

A native of Calgary, Ethan Allers’ career has been shaped by the instruction of various teachers across Canada, including John Kadz, Yuri Hooker, and Brian Yoon. He has worked with many artists, including Canadian composer Vincent Ho. While completing his undergraduate degree at uOttawa, Ethan won the annual concerto competition and performed the Elgar Cello Concerto with the University Orchestra. He has had the pleasure of performing at the NAC’s Fourth Stage uOttawa concert series with various chamber groups and as a solo artist.

Under the tutelage of Paul Marleyn, Ethan completed his Master’s of Music at the University of Ottawa and is currently a doctoral student at Western University studying with Tom Wiebe.

Take the Libraries Survey

Western Libraries wants to know what you think about all things library!

Take five minutes to tell them how to improve their services and you could win one of 15 prizes, including a:

• $100 Amazon gift card
• $100 gift card to campus eateries
• $100 gift card to The Bookstore at Western

GET STARTED

INSPIRING MINDS | Parisa Daemi, PhD candidate, Faculty of Engineering

Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.

---

Parisa Daemi
PhD candidate, Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering

Improving Modelling and Control of Wearable Hand Exoskeleton Devices

Hand and upper limb impairment resulting from neurological disorders or stroke limits hand dexterity, significantly affecting patients' quality of life. Currently, nearly 100,000 Canadians live with hand disabilities, and this number is expected to increase as the population ages. Recently, breakthroughs in mechatronics and robotics technology have provided an apt ground for designing wearable exoskeleton-type therapy devices, showing their potential as an alternative hand disability management approach. However, the mathematical equations that describe the complex hand motions are not accurate enough when applied to externally worn exoskeletons. To this aim, the focus of my research is to model and control a wearable exoskeleton device to assist people suffering from hand disabilities by developing new kinematic and kinetic equations that more accurately characterize device behaviour. Thus, the result of this study will allow the wearable exoskeleton devices to support hand motion more accurately, leading to better technologies and improved outcomes.

---

LEARN MORE

ENTER NOW! Artificial Intelligence Creativity Contest

CMHA After Hours Crisis Counselling | Winter 2023

On Monday, February 13, 2023, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) will be offering both in-person and virtual after-hours crisis counselling running weekly now through April 13, 2023.

CMHA After Hours Crisis Counselling

February 13-24

• Virtual appointments: Mondays and Thursdays from 5-9 p.m. by phone or Microsoft teams

February 27-April 13

• In-person appointments: Mondays from 5-9 p.m. in Thames Hall Rm 2170
• Virtual appointments: Thursdays from 5-9 p.m. by phone or Microsoft teams

Students can email [email protected] during operating hours to schedule an appointment.