September Ringers

Germanic and Slavic Studies graduate student Chorong Kim won the Best Documentary Film award (student category) at the recent Montreal World Film Festival, now in its 40th year. Readers of the Holocaust documents an innovative teaching approach, “Holocaust education outside the box,” launched by Charlotte Schallié, an associate professor in the department and director of the European Studies program at UVic. Her students recently tested the project at Vic High under the guidance of local community members Georgina Hope and Noga Yarmar. Film info CBC coverage 

Dr. Alona Fyshe (computer science) was recently awarded a two-year Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Azrieli Global Scholars research appointment. The program provides funding and support to researchers within five years of their first academic appointment to build their research network and develop leadership skills. Fyshe studies neurolinguistics, an emerging field examining where and how the brain processes language and meaning. Her lab in the Engineering and Computer Science Building at UVic is involved in diverse areas of research working to bridge the gap between neuroscientists who study how the brain learns, and computer scientists and engineers who program computers to “learn.” Her research—though focused on language—also shows promise to improve the lives for people with mental illnesses and neurological disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinsons and Alzheimer's by developing technology to monitor brain health using at-home brain imaging systems such as portable EEG devices.

Dr. Sadik Dost (mechanical engineering) was inducted into the Canadian Academy of Engineering in June as one of 43 new fellows. Dost, Canada Research Chair in Semiconductor Crystal Growth and founding director of UVic’s Centre for Advanced Materials and Related Technology, studies how to grow reproducible, high-quality bulk semiconducting crystals used in a variety of electronic devices. As a leading Canadian researcher in both theoretical and experimental aspects of liquid crystal growth, the discoveries made in his Crystal Growth Lab at UVic using magnetic fields resulted in a tenfold increase in growth rates, making the process of growing high quality crystals more commercially viable. The single crystal semiconductors grown in his lab have applications for technologies such as gamma ray detectors for detecting tumors, blue laser devices, thermal energy conversion and solar energy conversion devices.