Gradzette July 2015 by The Gradzette

Gradzette The university of mANITOBAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S GRADUATE STUDENT Magazine July 2015

A look inside the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Page 3

Gradzette

July 2015

Gradzette THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA’S GRADUATE STUDENT MAGAZINE

AUGUST 2015

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Gradzette c/o The Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation 105 University Centre University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2 General inquiries and advertising Phone: (204) 474.6535 Fax: (204) 474.7651 Email: editor@gradzette.com Editor: Marc Lagace Copy Editor: Katy MacKinnon Designer: Marc Lagace Contributors: Bailey Rankine, Leila Mostaço-Guidolin, Mary Horodyski Cover: Beibei Lu

The Gradzette is the official student magazine of the University of Manitoba’s graduate student community and is published on the first Monday of each month by the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation.

The Gradzette is a democratic student organization, open to participation from all students. It exists to serve its readers as students and citizens. The magazine’s primary mandate is to report fairly and objectively on issues and events of importance and interest to the graduate students of the University of Manitoba, to provide an open forum for the free expression If you have a passion for writing, jourand exchange of opinions and ideas, and to stimulate nalism, photography, or illustration meaningful debate on issues that affect or would oththe Gradzette is looking for individuerwise be of interest to the student body and/or society als to get involved with the producin general. tion process of the U of M’s graduate student paper. The Gradzette serves as a training ground for students interested in any aspect of journalism. Students and The Gradzette currently offers 10 other interested parties are invited to contribute. Please cents per word for freelance articles, contact the editor listed above for submission guide$7 per photo/graphic used, and $30 lines. for images used on the cover. FreeThe Gradzette reserves the right to edit all submissions lancers will be added to a contact and will not publish any material deemed by its editoripool and emailed with potential aral board to be discriminatory, racist, sexist, homophobic ticle, photo, or graphic assignments or libelous. Opinions expressed in letters and articles are when they become available. solely those of the authors. Interested applicants please send The Gradzette is a member of the Canadian University your resume and at least two (2) rePress, a national student press cooperative with memcent work samples to editor@gradbers from St. John’s to Victoria. zette.com. All contents are ©2014 and may not be reprinted without the express written permission of the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation.

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Ry Moran, Nicole Courrier and Jesse Boiteau (left to right) stand outside the NCTR Photo by Nicole Courrier

A place for compassion and understanding

National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation finds its home on campus Mary Horodyski he recently opened National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba houses some of the most important documents in Canadian history. The NCTR is a result of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement signed in 2007. In the summer of 2013, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) agreed to give the university the responsibility and honour to host this national archive and research centre. In the fall of 2014, a blessing ceremony marked the move of the NCTR into Chancellor’s Hall. Although the centre won’t officially open for a few more months, many

visitors have already passed through their doors. A large stone turtle lies on the grounds of the centre. The turtle’s head faces east, symbolizing new beginnings. Inside, visitors are met with the scent of sage and welcomed by executive assistant Trina McKellep, a member of the Opaskwayak First Nation. A bowl of tobacco prayer ties sit on a table nearby. Nicole Courrier, a Métis graduate student in Archival Studies who works at the centre, said it is important for Elders to be met at the door with these two sacred medicines. A large gathering room houses gifts of reconciliation gathered during the TRC national events. Various artefacts representing the history

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The NCTR will house digitized documents, photos and accounts from the TRC. Photo by Nicole Courrier

A young boy with other students and a nun in a classroom at the Pukatawagan Residential School, Manitoba, circa 1960.

“There is no concept of justice in Cree culture. The nearest word is kintohpatatin, which loosely translates to ‘you’ve been listened to.’ But kintohpatatin is richer than justice – really it means you been listened to by someone compassionate and fair, and your needs will be taken seriously.” — Edmund Metawabin

records together that have been disassociated and disparate, we are able to see the big picture.” Digitization and centralization of the records will allow wide access to the public material. Moran hopes that satellite centres in Indian and Métis Friendship Centres will provide access in remote communities throughout the country. Website access to the database has been designed to be easy and intuitive. Recently, digital kiosks were set up to show community members and the public what the new website will look like. Courrier said that during the TRC’s final event this year, the public response was very positive. Community members in remote locations will be provided with what Moran called “robust

of residential schools are on display, including an album cover from the Portage Indian Student Residence Glee Club and a broken chalice from the United Church of Canada. Both are a poignant reminder of failed promises. A sitting area offers a meeting place for residential school survivors and their families. Métis student and archival studies graduate Jesse Boiteau said the centre was “homey” and emphasized the need to provide a space that is welcoming and safe. The research room contains several computers. Here survivors, their families, students, and researchers can access and learn from the residential school records. The kitchen provides a place for sharing food and beverages – Courrier and Boiteau have already joined survivors who have visited the centre for coffee. A quotation from Edmund Metatawabin, a Mushkegowuk author and residential school survivor, runs along a wall. “There is no concept of justice in Cree

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culture. The nearest word is kintohpatatin, which loosely translates to ‘you’ve been listened to.’ But kintohpatatin is richer than justice – really it means you been listened to by someone compassionate and fair, and your needs will be taken seriously.” The centre provides a space that allows the words of survivors to be heard and remembered. Ry Moran, the centre’s director, described the NCTR as an archive for residential school records that is “centralized, safe, and under Indigenous control.” Although Indigenous people have been archiving their history for millennia using a variety of methods, up to now “there have been few options for institutional large-scale preservation of Indigenous materials,” said Moran. The NCTR archive includes millions of digital copies of documents and photographs from federal government departments, churches, and Library and Archives Canada. Moran said that “by virtue of pulling all these

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access” to videos through adaptive streaming. This technology automatically detects bandwidth and CPU capacity of users’ devices, allowing users to access media streamed over a wide spectrum of connection speeds. This coming autumn, Moran and staff members Kaila Johnston and Elder Rose Hart will visit communities to gather further feedback on the centre. The centre’s future plans include preserving documentation of other historical actions of assimilation, such as the removal of children from their families for outside adoption (known as the Sixties Scoop.) “Although the spiritual heart of the centre will always be the survivors and the work done by the TRC, real understanding of reconciliation and the history of aggressive assimilation in the country needs to contemplate other events [in addition to residential schools],” said Moran. The NCTR, as Moran envisions, “is the start of a bigger journey of bringing more Indigenous records together.” Courrier and Boiteau appreciated the opportunity as graduate students to work at the centre. Courrier is “confident the NCTR will be a place where survivors and their families can heal, and that academics and the general public will use the NCTR as a place to educate and inform and be educated and informed.” University members are welcome to visit the centre. “The coffee is always on,” said Moran.

Group of female students and a nun in a classroom at Cross Lake Indian Residential School, Cross Lake, Manitoba, February 1940. Archived photos from Library and Archives Canada

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Pouria Jabari standing in front of one of his lab setups.

Photo by Leila Mostaço-Guidolin

Tackling water pollutants with microscopic pets Researcher Profile: Pouria Jabari Leila Mostaço-Guidolin

hile in a developed country with an abundance of fresh water, it’s easy to forget that clean and drinkable water is a finite natural resource. Environmental scientists have warned that the world faces a looming water crisis. Pollutants are accumulating in the soil, oceans, lakes, and rivers. Pouria Jabari, a PhD candidate from the civil engineering department, hopes to to set up an infrastructure where polluted water could be treated in an environmentally friendly way while producing valuable bi-products. Jabari holds a degree in chemical engineering and, supervised by Jan Oleszkiewicz and Qiuyan Yuan, is actively working towards making this dream become a reality. “The focus of my work is on treating the

wastewater using activated sludge, which is our ‘pets,’” said Jabari. “The ‘pets’ are a mixed culture of heterotrophs for carbon removal, nitrifiers for nitrogen removal, phosphate accumulating organisms (PAO) for phosphorous removal, and more complex organisms such as protozoa and metazoan,” said Jabari. In layman terms, each ‘pet’ has a very specific diet: carbon, nitrogen or phosphorus. Those are the key pollutants found in wastewater that has gone through a traditional water treatment plant. Jabari’s research has been focused on creating an environment where the bacteria can devour the pollutants as efficiently as possible. “These bacteria are really like pets. You have to feed them, take care of them, provide the right

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environment. They eat ‘food’, but the food they eat is exactly what we want to get rid of: water pollutants.” Jabari conducts his research using a scaleddown version of a wastewater treatment plant. These plants employ a combination of physical, chemical and biological processes in different compartments and basins. The first barrier screens and collects the large objects such as rags and plastics (physical), then the water goes to a second tank where smaller particles sink to the bottom as sediment. Finally, bioreactors are added to the water (chemical) allowing bacteria and other organisms to feast on the remaining biodegradable pollutants. Depending on the pollutants to remove, the process might take from 3 to 8 hours. “We are mainly interested in removing nitrogen, phosphate and carbon,” said Jabari. “We are trying to make the bacteria as efficient as possible.” Jabari said that phosphorus is important to remove as it can cause algal booms in rivers and lakes. Too much algae can harm fish populations and damage the entire lake environment. “The phosphorus is used to produce fertilizers and secure food for the growing population, but resources of the earth are diminishing,” said Jabari. “We do not only want to remove it, we must recover phosphorous before it ends up at the bottom of oceans or in disposal landfills out of reach. We didn’t have this perspective 30 years ago,” he said. Here in Manitoba phosphorus and nitrogen levels in Lake Winnipeg have been a topic of concern for environmentalists for years. In 2013, the Global Nature Fund named Lake Winnipeg their threatened lake of the year. They pointed to Winnipeg’s poor phosphorus removal from wastewater as one of the major threats. Fortunately, Jabari said many labs around the world are working on phosphorus recovery from wastewater. This has led to advancements in the area of water treatment and wastewater management. Treatment plants are taking the leftover biomass and using it to produce methane gas. Others have reused the removed carbon by converting it into bioplastic. “When I started working on my project, one of the first questions I asked [ . . . ] was if you

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could both decrease the biomass production and increase the phosphorus removal just by adding a simple mixing tank at the right place of the treatment process,” he said. When Jabari looked into the mathematical modeling of his hypothesis, the simulations showed the opposite of his experimental findings. “I had to face a big decision: ‘Do I want to continue?’ If yes, I’d have to make sure I hadn’t made any mistakes,” he said. Jabari spent months searching for mistakes in his work and found none.

Treatment plants are taking the leftover biomass and using it to produce methane gas. Others have reused the removed carbon by converting it into bioplastic. “It was a little frightening to be dealing with all of that. I was in the 3rd year of my PhD, and this story was really consuming me.” Jabari continued to look for a mistake. As he prepared to write a conference abstract to present his findings, a new release of the software he had used to create his simulations became available. “Apparently this commercial software that has been used for many labs in the world had some kind of false assumption, and the real conditions were not properly implemented in the simulations,” he said. The software developers had fixed the problem, so when Jabari ran the mathematical models through the simulation again, he discovered his findings were relevant and correct. Based on his experiences, Jabari offered a piece of advice. “You have to trust yourself. You have to trust in your research. If you see something different, don’t be afraid to explore. You might not get much encouragement or promising results [ . . . ] but hang in there, do and re-do your experiments,” he said. “It was a really stressful time, but that’s what a PhD is all about, right?”

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in a microwave cavity. The term quantum, is Latin for “how much”, and here, refers to a specific amount of photon energy within the cavity (which is limited to certain distinct values due to quantum mechanics). Cavity quantum electrodynamics paired with spintronics creates what the team has coined “cavity spintronics.”

Lihui Bai is part of a research team conducting groundbreaking work in cavity spintronics. Photo by Bailey Rankine

International physics community charged-up from U of M research Bailey Rankine

ihui Bai and Michael Harder have taken the next step in the investigation of coupling between electrodynamics and magnetization dynamics. Their work has been recently published in Physical Review Letters, and is mentioned in a two-page featured viewpoint in Physics. Appreciation of their work has been noted among leaders within the physics community. “It is really a beautiful piece of work and will be highly appreciated by the community,” said Hans-Gregor Hübl from the Walther-MeißnerInstitut in Germany. In this article I will expound the jargon and unravel the complexity of this subject so that individuals at all levels and within any discipline can appreciate the magnitude of this accomplishment.

The fundamentals Each atom contains three different particles: neutrons (no charge), protons (positive charge) and electrons (negative charge) – we will focus primarily on electrons. Electrons have spin; the study of electron spin is referred to as ‘spintronics.’ Electron spin describes the intrinsic angular momentum of the electron, but does not actually mean that the electron is spinning. Paired electrons, which have opposite spin, neutralize the total angular momentum. The remaining unpaired electrons determine the net spin of a system. In relation to Bai and Harder’s research, cavity quantum electrodynamics is the study of the interaction between light (photons), and atoms

Cavity spintronics moving forward The ferromagnets used in the experiment are magnets comprised of iron. These magnets order the unpaired electron spins to line up parallel with each other. The microwaves injected into the cavity exert a torque on the ordered spins of the magnet. Bai aptly provided a real-world analogy to describe the use of microwaves to excite the photons to match the magnetic resonance frequency of the ferromagnet to that of the cavity. “Like tuning a guitar, you tighten (increase pitch) or loosen the strings (decrease pitch) to match a specific reference tone,” he said. The microwaves that are not taken up by the photons are transmitted out of the cavity. This transmission could be used to interpret the energy level of the magnet, but instead, Bai and Harder have incorporated a spin pumping system to produce a readable electrical signal. Inspiration and real-world applications Bai and Harder’s work is an extension of ground-breaking research laid down by the pioneers in condensed matter physics and

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the more recent field of spintronics from the Walther-Meißner-Institut in München, Tokyo University, and Yale University. In the field of spintronics, Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg introduced the first practical application of spintronics physics and one of the first major applications of nanotechnology. They were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery that revolutionized techniques for retrieving data from a hard disk. More recently, David Wineland and Serge Haroche, recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2012 for “the development of ingenious experiments designed to study quantum phenomena when matter and light interact,” have contributed to the development of superfast and secure computers. A light-matter interaction like this usually requires extreme conditions such as ultra-low temperatures. Bai explained, “the extremely low temperatures (zero Kelvin or -273 °C), slow the atoms and removes noise, eliminating background energy.” The spintronics group at the U of M have been able to achieve electrical detection of the magnonphoton energy levels at room temperature. The first demonstration of electrical detection of light-matter coupling makes the device capable of being integrated. Bai and Harder’s contribution paves the way for pursuing the manipulation of spin-only currents. Technologies that integrate spin-only currents could prove far more efficient than present electronics.

Get your research featured in the Gradzette Are you a graduate student eager to promote your research and provide exposure for your work in the master’s or doctoral program? The Gradzette is looking for individuals interested in participating in our ongoing “Researcher Profile” column, which seeks to showcase important and exciting U of M research for a larger audience. If you would like to be featured in an upcoming “Researcher Profile,” please contact editor@gradzette.com with details regarding your field of study, a short blurb about your current research, and any pertinent contact information for interview purposes.