Special Session 3

Finlay Braithwaite

Assistant Professor, Media Production, RTA School of Media

LTG Project Title: Chatbots Collaborating in Creative Coding Classroom Contexts

Finlay Braithwaite earned his Master of Design (MDes) in Digital Futures at OCAD University in 2019 and is currently working towards a PhD in The Creative School’s Media and Design Innovation program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Finlay holds a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Radio and Television Arts from Toronto Metropolitan University.

The overarching theme of Finlay’s research is the exploration of relationships of time and space in audio media production contexts. His PhD work examines the impacts of variable speed media playback on audio experience, manifesting in the design of embodied and intelligent interfaces for variable speed media playback. Finlay’s masters thesis, 2020 Sound, developed a system to automatically align moving microphone sources. His practice-based research explores the potential for new spatial audio experiences in the context of the emerging ubiquity of head-tracking consumer earbuds.

Finlay Braithwaite is a producer of audio media in television, film, podcasting, radio, interactive, and installation contexts. Finlay restored, designed, and mixed the soundtrack for I Met the Walrus, a short animated film that was nominated for an Academy award, won an Emmy, and was exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York City. As sound supervisor, Finlay was responsible for the entirety of sound for Hugh Gibson’s feature documentary The Stairs, winner of Canada’s largest art prize, the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Film (2016). His 12.2 surround sound design and mix for Alex Lazarovich’s 360-degree film/installation 6000 Worldviews is part of the permanent collection at the Royal Alberta Museum. Finlay designed and implemented audio for the interactive experience Night of the Living Dead VR, a recreation and tribute to the environment and ephemera of the original zombie classic.

In a live context, Finlay has mixed thousands of hours of live television including the Marilyn Denis Show and The Social. His sound design and mixing is heard in hundreds of commercial advertising campaigns. Finlay is a founding member and currently sits on the board of directors at Victory Social Club, a collaborative community of creative professionals in downtown Toronto.

Hand-in-hand with his research and professional practice, Finlay has taught media production at the university level since 2006, recently winning The Creative School Dean’s Teaching Award (CUPE) in 2021. His focus is audio production curriculum, teaching classes at introductory, intermediate, and advanced levels. In addition, Finlay leads a range of general production and project development courses including the supervision of final-year RTA practicum thesis projects.

Beverlee Buzon

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biology

LTG Project Title: Expanding Opportunitities in Undergraduate Biomedical Science Research

Beverlee has humble beginnings here at Toronto Metropolitan University, earning her BSc in Biology in the Department of Chemistry and Biology. She obtained her MSc in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University and completed her PhD at Western University. Her research has contributed to understanding the repair of DNA from damage, particularly from chemotherapeutic drugs.

After a brief stint teaching for the Midwifery program, Beverlee returned to the Department of Chemistry and Biology at TMU as a limited-term assistant professor where she taught a range of courses including first-year biology, protein biochemistry, and molecular genetics. Her experience teaching and mentoring students strengthened her values of equity in education, especially being one of the few racialized minorities teaching in the faculty.

Currently, Beverlee's work centres on creating more inclusive undergraduate research opportunities in collaboration with cell biology research labs in the MaRS Discovery District. Lab research experience at TMU was pivotal in shaping Beverlee's science career, but with the tremendous growth of TMU, these undergraduate positions have become scarce. Supervisors have limited time, lab space, and funds. Students face geographic, financial, and personal challenges in gaining research experience with requirements to be physically present in traditional wet labs. Beverlee has created remote research labs driven by near-peer mentors which has trained nearly a hundred volunteer research students since its inception in 2022. With financial support from the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Beverlee hopes to address unmet needs and support participation in research by a wider and more diverse cohort of students.

Kathleen Peets

Associate Director, Academic Leadership and Associate Professor, School of Early Childhood Studies

LTG Project Title: Pressbook Text Development for New Course Design in Children’s Thinking and Learning CLD307

My training has been largely multidisciplinary, with a background in linguistics (BA, York University) developmental psychology and education within a cross-cultural model (EdM, EdD, Harvard University). As a result, my work is focused on the development of language and its relationship to early literacy, and my work is rooted in both sociocultural and social interactionist theoretical frameworks. My work is in collaboration with many people in the Toronto Metropolitan University community and beyond, and is fueled very much by the contributions of many undergraduate and graduate student research assistants. For the last several years I have been collaborating with a community partner based in Canada and Nigeria, Early Childhood Development Initiative, led by Patrica Falope (leading policy innovation in Nigeria and a graduate of our Master’s program).

Currently Ms. Falope and I are engaged in data analysis for our SSHRC-funded project looking at the implementation of play-based learning in collaboration with local educators in Nigeria. Our work integrates children’s, teachers’ and parents’ perspectives as we look at aspects of language, literacy and cognitive development through play-based curricula. Next steps in this program of research are to bring insights gained from Nigerian perspectives and findings to the West African diaspora here in Toronto, and gain their perspectives on current practices in early learning for their children.

Sean Wise

Professor, School of Business Management

LTG Project Title: Enactus Sales Competition

Dr. Sean Wise is an expert on startups & venture capital. He uses this expertise in his various roles as: university professor, bestselling author, international business speaker, and partner at Ryerson Futures, a seed stage venture capital fund and technology accelerator.

Dr. Wise has mentored hundreds of technology focused startups, collectively these companies have raised more than $2.1 Billion in capital. Dr. Wise studied economics and engineering at Carleton University. He earned his MBA and Law degrees from the University of Ottawa and received his PhD in Business from the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow. Dr. Wise has published five books and more than two dozen peer-reviewed research papers and case studies of high-growth startups.

Dr. Wise has been an entrepreneur himself since the age of 13. He has founded five startups to date, with his most recent selling for millions in July, 2018.

Dr. Wise spent five seasons as a consultant for CBC, (external link)  on the mega hit venture reality show Dragons' Den (external link)  before moving in front of the camera as the host of the Naked Entrepreneur (external link) , which airs on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

In 2018, Dr. Wise became a featured weekly columnist for Inc.com. Since that time he has written more than 100 articles that have been read by more than 500,000 people. Dr. Wise is the Executive Director (and founder) of Ryerson’s Startup School, which over 5 years has delivered more than 60 free seminars, keynotes and working sessions for entrepreneurs in Toronto.

Dr. Wise has been called the Dr. Phil of Entrepreneurship and in 2014, he was named Entrepreneurial Mentor of the Year by Startup Canada.

Jaiden Herkimer and Dr. Iloradanon Efimoff 

(Presenting on behalf of LTG grant holder Becky Choma)

LTG Project Title: Development of a Course: Critical Perspectives on Colonialism in Psychological Research, Teaching, and Practice

 (PDF file) View the Report (opens in new window) 

Jaiden Herkimer Is a Masters Student in Psychological Science aiden Herkimer (she/her) is a masters student in the Psychological Science program at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), in the Social and Political Psychology (SPP) Lab. She is Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) and European-Canadian, and a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Jaiden graduated in 2021 with a BA (Hons.) in Psychology and a Minor in Neuroscience from the University of Guelph. Jaiden worked as a Research Assistant at Indspire, a national charity organization, where she researched Indigenous People’s educational attainment and outcomes in Canada. Simultaneously, Jaiden joined the Interdisciplinary and Indigenous Pathways to Wellness Research Group at Wilfrid Laurier University on the IndWisdom project, which explores the use of Indigenous knowledges in academic research.

Since beginning graduate school in 2022, Jaiden has been involved in a number of research projects. She was a practicum student with the Indigenous Youth-Centered Justice Project (IYJP) at TMU, where she travelled to Iqaluit, Nunavut, to help facilitate focus groups with Inuit court workers and community members. She is also a member of the Decolonizing and Indigenizing Psychology Committee (DIPC) in the Department of Psychology, who are developing a new undergraduate university course on Indigenous Psychology.  Jaiden’s research interests broadly include Indigenous-settler relations and reconciliation, social identity, political ideologies, collective action, and environmental psychology.

Dr. Iloradanon Efimoff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology. She is Haida and European settler from the northwest coast of British Columbia. After completing her BA (Hons.) in Applied Psychology at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC, she worked as a research assistant with the DUDES Club, an Indigenous men’s health organization in Vancouver. Dr. Efimoff later completed her SSHRC-funded MA in Applied Social Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan, focusing on perceptions and attitudes towards White-presenting Indigenous peoples. She completed her Vanier-funded PhD in Social and Personality Psychology at the University of Manitoba. Through her mixed-methods dissertation, Dr. Efimoff created and experimentally tested an educational approach to help combat anti-Indigenous racism in Canada. She finished her Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Research for Indigenous Social Action and Equity (RISE) Center and Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. At RISE, she focused on the identity experiences of multiracial Indigenous people, a growing and understudied group in Canada.

Dr. Efimoff has two current streams of research. First, she studies the impact of education on reducing anti-Indigenous racism. Second, she investigates Indigenous enculturation experiences. Her other research interests include reconciliation, Indigenization (particularly in the context of psychology and postsecondary institutions), and Indigenous well-being.