The Story Collider is returning to Toronto for another night of true, personal stories about science! This April, we'll present five stories about defining moments in science.
Hosted by Jesse Hildebrand and Misha Gajewski.
Stories by:
Jen Chan is a master's student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on physiological and psychological stress and PTSD in police and military officers. Using physiological data such as cortisol, heart rate, and respiratory responses, she focuses on how to improve officers' stress resilience management when exposed to dangerous situations. Doing so can improve overall situational awareness allowing officers to make better use of force decisions, and increases their safety while on-duty.
Jennifer Colbourne is a graduate student at York University where she is currently researching raccoon intelligence. She is interested in how animals are adapting to cities, and how to improve animal-human interactions in the urban environment.
Cylita Guy is a PhD candidate and ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational and Data Science Fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. Broadly interested in zoonotic diseases and their wildlife reservoirs, Cylita’s research focuses on bats and their pathogens. Using both field surveys and computational methods she is investigating why bats seem to be good at carrying viruses that they sometimes share with humans, but rarely get sick from themselves. When not in the field catching bats or at her computer analyzing data, Cylita looks to help others foster their own sense of curiosity and discovery about the natural world. In conjunction with the High Park Nature Centre Cylita has started a Junior Bat Biologist program to engage young, future scientists. She also works as a Host at the Ontario Science Centre, educating the public about diverse scientific topics. Finally, Cylita’s hilarious field exploits are featured in a general audience book titled Fieldwork Fail: The Messy Side of Science! In her down time, you can find your friendly neighborhood batgirl chasing her next big outdoor adventure.
Photo by Mark Rees.
George Kourounis is a renowned global explorer and storm chaser who specializes in documenting extreme forces of nature including: tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, deserts, caves, avalanches and more. He is an Explorer In Residence for The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the Chairman of the Explorers Club Canadian Chapter, and has received several awards and medals for his efforts. He frequently finds himself driving into the eye of fierce storms, or descending ropes into actively erupting volcanic craters, often while hosting television programs including “Angry Planet” and others. He has given four TEDx talks, and has addressed the United Nations Environmental Emergencies Forum. George’s expeditions have taken him to 65 countries on all seven continents to such far-flung places as: Madagascar, Turkmenistan, Vanuatu, Greenland, North Korea, Myanmar, and Antarctica.
Anthony Morgan is the Creative Director of Science Everywhere!, an organisation devoted to adult science entertainment. The mission is to build science culture through engaging science entertainment for TV, youtube and live events. He's also on the board of a makerspace (Site 3 CoLaboratory) and has a recurring segment on Daily Planet. His background is in neuroscience/psychology and science communication, but he fell in love with science working at the Ontario Science Centre. Since then he’s been finding as many ways and places to "mic drop science" as he can.