Exposing the health threats of endocrine disrupting chemicals

Vicki Marlatt

Faculty of Science

Biology Professor Vicki Marlatt teaches environmental toxicology courses at Simon Fraser University in one of the few professional environmental toxicology programs in Canada. She also collaborates on multidisciplinary research to understand, inform and improve regulations on the harmful chemicals found in everyday items.

Marlatt is a member of the Intersectoral Centre for Endocrine Disruptor Analysis (ICEDA) – a multidisciplinary research network dedicated to serve as a public resource to identify, recognize, and manage endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), a group of toxins that pose various health concerns to humans and the ecosystem.

Marlatt and several other ICEDA members have compiled their latest work into a Special Issue on EDCs in the Environmental Research Journal to guide the worldwide community on research priorities and regulating actions.

Embracing superdiversity in the classroom and beyond

Sara Florence Davidson

Faculty of Education

Simon Fraser University Professor of Education Sara Florence Davidson (sgaan jaadgu san glans) is a Haida/settler scholar, writer and educator whose teaching and research focus on Indigenous pedagogies, literacies and stories. She has extensive experience working with students and teachers in diverse communities at all levels of education. In the classroom and in her scholarship, Davidson embraces all forms of diversity to create deep learning opportunities.

She recently co-wrote a book chapter, Diversity as the Norm: Teaching to and through superdiversity in postsecondary education Indigenous courses, with lead author and Professor in Teacher Education at the University of the Fraser Valley Nikki L. Yee.

Davidson and Yee share perspectives on teaching mandatory post-secondary Indigenous education courses, in educational environments that are themselves superdiverse.

The untold history of the Tiananmen Square protests

Jeremy Brown

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

This year marks the 33rd anniversary of the public demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and subsequent massacre in Beijing on June 4, 1989. The student-led protests saw over a million people gather in the square, until the government declared martial law and more than 180,000 army troops moved in. Thousands of civilians—some of them students—were killed. 

Simon Fraser University History Professor Jeremy Brown recognizes the complexities of this time period and wants to change the way China’s history is understood. Brown is a historian of modern China, an award-winning professor and Chair of SFU’s History department. His book, June Fourth: The Tiananmen Protests and Beijing Massacre of 1989, sheds new light on what happened in 1989 and why.

The mental health consequences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic

Lara Aknin

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Simon Fraser University’s Distinguished Professor of psychology Lara Aknin is Chair of The Lancet’s Mental Health & Wellbeing Task Force, an international team of researchers providing expertise and recommendations on pandemic response and recovery relating to psychological wellbeing. The group is part of The Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission gathering insights into the scope and consequences of the global health crisis.

The task force wanted to know if psychological distress, self-harm, subjective wellbeing and loneliness had changed during the first year of the pandemic as well as the factors predicting greater risk or protection in these areas. They also sought insights into the type of experiences and behaviours associated with better or poorer mental health during this time. Their findings are outlined in Mental Health During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review and Recommendations for Moving Forward.

The link between precarious housing and traumatic brain injury

Allen Thornton

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

A research team co-led by Simon Fraser University Psychology Professor Allen Thornton has found that socially and economically vulnerable persons suffer from unprecedently high rates of traumatic brain injury (TBI) compared to other populations.

For the study, Thornton supervised SFU Psychology PhD alumnus Tiffany O’Connor who worked in collaboration with UBC psychiatry professors William Panenka and William Honer, SFU psychology professor Wendy Loken Thornton, and statistics and actuarial science professor X. Joan Hu. Their subsequent work, Traumatic brain injury in precariously housed persons: Incidence and risks, clarifies the gravity of the situation and recommends educating stakeholders about the serious implications of TBIs within this context.

Psychedelics as therapies to reduce opioid use

Kora DeBeck

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Kanna Hayashi

Faculty of Health Sciences

Simon Fraser University researchers Kora DeBeck and Kanna Hayashi have found that recent psychedelic use was associated with 55 percent reduced odds of daily opioid use. It is the first longitudinal study of its kind and adds to growing knowledge and interest in the use of psychedelics—such as psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca and others—in addition to counselling for harm reduction and treatment of substance use disorders.

SFU School of Public Policy Professor DeBeck and Health Sciences Professor Hayashi are research scientists with the B.C. Centre on Substance Use. Their study, Psychedelic use is associated with reduced daily opioid use among people who use illicit drugs in a Canadian setting, is part of a decade-long research collaboration to inform both public policy and health services that improve the wellbeing of people who use drugs.

How Google’s search engine supports conspiracy theorists and hate figures

Ahmed Al-Rawi

Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology

Simon Fraser University Communication Professor Ahmed Al-Rawi’s research examines the intersections between political extremism, misinformation and social media. He leads The Disinformation Project at SFU, which examines fake news discourses in Canadian news media and social media.

One of Al-Rawi’s recent studies focused on the way artificial intelligence reproduces and promotes prejudice, hate and conspiracy online. For his recent article, How Google Autocomplete Algorithms about Conspiracy Theorists Mislead the Public, he collaborated with Postdoctoral Fellow Carmen Celestini, Master’s student Nathan Worku, and PhD candidate Nicole Stewart.

They looked at the subtitles that Google automatically suggested for known conspiracy theorists and found that Google’s subtitle was never consistent with the actor’s conspiratorial behaviour.

Support for scientist-entrepreneurs crucial to rapid crisis response

Elicia Maine

Beedie School of Business

Elicia Maine is an international expert in science innovation and entrepreneurship. As the W.J. VanDusen Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University, and the Special Advisor on Innovation to the Vice-president of Research and International, she is working to further strengthen innovation culture and research impact at SFU, while advocating for corresponding programs and policies to enhance the Canadian innovation ecosystem.

Recently, her paper Rapid Response Through the Entrepreneurial Capabilities of Academic Scientists was featured in Nature Nanotechnology, an interdisciplinary journal that publishes papers of the highest quality and significance in all areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The article, co-authored with SFU Beedie faculty members Andrew Park, Jon Thomas and Azadeh Goudarzi, and with SFU Beedie post-doctoral researcher Pegah Yaghmaie, investigates the early stage translational supports and entrepreneurial capabilities that enable academic scientist-entrepreneurs to found ventures which can respond quickly to global crises, creating both social and economic impact.

SFU scholars making an impact on global sustainability

For the dedicated Simon Fraser University researchers whose work contributes to a sustainable future, each and every day is Earth Day. Scholars across all SFU faculties have a long history of pursuing research that advances our understanding of the natural world and addresses environmental concerns.

In appreciation of Earth Week, we are highlighting just some of the SFU scholars making an impact towards a cleaner, greener future.

Solving the mysteries of molecular mechanisms

Julian Guttman

Faculty of Science

A case of food poisoning cannot just ruin a vacation; for people with comprised immunity, the very young or elderly people, food borne illness and bacterial infections can be quite serious.

Simon Fraser University Professor of Cellular Microbiology Julian Guttman studies bacterial infections such as E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria and others to understand how these microorganisms infiltrate and replicate within human tissue. His recent study, mDia1 Assembles a Linear F-Actin Coat at Membrane Invaginations To Drive Listeria monocytogenes Cell-to-Cell Spreading, revealed clues about the molecular mechanisms driving L. monocytogenes, the bacteria that causes listeriosis. The findings suggest that disabling the protein MDia1, curbs the spread of Listeria.