Theme: Be What the World Needs

Universities play a vital role in nurturing, empowering, and unleashing the curiosity that will allow us to imagine a brighter, more sustainable future. To face humanity’s greatest challenges and opportunities we need to ask tough questions, push boundaries, and invigorate impact for meaningful change with and for our communities.

USask (the University of Saskatchewan) is home to pioneers in discovery, who are improving lives, expanding opportunities, strengthening social cohesion and protecting the environment. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, they will take to the TEDx stage with compelling stories of ambition and achievements, sharing their voice and vision to be what the world needs.

University of Saskatchewan
107 Wiggins Rd
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E5
Canada

Amira Abdelrasoul

Principal Investigator (PI) of Hemodialysis Membrane Science and Nanotechnology Research Center at University of Saskatchewan

Amira Abdelrasoul, PhD, P. Eng. is an Associate Professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department and the Division of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. She is a membrane technology leader in Canada, and her interdisciplinary research program focuses on solving the existing hemodialysis system problems to decrease the unacceptably high morbidity and mortality rates and increase the quality of life of kidney failure patients. Outstanding academic honours and recent excellence awards from North American institutions, including Governor General Academic Gold Medal and Norman Esch Engineering Innovation Award have recognized her scholarly and research excellence. In 2022, Dr. Abdelrasoul was the recipient of the 2021 Young Investigator Excellence Award from the Canadian Light Source (CLS), in addition, she has been recognized by the Chemical Engineering Research & Design Journal as 1 of 18 outstanding women researchers across the globe.

Arinjay Banerjee

Award Winning Virologist | Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Zoonotic Viruses and Comparative Immunology at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, USask (VIDO)

Dr. Banerjee is the co-lead for One Health at the University of Saskatchewan. Research within his laboratory focuses on three main themes that are inspired by the One Health ideology, (1) virus-host interactions in wildlife reservoir species, such as bats, (2) virus-host interactions in spillover species, such as humans, and (3) viral vaccine development. He is passionate about One Health, which is a concept that embraces the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. The future of our planet and the health of our ecosystems are genuinely dependent on the actions of humankind. Dr. Banerjee’s TEDx talk will focus on what it takes to protect a planet in crisis.

Kevin Lewis

Assistant Professor | Curriculum Studies, College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan

Kevin Lewis, Assistant Professor, Curriculum Studies, College of Education, developed a certificate program in Indigenous Languages for teachers from across the province to immerse themselves in the Cree language and cultural practices. He believes learning Cree restores people, not just the language, giving Indigenous people confidence and an understanding that their people had sophisticated societies and technologies before settlers came. In his home community of Ministikwan Lake Cree Nation, Dr. Lewis has served as a teacher, vice principal and band councillor. Dr. Lewis has been working with community schools in promoting land and language-based education and is the founder of kâniyâsihk Culture Camps, a non-profit organization focused on holistic community well-being and co-developer of Land-Based Cree Immersion School kâ-nêyâsihk mîkiwâhpa.

Kylee Drever

Tuberculosis Research Scientist

Kylee Drever grew up in Regina, SK, where her endless questions (probably) annoyed her schoolteachers and definitely annoyed her classmates. In fact, her life motto is “curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought her back”. This curiosity eventually led her to the University of Manitoba where she graduated with a BSc in Microbiology, and then to the University of Saskatchewan, where she recently completed her PhD in Veterinary Microbiology at the WCVM. She conducted research at VIDO, focusing on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, one of the worlds leading causes of death. Beyond her research, Kylee spends most of her time on the mats practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, walking her Rottweiler-Bullmastiff Hercules, and caring for her small jungle of ever-dying plants.

Linda Vogt

X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Research Scientist

Linda Vogt is a PhD student in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan. She received a BSc in Chemistry in 2017 and a BSc in Geology in 2019 from USask. Her current research involves using a synchrotron technique called X-ray absorption spectroscopy to study some of the elements known to contribute to the corrosivity of crude oils in refinery conditions. She is an active member of the local and regional synchrotron community; as a Fellow of the NSERC-CREATE to INSPIRE synchrotron training program hosted at USask, a user at multiple beamlines at the Canadian Light Source and other synchrotron facilities in the States, and prior to the pandemic as a casual employee at the CLS in both Outreach and HSE. Linda is passionate about science education and outreach and aims to promote synchrotron facilities, such as the Canadian Light Source, as accessible hubs of innovation and collaboration where cutting-edge inter- and multi-disciplinary research can occur.

Lisa Birke

Assistant Professor | Area Chair of Digital and Integrated Practice in the Department of Art & Art History, University of Saskatchewan

My life has been a comedy of errors. My active art practice is a result of the collision of video, performance art, and installation. I am interested in the stories we re-cite and re-brand and how these inform our conception of the world and the tragi-comic perception of ourselves in the mixing of referents from art history, popular culture and the everyday. Recently, I have been exploring immersive multi-media approaches. My video work has seen more than 100 screenings and installations at film festivals, media centers and in galleries and museums internationally, including Vancouver International Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, and the Remai Modern. Some years ago, I might have been considered “cool” as I was active in the street dance and b-girl scene. Now my students sometimes call me “ma’am” and I wonder where I went wrong—although I attempt to uphold a semblance of youthful enthusiasm and fearlessness, which I hope will be reflected in my talk.

Maureen Reed

Distinguished Professor and UNESCO Chair in Biocultural diversity, sustainability, reconciliation and renewal at the School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan

Her research program focuses on the social dimensions of sustainability – how people, processes and institutions – shape decisions about environment and development. She focuses on rural places, including Biosphere Reserves/Regions, learning how governance processes can support community resilience and well-being. She and her students have tackled gender and diversity issues in Canada’s forest sector, seeking to understand how climate hazards affects diverse rural peoples and to build inclusive processes for adapting to climate change.

Merle Massie

Undergraduate Research | Author | Historian

Merle Massie is an award-winning author and historian, specializing in western Canadian local, rural, environmental, and medical history. She and her husband farm in west-central Saskatchewan, on land that sits on the edge between Blackfoot and Cree traditional territory. Massie works at the University of Saskatchewan as the Coordinator, Undergraduate Research Initiatives in the Office of the Vice-President Research and is a Professional Research Associate with the School of Environment and Sustainability at USask. In her spare time, Massie is an avid reader, camper, skier, paddler, baker, gardener, and thrower-of-things-for-puppies-to-fetch.

Steven Rayan

At USask, he serves in a few different roles: professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, lead for the new Signature Area of Research in Quantum Innovation, director of the Centre for Quantum Topology and Its Applications (quanTA), director of Interdisciplinary Programming in the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, and chair of the Mathematical Physics program.

Born and raised in northern Ontario, Steven Rayan (he/him) is a mathematician —more specifically, a geometer. His world consists of numbers and shapes, and he uses them to gain insight into the universe around us. He has been using geometry to discover new features of quantum science, and his work has been highlighted in venues such as Scientific American. He enjoys these roles and finds tremendous synergy between them. He earned his doctoral degree at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford and then a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto. He strives to support interdisciplinary, high-risk, high-reward research. These efforts include serving as a co-chair of the multidisciplinary review committee for the Tri-Agency's New Frontiers in Research Fund (Exploration Stream) in recent years. SK has been an exceptionally inspiring place for Steven to develop his research. With its tall grasses, pristine lakes, and glimmering sky, this is the right place to think big!