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Epistemological Foundations returns this Winter to continue the conversation around knowledge practices and their implications. EF06 will bring together Kari Noe, Jason Leigh, and Sara Diamond to reflect on their approaches to knowledge-making and elaborate on the implications of data visualization for community governance, science communication, and archiving. The session will be moderated by our co-director Hēmi Whaanga, and hosted by Abundant Intelligences postdoctoral researcher Ceyda Yolgörmez.
The Epistemological Foundations Conversations feature members of the Abundant Intelligences research team sharing how the knowledge frameworks in their field are constructed, validated, and employed. This session will provide an opportunity to dive deeper into what it means to bring together Data Visualization to Indigenous Knowledges and AI.
This will be a hybrid event.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Kari Noe is a PhD research assistant at Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications (LAVA) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and co-leads the emerging media lab, Create(x), at the Academy of Creative Media at the University of Hawaiʻi at West Oʻahu.
Her research includes: Human Computer Interaction, Extended Reality Technologies, and video game development for both serious and entertainment games. More specifically, she is interested in the ways emerging media can support learning. As a mixed Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) scholar, she focuses on projects that involve Hawaiian cultural heritage.
Her research has been published in numerous conferences such as ACM CHI and ACM SIGGRAPH, and her work has been featured in both local and international venues such as the Bishop Museum on Oʻahu or the Global Asia/Pacific Art Exchange (GAX) in Montreal.
Jason Leigh is the Director of LAVA: the Laboratory for Advanced Visualization & applications, Co-Director of the Hawaii Data Science Institute, Director of Create(x) at University of Hawaii at West Oahu, and Professor of Information & Computer Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
He is also Director Emeritus of the Electronic Visualization Lab and the Software Technologies Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was previously Professor of Computer Science and Affiliated Professor of Communications.
In addition he was a Fellow of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and has held research appointments at Argonne National Laboratory, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
His research expertise includes: Big data visualization; virtual reality; high performance networking; and video game design.
He is co-inventor of the CAVE2 Hybrid Reality Environment, and SAGE: Scalable Amplified Group Environment software, which is the most widely used platform for information-intensive collaboration.
In 2010 he initiated a new multi-disciplinary area of research called Human Augmentics – which refers to the study of technologies for expanding the capabilities and characteristics of humans.
His research has also received numerous press from News media including: the AP News, New York Times, Popular Science’s Future Of, Nova ScienceNow, NSF Science Now, PBS, and Forbes.
Leigh also teaches classes in Software Design, Virtual Reality, Data Visualization and Video Game Design. In 2010 his video game design class enabled the University of Illinois at Chicago to be ranked among the top 50 video game programs in US and Canada.
Jason Leigh explores the intersections between big data visualization, virtual reality, and high-performance networked computing. A UH computer scientist, he founded LAVA: Laboratory for Advanced Visualization and Applications and Create(x), a lab exploring how to harness advanced computational technology to advance Hawaiian cultural practices. He will contribute to harnessing ancestral knowledge-driven AI for immersive visualization.
Dr. Sara Diamond, President Emerita of OCAD University has led institutional transformation within arts, digital media/ICT, and post-secondary institutions for over 30 years. Diamond was President and Vice-Chancellor of OCAD University from 2005-2020, leading its transformation to full university status. She was founding director of the Banff New Media Institute (1995 — 2005). As a historian, media artist and computer scientist, Diamond brings a deep interest in the relationships of human practices, culture, and technologies and a profound commitment to equity and Indigenous rights. She has been co-PI on major research networks such as Am-I-Able (wearable technologies and IoT) and the Centre for Information Visualization and Data Driven Design. She has undertaken NSERC, SSHRC, Ontario Research Excellent Fund, Mitacs, and foundation funded research in data analytics and visualization, urban and transportation planning, public art, cultural analytics, and wearable technology to support seniors’ wellbeing. Current funded scholarship includes acting as co-PI for the iCity2.0 project (ORF-E), applying AI tools such as generative design to complete community planning (ORF-E, Mitacs); developing a Machine Learning qualitative analytics framework to understand the impact of screen media on audiences (Mitacs); creating mobile affective computing solutions to support mood analysis and mental health in the workplace (Mitacs); reassessing archives through visualization and metadata analysis (SSHRC), and ongoing considerations of human, animal and machine agency. True to her early training as a social historian she continues to write about the history of media arts and technologies.
Recognitions include the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario, Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Simon Fraser University, 2020; the 2020 Exceptional Women of Excellence from the Women’s Economic Forum and two New Media “Pioneer” awards. She is a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College and Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin and UCLA. Diamond acted as a reviewer for the 2021 mid-term CFREF assessments and for the NFREF competition.
She is co-chair of Toronto’s ArtworxTO, the Year of Public Art and Toronto’s Nuit Blanche; is the chair for the Toronto Arts Foundation and of the new Baycrest Academy for Research and Education. Diamond is an Expert Panelist with the Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation and a Thought Leader with Lord Cultural Resources.
(OC OO RCSA), President Emerita OCAD University, has led collaborative efforts to strengthen equity and diversity and to support Indigenous cultures, research, and decolonization in the academy. She contributes expertise in data visualization and wearable technology, research-creation methodologies, and integration of Indigenous research methodologies into academic contexts.
Ceyda Yolgormez is a Postdoc at the Indigenous Futures Research Cluster, working in the Abundant Intelligences Research Program. Her PhD work brought together social theory and interactive technologies, such as large machine learning models or social robots, to consider how our conceptions of the social are changing. Her PhD dissertation proposes a framework for a sociology of machines that reimagines human-machine relations. Her research looks at playful and creative engagements with machines as a site to explore and experiment with human machine socialities, and is interested in methodologies that reveal and trouble the common-sensical way in which we understand such relations.
Dr. Hēmi Whaanga is a Professor and Head of Massey University’s School of Te Pūtahi-a-Toi – School of Māori Knowledge. He has worked as a project leader and researcher on a range of projects centred on the revitalization and protection of Māori language and knowledge (including Mātauranga Māori, digitization of indigenous knowledge, ICT and indigenous knowledge, ethics, traditional ecological knowledge, language revitalisation, Māori astronomy, and linguistics). He affiliates to Ngāti Kahungunu through his father, and Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mamoe and Waitaha through his mother.
Professor Whaanga is recognized as a leading scholar researching the revitalization, protection, distribution, and development of Māori knowledge and language, and incorporating mixed-method approaches, processes, and technologies to analyze, develop, present, and protect new and sacred knowledge in different linguistic, cultural, ethical, and digital contexts. His leadership in Māori digital initiatives earned him an invitation from the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge to lead and develop the conceptual framework for ‘Ātea’, a multi-million-dollar spearhead project to conduct and share impactful research with experts in AI, VR and AR, NLP, ML, Indigenous and Māori data sovereignty, and digital repositories
🗓: March 6, 2025
🕒: 5:30- 7 PM
📍: Milieux Resource Room EV 11.705
🔗 : Zoom link
🎟️ If you’re planning to attend this event in-person, please make sure you RSVP by emailing: abint-activities@concordia.ca