Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Western University Selma A. Purac, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University, where she offers a series of courses focusing on promotional culture. Accordingly, much of her scholarship centers on critiques of consumerism, particularly those critiques that expose the interplay between capitalism and horror. Most recently, her work has appeared in the pages of The Weird: A Companion (2024), Capture Japan (2022), and Monstrum (2021). She has also appeared on TVO’s The Agenda and the CBC miniseries Stay Tooned, exploring the commercialism behind popular media.
Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Kansas Steve Bien-Aime, assistant professor, joins us from the School of Media and Communication in the College of Informatics at Northern Kentucky University. Steve also is an adjunct professor with The Poynter Institute, where he facilitates trainings on inclusive language and diversity for news outlets and universities. The former sports and business journalist now researches race and gender issues in media. He earned his doctorate at Penn State.
Associate Professor, Center for Alzheimer Research, Karolinska Institutet Shireen Sindi, PhD is Associate Professor (Docent) at Karolinska Institute, Center for Alzheimer Research, Division of Clinical Geriatrics, Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society, Sweden. She investigates the intricate relationships between sleep disturbances, stress, and sex differences across the spectrum from normal aging to Alzheimer’s disease. She also examines multi-system biological mechanisms contributing to cognitive decline and dementia risk factors and explores the impacts of multidomain lifestyle interventions encompassing diet, exercise, cognitive training, and vascular/metabolic risk management on cognition and sleep including underlying mechanisms such as telomere length and the gut microbiome. In addition to research, she is actively involved in supervising and mentoring students and postdocs at various levels at several institutes (Karolinska Institute, Imperial College London, Stockholm University, University of Eastern Finland), and takes on various leadership roles, such as Chair for Junior Faculty and Chair for National Junior Faculty, Leader of the Sex and Gender Work Group at the Center for Alzheimer Research, and Leader of the International Work Group on Sex and Gender for World Wide FINGERS
Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa Dr. Suleena Duhaime is a surgeon at Montfort Hospital in Ottawa and a lecturer in the Department of Surgery at University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine.
Freigeist Fellow, Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (IPF), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology My work combines (big) data science with geospatial data to study the impacts of urbanization and climate change on society and nature. I am particularly interested in the role of the built environment on atmospheric, surface, and subsurface temperature disparities. Because of my trans-disciplinary background in physics, hydrogeology, geospatial data science, and public policy I use a variety of tools such as remote sensing, machine learning, and analytical and statistical models. A common thread in my projects is the use of large geospatial datasets and the development of tools for decision making that incorporate both built and natural environments. My research to date focuses on four main areas: Environmental Justice Subsurface Heat Recycling Subsurface Temperatures Urban Heat
