AI for National Security

Geopolitical events such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taiwan Straits Crises have significantly impacted Canada’s international relationships. While these crises appear geographically distant, in cyberspace we are mere milliseconds away from these conflicts. Various reports from Public Safety Canada indicate that several countries have implemented long-term strategies to systematically extract valuable resources from Canada, as well as exert influence over our digital landscape, public sentiment, and electoral outcomes through diverse cyber avenues. The long-term objective of Benjamin Fung’s research program is to counteract the technical challenges associated with cyberattacks and foreign interference impacting Canadian industries, government, public interests, and social values.

AI for Critical Sectors

Steven Ding’s group develops AI solutions to advance cybersecurity, privacy, and large-scale data analysis across critical sectors.

• AI for Malware Analysis: detect reused or copied low-level computer code, enabling faster malware investigation and improving software security.
• Intrusion Detection for Aerospace and Orbital Cyber-Physical Systems: intrusion detection systems, enhancing security in sectors like satellite communications and avionics.
• Firmware Analysis for Supply Chain and Vehicle Platform Security: detect vulnerabilities and ensure the integrity of software components in both the supply chain and vehicle platforms.
• Improving Building Energy Performance: Collaborating with experts to analyze building operational data, aiming to enhance energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

How are we represented

Gracen Brilmyer leads a hub for collaborative research on disability and archives by and for disabled people. Using community-design approaches, we are currently building a digital archive for disability.

Community-based projects with disabled people that emphasize first-person experiences of archives include:

• the experiences of disabled people working as archivists, which highlights what it feels like to be a disabled person in the archival profession, navigating accessibility & accommodations at work, and processing materials on disability as part of their job.
• the experiences of disabled researchers who use archives, which shows how it feels to see yourself in history as a disabled person and how disabled users navigate accessibility when visiting archives.

Who is included

Karyn Moffatt’s research in human-computer interaction and accessible computing aims to improve the inclusion of older adults in technology design. She emphasizes early and prolonged inclusion and uses participatory methods to center designs on authentic older adult needs. Recent projects have worked with older adults to explore how technology might be designed to support existing grocery shopping routines and help realize personal fitness goals. Extended fieldwork with a social sharing program for dementia surfaced opportunities for digital enhancements to in person interactions. Most recently, she has been examining AI impacts and approaches to co-designing human-AI interactions with older adults. Visit the ACT lab.

Knowing what we know

Kimiz Dalkir’s research focuses primarily on managing valuable knowledge, both know-how (expertise) and know-why (experience); known as Knowledge Management. She helps organizations identify and preserve this hard-to-document (or even articulate) knowledge so that it can be more widely used by colleagues (e.g., peer-to-peer learning) as well as future unknown “reusers” (e.g., succession planning, handovers and avoiding remaking the same mistakes). Recent projects include:

• finding ways to “inoculate” people against fake news and help prevent organizations from inadvertently making it easier to share misinformation,
• increasing inclusivity, diversity and equity in managing knowledge

And who to trust

Max Evans’ main research area is in information and knowledge management, with a focus on affective, cognitive, social, and technological factors influencing organizational information and knowledge sharing. His research principally concentrates on interpersonal trust, organizational trust, and, more recently, trust in artificial intelligence. In addition, his work examines the role of emotions and the development of emotional intelligence. Other research interests include continuity management (succession planning) and multimodal communications. Visit the Knowah lab.

How do we deal with changes

Rebekah Willson’s research is in the field of information behaviour and practices, examining the information people need and how they find, share, use, and create that information. Her work has focused on individuals and groups who are undergoing transitions and living with uncertainty, including academics working on short-term contracts, early career researchers dealing with COVID-19, and knowledge workers working remotely. The research explores the change in the information that individuals need, how they use information to acclimate to their new role, and how workplace information is shared.

And how do we change

Joan Bartlett’s current research explores how, and how well, young adults find, select, and use information in various aspects of their lives, finding that information research skills from academia did transfer over into some aspects of everyday life, such as health, but less so in others, such as leisure, or when searching on a mobile device. In the context of COVID-19, her group found that people became more critical in selecting sources of information, and declared an intention to remain more critical thinkers around information into the future.

Sound matters

Sound is often considered too little and too late when designing information interaction. Yet sound plays a critical role in how we interact with computer-mediated and real-life environments. Well-designed sound can orient us, make us feel engaged, relaxed or energized (e.g., music), and even guide our actions (e.g., warning signals). Catherine Guastavino’s group develop tools and participatory methods to design and plan with sound in mind, used to enhance user experience through sound in contexts ranging from digital music instruments, 3D audio for virtual reality, public space design, and policy development. Visit the Multimodal Interaction Lab and the Sounds in the city partnership.

So does touch

Immanuel Kant called the hand “man’s outer brain”, in recognition of its incredible abilities. Ilja Frissen’s current research is to see to what extent our sense of touch is determined by both bottom-up and top down-processes. Bottom-up processes build a perception of the world based entirely on sensory information (“data driven”). Top-down processes are cognitive in nature and use what we know about, or expect from, the world to interpret sensory information (“knowledge driven”). Ultimately, understanding these processes provided opportunities for designing novel communication methods for people working under high stress conditions and for people with sensory deficits.