Research Day 2021
** The Research Day Portal will go live on Monday, April 12.
We invite everyone to virtually join the MScSM Class of 2021 on Monday April 12 for the annual MScSM Research Day.
The goal of Research Day is to provide an opportunity for all Sustainability Management Family members (students, faculty, staff, professionals, and community members) to come together and discuss recent research on different aspects of sustainability management. Research Day is also the occasion where MScSM students showcase their sustainability-focused research conducted over the past 12 months.
This year, Research Day is going online. The Research Day Portal will go live on Monday April 12, and you will be able to participate from 1:30PM until 4:30PM in our live keynote and speak with and visit student posters, listen to pre-recorded 3-Minute Theses, and more!
The day will feature opening remarks by the Prof Shashi Kant, Director, MScSM; Prof Amrita Daniere, Vice-Principal, Academic & Dean; and an exciting Keynote by Gregor Wanger (@1:45pm with introductions by Prof Harvey Shear).
Hope to see you all there!
Keynote: From Mines to Mars to a Bug Farm in Halifax: Following your passion can take a weird path
Dr. Greg Wanger, Board Chair, Founder/CEO
After relocating to Halifax in 2016, Dr. Wanger channelled his passion for environmental activism into founding Oberland Agriscience Inc. to close the food loop and address the global protein crisis. Oberland Agriscience rears Black Soldier Fly Larvae on organic wastes and by-products producing high-value insect protein powder for agriculture, aquaculture and pet foods. With the founding of Oberland, and his second company DownNorth Technologies, Greg is dedicated to moving technology from the bench to industrial scale.
With a Ph.D. in Geology and Environmental Microbiology, Greg is an experienced research scientist whose research career milestones includes 5 years at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab culminating in their optical scanner landing with Perseverance on Mars in February 2021. Prior to that Greg did his postdoc at the J. Craig Venter Institute in San Diego where he researched Microbial Fuel Cells and microbial extracellular electron transport mechanisms. Greg is an alum of University of Western Ontario (2003, 2008).
Research Day 2020
Our third annual MScSM Research Day was conducted online where we provided the MScSM students andfaculty an opportunity to come together and discuss recent research on different aspects of sustainability management.
Download the Research Day 2020 Abstract Booklet
Research Day 2019
April 4, 2019, 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM, New North Building Grand Hall and NE 1190, University of Toronto Mississauga
Our second annual MScSM Research Day, where we provided an opportunity for all Sustainability Management Family members (students, faculty, staff, professionals, and community members) to come together and discuss recent research on different aspects of sustainability management.
The day included guest talks from research scholars focused on three very important areas of sustainability, poster presentations from our second-year students, and three-minute presentations based on our students' research papers. The research areas of students’ papers vary from nudges and sustainability behaviour, social values and innovations to technological innovations and digital communication platforms.
Download the Research Day 2019 Abstract Booklet
Research Day 2018
MScSM is starting a new annual event - Research Day – this year (2018). The main objective of Research Day is to provide an opportunity for all Sustainability Management Family members (students, faculty, staff, professionals, and community members) to come together and discuss recent research on different aspects of sustainability management. In addition to our own students and faculty members, we will bring some top scholars working on sustainability management issues from different parts of the world for this annual event.
This year, the day will begin with the talks of three research scholars focused on three very important areas of sustainability – meaning and purpose of life; institutional and scientific aspects of municipal wastewater management; and management of healthcare systems. During the lunch, 2nd year MScSM students will display their research posters. After lunch, every student will make “Three Minute Research Paper” presentation. The research areas of students’ papers vary from nudges and sustainability behavior, social values and innovations to technological innovations and digital communication platforms. The event concludes with a reception, where all participants will have an opportunity to discuss/share their interests, possibilities of cooperation, and potential projects.
Download the Research Day 2018 Abstract Booklet
Featured Speakers
Professor Jacob Hirsh, University of Toronto
Jacob Hirsh is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management. His research focuses on understanding the role of personality processes in the workplace, especially as they relate to creativity, self-regulation, decision-making, and motivation. He has published on a diverse range of topics in journals including, the Psychological Review, Psychological Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Perspectives on Psychological Science. Jacob’s research has been featured in media outlets including, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Globe and Mail.
Title of Presentation: Managing Meaning and Uncertainty
Abstract: Who are we? Why are we here? What should we do? These fundamental questions about the meaning and purpose of life have been explored since the beginning of human civilization. In the present talk, I propose that the subjective answers that people provide to such questions have an important impact on their attempts to pursue value in a complex and changing world. In a series of experimental studies, I demonstrate that the subjective experience of meaning in life depends upon the pursuit of long-term goals. Uncertainty about such goals is in turn related to the experience of anxiety and a felt lack of meaning and purpose. In applying these ideas to professional life, I show that the experience of meaning at work is related to the perceived relevance of a job for an employee’s long-term goals. An intervention study in which employees were asked to elaborate upon the relevance of their job for their most deeply valued goals led to an increased experience of meaning at work, with concomitant improvements in job satisfaction and employee engagement. Implications are discussed for the management of meaning and uncertainty among individuals and organizations.
Professor Jamie Benidickson, University of Ottawa
Jamie Benidickson teaches Canadian and international environmental law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa where he is a member of the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability. His publications include Environmental Law (Irwin Law, 2013) and The Culture of Flushing: A Social and Legal History of Sewage (UBC Press, 2007).
Title of Presentation: Toilet Training for the Twenty-First Century
Abstract: This presentation examines the law, policy and science of municipal wastewater arrangements in Europe and North America as background to a review of emerging developments oriented around resource recovery from sewage flows. The latter includes initiatives to re-use wastewater to restore supplies and efforts to recover nutrients and energy from wastewater streams. These developments must once again be imagined as involving scientific and technological innovation in combination with revisions to existing regulatory frameworks.
Professor Mario Macis, John Hopkins University
Mario Macis is an Associate Professor in the research track with expertise in the areas of prosocial behavior, morally controversial transactions, global health, experimental economics, development economics, and labor economics. He is also Associate Faculty at the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Dr. Macis has been a consultant for the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, the National Marrow Donor Program, and the United Nations Development Programme.
Title of Presentation: Management, Supervision, and Health Care: A Field Experiment
Abstract: We study the adoption of organizational practices through a randomized controlled trial in 80 public primary health centers in Nigeria. Facilities that received a detailed improvement plan and nine months of implementation support showed large, significant short-term effects on the adoption of several practices under local staff control. Virtually no effects remained one year after the intervention. Facilities that received only general improvement advice but no implementation support showed no change in practices. Sustained supervision appears crucial for achieving persistent improvements in contexts with a lack of incentives for the adoption of effective managerial practices.