Communities and Collections

The Cassius Dio Network (2016-18) has combined historiographical, literary, and rhetorical analyses of Cassius Dio's career and works to demonstrate that he was both an active, successful politician and an intellectually sophisticated historian and author. The Network has organized several conferences and seminars in the last two years. The Network hosted, as the final event of this series, a conference from May 24-26, 2018 in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Focusing on Dio’s literary characteristics and cultural context, the conference situated Dio’s work at the intersection and culmination of a series of traditions and practices, including Thucydidean political historiography, the Roman annalistic and senatorial historical traditions, and the many components of the Second Sophistic. Papers presented from scholars at all levels on topics relating to Dio Cassius’ thought, literary techniques, rhetorical agendas, generic identity, political views, or intellectual milieu.

The Health Data Research Symposium (held May 29, 2014) is a day-long discussion about health data access, management and linkages in Alberta. The symposium includes plenary sessions, panel discussions and posters.

The Helmholtz-Alberta Initiative is an independent international research partnership that effectively amalgamates the scientific and technical expertise of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres and the University of Alberta to jointly develop solutions to key challenges in fields such as energy, ecosystem and resource informatics, and health.

The Histories of Humanities Computing community gathers documents both historic and current that have to do with the history of humanities computing (and now digital humanities) at the University of Alberta. We also have archives of some important early pioneers in the field, including Sally Sedelow and John B. Smith.

The Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta is recognized as one of the leading departments for the study of History and Classics in Canada and globally. Our students work with professors who are excellent teachers (many have won campus awards), and world-class researchers active at the forefront of their chosen fields.

Our programs are notable for their remarkable breadth, in terms of their geographical reach – ranging across the history of six continents – and their wide array of themes, which include gender, sexuality, class, nation, empire, and identity, and perspectives covering urban, environmental, transnational and postcolonial histories. We offer literary studies in Greek and Latin and archaeological field schools in Italy and Greece. Our programs offer great flexibility, allowing students to tailor their degree to their interests. Our undergraduate students develop skills in communication, critical analysis, research, and cultural understanding, which provide a strong foundation for careers in business, communications and public service, as well as for graduate studies. In graduate study, the breadth of our programs, extensive library resources, and funding opportunities enable our students to pursue original and innovative research.

Human Ecology is a multidisciplinary field that closely explores the relationships between people and the environments they interact with. Human Ecology is about changing lives. The Human Ecology department supports rigorous multidisciplinary research programs with a particular focus on four main areas: aging; children, youth and families, material culture studies, and textile and apparel science.

The Images of Research competition is an opportunity for current University of Alberta graduate students from all disciplines to capture, share, and present the essence of their research in one image, diagram or drawing. This competition and its accompanying exhibition aim to showcase and preserve graduate student research in print and digital form, foster student engagement, and support graduate students’ academic endeavours. Winners and semifinalists are selected by a multidisciplinary jury according to the following criteria: Originality/ Creativity; Aesthetic appeal of image; Relationship between image and student’s research; Clarity of written description and title. All files are available via a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Since 2020, the UNESCO Information For All Programme (IFAP) Working Group on Information Accessibility (WGIA) has hosted the Artificial Intelligence for Information Accessibility (AI4IA) Conference. AI4IA is hosted annually on 28 September, in commemoration of UNESCO’s International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI), and has enjoyed the support of partners from all over the world, including the Kule Institute for Advanced Studies (KIAS) and AI for Society (AI4S), both at University of Alberta, Canada; the International Centre for Information Ethics (ICIE); Future Africa at the University of Pretoria, South Africa; the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED) in ORF, India; and the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica. The aim of this specific event is on promoting, but also understanding the barriers to, inclusive artificial intelligence. AI can be very beneficial to society but if abused it can also be very harmful. The theme therefore raises a range of issues, including the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Law, AI and Ethics, media and our right to know, creativity and innovation. It is necessary to understand how AI can be made inclusive, thereby enabling the widest cross-section of society.

Science is changing: the solutions to most of the significant scientific challenges today and in the future will often lie beyond the scope of any single discipline. In order to meet this challenge, the University of Alberta offers Science 100, a unique learning opportunity designed to encourage students to think beyond disciplinary boundaries. Science 100 integrates core first year material from each of the seven departments in the Faculty of Science into a single, intense year long course. It is highly interdisciplinary in nature, focusing on discovery learning with emphasis on creativity, inquiry and thinking in non-traditional ways.

Established in 2008, the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (iSMSS) is housed in the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta. At iSMSS (http://www.ismss.ualberta.ca), research and advocacy via our programming and services are inextricably linked. We work with the spectrum of sexual and gender minority (SGM) or LGBTTIQQ2SA youth, with the acronym including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, questioning, queer, two-spirit and allied youth. We engage them in intervention and prevention programming, focusing on educational outreach, individual development, socialization, and comprehensive health. At iSMSS we emphasize growing into resilience as a process and an outcome. This work is about helping youth to deal with adversity and trauma as they deal with stressors and risk taking. We assist youth to (i) build assets (significant adult, institutional, and community supports) and (ii) show signs of thriving (positive outcomes built around recognition, respect, and accommodation of SGM youth).