Covering topics such as mining in Ghana, urban green space and child development, researchers from across the Faculty of Social Sciences (FOSS) will share their findings with the Brock community next week.

Held virtually Wednesday, Dec. 7, the fifth annual Social Sciences Research Colloquium will see three recipients of the Faculty’s 2021 Student Research Awards present alongside the 2021 recipients of the top FOSS honours for faculty researchers, the Early Career Researcher award and the Distinguished Researcher award.

Presenters include the following:

• Sulemana Saaka (Master of Arts in Political Science — International Relations) — “Addressing Mining Sector Conflicts in Ghana” (supervised by Professor Hevina Dashwood)
• Tannaz Sattar (Master of Sustainability in the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre) — “Urban Green Space Typology and the Main Indicators for Maximizing their Performance; Case Studies of Isfahan, Milan, and Toronto” (supervised by Professor Ryan Plummer)
• Ege Kamber (PhD in Psychology) — “The Development of Episodic Thinking in Children: The Contribution of Self-Projection, Scene-Construction, and Episodic Simulation” (supervised by Associate Professor Caitlin Mahy)
• 2021 Early Career Researcher, Assistant Professor Chelsea Jones (Child and Youth Studies) — “Critical Access Research: Relaxing Performances and Pedagogies”
• 2021 Early Career Researcher, Assistant Professor Naomi Andrews (Child and Youth Studies) — “Improving Relationships to Support Substance-Exposed Infants and Young Children”
• 2021 Distinguished Researcher, Professor Robert Dimand (Economics) — “Learning from How Economics Has Changed”

Suzanne Curtin, Vice-Provost, Graduate Studies and Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies, will speak about graduate student research and Michelle McGinn, Associate Vice-President, Research, will offer remarks on research across the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Psychology PhD student Ege Kamber is looking forward to sharing his research and engaging in conversation at the event.

Kamber will discuss how different cognitive skills in children aged eight to 10 contribute to their future-thinking abilities.

Brock Psychology PhD student Ege Kamber.

To show the complexity of future thinking, he describes how people use different cognitive skills to contemplate a future event, such as a job interview. He says people often project themselves into the scene, for instance, imagining sitting at the table; use similar past experiences to foresee a scenario; and then create a scene in their minds by binding episodic details, such the colour of the room or the sound of the air conditioning in the background.

“My research tries to understand how these cognitive skills, such as projecting the self, develop over time and support school-aged children’s future-thinking abilities,” says Kamber. “We are currently collecting data, and preliminary results show that each cognitive skill uniquely contributes to children’s future thinking.”

Dawn Zinga, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research and Acting Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences, says the event gathers researchers from different fields but always yields some interesting commonalities.

“The Research Colloquium brings together some of our top faculty and graduate student researchers and creates excellent opportunities for learning, reflection and cross-pollination of research interests,” says Zinga. “This year’s presentations take on issues that are top of mind for many and are sure to give the audience plenty of food for thought.”

Dean Ingrid Makus of the Faculty of Social Sciences says the event is a highlight in the annual calendar.

“As the term winds down, we welcome this opportunity to celebrate the remarkable research being conducted by our award-winning students and faculty members,” she says. “It’s a great chance to take a break from our daily commitments and be inspired by the ideas, challenges and breakthroughs our researchers pursue in the course of their work.”

Everyone is invited to register to attend the virtual event Wednesday, Dec. 7 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.