Reading Week may be time for students to catch up on work, sleep, and visiting with friends and family, but for professors it is business as usual - with some faculty members using the break from classes to speak at symposiums and conferences away from campus.
Assistant Professor Ubaka Ogbogu travelled to California - Sacramento and Davis - to present at the University of California Davis' fourth annual Stem Cell Research Policy and Ethics Symposium. Held on the University of California Davis campus, the February 21 symposium "Stem Cell Research and Risks of the Race to Market" was organized by the University of California Davis' bioethics program.
Ogbogu's presentation was on "Framing Responsible Communication in Stem Cell Research as a Matter of Participant/Patient Welfare."
"In the presentation, I discussed issues associated with stem cell hype (i.e., exaggerated, inaccurate or incomplete portrayals of the potential, promise, and outcomes of stem cell research)," he said, adding that he also spoke about the need for policies to be developed that treat such issues as matters that directly affect the welfare and safety of research participants, patients, and other beneficiaries of the research.
Assistant Professor Anna Lund also travelled during Reading Week, speaking at the Annual Review of Insolvency Law in Montréal, a conference organized annually by Janis Sarra, a professor at the University of British Columbia, which brings together 500 lawyers, judges, and licensed insolvency trustees.
At the conference, Lund spoke about her research on gambling and bankruptcy, specifically concerning individuals whose financial difficulties are caused by gambling. Lund's research has now been published in the edited volume produced for the conference, the Annual Review of Insolvency Law 2016.
Lund also attended the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Environmental Law Societies (CAELS) in Ottawa, where she spoke about what happens to environmental liabilities when a company starts insolvency proceedings, with a focus on the recent Alberta decision in Redwater Energy Corporation (currently before the Court of Appeal). Lund's co-panelist at the conference was Paul McCulloch, legal counsel with Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.
"I thoroughly enjoy connecting with other legal thinkers - students, lawyers, judges, and insolvency trustees - to debate the ideas that are central to our work," she said. "I'm grateful for everyone who puts in a tremendous amount of time and energy to make these events happen."