New Trail

A conversation with an AI robot

​Are you worried robots are going to take over the world? This video might ease your concerns.

What's a Puke Draft

Simpsons writer Joel Cohen shares his cure for writer's block.

What I learned from my failures

An entrepreneur offers five lessons learned on the way to success.

Hard-Hitting Facts About Concussion

What parents — and others — need to know to keep brains safe.

The High Cost of Cheap Clothing

Disposable fashion is taking a toll on people and the environment.

Shaun Smyth, ’94 BFA, was featured in the Hamilton Spectator as he brought his version of retired NHL player Theo Fleury to the stage this past winter when he starred in Playing With Fire, a one-man show. Smyth has also appeared at the Stratford Festival and in movies and television, including The Killing, Murdoch Mysteries and Arrow.
–Hamilton Spectator

Mai Nguyen, ’14 BSc(Nutr/Food), is a finalist on the fourth season of MasterChef Canada. Over the course of 12 episodes, the home cooking contestants are tested using mystery boxes, pressure tests and team and elimination challenges. As of press time, Nguyen was in the top five.
–Yahoo Finance

A popular mystery dancer on YouTube recently revealed himself to be engineer Michael Startsev, ’09 BSc(EngPhys), ’11 MSc. Until now, Startsev has been known as a dancer in a suit and bowler hat going by the name Forsythe. His YouTube channel has received 99 million views and has more than 188,000 subscribers around the world. Forsythe’s first self-made video, posted a decade ago, has logged 38 million views. While he has no formal dance training, Startsev has performed around the world and been featured in the New York Times, the Financial Times and Forbes.
–CBC

Ontario’s Stratford Festival will feature its first Inuk director, Reneltta Arluk, ’05 BFA, in the 2017 season. Arluk will direct The Breathing Hole, a play that tells 500 years of Canadian history from a polar bear’s perspective. The production is one of eight directed by women at next year’s festival.
–Toronto Star

Chris Perron, ’14 BDes, has his dream job (and likely many people’s dream job) as a junior product designer for Lego. The industrial design grad’s love for Lego began with his first set — a City Hovercraft he had as a child. While still a student, Perron worked as a supervisor at Southgate Centre’s Lego Store. He always had it in his mind that he wanted to work as a Lego designer, so he started applying to the toy giant’s headquarters in Denmark. Three years and 14 rejections later, he got the designer job and moved overseas.
–Maclean’s

Four of 11 new schools in the Edmonton public school district have been named after U of A alumni: Lila Fahlman, ’62 BEd, ’71, MEd, ’76 Dip(Ed), ’84 PhD; Donald R. Getty, ’13 LLD (Honorary); Svend Hansen, ’55 Dip(Ed), ’56 Dip(Ed), ’57 BEd; and Jan Reimer, ’73 BA. The schools’ names were chosen from among more than 3,000 suggestions from the public.
–CBC

Member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre Randy Boissonnault, ’94 BA, was named special adviser on LGBTQ issues by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in November. Boissonnault will advise the prime minister on the development and co-ordination of the federal government’s LGBTQ agenda. Boissonnault retains his duties as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
–Global News

She was raised by atheist parents and didn’t even visit a church until she was a teenager, but Jane Alexander, ’93 MEd, ’97 PhD, is now one of five female Anglican bishops in Canada. At 37, Alexander entered Newman Theological College in Edmonton as a mother of four and earned her master’s degree in theological studies. She balances multiple priorities, from her faith to her family to her involvement with the community, including co-chairing the End Poverty Edmonton task force alongside Mayor Don Iveson, ’01 BA. Alexander was named the March 2016 Global Edmonton Woman of Vision.
–Global Edmonton

Fifty years ago, his chilling experiences as a prison psychologist led Robert Hare, ’58 BA, ’60 MA, on a lifelong quest to understand one of humanity’s most fascinating disorders. He developed the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised test, known as PCL-R or The Hare, in the 1980s. Publicly released in 1991, it has become the top violence risk assessment tool used by researchers and forensic clinicians to detect psychopaths’ hallmark traits and behaviours. Since his retirement, Hare has produced variations of the PCL-R to assess youth and children exhibiting early signs of psychopathy.
–Discover Magazine