In March, The Rotman Institute hosted a successful series of events on responsible robotics and robot ethics. The series included a panel discussion held at Wolf Hall on March 15 (featuring Aimee van Wynsberghe, Ryan Gariepy, Jesse Kirkpatrick, Kristen Thomasen, and Christopher Schlachta), and two related lectures on March 16 & 17. Videos of all three [...]
by Catherine Stinson A few weeks have passed since the conference I co-organized with Derek Oswick, Veromi Arsiradam, Carolyn McLeod and Jackie Sullivan on The Social Impact of Medicalizing Psychiatry, but the messages are still resonating loudly for me, and for several other participants I’ve heard from. I’d like to take a moment to reflect [...]
Four Rotman graduate students were among the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) award recipients announced recently. Please join us in congratulating each of our 2015 Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships Program Doctoral Scholarship recipients (pictured above, left to right): Adam Woodcox - "Plato on the nature and value of pleasure" Tracy de Boer [...]
ACMES 2, Computationally Assisted Mathematical Discovery and Experimental Mathematics, was a four-day conference held on May 12 - 15, 2016 at Western University. Computational Discovery, also called Experimental Mathematics, is the use of symbolic and numerical computation to discover patterns, to identify particular numbers and sequences, and to gather evidence in support of specific mathematical [...]
The Rotman Institute Philosophical Photography Contest challenged people to submit unique photographs that somehow managed to capture an abstract philosophical concept. We received a fabulous mix of photos that were reviewed by a small panel of judges. Choosing the winning photograph was no easy task -- some of the photographs themselves were particularly striking, some [...]
Rotman members kicked off the new year with a busy month of activities. New publications, conference presentations, media appearances, and other news are all listed below in alphabetical order. An article on sports ethics, Competing Interests: The team doctor’s dual loyalty problem, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal included commentary by Samantha Brennan. Samantha [...]
ACMES 2, Computationally Assisted Mathematical Discovery and Experimental Mathematics, was a four day conference held on May 12 - 15, 2016 at Western University. Videos from the fourth day of the conference have been added to the ACMES 2 video playlist. Remaining videos from the conference will be available soon. Computational Discovery, also called Experimental [...]
The Rotman Institute is honoured to be hosting a number of events this semester on important issues from a variety of fields. These events will explore pressing questions like: Are humans the only species with rich mental, social, and emotional lives? Is it justifiable to keep animals in zoos and aquariums? Might robots be moral? [...]
We'd like to begin our monthly news post with two exciting announcements from December. First, please join us in congratulating Jackie Sullivan, who was recently promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, effective this July. Second, Lisa Forsberg has joined us as a new postdoctoral fellow. During her time at Western, besides her own research, Lisa [...]
2016 is almost behind us, and in keeping with the custom of compiling end of year lists, we've put together the following list of our top 10 videos of the year. The collection of videos and playlists on the Rotman Institute's YouTube channel cover an array of philosophical areas and topics. Videos of public Rotman [...]
