Cluster/Incubator Grant Launch

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the 2025-2026 Catalyzing Engaged Digital Scholarship (CEDS) Grant, co-presented by UBC’s Public Humanities Hub (PHH) and Digital Scholarship in Arts (DiSA). This grant provides $10,000 over 2 years to support collaborative critical inquiry and technological innovation with recipients intending to subsequently apply for Tri-Council funding.  

Dr. Kimberly Huyser (Department of Sociology) 

Tracing Settler-Colonial Logics in Canadian Legislation and Legal Rulings  

Abstract: The realization of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination over ancestral lands often requires recognition within Canada’s legal system. Despite the importance of these decisions, this system is ultimately colonial. Indigenous Peoples have long understood how Canadian law systematically works to eliminate, displace, and replace their ties to their traditional territories. Yet, few studies have traced these patterns across the corpus of legal text that shape Canadian law through precedent and legislation at scale. The proposed project aims to address this critical gap by Indigenizing large language models, analyzing 121,700 Canadian court documents and pieces of legislation informing court rulings from 1870 to the present, as are archived in A2AJ Canadian Legal Data project. 

Biography: 

Dr. Kimberly R. Huyser is a Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and grew up on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, USA. Dr. Huyser received her BA from Calvin University in 2003 and her Ph.D. – Sociology in 2010 from the University of Texas at Austin with an Indigenous Studies Graduate Portfolio and a traineeship from the Population Research Center at UT, Austin. Her scholarship combines medical sociology and the sociology of race and ethnicity. 

Dr. Alexander Ross (School of Information) 

Playful Engagements: Catalyzing Digital Game-Based Approaches To Teaching And Research  

Abstract: Playful Engagements: Catalyzing Digital Game-Based Approaches To Teaching And Research is a workshop Series and forum designed to facilitate collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to incorporating game-based learning and research. Instead of approaching games and play as entirely new phenomena that need to be inserted into academic work, this project will propose ways to approach them as learning tools and methodologies, inviting faculty and graduate students to share how they are currently engaging with playful approaches to teaching and research. These talks will be structured according to a game-based methodology (i.e. walkthroughs) and will include hands-on engagement with digital games. This project aims to break down disciplinary boundaries and facilitate new creative skills and digital literacies across the university and for the general public.  

Biography: Dr Alexander Ross is a critical communications scholar, with a focus on media theory and the political economy of communication. His research is interdisciplinary and focuses on how communication systems and infrastructures impact the development of new media industries and cultural production. Dr. Ross’s research has mainly focused on digital platforms and the role they have played in expanding the popularity, reach, and influence of highly volatile contingent commodities. The next phase of his research is grounded in broader questions of contingency and ephemerality in media and communication, exploring these issues within a critical Indigenous context. 

Dr. Patrick Parra Pennefather (Department of Theatre and Film) 

Abstract: The symposium is a policy-focused research project using structured debate among artists, legal experts, and developers to resolve critical intellectual property conflicts raised by generative AI.  The research integrates four core questions: defining the level of human authorship required for copyright protection, clarifying the legal status of commercial AI training data ingestion (the input problem) under Canadian Fair Dealing, establishing how laws apply to works that mimic artistic style, and proposing new legislative frameworks to balance technological innovation with creator remuneration and content sovereignty. The project’s final dissemination is a policy synthesis report designed to influence the modernization of Canada’s Copyright Act and inform global digital policy on machine-assisted creation.  

Biography: Dr. Patrick Parra Pennefather is an Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Theatre and Film and is co-appointed with the inter-institutional Master of Digital Media program. He is passionate about bridging disciplines of practice and thrives in collaborative projects. Teaching sound design and collaboration, he draws from his work as an award-winning designer and composer for live and virtual spaces having worked on over 250 productions in Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia. Dr. Pennefather is a designer of interactive experiences working as a sound designer, designer of learning and producer of scalable virtual and augmented reality prototypes.