A UWindsor professor has been awarded nearly $1.4 million to research Canada’s healthcare supply chain to identify ways to improve the processes critical to managing COVID-19 and similar crises in the future.

Anne Snowdon, a professor in the Odette School of Business, is leading a team of 18 other researchers from across the nation in the one-year study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the federal agency responsible for funding health and medical research in Canada.

“The purpose of this research is to examine supply chain processes and infrastructure to ensure products are available to public health teams and health care professionals to protect the health of every Canadian citizen,” said Dr. Snowdon.

“This research will inform strategies to ensure Canadians have access to data to inform and enable public health prevention initiatives and to ensure Canadians can access safe, timely, and quality care when and where it is needed if they become infected with COVID-19.”

Snowdon’s team will study ways to ensure health teams have safe and effective products that are of high quality and available when needed. It will study the processes involved in the procurement and distribution of health products in seven provinces, to improve planning and co-ordination across provincial, federal, and global health systems for effective pandemic management.

Snowdon said the current pandemic has exposed gaps in the supply chain, with healthcare workers struggling to access the products and equipment they need to safely care for Canadians. Her research will focus on how supply chain processes influence patient health outcomes, and how data, digital tools, and analytics can strengthen management of the pandemic.

Snowdon, who specializes in business strategy and entrepreneurship, is a leading expert on health supply chains. She is the scientific director and CEO of the Supply Chain Advancement Network in Health, and academic chair of the World Health Innovation Network.

K.W. Michael Siu, UWindsor’s vice-president, research and innovation, said he was both delighted and thankful CIHR selected the project for funding.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the shortcomings of the Canadian medical supply chain system,” Dr. Siu said. “I am confident that the outcomes of Anne and her collaborating team’s research will enable Canada to develop the best strategy and practice to safeguard the health and safety of all Canadians.”

—Sarah Sacheli

The global COVID-19 pandemic has created economic and social challenges for post-secondary students and recent graduates, and notable disruptions to the essential community services provided by not-for-profit organizations.

In response, the Government of Canada has created the Canada Student Service Grant, a program that will provide post-secondary students and recent graduates with volunteer opportunities to help with the response to COVID-19 at Canadian not-for-profit organizations.

Eligible students can earn between $1,000 and $5,000 to support the cost of post-secondary education in the fall.

You can learn more about the grant at https://www.canada.ca/IWanttoHelp.

Three short films from the National Film Board are available for a screening Tuesday to conclude National Indigenous History Month.

Presented by the Turtle Island Aboriginal Education Centre and the Arts Council - Windsor and Region, the virtual event will enable viewers to tune in from their own living rooms.

The three featured films are:

• Woman Dress -Pre-contact, a Two Spirit person named Woman Dress travels the plains, gathering and sharing stories. Featuring archival images and dramatized re-enactments, this film shares a oral story of director Thirza Cuthand’s family, honouring and respecting Woman Dress without imposing colonial binaries on them.
• Inuk shop - Inuit filmmaker Jobie Weetaluktuk mixes archival and new footage to make a statement about the appropriation of his culture throughout history.
• Lake - Cree director Alexandra Lazarowich riffs off classic verité cinema to craft a contemporary portrait of Métis women net fishing in Northern Alberta.

Register through the centre’s website to receive a link to the screening.

A tool now available to the campus community will help make materials more accessible.

The University has purchased an institution-wide licence for Read&Write, which supports reading, writing, and research by making documents and files more accessible. The software is free to all UWindsor employees and students.

Read&Write helps with language acquisition and improved writing, says Anthony Gomez, assistive technologist in Student Accessibility Services.

“It can be used as a screen reader for web-pages and documents and supports multiple languages,” he says. “With its word prediction, grammar, and spelling checkers, as well as the text-picture dictionaries for unfamiliar words, it can help develop writing skills.”

The program also converts speech to text or text to audio.

Read&Write can be installed on any computer — desktop, laptop, or tablet. There is even a Chrome extension that enables users to employ the tool however makes sense for them.

In-person training sessions were originally scheduled for the end of March but will be offered online in the near future. Keep an eye out for training dates through the Professional Development Calendar.

To download a copy:

1. Click on this link, click “Try Read&Write Today,” then choose your platform.
2. Window Users: Follow instructions on this page starting at “Installing Read&Write”
   MAC Users: Follow instructions on this page starting on step 4
3. After product is installed, log in by selecting “Sign-in with Microsoft” and use your UWinID and password

Watch a short introductory video:

Just months after receiving word of her promotion from assistant to associate professor in the Faculty of Law, Beverly Jacobs has been appointed the next associate dean (academic) at Windsor Law, both effective July 1, 2020.

Dr. Jacobs is a member of the Mohawk Nation, which is one nation that is part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and she is from the Six Nations Grand River Territory in Ontario. She holds an LLB from the University of Windsor, an LLM from the University of Saskatchewan, and a PhD from the University of Calgary.

A former president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, she is nationally known for her work and commitment to Indigenous law and politics in Canada. Jacobs is a leading voice and an expert with respect to a multitude of issues facing Indigenous peoples locally, provincially, nationally, and internationally.

“The impact of Dr. Jacobs’ research, teaching, and advocacy has been national and international in scope,” says Windsor Law Dean Christopher Waters. “We look forward to her leadership at the law school.”

Among her many awards and honours, Jacobs was inducted as a Member of the Order of Canada in 2018 for promoting the rights of Indigenous women and girls, notably for her advocacy for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. During her first year of teaching at the Faculty of Law in 2017, Jacobs received the Human Rights and Social Justice Award from the Office of Human Rights, Equity & Accessibility.

From revolutionizing the COVID-19 testing process to producing face shields for frontline workers, the latest issue of WE profiles several projects in UWindsor’s Faculty of Engineering to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Engineering researchers and students have been busy working alongside members of the community and local industry to provide innovative solutions to challenges sweeping the globe.

The faculty’s online newsletter is distributed quarterly to engineering alumni, students, faculty, staff and industrial/community partners. To subscribe to the Windsor Engineering newsletter, visit the faculty’s subscription webpage.

—Kristie Pearce