The Seneca Centre for Health and Social Innovation (SCHSI) is supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Mitacs and Seneca’s Social Innovation Research Fund (SIRF). We support partnerships with our faculty and students on projects across a variety of disciplines, all with the goal of developing and implementing novel products, services and public policies, as well as enhancing capabilities in organizations to deliver better health and social outcomes in communities.
Supporting new programs, products and services through private and public sector partnerships that lead to positive social or health outcomes for communities
SCHSI Applied Research Areas of Focus
Social innovation
Social innovation focuses on novel activities, community partnerships and community impact. SCHSI has established expertise in a variety of areas such as urban agriculture, sustainable fashion, renewable energy, financial empowerment and public safety. The centre actively seeks out small- and large-scale projects with a variety of partners to work with faculty through Seneca’s SIRF and external grants.
Health innovation
From developing service plans to implementing community-based health programs, Seneca has an established research program that supports hospitals, mental health, people with autism, seniors and children.
Health and Social Innovation Expertise
Urban agriculture
Urban agriculture is a growing field that is becoming a global priority due to disruptions in food systems and climate change. Research covers a range of areas such as business training for startups, data collection and automation in vertical farming. With an urban farm and container farm on site, Seneca’s Applied Research is ready to help you with your development needs.
Sustainable fashion
The fashion industry is moving from a disposable culture to a renewable, sustainable one and Seneca is set up to address business challenges on that path. SCHSI has expertise in a variety of areas including natural dye production, sustainable and local processing methods and alternative materials such as mushroom leather.
Renewable energy and building systems
The complexity of our electrical system is only increasing as the electric car market expands and the move away from fossil fuels creates higher grid loads. Renewable energy implementation is growing and SCHSI’s experience in solar, wind, heat pump, building efficiency, battery storage and community grid work puts Seneca at the leading edge of applied research in the space.
Public safety
Seneca’s Community Intelligence and Analytics Hub, a cross-disciplinary public safety initiative between the School of Software Design & Data Sciences and the School of Public Safety & Behavioural Studies and Applied Research, is focused on using advanced analytics for community safety, crime prevention and cybersecurity, as well as evaluating current policy and policing methods.
Community health
From mental health interventions to improving nursing and personal support staffing, Seneca research has impacted community health in a number of ways. SCHSI is actively looking to partner with organizations in the community to create measurable, positive results.
Community development
Implementing policies and creating benefits to the most vulnerable, Seneca has a strong track record in demonstrating social innovation research that helps communities. SCHSI has a wide range of expertise and has done everything from helping low-income individuals access financial services to implementing training programs for seniors. Seneca’s School of Community Services teaches students about marginalization and oppression and strategies to create meaningful change across programs focused on seniors, immigrants and refugees.
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Partner with Us
By collaborating with the SCHSI, partners can access student and faculty expertise and Seneca’s infrastructure. SCHSI is here to help health and social innovation make an impact across a variety of sectors.
If you are interested in working with Seneca to address a challenge, please complete the project request form (DOCX) and email it to research@senecapolytechnic.ca. The centre will contact you for a discovery discussion.
Faculty
Dr. Bahar Biazar
Dr. Bahar Biazar has more than 30 years of experience teaching English as a second language to diverse populations as well as extensive research expertise. She is a member of the adult education and second language education research community and regularly presents at conferences and publishes in scholarly journals. Dr. Biazar has a strong record of publication and has served as guest editor of several peer-reviewed journals. She was a collaborator on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council project called Youth in Transition: War, Migration, and Regenerative Possibilities. Dr. Biazar was the principal investigator in an Intercultural Iranian Canadian Resource Centre’s applied research project titled Coping with Crisis: Senior Newcomers during COVID-19. For the past two decades, Dr. Biazar’s research activity has centered around language education for social change, refugee education and migration and seniors’ needs and resettlement. She also has strong ties to community partners, such as Youth Institute (International), COSTI Immigrant Services, the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and Afghan Women’s Organization.
George Clark
George Clark is a full-time professor in the School of Biological Sciences & Applied Chemistry, a licensed archaeologist in Ontario and has years of hands-on analytical experience in both industry and academia. Mr. Clark has been teaching instrumental analysis at Seneca for more than 15 years. His expertise lies in the development and delivery of instrumental-based curricula and applied research using analytical methods. In addition, Mr. Clark has been an investigator on previous research projects that have focused on unique sample preparation and inorganic analysis of natural products and byproducts.
Dr. Camie Condon
Dr. Camie Condon received her PhD from the University of Liverpool in Psychological Sciences — Tactical Decision Making and worked as a crime analyst for a regional police service before joining Seneca as the Program Co-ordinator for the Honours Bachelor Crime & Intelligence Analysis (BCIA) in 2018. She has been working on establishing a research catalogue to advance the BCIA program and provide opportunities for students.
Recently, Dr. Condon has been involved in projects with a variety of partners, including the Ontario Police College, to investigate new physical de-escalation tactics, the King City Women of Influence Giving Circle to carry out a sex trafficking analysis, and in collaboration with Wilfrid Laurier University to examine the convergence/divergence between official crime data and perceptions of safety in downtown Brantford.
Dr. Varinder Gill
Dr. Varinder Gill has been teaching courses in finance, economics and research for the last 20 years. A professor in the School of Human Resources & Global Business since 2012, she holds a master’s degree and PhD in economics, a Canadian Securities course certification and a Chartered Financial Analyst Investment Foundation certificate. Apart from teaching, she has developed courses for various educational institutions. Dr. Gill has written about topics ranging from the financial performance of banks to microfinance for scholarly journals and has presented her research at various conferences.
Dr. West Suhanic
Dr. West Suhanic has more than 35 years of work experience across the diverse fields of economics, finance and investment banking, data authentication, data and network security, distributed systems, multimedia systems, high-resolution imaging of seeds and parasites, artificial intelligence and machine learning, statistics and econometrics, database systems, software development and patent acquisition. Dr. Suhanic has a strong record of peer-reviewed publications and has recently completed teaching a course on inclusive design at OCAD University. He also holds three patents. Dr. Suhanic supervises and mentors student research assistants and financiers and leads the co-design and execution of impact reporting and knowledge dissemination efforts.
Dr. Mark Tucci
Dr. Mark Tucci is a full-time faculty member in the School of Public Safety & Behavioural Studies at Seneca, where he teaches in the Honours Bachelor of Behavioural Psychology degree program. He received his PhD in neuroscience from McMaster University in 2014. His academic interests are in understanding the biopsychosocial underpinnings of behaviour and how this may be used to enhance the quality of life for people living with mental illness or developmental delay. Dr. Tucci is also interested in utilizing neuro-technology to help people better understand their brain and behaviour.
Kyle Valdock
A professor in the Building Environmental Systems program at Seneca, Mr. Valdock specializes in sustainable energy technologies, heating, cooling and electrical systems for buildings. He’s also been active in applied research, working on projects focused on the design and fabrication of building integrated photovoltaic panels with heat recovery, hydronic cooling systems for database centers and water analysis systems. Prior to becoming a professor, Mr. Valdock dedicated his career to the development of renewable fuels and sustainable technology. Career highlights include the design of fuel cell systems, photovoltaic power management, alternative fuels production, boiler systems, combustion systems, cooling applications and power electronics. His experience is a unique combination of engineering design, prototype development, laboratory testing and hands-on field service work.
Dr. Sabine Weber
Dr. Sabine Weber started her career with a dressmaker apprenticeship before studying apparel engineering at the Albstadt-Sigmaringen University of Applied Sciences in Germany, focusing on product development. After working for many years in the European fashion industry as a product manager, international buyer and team leader for different brands, she moved to Canada. She earned a doctorate from the University of Waterloo in the School of Environment and Resource Sustainability on transitioning the fashion industry toward sustainability. Since 2016, Dr. Weber has been a full-time faculty member in the School of Fashion. Her research focuses on social innovation, sustainable fashion, textile waste, textile recycling and the circular economy.
Project Spotlight
Real Time Control and Alarm System of PEM Fuel Cell
Principal Investigator: Professor Muthanna Al-Khish
Partner: eV Fern Ltd.
Funder: SIRF
Award Year: 2023
Rechargeable battery manufacturer eV Fern Ltd., which is based in Oshawa about 60 kilometers east of Toronto, wants to develop initiatives to save electricity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions with renewable solar and wind energy. The company is interested in exploring Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC), which use hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air to produce electricity. However, the use of PEMs has been problematic due to proton dryness and a depletion of the catalyst layer, the electrochemical part of the structure. They have partnered with Muthanna Al-Khishali, Professor, School of Software Design and Data Science to address the challenges in developing clean and efficient power. The research team for this Seneca Social Innovation Research Fund project will design a simulator system to bypass the obstacles.
Identifying Best Practices in Long Term Care Homes to Address Resident Loneliness and Isolation
Principal Investigator: Professors Blerina Mehmeti and Caroline Grammer
Partner: Unionville Home Society
Funder: NSERC - Mobilize
Award Year: 2023
Unionville Home Society (UHS) provides quality care and services including housing and long-term care for older adults living in York Region. UHS has partnered with Seneca Polytechnic Professors Blerina Mehmeti and Caroline Grammer, Child Youth Care, to develop a comprehensive literature review of existing models of care that successfully engage all their residents in their lived environments. This review will include therapeutic individual and group programming, alternative ways to increase the independence and involvement of each resident in their activities of daily living, foster emotional and spiritual engagement in the UHS long-term care setting and decrease the three plagues of aging – loneliness, boredom and helplessness. The results will inform the development of specific programs and environmental support tailored to UHS’s long-term care population.
Feasibility of Micro-Insurance for Urban Agriculture
Principal Investigator: Dr. West Suhanic
Partner: Toronto Urban Growers
Funder: AgriRisk Initiatives Micro-grants
Award Year: 2023
As the benefits and advantages of urban farming in Canada become increasingly clear, so do the various risks facing farmers and producers who seek to create and develop their own urban agriculture businesses (e.g., municipal policies, lack of financial support, etc.). Dr. West Suhanic, Professor, School of Financial and Accounting Services, is leading a team of student researchers investigating how to mitigate such risks through the creation of business models for the provisioning of microinsurance to economically vulnerable groups like urban farmers. This project aims to create the case that a micro-insurance product for urban farmers is feasible and, with this reduced risk, facilitate the creation of a microinsurance product by providing this information to insurance providers.
Digitizing Data Collection at Syme-Woolner Family Center
Principal Investigator: Ayesha Manzer
Partner: Syme Woolner Neighbourhood & Family Centre
Funder: NSERC
Award Year: 2023
Syme Woolner Neighbourhood & Family Centre, a Toronto-based organization provides services such as a food bank, a 7 day hot meal program, clothing bank, children’s after school program, summer camp, Early Year Programming, and support in accessing and referral to multiple services, wants to track program usage, while protecting privacy. Innovate Cities, a Toronto-based IT service and consulting nonprofit, aims to use data and technology to improve the quality of life. The two organizations have collaborated to come up with a platform to protect information in such a way that it can be used for quality measurements, internal and provincial reporting. Ayesha Manzer, Professor, School of Software Design & Data Science, will lead a research team to create a system to collect and store the information, while letting clients use a barrier-free sign-in process. That system will then be integrated with the platform to have a resource that nonprofits can use to track activity while protecting privacy.
Development of ShiftPay payment system portal
CPOS Inc. is an Ottawa-based tech company that has been helping small and mid-sized businesses streamline their technology and operations for over a decade. Run by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs their top-of-the-line customer service, dedicated software development team, and key understanding of the industry have made them an industry leader in online ordering, independent invoicing software, and bricks-to-click payment processing systems.
CPOS is constantly looking at more efficient and effective technology solutions to aid small and medium-sized business owners. Their latest innovation in this area includes the launch of ShiftPay, which will initially be aimed at the hospitality industry. This first-to-market software will aim to tackle the current widespread labor challenges faced by today's hospitality industry, enabling employers to pay out employees' wages and tips daily. Miles McDonald, Professor, School of Software Design & Data Science, will lead research assistants in a project to test ShiftPay’s feasibility and develop a prototype of the software. ShiftPay is expected to be a game changer for the hospitality industry, enabling businesses to immediately pay employees in government-issued currency or cryptocurrency.
Measurement of Joyi on Mood and State of Mind
Principal Investigator: Dr. Mark Tucci
Partner: Colorful Zone
Funder: Seneca Mobilize
Award Year: 2022
Colorful Zone specializes in developing products that promote users’ mental health education and mental wellbeing. The Toronto-based company is partnering with Dr. Mark Tucci, Professor, School of Public Safety and Behavioural Studies, and a team of student researchers to perform testing and validation of their new mental health app, ‘Joyi’. The project will use validated measures of mood and state of mind in the form of user-friendly surveys to assess changes in participants’ mental well-being before and after using the app. The project aims to provide the partner with guidance on how the Joyi app treats its mood and well-being implementation, to provide research-backed mood support to its customers.
Exploring the Experiences of Front-line Home Health Care Workers Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Inquiry
Principal Investigator: Alla Yakerson
Partner: Community & Home Assistance to Seniors (CHATS)
Funder: ARF
Award Year: 2022
Community & Home Assistance to Seniors (CHATS) is a not-for-profit organization that provides services for older adults and caregivers living and working in York Region and South Simcoe. CHATS, based in Aurora, about 35 km north of Toronto, relies heavily on the support of front-line workers (FLWs) to provide vital services to individuals living with chronic health conditions, aging needs and/or disabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic put a significant strain on health-care providers, who were already dealing with funding and staffing issues. CHATS is partnering with Alla Yakerson, Professor, School of Health Sciences, to conduct an interview-based study to improve worker satisfaction amongst FLWs. Ideally, the results will lead to the development of techniques to increase retention and recruitment.
Advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) data analysis and performance predictor using edge computing
Principal Investigator: Kyle Valdock
Partner: Voltaire Power
Funder: Mitacs Accelerate
Award Year: 2022
Voltaire Power is a privately held Canadian company that has developed algorithms and a distinctive coding system to predict electricity production of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems using PV power-plant design and environmental conditions as inputs. Currently, PV power-plant owners and operators are able to measure solar system performance; however, the full potential of the plant may not be realized without accurately measuring solar irradiation combined with other environmental data. This project between Voltaire Power and Seneca Innovation focuses on giving commercial or industrial property (i.e., non-solar professional) owners and facilities managers the ability to accurately calculate the predicted output of a solar plant and compare it to what the plant is actually producing. This will give people a way to monitor and rectify solar plant issues, ensuring a return on investment. The predictive comparative outputs will be created with external sensors in the solar plant that communicate with a mini-computer to process the data. The information will then be sent to a cloud service for data storage, analysis and display.
Minimizing mental health impact of burnout and vicarious trauma on front-line workers of the residential care agencies
Principal Investigator: Enzo Badolato
Partner: OARTY
Funder: Mitacs-MHRC Partnership
Award Year: 2022
The Ontario Association of Residences Treating Youth (OARTY) represents agencies providing private residential services. OARTY members offer temporary, short- or long-term residential care for vulnerable individuals including those suffering the aftermath of abuse and neglect and those with developmental challenges. One of the problems facing the organization is high staff turnover, which is caused by many factors including limited financial resources, shift work and mental health challenges, such as burnout and vicarious trauma. Not only do these issues affect residential care workers who resign, but they also affect the children as losing staff disrupts their care and treatment. OARTY is partnering with Seneca researchers Enza Badolato, Professor, School of Community Services and Selvini Devasagayam, a student in the program, to identify strategies to help minimize the negative impacts of burnout and vicarious trauma.
Companion planting in vertical farming: optimizing nutrition and growth in non-ideal growth conditions
Principal Investigator: George Clark & Dr. David Guevara
Partner: Just Vertical
Funders: Mitacs Accelerate, NSERC
Award Year: 2022
Just Vertical builds, sells and supports indoor garden and farming modules. Indoor vertical farming is becoming more popular but is currently limited by the varieties that can be grown and the nutritional density of those crops. Building on 2020 research with Seneca called Improving Harvestable Yields and Antioxidant, Vitamin and Mineral Contents in Hydroponically Grown Basil and Mint Using Indoor Vertical Gardens, this project will produce recipes to grow a variety of nutritious, high-yielding crops in a hydroponic gardening unit called the AEVA. Seneca’s research team will develop methods for crop nutrient analysis, perform chemical analyses and make recommendations to Just Vertical. In addition, they will evaluate how common growing mistakes can affect flavour, nutrition and crop yield. The information will be used to create proprietary growth recipes, which will give Just Vertical a competitive edge to attract new customers and market share.
Innovations in tax filing
Principal Investigator: Dr. Varinder Gill
Partner: Prosper Canada and City of Toronto
Funders: Mitacs Accelerate
Award Year: 2022
Federal and provincial governments use the tax system to establish eligibility and deliver benefits and credits to low-income Canadians. However, this group faces barriers to filing their taxes and therefore they don’t maximize available benefits. It’s expected that the situation worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic as free in-person tax clinics closed or only provided services virtually —becoming inaccessible for people without internet access. In Ontario, about 15.9 per cent of working-age adults and about 33 per cent of social assistance recipients do not file taxes. In collaboration with the City of Toronto and Prosper Canada, Seneca will identify barriers and propose solutions to tax filing access issues. This project will use surveys and interviews with Toronto residents and identify strategies other regions have used to lower barriers to tax filing in order to develop a plan to guide policy and help the city’s poverty reduction strategy.