The Technoscience Research Unit is excited to continue the 2026/7 Technoscience Salon Series: Indigenous Science and Ethical Grounds, an open forum for entangling intellectual and political questions about technoscience.

Join us on Thursday, October 1st from 5 - 7 pm for our first Technoscience Salon of the new academic year for "Two Paradigms Walk Into a Lab: A Conversation" with Max Liboiron.

Dr. Max Liboiron is a Professor in Geography at Memorial University, where they direct the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR). CLEAR develops feminist and anti-colonial methodologies to study marine plastic pollution. Liboiron is author of Pollution is Colonialism (Duke University Press, 2021) and co-author of Discard Studies: Systems, Wasting, and Power (MIT Press, 2022).

“Ethical Nail Salons: A community-governed and SDL-facilitated approach to mitigate occupational chemical hazards in nail salons” innovatively applies the principles of community-based research to materials science. The project is a community-governed collaboration of the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre (J. Liang, M. Woldu, S. Hakeem, M. Osman), the Nail Technicians' Network (J. Liang), the Acceleration Consortium’s SDLs (F. Gu, M. Nazeri, E. Ng), the Indigenous Science and Ethical Substance lab (R. Shadaan, M. Murphy), and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (V. Arrandale). Collaboratively, we will develop workflows to support the creation of a safe, functional, and worker-governed nail polish as a type of “ethical substance.”

Illustration by Emily Eybergen

We are excited to host two open panels for the upcoming 4S Conference on Technopower and Technoscientific Futures, held in Toronto, Ontario, Oct 7-10, 2026. Deadline to submit for open panels is April 30th, 2026.

The first panel is on Ethical Substance and the second panel is on Indigenous, anti-colonial and STS perspectives on the state and industrial drive for critical and rare earth minerals.

For more details about the panels and how to submit a paper, please click the link below!

Join us for the last Technoscience Salon of the season on March 19, 5-7PM.

We are excited to host Dr. Kyle Whyte (Citizen Potawatomi), George Willis Pack Professor + University Diversity & Social Transformation Professor from the University of Michigan, to share stories, cases, and evidence of Indigenous methods for generating climate justice “at scale.”

This event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Indigenous Studies.

Are you an undergraduate or graduate student working in or interested in Indigenous science, technology and environment studies? Do you have a great idea for an event, workshop, or community project?

Whether it is related to skill-building, Indigenous data sovereignty, or arts-based projects—we want to help you bring your idea to life with funding, mentorship, and professional development. Proposals are reviewed on a rolling basis!

Join us on March 12, 2026 from 5-7PM for a Technoscience Salon featuring Dr. Candis Callison, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous journalism and Professor at the University of British Columbia.

Her work focuses on media practices, Indigenous journalism on digital platforms, journalism ethics, and the impact of Indigenous and environmental movements in public discourse, particularly regarding climate change.

This event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Indigenous Studies.

Join Data Fabrics, an art-based learning series that explores Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance through creative, relational, and hands-on approaches. The series creates spaces to think critically about data beyond colonial and institutional frameworks and toward Indigenous ways of knowing, governing, and caring for data.

Stewarded by the Technoscience Research Unit at the University of Toronto, this Indigenous-led and multi-institutional research project seeks to re-envision chemical risk management in a time of environmental crisis.  

The TRU is offering two Post-Doctoral Fellowships; one in the area of Weaponization, Justice, and Self Driving Labs and another in Indigenous Environmental Justice / Indigenous Science and Technology Studies.

Applications are due Feb. 2nd, 2026.

Join us Feb 5, March 5 and April 2 for beading. All supplies, including new and antique seed beads, will be provided plus lunch and tea.

On January 14, 2026, Dr. Jessica Kolopenuk (University of Alberta) and Ricky W. A. Smith (George Mason University) joined us on for a discussion on the coloniality of research ethics.

On November 12, 2025, TRU launched the Indigenous Science, Technology, and Environments Studies Research Hub (the ISTES Hub) at the University of Toronto.

On November 12, 2025, we held our first Technoscience Salon of 2025-26 ft. Dr. Kelsey Leonard is a water scientist, legal scholar, policy expert, writer, and enrolled citizen of the Shinnecock Nation. Her work focuses on Indigenous water justice and its climatic, territorial, and governance underpinnings for our shared sustainable future. She holds the Canada Research Chair in in Indigenous Waters, Climate and Sustainability.

On November 1, 2025, Another Story Bookshop and the Technoscience Research Unit presented the Toronto launch of On Wholeness: Anishinaabe Pathways to Embodiment and Collective Liberation (House of Anansi) by Quill Christie-Peters, with special guests Al Hunter and Jana Rae-Yerxa.

M. Fernanda Yanchapaxi and M. Murphy have co-authored “Indigenous Environmental Data Justice: Confronting Colonial Data and Activating Indigenous Sovereignty.” This article describes what is Indigenous Environmental Data Justice (IEDJ) and elaborates on data practices (including our lab’s work) that Indigenous communities have developed in response to structures of colonial environmental datafication. Their work highlights the work of communities toward Indigenous data governance and alongside the principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty.

The Environmental Data Justice Lab (Vanessa Gray, Beze Gray, Joel Piche, and Layla El-Dakhakhni) have brought forward two new publications that share some of the environmental and chemical relations of those who live in Aamjiwnaang First Nation. OPINION: Understanding Our Surroundings – Tanks and COMMUNITY VOICE: Suncors’ Crude Oil Spill on the Gchigami-Ziibii (St.Clair River)

Our staff scholar, Dr. Reena Shadaan, draws on arts-based research approaches with her latest single-author paper, “‘It’s a mixture of emotions’: Nail technicians’ visual storytelling of work and health.” This publication centers participants' own imagery and narratives, shifting chemical relations from the laboratory to where people encounter them in their daily lives.

The tenth anniversary of Catalyst: Feminism, theory, technoscience marks a significant milestone in critical scholarship at the intersection of feminist studies, science and technology studies (STS), and critical theory. Catalyst invites scholars, activists, and artists to contribute to the anniversary in a myriad of ways.

A collaborative effort with the Yellowhead Institute, this special report describes the permission-to-pollute system in Chemical Valley, explains how industry manipulates data, and looks to community members of Aamjiwnaang First Nation for alternatives to data colonialism. 

The Pollution Reporter 2.0 App translates and connects government, industry-reported, and peer reviewed sources of data into accessible information about the known health effects of pollutants. You can search by polluter, by chemical pollutant or by health category or symptom. The app assists in attaching responsibility for health harms to chemicals and the corporations that make them.

Listen to our co-director speak on “AI, Tech, and Social Justice” and about the research that we are conducting in the field of Indigenous Science, Technology & Environment Studies (ISTES).

Dr. Jayson Maurice Porter delivered the final lecture for the 2025 Technoscience Salon: What is a Chemical? His talk on arsenic, race, and empire was part of our ongoing inquiries into what a chemical is and how it might be recognized, apprehended, and manipulated.

In February, we hosted "A Woman is a School" Toronto book launch and panel with author and Slow Factory founder Céline Semaan, in conversation with Samira Mohyeddin from On The Line Media and Tai Salih from The Red Ma'at Collective.