ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ Arts Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers Awarded Vanier Scholarship and Banting Fellowship

Three ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ Arts doctoral and postdoctoral researchers have been awarded major funding from the Government of Canada in recognition of their academic excellence, leadership and research potential.

Three ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ Arts doctoral and postdoctoral researchers have been awarded major funding from the Government of Canada in recognition of their academic excellence, leadership and research potential.

Austin Kraft, doctoral student from the Department of Linguistics and Camilo Miereles Salcedo, doctoral student from the Department of Anthropology, were among sixteen ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ students who received the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, which provides up to $50,000 per year for three years. 

François Papale, postdoctoral fellow from the Department of Philosophy was among the seven ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ postdoctoral scholars who received the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, valued at up to $70,000 annually for two years. 

Discover the recipients' research below:

Vanier Scholarship Recipients

Austin Kraft, Linguistics:

Project title: "Forming complex noun phrases in Kanien'kéha, Pemalang Javanese, and Simpakng: A comparative study on underdocumented First Nations and Indonesian languages in service to community-led language vitality movements" 

Of the world's 7,000 languages, linguistics research has focused overwhelmingly on a tiny set of dominant languages. Countering this bias, detailed documentation of more languages will improve our generalizations about human language, and this documentation can support community-led language vitality. 

Building on existing community relationships, I will research three understudied languages: Pemalang Javanese spoken in Central Java, Indonesia; Simpakng spoken in West Kalimantan, Indonesia; and Kanien’kéha spoken in modern-day Quebec, Ontario, and New York. These three languages differ in important ways from English and French: for example, they appear to lack one-to-one translations for articles like English ‘the.’ I will study these language’s strategies for creating noun phrases, namely in expressions of uniqueness, reflexivity, and measurement. From this work, I aim to (i) refine linguistic generalizations about how a noun phrase’s meaning is built from its parts; and (ii) share resulting documentation in learner-friendly, non-commercial formats with the respective communities.

Camilo Miereles Salcedo,Ìý´¡²Ô³Ù³ó°ù´Ç±è´Ç±ô´Ç²µ²â:

Project title: "Resisting Silence: Everyday Practices, Non-Human Vibrancy, and Social Identities in Tepeticpac, Mexico (AD 1200-1519)"

The misrepresentation of precolonial Tlaxcallan (AD 1200–1519) in Mexican historiography serves as a stark reminder of the systematic erasure of Indigenous identities from public memory by nationalist agendas worldwide. In the 16th century, Tlaxcallan resisted Aztec expansion for nearly a century before forming a strategic alliance with Spanish conquistadors. Yet early Mexican historians labeled the Tlaxcalteca as traitors, while glorifying the Aztecs as the primary Indigenous contributors to the nation’s heritage. As a Mexican archaeologist, I challenge this reductive narrative through collaborative work at Tepeticpac—one of the four principalities that comprised the Tlaxcallan coalition. In collaboration with the descendant community, I examine how daily practices and the influence of non-human beings mutually constituted social identities in Tepeticpac during its resistance to Aztec expansion. This project seeks to respectfully engage with traditional knowledge and co-create a more inclusive account of Indigenous identities and resistance to oppressive structures. Ultimately, this research offers a unique opportunity to advance decolonial practices within Mexican archaeology and to inspire similar efforts worldwide.

Banting Fellowship Recipient

François Papale, Philosophy:

Project title: "Epistemological analysis of the impact of AI on science: AlphaFold and evolutionary biology as a case study" 

My work in philosophy of science focuses on biological practices, especially those that revolve around the theory of evolution by natural selection. I was awarded a Banting postdoctoral fellowship to study the impact of AlphaFold on evolutionary biology. AlphaFold is a machine learning software that provides unprecedented access to protein 3D structures. Because proteins are involved in virtually all biological processes, AlphaFold deeply impacts biological and medical sciences. By analyzing published material in evolutionary biology, I will attempt to show that researchers mold the algorithm’s output to their need in a way that, contrary to expectations, stabilizes rather than revolutionizes the field. Generalizing this insight to the impact of AI on science more broadly, I suggest that it fails to radically alter what is recognized as good science. AI’s unprecedented efficiency nonetheless leads to new dynamics in scientific practices that this project aims to characterize from a philosophical perspective.

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