CyberHER: Bridging the gender gap in cybersecurity

by Daryl Ilbury

The CyberHER: Bridging the Gender Gap in Cybersecurity project addresses the global gender gap in cybersecurity. By promoting cybersecurity awareness for women, international collaboration, and inclusive education, the project empowers women in Pakistan and the UK. By tackling barriers in STEM and championing diversity, CyberHER is sparking systemic change and redefining the role of women in technology.

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Children at the frontline — neurodivergence and school distress

by Daryl Ilbury

Schools should be safe spaces if they’re to encourage children to learn. However, even the seemingly safest and most supportive school environments can harbour perils for neurodivergent children and young people (CYP). The hustle and bustle of an active classroom can generate deep anguish. This is their daily reality – an emotional battleground with them at the front lines. So, it should be no surprise when they want to retreat. Psychology researchers at the University of Newcastle, UK, have discovered just how closely connected neurodivergence is to school refusal. Their research prompts uncomfortable questions and introduces a sobering term to the lexicon of neurodiversity studies.

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All roads lead to exposure: Identifying a pathway to encouraging second-language uptake

by Daryl Ilbury

Recent immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries to the United States must enter an unaccustomed space where children seem more adept – learning a second language. While physical relocation to the US might be a fundamental first step for immigrants, they face multiple challenges unless they can speak English. Understanding the language enables them to navigate daily life; proficiency significantly improves their employment prospects by allowing them to access a broader range of job opportunities, understand workplace culture, and communicate effectively with colleagues. It is also vital for further education. For new immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries to the US, learning English is their passport to proper integration. It is here where children rise to the occasion. This anomaly is nothing new.

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YIP–Your Ideas to Practice: Shaping the next generation of humanitarian engineers

by Daryl Ilbury

While technologies have evolved throughout human history and arguably helped propel us forward, one constant has held us back: our compulsion to compete for resources instead of cooperating in their sustainable management. There are very few resources as necessary as water; it’s no coincidence that we look for signs of water first when searching for extraterrestrial life.

Here on Earth, technological advances have ironically helped fuel a climate crisis that risks escalating inter- and intra-state water conflicts. Such conflicts have historically impacted the socioeconomic development of societies and nations. Beyond cross-state wars over water sources, disputes over water resources can arise within a society, such as between industries and agriculture, urban and rural populations, or different ethnic groups.

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Mentorship: Sparking a sense of wonder

by Daryl Ilbury

There are probably few better ways to kindle within students a connection with science, technology, engineering, or mathematics than by exploring the vast and beguiling laboratory that is our natural world. While valuable modes of information transfer, school classrooms and the media cannot beat complete immersion in a subject of study, and nature is bountiful in that regard. However, there is a way to add extra energy to the learning: if the subject under scrutiny has meaning. The outcome is transformative learning.

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Building a community of learning and a legacy of mentoring

by Daryl Ilbury

To the uninitiated, life within the hallowed halls of academia can seem cultured and untroublesome; the only hard work is being allowed in. Such a perception is only partially accurate: the path to becoming an academic is indeed arduous. Some may argue this is to keep out all but the academically committed, but it can be a perceptual bulwark for students who believe – perhaps because they have been told – that they are not worthy. Changing those perceptions requires more than a kind word and a guiding hand. It demands significant intellectual and emotional involvement by committed educators with a proper understanding of the value of mentoring. One senior academic within education has helped build a legacy of mentoring by drawing on her own troubled path to those hallowed halls.

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Unlocking opportunity: The importance of student–faculty interactions in promoting Black students’ academic identity

by Daryl Ilbury

On 29th June this year, the United States Supreme Court sent a shockwave through higher education when it outlawed race-conscious admissions. The practice, which gained momentum after the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s, encouraged greater diversity at historically and/or predominantly White institutions (H/ PWIs). As a result of the judgement, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are expecting an influx of new applicants. HBCUs punch above their weight in terms of the output of Black graduates and offer a more inclusive environment. So, could the Supreme Court judgement trigger a significant shift in Black student enrolment, and what can H/PWIs do to attract more Black students?

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The perpetual motion of digital scholarly preservation

by Daryl Ilbury

It’s fair to say most researchers don’t do what they do for the money. Instead, what drives them is their passion for contributing to the scholarly record. This ‘record’ is not a simple sequential chronicle of academic information. Instead, it is an ever-expanding, highly interconnected network of all human knowledge racing outwards in myriad directions. Scholars build upon the work of those who published before so that those who follow them may do the same. Those tasked with curating such knowledge can never rest because the responsibility of preserving scholarly knowledge is immense, and since becoming progressively digital, it has become increasingly mercurial, and the demands on their skills more intense.

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Making sense of immigrant work integration in Canada

by Daryl Ilbury

For immigrants arriving in a new country, the excitement for a new beginning can be overshadowed by the multiple anxieties that accompany integrating into sometimes vastly different living and working environments and cultures. This is especially true for highly qualified immigrants (QIs) – generally highly skilled immigrants with a foreign post-secondary education who relocate to another country to work and live. It would be fair to assume that countries looking to boost their skilled workforce would embrace such talent. However, for QIs, this is often not the case, and it could boil down to the complexities of sensemaking. Two Canadian scholars from diverse, but associated, fields of study have published research that shines a light on sensemaking amongst QIs and the multiple stakeholders they interact with. Their research could transform our understanding of the challenges facing immigrants.

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UNBSSI – planting the seeds of space exploration

by Daryl Ilbury

There are two indisputable yet oft-forgotten facts about space exploration: space belongs to no one, and you don’t need to enter space to study its immense wondrousness. For centuries, cultures across the world have stared up at the night sky and wondered what lies among the stars. Exploring space needs a keen eye, an inquiring mind, a basic understanding of any of the space sciences, and access to some of the troves of data pouring in from space every day. Knowing this, one organisation within the United Nations is quietly and resolutely expanding the frontiers to space exploration by making education, teaching, and research a key part of its focus. In the process, it has bridged the perceptual and infrastructural barriers around reaching out to space and highlighted the benefits of networking and sharing knowledge.

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