Significant tri-council funding boost for UTM science researchers
Xu, a part-time assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences (CPS) at UTM, will receive $125,000 from 2021-26 to support his Discovery Grant project, “Integration of state-of-the-art satellite soil moisture and terrestrial water storage products with hydrological modeling in support of water security in Canada.”
“This research program will support my efforts to better understand water-cycle behaviour and how it is changing in response to climate change,” says Xu.
“There have been recent advances in this field through technologies such as earth observation, data assimilation, and computational modeling, however these have had limitations in practical applications. My work seeks to fill this research gap, particularly for Canadian drainage basins, by using an integrated framework that incorporates remote sensing, which measures soil moisture and ground water storage, with surface-subsurface flow modeling.”
Ultimately Xu’s research is working toward protecting Canada’s freshwater resources and will help shed insights on the earth’s water cycle processes and the shifts that come as a result of climate change.
Other highlights among this year’s award recipients is Adriano Senatore, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, who was thrice awarded: a $250K Discovery Grant, along with a $120,000 Discovery Accelerator Supplement, both for his project “Studying mechanisms for the evolution of synaptic and electrical signaling in the nervous system;” as well as receiving funds for a Research Tools & Instruments grant, “Electrophysiology system for comparative structure-function studies of ion channels and neurotransmitter receptors,” in order to study the electrical properties of cells and this equipment will also be shared with the lab of Voula Kanelis, associate professor in CPS.
Along with Xu and Senatore, the following UTM faculty members also received NSERC Discovery Grants for their respective projects for a combined total of over $2 million influx to support their work:
Department of Biology
- Alex Nguyen Ba, High-throughput evolutionary systems biology for expanded genotype-phenotype mapping
- Marcus Dillon, The evolutionary genomics of infectious phytopathogen emergence
- Sasa Stefanovic, Comparative genomic and functional approaches for investigating biology and evolution of heterotrophic plants
Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences
- Ulrich Fekl, Transformations of adamantyls and other molecular nanodiamonds in the coordination sphere of metals
Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences
- Julie Desjardins, Variation of the rank in families of elliptic curves
- Animesh Garg, Causal Models for Generalizable Robot Learning
- Igor Gilitschenski, Event-based Vision for Robotic Scene Understanding
- Yakov Shlapentokh-Rothman, Stability of Black Holes and the Nature of Singularities in General Relativity
- Spencer Unger, Combinatorial set theory and measurable combinatorics
Department of Psychology
- Benjamin Wolfe, Mechanisms of Visual Information Acquisition in Driving
In addition, the following researchers were also awarded Research Tools & Instruments grants:
Department of Biology
- Katharina Braeutigam, Chlorophyll fluorescence systems for real-time monitoring of plant performance
Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences
- Josh Milstein, Quantitative Optical Nanoscopy: Measuring the abundance and stoichiometry of proteins and nucleic acids with single-molecule microscopy
Department of Psychology
- Elizabeth Johnson, Using eye-tracking and in-depth video analysis to understand how speech input relates to speech development
Lastly, Professor Nick Woolridge in Biomedical Communications (Biology) was awarded nearly $20K for NSERC’s Science Communication Skills grant (pilot) in the 2020 competition for his project “Design in Science Communication: Opportunities in Visual Education.”
“This is such a fantastic funding boost for the researchers on the UTM campus after such a tumultuous time working through the various challenges over the 2020-21 term, and it is great to see that our faculty members are undeterred by any setbacks they might have faced,” says Kent Moore, UTM Vice-Principal, Research.
He extends his congratulations to all the grantees undertaking exceptional programs of research on the U of T Mississauga campus.
The NSERC Discovery Grants Program provides support for ongoing research with long term operating funds and long-term goals, fostering research excellence and recognizing the innovation and creativity that are the foundation of all research advances.
See the full list of grant recipients for the 2021 competitions on the NSERC website.