Research Funding
鶹’s STEM research awarded $7M investment
July 15, 2025
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More than 200 鶹’s researchers and projects will be receiving a combined $25.4 million to accelerate their research as part of this major federal funding announcement.
During a last week, the Government of Canada announced an investment of close to $550 million in science and engineering research. The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry, made the $1.3 billion announcement in support of programs across the federal tri-agencies responsible for research funding, including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). The program, designed to support research excellence in STEM, received the most investment with more than $500 million, with an announced specifically for subatomic physics research. 鶹’s researchers have secured $5.4 million to support 57 projects ranging from the exploration of the particles that make up the universe to the development of the technology that powers green energy.
Additionally, 鶹’s researchers were awarded $2 million from the (NFRF). The fund’s Exploration stream supports projects that bring disciplines together to reach beyond traditional disciplinary approaches. It is an investment in interdisciplinary, high-risk/high-reward, transformative research led by Canadian researchers working with Canadian and international partners. NFRF is designed to support world-leading innovation to enhance Canada’s competitiveness and expertise in the global, knowledge-based economy. Eight of the 101 funded projects are hosted at 鶹’s.
“The Government of Canada’s continuous support for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ensures Canadians have the knowledge and means to pursue their greatest ambitions. That support has created a legacy of innovation that includes breakthroughs like lithium-ion batteries, quantum cryptography, and artificial intelligence.”
– Dr. Alejandro Adem, President, NSERC
See the full list of 鶹’s-funded NFRF and NSERC projects below. To learn more about other research at 鶹’s funded as part of this announcement, read “More than $25 million awarded to advance 鶹’s research” in the Gazette.
NFRF – Exploration
Qian Zhang (Mining Engineering): Can Nature-based Solutions Enable Responsible Investment in the Minerals Sector for Climate Transition Risk Mitigation? – $250,000
Xiaying Xin (Civil Engineering): Invasive Mussel Control using Nanobubble-Generating Robotics and Biopesticide – $250,000
Laurent Béland (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Moving Beyond Bone Mineral Density: Computer Models to Simulate Fracture Propagation and Help Diagnose Bone Fragility – $250,000
Qingguo Li (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Engineering Next Generation Smart Personal Protective Equipment to Combat Heat, Load And Radiation Exposure in Clinical Environments – $250,000
Amy Wu (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Breast Pump Designed with Ecological Breastfeeding in Mind – $250,000
Zihang Lu (Public Health Sciences): Leveraging Interpretable Machine Learning Approaches to Improve Child Health for All: From Single Diseases to Multimorbidity – $250,000
Sara Nabil (School of Computing; Cultural Studies): Weaving Next-Gen Health: Smart Textile Sensors in Medical Wearables for Future Health Professions Education – $250,000
P. Andrew Evans (Chemistry): Revolutionizing Antiviral Therapy: Novel Prodrug Strategies for Broad-Spectrum Efficacy – $250,000
NSERC Discovery
Subatomic Physics – Application
Mark Chen (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): SNO+ Neutrino Physics and Double Beta Decay (2025-2028) – $1,080,000
Ken Clark (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Commissioning and Operation of the Scintillating Bubble Chamber – $95,000
Subatomic Physics – Major Resources Support
Carsten Krauss (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): The Institute of Particle Physics National Resource – $1,450,000
Discovery
Gunnar Blohm (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Distributed Motor Planning and Control – $96,000
Ahmed E. Hassan (School of Computing): Software Engineering 3.0: From AI-Assisted SE (SE 2.0) to AI-Native SE (SE 3.0) – $81,000
Paul Kubes (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): The Biology of Cavity Macrophages Mast Cells and Nerves as Sensors of Danger – $80,000
Yan-Fei Liu (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Single-Stage Three-Phase Bi-Directional AC-DC Converter for EV Fast Charging and Energy Storage System Applications – $75,000
Tucker Carrington (Chemistry): New Collocation and Variational Methods for Computing Rovibrational Spectra and Inelastic Rate Constants – $74,000
Kim B. McAuley (Chemical Engineering): Combining Fundamental Chemical-Process Models with Data – $64,000
Chris Mechefske (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Surrogate-based Modeling for Improved Acoustic Performance of Electric Machines – $64,000
Bhavin Shastri (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Photonic Computing for Ising Machines and Cognitive Radios for Classical and Quantum Applications – $63,000
Bram Adams (School of Computing): Semantic Versioning in the Foundation Model Era – $62,000
David Zechel (Chemistry): From Genes to Molecules: Mining Bacterial Genomes for New Enzyme Reactions – $61,000
Joseph Bramante (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Discovering Dark Matter at the High Mass Frontier – $60,000
Shelley Arnott (Biology): Understanding the Importance of Context for Multiple Stressor Responses – $55,000
Gabriel Ciccarelli (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Deflagration-to-Detonation Transition in Hydrogen-Methane Mixtures – $55,000
Randy Flanagan (Psychology): Coordination and Control of Gaze and Hand Movements in Goal-directed Action Tasks – $55,000
Martin Guay (Chemical Engineering): Data Driven Control of Nonlinear Systems in Unknown Environments – $55,000
Ian D. Moore (Civil Engineering): Advances to Design, Installation, and Rehabilitation of Buried Pipe Infrastructure – $55,000
Ugo Piomelli (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Large-eddy Simulations of Complex Turbulent Flows – $55,000
Lidan You (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Engineering the Next-Generation Mechano-Organ-on-a-Chip with Integrated Mechanical Loading and Mechanobiology Analysis – $55,000
Xiaodan Zhu (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Exploring Robust Natural Language and Reasoning Models with Deployment in High-stakes Applications – $55,000
Bahman Gharesifard (Mathematics and Statistics): Mathematical Foundations of Verifiable Autonomy – $54,000
Philippe Di Stefano (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Classical, and Exotic, Rare Decays – $51,000
Dongmei Chen (Geography and Planning): AI-based Methods and Tools for Improving Change Detection from Multi-scale Time Series Remotely Sensed Environmental Data – $50,000
John Allingham (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Molecular Mechanisms of Proteins and Small Molecules That Control Microtubule and Actin Polymerization Dynamics – $49,000
Stephen Lougheed (Biology): Evaluating Impacts of Human-driven Habitat Loss and Climate Change on At-risk Reptiles and Amphibians in Canada – $49,000
Jennifer Day (Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering): Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical (THM) Coupled Processes in Geologically Diverse Brittle Rocks for Excavation Damage Zone (EDZ) Science – $48,000
Carlos Escobedo (Chemical Engineering): Controlled Assembly of Plasmofluidic Structures for Ultrahigh Sensitive Chemical Sensing – $48,000
Vahid Fallah (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Irradiation-Tolerant High Entropy Alloys for Next-Ge neration Nuclear Plants – $48,000
Yves Filion (Civil Engineering): Managing Growth and Removal of Biofilms and Metals from Drinking Water Pipes – $48,000
Il-Min Kim (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Advancing Federated Edge Learning: A Secure and Adaptive Framework of Artificial Intelligence – $48,000
Michael Greenspan (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Machine Learning Based General 6DoF Pose Estimation – $47,000
Hossam Hassanein (School of Computing): Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Edge Computing – $47,000
Jun Gao (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Surfaces and Interfaces of Polymer Ionic/Electronic Mixed Conductors – $45,000
Lawrence Widrow (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Galactic Dynamics in the Era of Large Surveys – $45,000
Vicki Friesen (Biology): The Interaction Between Gene Flow and Genetic Adaptation: The Good, the Bad and the Neutral – $44,000
Eva Kaufmann (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Exploration of a Distinct Hematopoietic Stem Cell Population in the Lungs – $44,000
Fady Alajaji (Mathematics and Statistics): Information-Theoretic Methods for Two-Way Communication, Trusted AI and Network Contagion Mitigation – $43,000
Keyvan Hashtrudi-Zaad (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Fundamental Solutions for High-Fidelity Human Haptic Interaction – $ 43,000
Christopher Pickles (Mining Engineering): Zero-Emission Metal Recovery: Microwave-Assisted Techniques for Sustainable Extraction and CO2 Conversion – $43,000
Effie Pereira (Psychology): Uncovering the Basic Mechanisms that Drive the Temporal Dynamics of Selective Attention – $42,000
Farhana Zulkernine (School of Computing): Advancing Machine Perception for Situation-Aware Goal-Oriented Human Machine Interaction – $42,000
Bingshu Chen (Public Health Sciences; Mathematics and Statistics): Statistical Models and Inferences for Biomarker Effects in Clinical Trials: Deep Learning and Bayesian Methods – $40,000
Frances Bonier (Biology): Avian Responses to Urbanization, from the Local to Global Scale – $39,000
Fady Abdelaal (Civil Engineering): Performance Evaluation of Bituminous Liners for Environmental Protection against Emerging Contaminants of Concern in a Changing Climate – $38,000
Pouya Amiri (School of Kinesiology and Health Studies): Central and Peripheral Mechanisms of Human Balance Control – $38,000
Barbara L. da Silva (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Flow and Wake Interactions Around Surface-mounted Bluff Bodies – $38,000
Geoffrey Eichhorn (Civil Engineering): Climate Resilient Buried Pipe Infrastructure for Canadian Communities – $38,000
Jianbing Ni (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Security, Privacy, and Robustness in Machine Learning at the Network Edge – $38,000
Laura Wells (Chemical Engineering): Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate)-based Controlled Release Systems and Modification Strategies to Modulate Inflammation – $38,000
Randy Ellis (School of Computing; Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Information Processing for Spectral Signal Understanding – $37,000
Wenyu Jiang (Mathematics and Statistics): Statistical Inference and Learning Methodology for Modelling Heterogeneity in Biomarker Study – $37,000
Chunfang Devon Lin (Mathematics and Statistics): Uncertainty Quantification for Complex Systems – $37,000
Yuan Tian (School of Computing): Towards Advanced Intelligent Code Transformation – $37,000
Erin Meger (School of Computing): Algorithmic and Computational Advancements in Pursuit-Evasion Games with Real-World Applications – $36,000
James Stotz (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Spin Currents through Acoustic Circuits – $36,000
