Canada Research Chairs Archives | Research & Innovation

91��ɫ gains six new and two renewed Canada Research Chairs

muellerm — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 10:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ has gained six new Canada Research Chairs and two renewed Canada Research Chairs. The announcement of the Canada Research Chair (CRC) appointments was made by the Minister of Science Kristy Duncan on Feb. 9.

Tier 1 CRCs will receive $1.4 million over seven years and Tier 2 CRCs will receive $500,000 over five years.

In all, the government announced an investment of $260 million to fund the appointment of 305 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at 53 Canadian degree-granting postsecondary institutions. In addition, Duncan announced $342 million through the Research Support Fund to cover the indirect costs of research at Canadian institutions, as well as $17 million in infrastructure support for the Canada Research Chairs Program through the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

“91��ɫ is delighted to welcome six new Canada Research Chairs and two successful renewals. The CRC program which helps to support some of the world’s best researchers in building their innovative research programs continues to make a strong contribution to the development of research at 91��ɫ,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research and innovation at 91��ɫ.

Peter Backx

Peter Backx, professor in the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, is the Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Biology (Tier 1). His research program focuses on atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common arrhythmia, which severely impairs heart function, contributes to heart disease progression and is the major cause of stroke. Although exercise provides enormous cardiovascular benefit, excessive exercise can also induce AF. Backx’s research program will determine the molecular and genetic mechanisms involved in AF induction by cardiovascular disease, reveal the modulating influences of exercise, and identify novel approaches for treating and preventing AF.

Rosemary Coombe

Rosemary Coombe, professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Social Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), is the Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication, and Culture (Tier 1). She will continue to build a larger research program exploring the proliferation of cultural rights in international policy fields that simultaneously enable new forms of informational capital, afford new opportunities for communities to exercise political autonomies on cultural grounds, and enable the revitalization of living and customary law in resource management. While mapping an unexplored transnational political actor network that has institutionalized new understandings of bio-cultural rights and responsibilities, Coombe considers the development of new technologies for community environmental and political self-government.

Christopher Kyriakides

Christopher Kyriakides, associate professor in the Department of Sociology (LA&PS), is Canada Research Chair in Socially Engaged Research in Race and Racialization (Tier 2). Kyriakides' “Racialized Reception Contexts” research program focuses on configurations of racialization in relation to the meaning of East/West, South/North, and the articulations of racism and nationalism in the reception of refugees in Europe, North America and the Middle East. His research, which is guided by the understanding that racialization, particularly in light of the post-9/11 “war on terror,” works with the historical conditions of racism specific to a given national formation, but in a dynamic global context. The initial five-country analysis of Canada, the United States, Italy, Greece and Jordan, will examine the extent to which policy instruments and media discourse related to the global refugee crisis negatively impacts racialized communities in each reception context.

Deborah McGregor

Deborah McGregor, associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice (Tier 2). McGregor is working to advance the theory and practice of environmental justice scholarship by engaging with Indigenous intellectual traditions. McGregor’s research program seeks to develop a distinctive environmental justice framework based on Indigenous knowledge systems and the lived experience of Indigenous peoples. Her research will provide a much deeper understanding of environmental injustices facing Indigenous peoples, and even more importantly, lead to viable approaches to addressing such challenges.

Doug Van Nort

Doug Van Nort, assistant professor in the Digital Media Program and the Department of Theatre in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), is Canada Research Chair in Digital Performance (Tier 2). Van Nort’s research focuses on the exploration of collective expression and creation in digitally mediated performance. His work examines questions of instrumentality, gesture and human/machine agency in the context of envisioning new forms of interdisciplinary creative expression. He develops international cross-disciplinary collaborations as case studies and new software/hardware interactive technologies as support mechanisms in the pursuit of new forms of embodied aesthetic knowledge. Van Nort is the founding director of AMPD’s new DIStributed PERformance and Sensorial immersion (DisPerSion) Lab, a space featuring reactive, intelligent digital media where researchers and practitioners in experimental music, dance, theatre and computation come together to explore how we sense, process and interact with the performing arts in the post/digital age.

Sean Tulin

Sean Tulin, assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, Faculty of Science, is Canada Research Chair in Particle Physics and Cosmology (Tier 2). Tulin is interested in the existence of dark matter, which is one of the Universe’s great mysteries. All stars, planets, and interstellar gas are made from atoms and yet atomic matter represents only 15 per cent of the total matter in the Universe. The remaining 85 per cent is dark matter. Dark matter provides the cosmic foundation for galaxies to form, but its microphysical properties remain unknown. Tulin’s research provides new directions toward discovering dark matter’s elusive particle nature. By combining astrophysics, particle theory and cosmology, he is developing new ideas to illuminate dark matter’s particle dynamics through its effect on cosmic structure.

Graham Wakefield

Graham Wakefield, assistant professor in the Department of Visual Art and Art History and the Digital Media Program (AMPD), is the founding director of the Computational Worldmaking Lab. Wakefield is Canada Research Chair in Interactive Information Visualization (Tier 2). His research will advance content creation and interaction design of immersive experiences in virtual and augmented realities, which are becoming ubiquitous in media, entertainment and the arts, by intensifying dynamic visualization and rich participation in increasingly open-ended worlds. Cutting across work in generative art, computer graphics, human-computer interaction, artificial life, complex systems and compiler technology, Wakefield’s research program reinforces influential work being done at 91��ɫ in augmented reality, computer vision, stereoscopic cinema and ubiquitous screens, and will result in transferable research, open-source tools and novel creative works.

Jianhong Wu

Jianhong Wu, professor in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Faculty of Science, and the director of the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research, is Canada Research Chair in Industrial and Applied Mathematics (Tier 1). Wu’s research investigates disease modelling through mathematics. His fundamental research is inspired by and applied to real life applications in pattern recognition of complex data, prediction of transmission dynamics and spatial spread of communicable diseases, evaluation of mitigation strategies for controlling disease spread and biological invasion. His research program will incorporate the training of highly qualified personnel into its highly interdisciplinary research projects and outreach activities so that curriculum development, industrial outreach, policy impact, interdisciplinary collaboration and development of fundamental research are well integrated.

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Ten emerging and established researchers appointed 91��ɫ Research Chairs

muellerm — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Ten emerging and established researchers from across the University have been appointed 91��ɫ Research Chairs. The appointments are the first in a new program established to build, support and intensify the world-renowned research under way at the University.

“I am delighted to announce the appointment of our 10 new 91��ɫ Research Chairs and congratulate them on this important achievement,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research and innovation. “91��ɫ Research Chairs are recognized for their leadership in scholarship, research and creative activities. These appointments span the wide spectrum of our comprehensive research strengths and reflect the world-class calibre of research taking place across the University.”

Tier I Chairs

Isabella Bakker, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), received a Tier 1 91��ɫ Research Chair in Global Economic Governance, Gender and Human Rights. Bakker’s research places a critical lens on global economic policy and governance practices. She is also examining reproductive healthcare, education, and welfare policies, in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis with the central aim of supporting the development of progressive, human-centred economic theories and policies.

Christopher Innes, Department of English, LA&PS, was awarded a Tier 1 91��ɫ Research Chair in Performance and Culture to advance new research on the historical and contemporary aspects of cultural expression within carnival and street theatre. The award will also support Innes’ research on Bertolt Brecht, cabaret and popular art, as well as the populist basis of Avant-Garde Theatre.

Roger Keil, Faculty of Environmental Studies, was awarded a Tier 1 91��ɫ Research Chair in Global Sub/Urban Studies in recognition of his research contributions to the field of urban and environmental research. Keil’s research examines suburbanization, which is now a global phenomenon and a defining feature of the “urban century” we have just entered. His work will add to a greater understanding of our suburban futures, as new forms of work, housing, mobility and governance, as well as how human/non-human nature relationships take shape.

Sergey Krylov, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, was awarded an inaugural Tier 1 91��ɫ Research Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry. The appointment supports the development of new technologies for understanding, diagnosing and treating cancer. As the director of the Centre for Research on Biomolecular Chemistry, Krylov’s lab will work collaboratively with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and instrumentation companies on the development of personalized approaches to cancer medicine.

Obiora Okafor, Osgoode Hall Law School, is the inaugural Tier 1 91��ɫ Research Chair in International and Transnational Legal Studies. Building on an ongoing research project about Canadian/Nigerian cooperation on human rights (including in the sub-areas of economic and social rights, judicial strengthening, institution building, democratization and poverty alleviation), and other research projects, the award supports the expansion of Okafor’s research to include a focus on the study of Canadian human rights cooperation initiatives with all of the countries in Anglophone West Africa.

Tier II Chairs

Mike Daly, Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, was awarded a Tier 2 91��ɫ Research Chair in Planetary Science in recognition of his outstanding contribution to space-flight instrumentation research at 91��ɫ. The 91��ɫ Research Chair will enable Daly’s participation in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and the return of Canada’s first sample of material from another solar system.

Jane Heffernan, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Science, is an inaugural Tier 2 91��ɫ Research Chair in Multi-Scale Quantitative Methods for Evidence-Based Health Policy. Heffernan’s research responds to the pressing need for new statistical, mathematical, and computational methods of mapping, understanding and controlling infectious diseases and aims to influence the development of new evidence-based public health policies. Heffernan is also the director of the Centre for Disease Modelling, and is involved in global health initiatives.

Anna Hudson, Department of Visual Arts and Art History, School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design, is the new Tier 2 91��ɫ Research Chair in Inuit Cultural Mobilization, which will advance research into Inuit cultural globalization by exploring contemporary fusions of Indigenous storytelling with hip-hop, performance, game design, and videography. Supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant, the Chair will promote the development of a more equitable information and communication technology infrastructure and greater participation by Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik, and Nunatsiavut artists in global cultural dialogue, exchange, and digital preservation of Inuit art and cultural heritage.

Fuyuki Kurasawa, Department of Sociology, LA&PS, is an inaugural Tier 2 91��ɫ Research Chair in Global Digital Citizenship. His research will examine how the rise of digital culture is enabling laypeople and experts to collaborate in tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems. Furasawa will also examine how new technologies are reshaping practices of creation, evaluation, and dissemination of knowledge about such global problems.

Rebecca Pillai Riddell, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, was awarded a Tier 2 91��ɫ Research Chair in Pain and Mental Health to support her research on linking early childhood mental health challenges with behaviours seen when children calm down from painful immunizations. The appointment will enable Pillai Riddell to translate her research findings into a community-based screening and intervention program that will integrate early childhood mental health into routine medical care.

More about the 91��ɫ Research Chair program

The 91��ɫ Research Chairs program is envisioned as an internal twin for the national Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program. The level of support and recognition provided to 91��ɫ Research Chairs is expected to be aligned with supports and recognition provided through the CRC program.

91��ɫ Research Chairs are available at two levels analogous to CRC chairs. Tier I 91��ɫ Research Chairs are open to established research leaders at the rank of Full Professor. Tier II 91��ɫ Research Chairs are aimed at emerging research leaders within 15 years of their first academic appointment at the rank of Associate or Assistant Professor. Both have five-year terms that are renewable in the context of open-competition based on peer review and the continuing availability of resources.

For more information, please contact Ryan McCarthy, director of institutional and research services, at ext. 22507.

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