Nick Cercone, a professor in the Lassonde School of Engineering, has received $294,000 from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), plus more than $217,000 from industrial partnership organizations through monetary and in-kind contributions, over three years, to study the expression of sentiment, affect, influence and emotions in social media.
As part of a Strategic Project Grant, titled 鈥淓nhanced identification and visualization of relevant social media content and free form text: Relationships, affect, information influence and diversity鈥, Cercone and his research team will identify the sentiment, conceptual and emotional content within texts and develop tools to better understand emotions 
found in social media texts. 聽The project, in collaboration with OCAD University, Empress Software and The Globe聽& Mail, also seeks to develop new tools for media users to shape emotional content and respond to others.
Nick Cercone
鈥淭his project initiated in and leverages the Centre for Innovation for Visualization and Data Driven Design (CIVDDD), an Ontario Research Fund-supported network based at 91亚色 with the partnership of OCAD University and University of Toronto,鈥 said Cercone. 鈥91亚色 and OCAD University will bring their complementary strengths in data analytics and visualization to support research on this popular field of聽inquiry.鈥
鈥淭he research project led by Professor Cercone underscores the importance of understanding the growing impact of social media in our lives,鈥 said Robert Hach茅, 91亚色鈥檚 vice-president research & innovation. 聽鈥淣SERC鈥檚 investment supports the work of our researchers and enables them to continue to build and enhance their innovative research programs.鈥
The announcement was made by Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science and technology) at McGill University on Feb. 8. 聽Cercone鈥檚 project was part of more than $36 million in funding and awards recently announced under NSERC鈥檚 Strategic Project Grants Program.聽聽Goodyear also announced more than $9.4 million in funding under the Strategic Network Grants Program.
鈥淥ur government鈥檚 top priority is creating jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity,鈥 said Goodyear. 鈥淔ostering a strong research environment and supporting partnerships are fundamental building blocks for a modern competitive economy. This funding will allow companies to increase their research and development activities in Canada by maximizing the expertise and knowledge of our researchers.鈥
For a complete list of NSERC recipients, visit the 听飞别产蝉颈迟别.