Funding tools for exceptional research

Eighteen researchers at Queen’s University receive funding from the CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund.

Queen’s University has been awarded over $2.8 million in funding in the latest rounds of the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF). The money will help fund 18 projects at the university. 

The John R. Evans Leaders Fund helps exceptional researchers at universities across the country conduct leading-edge research by giving them the tools and equipment they need to become leaders in their fields. 

The funding will help support research in a diversity of areas, including plant reproduction, Northern geological environments, wearable technologies and intelligent mining systems. 

“Cutting-edge research requires infrastructure and tools,” says Kimberly Woodhouse, Vice-Principal (Research). “This support will allow researchers at Queen’s to garner and build the resources they need to accelerate their programs and establish competitive advantages in their fields.”  

The projects receiving funding are:

  • Jannice Friedman (Biology) - Evolutionary Genetics of Plant Reproductive Strategies, $130,000
  • Matthew Leybourne(Geological Sciences) - Advancing Detection Limits and In Situ Isotopic Chemical Chromatography for Astroparticle and Geochemical Research, $200,000
  • David Natale (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences) - Stress-mediated Trophoblast Proliferation: Adaptation or Pathology? $100,000
  • Robert Way(Geography and Planning) - The Northern Environmental Geoscience Laboratory, $100,000
  • Che Colpitts (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences) - Membrane Remodelling by Positive-sense RNA Viruses: Molecular Mechanisms and Cellular Responses, $150,000
  • Tricia Cottrell (Cancer Biology and Genetics) - Characterization of Immunological Mechanisms Underlying Evasion of Checkpoint Blockade in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer, $200,000
  • Graeme Howe (Chemistry) - Elucidating the Evolutionary Enhancement of Enzymatic Efficiency, $144,000
  • Shideh Kabiri Ameri(Electrical and Computer Engineering) - Nano-materials-based Wearable Sensors and Electronics:  Achieving Superior Performance and Visual Imperceptibility, $100,000
  • Lynne-Marie Postovit (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences) - Research Center to Study Cancer with Single Cell Resolution, $240,000
  • She Zhe (Chemistry) Visualizing Soft Surfaces using Scanning Probe Microscopy, $180,000
  • Elisabeth Linn Steel (Geological Science) - Source to Sink Transport Dynamics: Exploring Evolution of Deltaic and Deepwater Systems through Physical Modelling, $75,000
  • Jianbing Ni (Electrical and Computer Engineering) - A Secure and Privacy-preserving Edge Caching Framework in Next-generation Mobile Networks, $125,000
  • Yuksel Asli Sari (Robert M Buchan Department of Mining) - Intelligent Mining Systems and Mine Automation, $125,000
  • Sameh Sorour (School of Computing) and Sidney Givigi(School of Computing) Advancing Edge, Cyber-physical, and Autonomous Systems for Smart Infrastructure, $400,000
  • Jeffrey Wammes (Psychology) Investigating Representational Reorganization in Memory, $100,000  

CFI also partners with the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat’s (TIPS) Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program and Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) program through the John R. Evans Leaders Fund to create competitive packages for the funding of infrastructure and research support. Queen’s has received funding for three CRC-JELF projects: 

  • Amber Simpson (School of Computing and Biomedical and Molecular Sciences) - Computational Phenotypes of Cancer, $76,000
  • Ning Lu (Electrical and Computer Engineering) - Performance Evaluation of Networking/Computing Resource Management for Wireless Internet of Things, $150,000 
  • Anna Panchenko (Pathology and Molecular Medicine) - Decoding Cancer with Supercomputers, $235,550

For more information on the Canada Foundation for Innovation, visit the website. 

Note: This article originally appeared in the Queen's Gazette.