By Anne Craig, Communications Officer

Four Queen’s University professors have been named new Canada Research Chairs and one professor’s current chair position is being renewed. The five chairs are Canadian leaders in their respective research fields.

Developed in 2000, each year the CRC program invests up to $265 million to attract and retain some of the world's most accomplished and promising minds. Queen’s will receive $200,000 per year over seven years for each Tier 1 Chair and $100,000 per year over five years for each Tier 2 Chair.

“By attracting the most skilled and promising researchers, the CRC program facilitates cutting-edge research and advances Canada as a world leader in discovery and innovation,” says Steven Liss, Vice-Principal (Research).  “Our success in garnering four new chairs and one renewal is demonstrative of  Queen’s leadership in research areas that address some of the most challenging and complex problems facing the world today – from human health and climate change to development of software intelligence.”

The university’s new chair appointments are Stephen Archer, Ahmed Hassan, Philip Jessop, Andy Take and Curtis Nickel has had his appointment renewed.

Stephen Archer (School of Medicine) has been named at Tier 1 Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Chair in Mitochondrial Dynamics and Translational Medicine. His research examines pulmonary arterial hypertension and cancer and is working towards devising new treatments.

Philip Jessop (Chemistry) has been named the Tier 1 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Chair in Green Chemistry. His research is aimed at designing more efficient and greener materials, solvents and methods for chemical manufacturing to reduce the consumption of resources, the usage of energy and the production of damaging pollutants.

Andy Take (Civil Engineering) has been named the Tier 2 NSERC Chair in Geotechnical Engineering.  His research program aims to produce the knowledge, highly qualified graduates and practical tools to better understand and manage the risk posed by climate change on the soil slopes of Canada’s natural and built environment.

Ahmed Hassan (School of Computing) has been named the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Software Analytics. His research focuses on providing analytical approaches to support the development and operation of Ultra Large Scale Software systems like Blackberry and Facebook. Dr. Hassan, the NSERC BlackBerry Industrial Research Chair, continues his close collaboration with BlackBerry with a new $2 million investment by BlackBerry and NSERC. The two will also co-fund a long-term grant to support research projects at the Software Analysis and Intelligence Lab

Curtis Nickel (Urology) has been named the returning Tier 1 CIHR Chair in Urologic Pain and Inflammation. His research will continue to improve the categorization, diagnostics and understanding of associated psychosocial, neurologic and gastrointestinal dysfunction and develop evidence based management strategies for men and women suffering from interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome, chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome and benign prostatic hyperplasia.

For more information on Queen’s researchers’ CRC appointments, follow this link.