Last week, the Government of Canada announced $554 million in research funding through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)’s largest and longest-standing program, the Discovery Grants. Aiming to fuel the long-term goals of research, Discovery Grants typically support research over a five-year period and provide flexibility for researchers to explore promising and emerging topics. Queen’s researchers received over $3.6 million from the program.

“Canada’s science and research sector is solving some of the world’s greatest challenges, all while driving innovation, growth, and productivity,” says François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry. “Research programs like Discovery give researchers the flexibility to explore the most promising avenues of research as they emerge to ensure Canada remains a world leader in science and new technologies. Congratulations to all exceptional researchers receiving support, we look forward to learning of your successes.”

The Discovery Grants program supports excellent research in natural sciences and engineering which provides a favourable environment for research training. A total of 53 Queen’s faculty members have received support from the current cycle through various programs: Individual Grants program; Discovery Launch Supplements; Northern Research Supplements; Research Tools and Instruments Grants program; and Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants. These projects will explore topics such as climate change, dark matter, energy-efficient mining practices, sustainable concrete structures, power electronics, and smart textiles.

Also announced was the re-appointment of Cathleen Crudden (Chemistry) as the Canada Research Chair in Metal Organic Chemistry, with $1.4 million in funding support. Dr. Crudden leads a translational research program that will develop solutions to extend the lifespan of metals across industries.

“Queen’s researchers are at the forefront of their fields, developing knowledge that will lead us towards a more sustainable future and help us answer some of science’s biggest questions,” says Nancy Ross, Vice-Principal (Research). “We are most grateful for the support from NSERC and the CRC program – support which enables breakthrough discoveries and provides fulfilling training opportunities for the next generation of scientists and engineers.”

See a full list of Queen’s projects:

Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants – Project

Guillaume Giroux (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): NEWS-G Search for Light Dark Matter with Spherical Proportional Counters – $400,000

Nahee Park (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Cosmic-Ray Isotope Measurements with the HELIX Magnetic Spectrometer – $170,000

Research Tools and Instruments Grants Program

Monica Castelhano (Psychology): Exploring Cognitive Processing with Fixation-Related Potentials: Integrating Eye Movements and Electroencephalography (EEG) – $146,347

Mark Daymond (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Impact of Local Crystallography on Materials Degradation – $150,000

Keyvan Hashtrudi-Zaad (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Robotic Facility for Safe Human-in-the-Loop Rehabilitation – $87,905

Ehssan Koupaie (Chemical Engineering): Bench-Scale Hydrothermal System for Organic Waste and Biomass Valorization – $150,000

Gerome Manson (Kinesiology and Health Studies): Isokinetic Dynamometer for Measuring Muscle Strength and Evaluating Neuromuscular Function – $113,772

Kevin Stamplecoskie (Chemistry): Benchmarking X-rays Scintillator Efficiency with Atomically Precise Clusters – $108,107

Yuan Tian (Computing): An Experimental Platform to Comparatively Evaluate Large Pre-Trained Models on SE Tasks – $129,760

Anita Tusche (Psychology): Neuroimaging Equipment for Investigating Primate Brain Structure and Function – $150,000

Discovery Grants (Individual) Program

Mahmoud Alzoubi (Mining): Toward Energy-Efficient Mining Practices: Numerical and Experimental Investigations – $27,000

Rachel Baker (Chemical Engineering; Chemistry): Exploring the Landscape of Electrochemical Reactions and Improving Process Sustainability through Paired Synthesis – $29,000

Bruce Banfield (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Defining the Functions of the Critical Herpesvirus Kinase Us3 – $40,000

Thomas Barthelme (Mathematics and Statistics): Hyperbolic Systems in Low Dimensions and Classification – $24,000

Diane Beauchemin (Chemistry): Pragmatic Methods for Forensic Analysis and for Risk Assessment of Food and Pharmaceutical Products Safety – $48,000

Richard Brachman (Civil Engineering): Limiting Geosynthetic Liner Tension in Waste Covers to Ensure Long-Term Environmental Protection – $52,000

Zhixing Cao (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Neural Network Solvers for Stochastic Dynamics of Gene Expression – $45,000

John Cartledge (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Performance Monitoring for Reconfigurable Optical Fiber Transmission Systems – $33,000

Monica Castelhano (Psychology): Unraveling Cognitive Strategies in Visual Search: Decoding Eye Movement Patterns through Machine Learning Techniques – $39,000

Ian Chin-Sang (Biology): The Role of a Kinesin in microRNA Regulation during Epidermal Morphogenesis – $40,000

Ana Maria da Silva (Civil Engineering): Physics and Modelling of Large-Scale River Hydro-Morphodynamic Processes – $52,000

Élise Devoie (Civil Engineering): Frozen Soil Hydro(geo)logy in a Changing Climate – $35,000

Bradley Diak (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Kinetics of Energy Dissipation in Materials: Experiments and Modeling – $33,000

Aristides Docoslis (Chemical Engineering): Microscale Electric Fields as Performance Enhancing Tools for Biosensors – $39,000

Nicolle Domnik (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences; Medicine): Sleep Deprivation, Physiologic Responses to Exercise, and Cardiorespiratory Control – $33,000

Ali Etemad (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Deep Representation Learning for Human-Centered Time-Series – $48,000

Lindsay Fitzpatrick (Chemical Engineering): Human Biomaterial Host Response Models: From Protein Adsorption to Fibrosis – $39,000

James Fraser (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Harnessing Coherence: From Advanced Manufacturing to Dark Photon Searches – $50,000

Jason Gallivan (Psychology; Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Sensory and Memory Representations for Action Planning and Control – $47,000

Jonathan Gammell (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Responsive Autonomy for Robots in Complex Moving Environments – $40,000

Saeed Gazor (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Distributed Multidimensional Learning Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Sensing – $39,000

Aikaterini Genikomsou (Civil Engineering): Smart Materials and Technologies towards Resilient and Sustainable Concrete Structures – $36,000

Mark Green (Civil Engineering): A Holistic Framework for the Performance in Fire of Structures with Low Carbon Materials – $52,000

Mariam Guizani (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Developing Actionable Diversity and Inclusion Tools and Systems for a Socio-Technically Sustainable Open Source – $29,000

Simon Hesp (Chemistry): Towards a Better Understanding of Oxidative and Thermo-Reversible Aging in Asphalt Cement – $48,000

Ivan Iorsh (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy): Light-Matter Interaction in Low Dimensional Quantum Materials: Nonlinear Spectroscopy of Correlated Electronic States and Generation of Multiphoton Quantum Correlations – $28,000

Praveen Jain (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Flexible Power Electronics Converters for Future Energy Networks – $64,000

Zongchao Jia (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Protein Modification: From Monophosphate to Polyphosphate – $40,000

Sean Kauffman (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Trustworthy Resource-Constrained Monitoring for Remote Safety-Critical Systems – $34,000

John Kurelek (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): The Individual and Interactive Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines: Experiments and Models for Next-Generation Wind Farms – $28,000

Paul Martin (Biology): Species Turnover along Environmental Gradients – $40,000

Jacqueline Monaghan (Biology): Decoding Cellular Signals: Activation and Specificity of Calcium-Dependent Protein Kinases – $78,000

Nasim Montazeri Ghahjaverestan (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Smart Textiles to Monitor Brain Activities – $29,000

Ryan Mulligan (Civil Engineering): Predicting Coastal Environmental Conditions in a Changing Climate – $52,000

Majid Pahlevaninezhad (Electrical and Computer Engineering): A Novel Differential Geometric Control Theory for Power Electronics – $64,000

Yingwei Peng (Public Health Sciences; Mathematics and Statistics): Novel Statistical Models and Learning Methods for Complex Event History Data – $31,000

William Plaxton (Biology): Mechanisms and Functions of Post-Translational Enzyme Modifications in Plant Metabolism – $55,000

Mark Sabbagh (Psychology): Neurocognitive Processes Underlying Theory of Mind Reasoning in Children – $47,000

Kai Salomaa (Computing): Descriptional Complexity and Applications of Formal Languages and Automata – $41,000

Stephen Scott (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences): Determining the Mechanism of Muscular Co-Contraction on Motor Function – $65,000

Chandrakant Tayade (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences) Elucidating the Role of Extracellular Vesicles in Maternal - Fetal Adaptations during Pig Pregnancy – $40,000

Xian Wang (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Development of a Microrobotic System for Mechanical Ablation – $37,000

Stephanie Wright (Civil Engineering): Advancing Fractured Rock Cryo-Hydrogeology under Climate Change – $36,000

Serdar Yuksel (Mathematics and Statistics): Stochastic Control: Robustness, Learning, Decentralization, and Information Constraints – $55,000

Discovery Launch Supplements

Mahmoud Alzoubi (Mining): Toward Energy-Efficient Mining Practices: Numerical and Experimental Investigations – $12,500

Rachel Baker (Chemical Engineering; Chemistry): Exploring the Landscape of Electrochemical Reactions and Improving Process Sustainability through Paired Synthesis – $12,500

Zhixing Cao (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Neural Network Solvers for Stochastic Dynamics of Gene Expression – $12,500

Élise Devoie (Civil Engineering): Frozen Soil Hydro(geo)logy in a Changing Climate – $12,500

Nicolle Domnik (Biomedical and Molecular Sciences; Medicine): Sleep Deprivation, Physiologic Responses to Exercise, and Cardiorespiratory Control – $12,500

Jonathan Gammell (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Responsive Autonomy for Robots in Complex Moving Environments – $12,500

Mariam Guizani (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Developing Actionable Diversity and Inclusion Tools and Systems for a Socio-Technically Sustainable Open Source – $12,500

Sean Kauffman (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Trustworthy Resource-Constrained Monitoring for Remote Safety-Critical Systems – $12,500

John Kurelek (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): The Individual and Interactive Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines: Experiments and Models for Next-Generation Wind Farms – $12,500

Nasim Montazeri Ghahjaverestan (Electrical and Computer Engineering): Smart Textiles to Monitor Brain Activities – $12,500

Xian Wang (Mechanical and Materials Engineering): Development of a Microrobotic System for Mechanical Ablation – $12,500

Stephanie Wright (Civil Engineering): Advancing Fractured Rock Cryo-Hydrogeology under Climate Change – $12,500

Northern Research Supplements

Élise Devoie (Civil Engineering): Frozen Soil Hydro(geo)logy in a Changing Climate – $17,500

Stephanie Wright (Civil Engineering): Advancing Fractured Rock Cryo-Hydrogeology under Climate Change – $17,500

Visit the link to read the news release by NSERC.