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CFI Announces New Support
Projects in four colleges receive total of $378,000
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) has awarded more than $378,000 to U of G to support research ranging from creating wireless and mobile networks to understanding ecosystems to establishing disease surveillance and risk assessment programs to improve human health.
Canada-wide, CFI is investing $28 million to support 149 projects at 35 institutions, with the bulk of the funding coming from the Leaders Opportunity Fund. This program is designed to help universities recruit exceptional scholars and retain leading researchers.
“This CFI investment will significantly enhance the University's recognized capacity for doing excellent research across a wide range of disciplines,” says Prof. Alan Wildeman, vice-president (research).
Prof. Nidal Nasser, Computing and Information Science, received $114,687 to establish a unique wireless computing laboratory. There, researchers will address the performance, scalability and resilience of new and emerging technologies, as well as the feasibility and effectiveness of proposed solutions.
“I am so happy about receiving this funding,” says Nasser, who specializes in developing novel algorithms, architectures, protocols and mathematical models for wireless and mobile networks. “It will enable me to conduct practical research and to create new innovations.”
Wireless sensor networks have numerous applications, including use in health care, energy management, public safety, disaster recovery and emergency response.
Prof. Marc Habash, Environmental Biology, will use his $124,350 grant to develop a cutting-edge research lab to study microbial biofilms in water distribution systems. Municipal water systems are a significant source of microbial contamination, with communities of micro-organisms (known as biofilms) forming on the surface of pipes.
“The equipment that will be obtained with this funding will enable research examining how bacteria adhere to surfaces and the impact they have in our drinking-water distribution systems,” says Habash.
Currently there is little published information on microbial microfilms, and that lack of knowledge negatively affects scientists' ability to assess the risk to human health, he says.
Providing a scientific basis for predicting and mitigating ecosystem responses to things such as climate change and invasive species is the goal of Prof. Karl Cottenie, Integrative biology. He will use his $63,099 grant to create a dynamic pond system that will be used as a model to advance understanding of the roles of spatial, temporal and environmental processes in determining community structure.
Prof. David Pearl, Population Medicine, received $75,963 to create a high-performance computer laboratory that will give epidemiological researchers the tools to perform advanced quantitative analyses. The lab will support research for the design of surveillance systems to protect animal and human health, and the identification of risk factors for disease at the individual, community or farm level that could be amenable to intervention.