TMU researchers awarded $9.5M in NSERC discovery research grants
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) researchers have received $9.5 million in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support 43 research projects across a wide range of disciplines, as recently announced by the Government of Canada.
A total of $8.9 million was secured by 39 TMU researchers through the NSERC Discovery Grants program, nine of whom received an additional Discovery Launch Supplement to support their early-career research. This funding will drive innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, life sciences, mathematics, quantum resilience, robotics, wireless networks and more.
“This important investment from the Government of Canada supports transformative research at TMU that will advance innovation in critical areas,” said Steven N. Liss, TMU’s vice-president, research and innovation. “Congratulations to all the researchers who have received this funding to address major challenges in health care, environmental sustainability, engineering and science for the benefit of all Canadians.”
NSERC Discovery grants support discovery research across Canada in the areas of natural sciences and engineering. These five-year grants support high-impact research and the training of the next generation of researchers.
Additionally, three Research Tools and Instruments grants ($450,000) and a Discovery Horizons grant ($155,900) were awarded to TMU researchers. These grants will support research infrastructure and tools to develop advanced imaging systems for studying cells, plants and materials, and to enable real-time analysis and discovery.
NSERC Discovery Grant recipients
Faculty of Arts
- Margaret Moulson: Exploring the development of face perception in infancy: Perceptual, cognitive, and neural mechanisms
- Karl Szpunar: Mental simulation of what might happen next: Theory, methods, and generalizability
- Lixia Yang: Cultural influences on socioemotional cognition across adulthood with aging
Faculty of Community Services
- Aida Haghighi: Development of an innovative and comprehensive risk assessment tool for enhancing crane safety in the construction sector
Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science
- Marco Antoniades: Advanced electromagnetic metasurfaces for next-generation communication systems
- Mucahit Cevik: Algorithms for dynamic scheduling of cancer screening and diagnosis
- Robin Chhabra: Embodied intelligence for decentralized autonomy of collaborative space manipulators
- Said Easa: AI-Driven safety for smart highways and connected mobility systems
- Bilal Farooq: On-demand multimodal transportation systems for future cities: New technologies, methods, and applications
- Hossein Hassani: Accelerating embedded multimodal models for safe autonomous driving
- April Khademi: Investigating fairness in AI models for breast cancer pathology images
- Sridhar Krishnan: Next-generation biomedical signal sensing and multimodal analysis
- Songnian Li: Geospatial digital twin to support low-level airspace management
- Marcello Papini: Next-generation process modeling for constructive and destructive solid particle erosion processes
- Mohammed Saif: Intelligent surfaces for resilient networking and communications in beyond 5G wireless environments
- Mohamad Shahab: Adaptive and learning-based control systems: Performance improvement
- Vaseem Akram Shaik: Active matter in inhomogeneous environments
- Shaghayegh Shajari: Engineering smart and soft bio-interfaced materials for point-of-care health monitoring and therapeutic devices
- Seyed Mohammad Shushtari: Mobility empowerment through wearable robotics: An AI-driven paradigm for symbiotic hardware-software co-design
- Sharareh Taghipour: Leveraging emerging technologies for physical asset management: From design for reliability to operations and decision optimization
- Fengfeng Xi: A framework of morphable mannequins for contact-based bio-integrated design
- Fei Yuan: Development of energy-efficient high-resolution hybrid noise-shaping analog-to-digital data converters for power-constrained applications in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and environment protection
Faculty of Science
- Marc Adler: Innovation in organosilanes to enable greener, efficient, impactful organic synthesis
- Manar Alalfi: Operationalizing SE 3.0: Autonomous, explainable agents for secure IoT ecosystems
- Costin Antonescu: Dynamic regulation of the endomembrane network
- Anthony Bonato: Pursuit-evasion games and processes on graphs
- Jeffrey Fillingham: Nuclear specialization of DSS1-associated complexes in Tetrahymena thermophila
- Raffi Karshafian: Cavitation dynamics and membrane bioeffects
- Janet Koprivnikar: Consuming danger: Influences and implications of parasite and contaminant exposure for host foraging and defensive behaviours
- Michael Olson: Actin cytoskeleton regulation and function in cell migration and three-dimensional growth
- Alexey Rubtsov: Unlocking artificial intelligence productivity in finance: A mathematical approach for fair and explainable models
- Sarah Sabatinos: Heat promotes genome: The mechanisms and crosstalk between cell cycle checkpoints and temperature stress responses
- Guanghui Wang: 3D scene perception and understanding with vision-language intelligence
- Foivos Xanthos: Vector lattice theory: From foundations to applications in mathematical finance
- Wei Xu: Numerical methods for real option analysis and hedging in incomplete energy markets
Ted Rogers School of Management
- Atafeh (Atty) Mashatan: Advancing quantum resilience for the Internet of Things
The Creative School
- Solmaz Karamikamkar: Multifunctional aerogel architectures: From structure-property relationships to bioadhesive therapeutic interfaces
- Jonghun Park: Multidimensional optimization of packaging systems and design for sustainable omni-channel distributions with emphasis on packaging-product waste dynamics
NSERC Discovery Launch Supplement recipients
Faculty of Community Services
- Aida Haghighi: Development of an innovative and comprehensive risk assessment tool for enhancing crane safety in the construction sector
Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science
- Hossein Hassani: Accelerating embedded multimodal models for safe autonomous driving
- Mohammed Saif: Intelligent surfaces for resilient networking and communications in beyond 5G wireless environments
- Mohamad Shahab: Adaptive and learning-based control systems: Performance improvement
- Vaseem Akram Shaik: Active matter in inhomogeneous environments
- Shaghayegh Shajari: Engineering smart and soft bio-interfaced materials for point-of-care health monitoring and therapeutic devices
- Seyed Mohammad Shushtari: Mobility empowerment through wearable robotics: An AI-driven paradigm for symbiotic hardware-software co-design
The Creative School
- Solmaz Karamikamkar: Multifunctional aerogel architectures: From structure-property relationships to bioadhesive therapeutic interfaces
NSERC Research Tools and Instruments (Category 1) recipients
Faculty of Science
- Costin Antonescu: Facility for advanced cellular imaging and light-microscopy excellence
- Lesley Campbell: Next-generation plant communication platform for real-time stress detection and adaptive control
- Hadis Zarrin: SAFE-MAP: Soft-stylus, accurate, and field-expandable microscope for non-destructive electrochemical mapping of materials
NSERC Discovery Horizons grant recipient
Faculty of Science
- Nathan Churchill: An optimized neuroimaging protocol for assessing autonomic dysfunction
Related links:
TMU researchers secure $4.5M in NSERC Discovery Grant funding (July 2024)