UVic Science researchers awarded $7.4 million in NSERC funding

July 15, 2024

Thirty-two researchers from the Faculty of Science have received a combined $7,460,035 in research funding from the most recent round of NSERC funding, announced on June 14, 2024. The funding includes the Individual Discovery Grants, which will be distributed over five years, Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants, distributed over three years, as well as one-time funding from the Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) competition.

“87.5% of NSERC Discovery grant applications from the Faculty of Science were funded this year, well over the national average of 63%. This speaks highly to the cutting edge, forward-thinking research in our Faculty, and to the systems and supports we’ve created to support grant applications.”

- Peter Loock, Dean of Science

The funding will support research projects across UVic’s impact areas. Seven of the Discovery Grants are related to climate, supporting projects on ecological dynamics and resilience, carbon sequestration, and climate modelling. Six of the Discovery Grants will support projects researching fundamental health processes, mechanisms and technologies, as our researchers work towards a better understanding of Staphylococcus aureus, eosinophils and neural development, and improvements in chemotherapies and nanomedicine. Other projects will explore areas as disparate as particle physics, galaxies, ocean physics, pure and applied mathematics and earth sciences.

Four of the successful grant recipients, Johannes Gemmrich, Mariya Goncheva, Tianhoaoze Sun and Stephen Tuffs, are receiving NSERC Discovery Grants for the first time, and are also receiving NSERC’s Discovery Launch Supplements to further support their growing research programs as early career researchers.

Discovery Grants

• Babul, Arif (Physics & Astronomy), Towards a holistic, cosmologically realistic model for the formation-evolution of galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters of galaxies, $205,000
• Bates, Amanda (Biology), Local-scale buffering of extreme events and resilience of temperate rocky reefs, $275,000
• Baum, Julia (Biology), Turning up the heat: Ecological resilience to climate change amplified heatwaves, $475,000
• Cassidy, John (Earth & Ocean Sciences), Earthquake hazard assessment in Western Canada, $150,000
• Chithrani, Devika (Physics & Astronomy), Mechanisms of nanotechnology mediated radiosensitization with megavoltage and kilovoltage photons in vitro using two-and three-dimensional cell models, $205,000
• Chow, Robert (Biology), Post-transcriptional mechanisms in neural development, $170,000
• Cote, Patrick (Physics & Astronomy), Galaxies, nuclei, star clusters and black holes: Deciphering their co-evolution with next-generation space telescopes, $202,535
• Dosso, Stan (Earth & Ocean Sciences), Quantitative geoacoustic inversion, $255,000
• Dukes, Peter (Mathematics & Statistics), Fractional and signed relaxations of balanced combinatorial structures, $135,000
• Emerson, Heath (Mathematics & Statistics), C*-algebraic and spectral techniques in dynamical systems, $105,000
• Gemmrich, Johannes (Physics & Astronomy), The role of surface waves in linking the ocean to the coast, $130,000
• Gillett, Nathan (Earth & Ocean Sciences), Using observations to narrow uncertainties in climate projections, $155,500
• Goldblatt, Colin (Earth & Ocean Sciences), Climate, past, present, and future: water, clouds, and aerosols, $255,000
• Goncheva, Mariya (Biochemistry & Microbiology), Determining the role of bacterial proteins at host-commensal interface of the human respiratory tract, $185,000
• Hof, Fraser (Chemistry), Complex supramolecular systems and high-affinity hosts for biological applications, $385,000
• Huang, Jing (Mathematics & Statistics), Graph structure and algorithms, $120,000
• Klymak, Jody (Earth & Ocean Sciences), Understanding and parameterizing ocean mixing processes for improved ocean prediction, $215,000
• Lewis, Mark (Biology and Mathematics & Statistics), Ecological dynamics under environmental change, $685,000
• Matthews, Brenda (Physics & Astronomy), The space between: dust, gas and planets revealed by planet-disk interactions, $170,000
• McConnachie, Alan (Physics & Astronomy), The darkest galaxies, $250,000
• Moffitt, Matthew (Chemistry), Microfluidics manufacturing of polymeric nanomedicines: Addressing challenges and developing technologies, $180,000
• Quas, Anthony (Mathematics & Statistics), Multiplicative ergodic theory and thermodynamic formalism, $135,000
• Ray, Gourab (Mathematics & Statistics), Statistical mechanics of spins, trees, random surfaces and factors of iid, $135,000
• Reynolds, Lisa (Biochemistry & Microbiology), The regulation and function of eosinophils during postnatal development, $240,000
• Sun, Tianhaozhe (Earth & Ocean Sciences), Combining numerical modelling and geophysical observations in studying subduction zone earthquake processes, $150,000
• Tuffs, Stephen (Biochemistry & Microbiology), Gaining the edge: mechanisms of interspecies niche competition by Staphylococcus aureus, $185,000
• Weaver, Andrew (Earth & Ocean Sciences), Exploring the capacity of the ocean and its deep sediments to sequester atmospheric CO2, $150,000
• Ye, Jane (Mathematics & Statistics), Theory and algorithms for solving bilevel optimization with applications in economics and machine learning, $155,000

Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants

• Junginger, Tobias (Physics & Astronomy), Reaching the full potential of ARIEL and further develop TRIUMF and UVic's accelerator physics expertise, $360,000
• Sobie, Randall (Physics & Astronomy), Reducing the environmental impact and power requirements of SAP computing, $45,000
• Sobie, Randall (Physics & Astronomy), HEPNET/Canada - computer networks for subatomic physics research, $647,000

Research, Tools and Instruments (RTI) Grants

• Novales Flamarique, Inigo (Biology), Camera system for transmission electron microscope, $150,000
• Saidaminov, Makhsud (Chemistry), Photoemission Yield Spectroscopy in Air (PYSA), $150,000