McMaster researchers awarded $18.4M in SSHRC, CFI and NSERC grants

McMaster researchers are being awarded for their excellence and impact through investments from the federal government.

Fifteen McMaster researchers have been awarded over $2.2 million through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) Insight and Partnership Development grants. Fifteen researchers have received over $3.9 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF). 54 researchers have received a total of $12.3 million from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). View the full list of recipients below.

SSHRC Insight Grant

Insight Grants support both emerging and established scholars as they conduct research that addresses complex issues about individuals and societies, informing the search for solutions to societal challenges.

• Catherine Connelly, DeGroote School of Business
  • Wage theft: Antecedents and consequences for managers who illegally underpay their employees
• Mohamed Shehata, DeGroote School of Business
  • Test-Bedding the Impact of Trading with Artificial Intelligence on Stock Market Performance
• Yufei Yuan, DeGroote School of Business
  • Employees’ attitude towards a digital teammate: a threat or an enhancement of their job identity?
• Sheila Boamah, Faculty of Health Sciences
  • Caring for the carers: Using multi-methods approach to address social isolation and mental health concerns among caregivers
• Juanita DeBarros, Faculty of Humanities
  • Historical Perspectives on Colonial Abortion Laws in the British Caribbean
• Peter Walmsley, Faculty of Humanities
  • Plant Animacy in the British Enlightenment
• Saara Greene, Faculty of Social Sciences
  • Women Growing Older: Exploring Older Women’s Experience of Accessing Cannabis Information and Support in a Virtual World
• Melanie Heath, Faculty of Social Sciences
  • Theorizing Sexual Regimes in the United States, Canada, and France
• Adam Lavecchia, Faculty of Social Sciences
  • The Effects of Income Taxes on The Economic Outcomes of Immigrants
• Suzanne Mills, Faculty of Social Sciences
  • The future of work and inter-regional migration to Canada’s resource peripheries
• Angela Zheng, Faculty of Social Sciences
  • The Short and Long-Term Effects of Air Pollution on Student Learning

SSHRC Partnership Development Grant

Partnership Development Grants support researchers in establishing partnerships with new and existing partners to foster innovative research, training and the co-creation of new knowledge on critical issues of intellectual, social, economic and cultural significance.

• Emily Belita, Faculty of Health Sciences
  • Optimizing local intersectoral partnerships to mobilize research evidence in school mental health
• Paula Gardner, Faculty of Humanities
  • Artful Aging: creating a digital village with older adults to enhance social connectivity
• Michael Schutz, Faculty of Humanities
  • The Canadian percussion network: A partnership to enhance percussion research, knowledge mobilization and performance across Canada
• Ingrid Waldron, Faculty of Humanities
  • Building Capacity for Climate Change Preparedness in Black Communities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area

CFI John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF) Grant

JELF grants support world-class research and technology development in universities across Canada through investments in research infrastructure, including facilities and equipment, that enable researchers to conduct leading-edge studies in their field.

• Yair Berson, DeGroote School of Business
  • Lab for Innovative Neurophysiological Study of Leadership
• Elkafi Hassini, DeGroote School of Business
  • Infrastructure for Sustainable E-commerce Last-mile Deliveries
• Mohamed Ezzeldin & Cancan Yan, Faculty of Engineering
  • Additively Manufactured Homes for Mobility and Equity (AM-HOME) Laboratory
• Qiyin Fang, Faculty of Engineering
  • High Throughput High Content Multi-dimension Microscopy
• Todd Hoare, Faculty of Engineering
  • ConTElab: Engineering Contractile Tissues for Tissue Regeneration and Wound Healing
• Kyla Sask, Faculty of Engineering
  • Laboratory for the Modification and Characterization of Proteins and Cells at Biomaterial Interfaces
• Heather Sheardown, Faculty of Engineering
  • Ocular Imaging & Preclinical Evaluation
• Keena Trowell, Faculty of Engineering
  • Hydrogen Energy Advances Lab Infrastructure
• Cameron Currie, Faculty of Health Sciences
  • Platform for Antimicrobial Discovery from Symbiotic Microbes
• Marc Jeschke, Faculty of Health Sciences
  • Laboratory for Metabolism and Translational Science – LiMTS
• Lindsay Kalan, Faculty of Health Sciences
  • Wound Infection Biomarker and Drug Discovery Facility
• John Whitney, Faculty of Health Sciences
  • Platform for Molecular Bacteriology Research
• Lauren Fink, Faculty of Science
  • The role of brain-viscera coupling in shaping subjective experience and social interaction
• Alexander Little, Faculty of Science
  • Nuclear Receptor pathways for Plasticity: linking environmental stressors with compensatory responses
• Joseph Okeme, Faculty of Science
  • Novel tools and methods for characterizing the exposome

NSERC Discovery Grant

The Discovery program is NSERC’s largest and longest-standing program, designed to support Canada’s best researchers in making breakthrough discoveries for the economy, society, and the environment.

*Received a Discovery Launch Supplement – awarded to early career researchers in the first year of their Discovery Grant.

+Received a Northern Research Supplement – designed to augment and promote Canadian university-based northern research and training.

Faculty of Engineering

• Adedapo Awolayo*
  • Harnessing reactive fluid-rock interactions in geo-environmental systems: Strategies for sustainable energy transition and climate crisis mitigation
• Mohamed Bakr
  • Next Generation Computer Aided Design Tools for Low and High Frequency Electromagnetic Structures
• Nabil Bassim
  • Functional Nano-Surfaces with Ion Implantation and Chemistry
• Gianluigi Botton
  • Structure and Properties Relationships of Nanoscale Materials
• Kazem Cheshmi*
  • Code Specialization and Data Compression for Heterogeneous Computing
• Charles-François de Lannoy
  • Electrocatalytic Membrane Micro-Reactors: Synthesis and Reactions
• Matthew Giamou*
  • Certifiable Algorithms for Safe Robot Perception
• Peijun Guo
  • Multiscale modeling of multiphysics processes in geomaterials considering spatiotemporal heterogeneities: Theoretical and experimental study
• Yiping Guo
  • Stochastic Analysis of the Eco-hydrologic Operation of Low-Impact Development Practices
• Wenbo He
  • Towards a Robust and Trustworthy Machine Learning for Visual Contents in Data-centric Applications
• Jelle Antonius Johannes Hellings*
  • Toward simple, performant resilient data management
• Ousmane Ahmat Hisseine*
  • Multiscale-Engineered Ultra-High-Performance Concrete: From Fibre-matrix Interface Tailoring to Bridge Infrastructure Sustainability and Resilience
• Stephen Kelly*
  • Evolving Creative Algorithms
• Andrew Knights
  • Material Modification and Process Development for Applications of Silicon Photonics
• Gitanjani Kolhatkar*
  • Smart Materials for Neuromorphic Computing
• Mark Lawford
  • Rigorous Model Based Assurance of Object Detection Systems for Safety of Autonomous Vehicles
• Natalia Nikolova
  • Real-time Imaging and Sensing on Electronically Scanned Millimeter-wave and THz Platforms
• Michael Noseworthy
  • Multimodal non-invasive Assessment of Healthy Neuromuscular Activity
• Shakirudeen Salaudeen*
  • Conversion of low value agricultural biomass to high value bioproducts
• Heather Sheardown
  • Shifting paradigms with ophthalmic biomaterials and drug delivery systems
• Todor Stoyanov
  • A Library of Mobile Manipulation Skills
• Christopher Swartz
  • Integrated Scheduling and Control Under Uncertainty
• Tengteng Tang*
  • Toward establishing novel interfacial materials characterization platforms
• Michael Thompson
  • Investigating hybrid physics-based intelligent quality assurance systems in continuous drug manufacturing
• Peidong Wu
  • Constitutive Modelling of Softening and Shear Banding in Amorphous Glassy Polymers

Faculty of Health Sciences

• Jakob Magolan
  • Enabling Efficient Organic Synthesis with Organosulfur Reagents and Intermediates
• Elyanne Ratcliffe
  • Microbiota and the development of the gut-brain axis

Faculty of Science

• Alex Adronov
  • Macromolecular Assemblies and Nanostructures
• Rebecca Batstone*
  • Evolution in a symbiotic world
• Paul Berti
  • Carboxyketose synthase catalysis and inhibition
• Benjamin Bolker
  • Semimechanistic models for ecology and epidemiology
• Soo Hyun Byun
  • Machine Learning Development for Advanced Radiation Detection
• Ryan Cloutier*
  • Understanding the origins of the galaxy’s most common planets around its most common stars
• Emily Choy*+
  • Investigating the interactive effects of climate change and contaminants in avian predators
• David Feinberg
  • Advancing Voice Perception Research
• Lauren Fink*
  • Mobile eye-tracking in the concert hall: Using ocular measures to index spatiotemporal attention and augment audience engagement
• Cameron Franc
  • Automorphic forms in number theory and physics
• Paul Higgs
  • Modelling the Earliest Stages of Cellular Life
• Takashi Imai
  • Microscopic investigation of disordered quantum materials
• Peter Keir
  • Interactions of musculoskeletal morphology, control, and motion on upper extremity loading
• Anastasis Kratsios*
  • Geometric Deep Learning with Applications to Stochastic Finance
• Peter Kruse
  • Surface and Interface Chemistry in Percolation Networks of Low-Dimensional Materials with Sensing Applications
• Paul McNicholas
  • Variable Selection and Streaming Algorithms in Clustering Applications of Mixture Models
• James McNulty
  • Development of New Synthons and Catalysts and Applications in Organic Synthesis
• Carmel Mothersill
  • Mechanisms of low dose radiation-induced non-targeted effects
• Sukhvinder Obhi
  • The effects of mistakes and action choice on the sense of agency in single and multi-agent settings
• Jenna Rajchgot
  • On commutative-algebraic and combinatorial properties of some highly symmetric algebraic varieties
• Hong-jin Sun
  • Allocation of Visual Attention in Three Dimensional Space
• Joanna Wilson
  • Cytochrome P450 enzymes and their role in chemical defense in zebrafish
• Xu-Dong Zhu
  • Regulation of PML Nuclear Body Function by UFMylation

NSERC Discovery Horizon Grant

• Todd Hoare, Faculty of Engineering
  • Reprogramming lung macrophages using inhalable immunomodulatory microparticles for the treatment of lung fibrosis

NSERC Research Tools and Instruments Grant

• Nabil Bassim, Faculty of Engineering
  • A New EDS (X-ray) detector for the Laser-Enabled Focused Ion Beam
• Christopher Morton, Faculty of Engineering
  • Optical Diagnostics System for Thermo-Fluids and Hydrogen research facilities
• Joseph Boyce, Faculty of Science
  • Sub-bottom seismic profiler for geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental research
• Alemu Gonsamo, Faculty of Science
  • Field spectroradiometer suite for in-situ characterization of plants, soils and peats, and calibration of optical sensors and satellite observations
• Takashi Imai, Faculty of Science
  • Emergency Replacement of Vintage Superconducting Magnet Power Supply

New and renewed Canada Research Chairs were also announced.