Eighty researchers from U of T Engineering have received a total of $10.4 million in research funding and scholarships awarded today by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
The funding is being distributed through several NSERC programs, including Discovery Grants, Discovery Accelerator Supplements, Research Tools and Instruments Grants, Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships, Postgraduate Scholarships, and Postdoctoral Fellowships. In total, NSERC announced $465 million for more than 4,000 awards across Canada.
“These awards reflect our track record of excellence in producing world-class research that brings benefits to Canada and the world,” said Professor Ted Sargent (ECE), U of T Engineering’s vice-dean, research. “This investment will advance new solutions and technologies in sustainability, bioengineering, telecommunications and many other fields.”
Of the 51 U of T Engineering professors included in the investment, four received prestigious Discovery Accelerator Supplements. These awards are designed to maximize the impact of those researchers with programs that are highly original and innovative, and who show strong potential to become international leaders in their fields.
The winners and their associated projects were:
- Professor Birsen Donmez (MIE) — Designing feedback to support driver-automation coordination
- Professor Marianne Hatzopoulou (CivE) — Investigating the potential of mobile air quality monitoring in urban areas in the development of real-time air pollution maps and applications to reduce population exposure
- Professor Keryn Lian (MSE) — Advanced solid, flexible energy storage materials and devices
- Professor Prasanth Nair (UTIAS) — Computational methods for modeling and design of complex engineering systems under uncertainty
On the scholarship side, 29 engineering graduate students and post-doctoral fellows will share more than $2 million in support. Across the entire University of Toronto, the total amount of scholarship and research funding was $46.4 million.
“Discoveries build the necessary foundation for an innovative, prosperous and sustainable society,” said B. Mario Pinto, president of NSERC. “A diversified and high-quality research base requires us to provide equality of opportunity across gender and culture. Bringing together multiple points of view strengthens our science, technology and innovation ecosystem and extends its many benefits more equally.”
