SFU Science researchers receive $4.8 million in new NSERC funding

June 27, 2022

Simon Fraser University Faculty of Science researchers have been awarded $4.8 million in new funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

The funding announced June 23, 2022 supports research programs led by faculty in all eight departments in the Faculty of Science. These grants provide long-term operating funds to support research programs in a wide variety of natural sciences and engineering disciplines, including climate change, chemistry, biology, mathematics and statistics, computer science and artificial intelligence. Overall, Faculty of Science researchers showed a 78% success rate for Discovery grants, which is significantly higher than the national average of 66% over past 7 years.

Notably, all of Faculty of Science’s early-career researchers received a Discovery grant and Launch supplement, funding brand-new research programs for:

  • Ben Ashby
    Microbial evolution along the parasitism-mutualism continuum
  • Nadish de Silva
    The foundations of quantum computational advantage
  • Katrina Honigs
    Derived categories in arithmetic and algebraic geometry
  • Ailene MacPherson
    Coevolutionary epidemiology of hosts and their infectious pathogens

The funding also includes major funding increases for the research programs of:

  • Steven Ruuth
    Efficient algorithms for evolving continuum processes on curved surfaces
  • Mani Larijani
    Evolutionary trajectories of DNA/RNA-editing enzymes involved in adaptive and innate immunity
  • Eldon Emberly
    Role of chromosome in organizing space and time inside cells
  • Steve Robinovitch
    Mechanisms of falls in mountain biking

Today’s announcement also included $401,000 from the Research Tools and Instruments program to support new infrastructure led by:

  • Lisa Craig
    A comprehensive protein expression, purification and crystallization system
  • Erol Girt
    New sputter deposition capabilities for growth of metal-oxide multilayers
  • Roger Linington
    Benchtop walk-up time-of-flight mass spectrometer

View a full list of SFU projects receiving NSERC Discovery Grant funding this year.

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