UBC researchers leading 34 projects awarded $7 million in funding through CFI JELF competition

September 13, 2024

The Government of Canada has announced nearly $86 million through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to support 316 research infrastructure projects at 47 institutions across the country. 

This contribution, made through the CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), will help institutions in Canada attract and retain the very best of today’s researchers.

A total of 34 projects led by UBC researchers were awarded a collective $7.0 million in funding.

The CFI JELF awards were announced as part of a $502 million Government of Canada funding announcement that supports science, researchers and students. The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of National Revenue, made the announcement at the Université de Sherbrooke, on behalf of the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health.

This includes funding for new UBC-led projects through the SSHRC Insight Grants and Insight Development Grants; Tri-Agency Scholarships and Fellowships; and the CFI JELF competition.

Read the Government of Canada announcement

Read the CFI announcement

UBC-Led Projects

  1. Aleksa Alaica (Anthropology)
    Multispecies Archaeology Laboratory (MSAL)
     
  2. Kiana Amini (Materials Engineering)
    Advancing Redox Flow Battery Technology and Electrochemical Carbon Capture: A Parallel Development Approach
     
  3. Katrina Bouchard (Obstetrics and Gynaecology)
    Psychology, Health, and Sexuality (PHaSe) Laboratory
     
  4. Hal Bradbury (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences)
    Stable isotope laboratory for carbon cycle and climate research
     
  5. Carol Chen (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
    Identifying Disease Drivers of Lethal Brain Cancer
     
  6. Joel Finbloom (Pharmaceutical Sciences)
    Microscopy Suite for High-throughput and High-resolution Analysis of Microbe-interfacing Nanomaterials
     
  7. Daniel Graf (Dentistry)
    Request for High-resolution, Low-irradiation in Vivo MicroCT Scanner
     
  8. Laura Grieneisan (Biology, UBCO)
    Wild Animal Microbiomes & Stress (WAMS)
     
  9. Amani Hariri (Chemistry)
    Advancing DNA-based Nanoswitches using Single Molecule Fluorescence Methods: Towards Precision Detection and Delivery
     
  10. Jason Hein (Chemistry)
    An Autonomous Robotic Platform for Process Chemical Manufacturing and Development
     
  11. Zachary Hudson (Chemistry)
    Preparation and Characterization of Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics
     
  12. Alessandro Ielpi (Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, UBCO)
    Development of River Survey Capability for Assessment of Fluxes of Sediment and Organic-carbon Across Watersheds
     
  13. Govind Kaigala (School of Biomedical Engineering)
    Tissue Microprocessing Platform: Technologies to Unravel Heterogeneous Interactions in Cancer
     
  14. Aly Karsan (Pathology and Laboratory Medicine)
    Overcoming Therapy Resistance in Leukemia
     
  15. Hyosub Kim (Kinesiology)
    Computational Sensorimotor Learning Lab
     
  16. Vassilis Kontogiorgos  (Food, Nutrition and Health)
    Functional Food Colloids Laboratory
     
  17. Minghao Li (Wood Science)
    Developing Laminated Engineered Wood Products using Recycled Wood
     
  18. Dominic Liao-Mcpherson (Mechanical Engineering)
    Safe Cooperation and Co-existence for Multi-agent Robotic Systems
     
  19. Genelle Lunken (Pediatrics)
    Nutrition and Microbiome Precision Health (N&M Precision) Lab
     
  20. Marco Marra (Medical Genetics)
    Multi-omic Analysis of Treatment Resistance and Cancer Heterogeneity (MATCH)
     
  21. Graziano Oldani (Surgery)
    Immune Suppression-Free Xenotransplantation
     
  22. Gema Rodriguez Perez (Computer Science, UBCO)
    A Toolkit to Ensure EDI during Software Development Processes
     
  23. Laura Schummers (Pharmaceutical Sciences)
    Enhancing Reproductive Population Health Research through Novel Database Development: Building Big Data Infrastructure
     
  24. Dena Shahriari  (Orthopaedics)
    Implantable Smart Biomaterials and Sensors
     
  25. Vered Shwartz (Computer Science)
    Hardware and Storage for Natural Language Processing Research with Large Language Models
     
  26. Syam Somasekharan (Urologic Sciences)
    Advanced RNA Translatome Profiling Facility to Identify Therapeutic Targets and Biomarkers for Prostate Cancer (ART-PC)
     
  27. Adi Steif  (Medical Genetics)
    Single Cell Analysis of Chromosomal Instability in Cancer using Machine Learning
     
  28. Jim Sun (Microbiology and Immunology)
    Tackling Antibiotic Resistance Generation and Establishing Test Surveillance for TB (TARGETS for TB)
     
  29. Alexandra Tavasoli (Mechanical Engineering)
    Engineering Solar-driven Industrial Chemical Processes for the Net Zero Economy
     
  30. Cheryl Wellington (Pathology and Laboratory Medicine)
    Facility for Neurology Fluid Biomarker Innovation
     
  31. Kefei Wen (Mechanical Engineering)
    Synthesis, Simulation, and Validation of an Advanced Macro-mini Robotic System
     
  32. Felix Wiesner (Wood Science)
    Establishing the Fire Resilience and Wood Ignition Safety Evaluation (FIREWISE) Laboratory
     
  33. Tianxi Yang (Food, Nutrition and Health)
    Advanced Raman and Optical Imaging Platforms for Agrifood Safety and Sustainability
     
  34. Jian Zhu (Linguistics)
    Computational Social Science at SLIME-Lab

See all recipients


Projects supported through the John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF) will also receive additional funding through the CFI’s Infrastructure Operating Fund (IOF) to cover the costs of operating the research infrastructure. The total investment of $85,895,698 million includes $19,822,084 million from the IOF.

Proposals for matching provincial funding for CFI awards may be pending results.