August 29, 2023
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada is investing more than $514 million over five years through the Discovery research program.
This funding will offer recipients the stability and freedom to pursue promising research avenues as they emerge to build the foundation for innovation and economic growth. Over $440 million of this funding provides new awards to researchers across the country in a wide variety of natural sciences and engineering disciplines. $71.4 million was also awarded in one-time, one-year extensions with funds to existing Discovery research grants held by more than 1,800 researchers across Canada impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NSERC Discovery research program awards were announced as part of the Government of Canada's investment of $960 million for research. The Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, on behalf of the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and of the Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health, announced support for over 4,700 researchers and research projects across Canada. These investments of over $960 million through grants, scholarships and programs are part of the government’s ongoing support for Canada’s research ecosystem.
This includes funding for new UBC-led projects through the Canada Research Chairs program; CFI's John R. Evans Leaders Fund; NSERC Discovery research programs; NSERC PromoScience, SSHRC Insight Grants, Partnership Grants and Partnership Development Grants; Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships; and Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships.
Read the Government of Canada announcement.
A total of 139 new programs and projects led by UBC researchers were awarded more than $34.8 million through the 2023 NSERC Discovery research grants competition.
This includes:
- 121 programs supported by Discovery Grants (with 24 of these receiving additional support from Discovery Launch Supplements);
- Three projects and programs awarded funding through the Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants program;
- One project awarded funding through the Discovery Horizons Grant program; and
- 14 projects awarded Research Tools and Instruments grants.
2023 DISCOVERY GRANTS PROGRAM
The NSERC Discovery Grants program supports ongoing programs of research with long-term goals rather than a single short-term project or collection of projects. These grants recognize the creativity and innovation that are at the heart of all research advances. Discovery Launch Supplements provide timely resources to support early career researchers (ECRs) as they establish a Discovery Grant-funded research program.
UBC RECIPIENTS
121 UBC researchers were awarded a combined total of $29.2m over five years through the Discovery Grants program.
24 of these projects (marked with * below) were awarded an additional $12,500 each for one year through the Discovery Launch Supplements program, for a combined additional total of $0.3m
- Aamodt, Tor (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Hardware Accelerators for Learning Systems
- Asselin, Edouard (Materials Engineering)
Electrochemical reactors for the mine of the future: securing critical metals for electrification
- Behrend, Kai (Mathematics)
New Directions in the Theory of Moduli
- Bertram, Allan (Chemistry)
Reactivity, phase behavior, diffusion, and viscosity within atmospheric aerosols for a better understanding of air quality, climate, and health
- Bigazzi, Alexander (Civil Engineering)
Evidence-based design of off-street paths and cycleways: Fundamental traffic engineering parameters for bicycles and micromobility devices
- Boyd, Lara (Physical Therapy)
The neurophysiology underpinning human motor learning
- Bradbury, Harold (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences)
Tracing marine sedimentary carbon cycling using a combined multi-isotope and numerical modelling approach*
- Brauner, Colin (Zoology)
Gas exchange, ionoregulation, acid-base balance and their interactions in aquatic vertebrates: The evolution of complex physiological systems.
- Cardinal-McTeague, Warren (Forest and Conservation Sciences)
Restoring Indigenous relationships with land and monitoring ecosystem health and function*
- Carenini, Giuseppe (Computer Science)
Improving and Leveraging Discourse Processing in Modern NLP
- Carey, Trevor (Civil Engineering)
Evaluation of liquefaction effects from long-duration, large-magnitude earthquakes*
- Chen, Jingyi (Mathematics)
Analytic aspects in Lagrangian geometry and metric geometry
- Chen, Qian (Engineering, School of, UBCO)
Digital and responsive systems for construction supply chain integration and construction circular economy*
- Chen, Yu (Christine) (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Data-driven Power System Monitoring, Control, and Operation
- Cheng, Julian (Engineering, School of, UBCO)
Intelligent Wireless Robotic Communications
- Clare, Adam (Mechanical Engineering)
Stochastic approaches to design of structures and materials in Additive Manufacture (StochAM)
- Clark, Luke (Psychology)
Reward uncertainty and immersion as drivers of excessive consumption
- Cohen-Hillel, Tamar (Sauder School of Business)
Transportation optimization planning for large networks*
- Collier, Abby (Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of)
Post Translational Structural and Functional Studies of UDP-Glucuronosyl Transferases
- Collier, Christopher (Engineering, School of, UBCO)
Terahertz spectroscopy and microfluidic devices for agri-food applications
- de Silva, Clarence (Mechanical Engineering)
Enhancing the Concepts of Machine Intelligence in the Context of Mechanical Dynamic Systems
- Duong, Franck (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
Bacterial Peptidisc Libraries to Isolate Outer Membrane Protein Binders
- Feng, Chen (Engineering, School of, UBCO)
Information and Coding Theory for Blockchain Technology
- Friedlander, Michael (Computer Science)
Learning Structured Models: Theory, Algorithms, and Quantum Oracles
- Gabora, Liane (Psychology, UBCO)
An Autocatalytic Evolutionary Framework for Cognition
- Garcia, Ronald (Computer Science)
Advances in Sound Gradual Typing
- Giaschi, Deborah (Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences)
Motion processing and binocular vision in the developing human brain
- Gopaluni, Bhushan (Chemical and Biological Engineering)
Self-Driving Industrial Processes
- Greenblatt, Ethan (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
Understanding the impact of nutrition on oocyte fitness*
- Greif, Chen (Computer Science)
Structure-Preserving Numerical Solvers for Block-Structured Linear Systems
- Grenz, Jennifer (Forest Resources Management)
Eradicated, Now What?: understanding the legacy of plant invasions in the post-control phase to inform long-term ecological restoration*
- Grieneisen, Laura (Biology, UBCO)
Causes and consequences of microbial dynamism*
- Hacihaliloglu, Ilker (Radiology)
On-Device Continual Learning Methods for Point of Care Ultrasound
- Hallam, Steven (Microbiology and Immunology)
Engineering microbial cell systems for sustainable living
- Hamelin, Richard (Forest and Conservation Sciences)
Evolution and adaptation in the pine stem rust pathogens
- Hare, Warren (Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics, UBCO)
Structured Blackbox Optimization
- Heagy, Lindsey (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences)
Advancing computational geophysics for carbon sequestration*
- Heyl, Jeremy (Physics and Astronomy)
Probing Fundamental Physics through Astrophysics
- Hinch, Scott (Forest and Conservation Sciences)
Fitness consequences of Pacific salmon in relation to upper thermal tolerance
- Holmes-Cerfon, Miranda (Mathematics)
Modelling, simulating, and designing the dynamics of mesoscale particles
- Holzman, Jonathan (Engineering, School of, UBCO)
Emerging Technologies for Wireless Communication Systems
- Hunt, Brian (Oceans and Fisheries, Institute for the)
Impacts of urbanization on nearshore pelagic ocean ecosystems - the case of ocean cities
- Im, Hee Yeon (Psychology)
Multimodal neuroimaging research on ensemble coding of visual scenes: neural dynamics and functions in perception and visually-guided actions*
- Irwin, Darren (Zoology)
Investigating the dual nature of hybrid zones: integrating adaptive introgression and low hybrid fitness into one theory
- Jan, Eric (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
Host cellular pathways modulated by a multifunctional insect viral protein
- Jefferies, Wilfred (Michael Smith Laboratories)
Cellular and molecular biology underlying priming of the immune system
- Jellinek, Andrew (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences)
Consequences and paradoxes of Earth's Largest Explosive Eruptions: Implications of volcanic eruption dynamics for climate control and their links to plate tectonics
- Jiang, Feng (Wood Science)
Tuning surface chemistry of lignocellulosic nanomaterials for advanced materials and applications
- Kaigala, Govind (Biomedical Engineering, School of)
Photoactuated programable microfluidic systems for high-purity filtration of biomolecules in sub-microliter volumes*
- King, Kayla (Microbiology and Immunology)
Host-parasite evolution in a changing world
- Kobor, Michael (Medical Genetics)
Elucidating the role of the histone variant H2A.Z in transcriptional regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
- Kronstad, James (Michael Smith Laboratories)
Molecular Genetics of Smut Fungi
- Lam, Frank (Wood Science)
Reliability of Load Duration and System factors for Mass Timber Systems
- Lawrence, Gregory (Civil Engineering)
Vertical Mixing Mechanisms in Stratified Water Bodies
- Lee, Jongho (Civil Engineering)
Liquid Membrane Technology for High-value Chemical Recovery in Biorefinery
- Lemieux, Caroline (Computer Science)
Fuzz-Driven Development*
- Lence, Barbara (Civil Engineering)
Smart Technologies for Operating and Maintaining Water Supply Systems
- Leslie, Sabrina (Michael Smith Laboratories)
Biophysics of molecular interactions at the single-molecule level
- Leyton-Brown, Kevin (Computer Science)
Learning Models of Strategic Behaviour
- Li, Shyh-Dar (Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of)
Developing novel cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) for protein delivery into the nucleus of cells
- Liao-Mcpherson, Dominic (Mechanical Engineering)
Sustainable and Resilient Smart Large-Scale Infrastructure through Game-Theoretic Predictive Control*
- Lis, Mieszko (Applied Science, Faculty of)
Towards secure acceleration of machine learning models
- Liu, Jian (Engineering, School of, UBCO)
Interfacial Phenomena in Next-Generation Energy Storage Technologies
- Loewen, Christopher (Cellular and Physiological Sciences)
Lipid Signalling in Yeast
- Macdonald, Colin (Mathematics)
Understanding and computing with geometric data using nearest neighbour sampling
- MacLachlan, Mark (Chemistry)
New Directions in Supramolecular Chemistry
- Madzvamuse, Anotida (Mathematics)
Unravelling the multi-physics of 3D cell migration and pattern formation using geometric bulk-surface partial differential approach (GBS-PDEs)
- Marcus, Brian (Mathematics)
Topics in Symbolic Dynamics on the Interface with Information Theory, Ergodic Theory and Statistical Physics
- Martin, Greg (Mathematics)
Applications of analytic number theory to prime number races, multiplicative groups, Padé approximants, and Artin's conjecture
- McGrenere, Joanna (Computer Science)
Designing interactive digital technologies for a post pandemic world
- McHale, Melissa (Forest Resources Management)
Increased Urban Heating and Thermal Comfort in Canadian Cities as a Model for Advancing Urban Ecosystem Service Assessments
- Mehrkhodavandi, Parisa (Chemistry)
Exploration of Main Group Metals in Catalysis in the Green Polymer Laboratory
- Mirabbasi, Shahriar (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Architectures and Integrated Circuits for Efficient Microsystems for Communication, Biomedical, and Wearable Applications and Beyond
- Nagamune, Ryozo (Mechanical Engineering)
Advanced Control of Floating Offshore Wind Farms
- Nojeh, Alireza (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Thermal electron emission and energy exchange in nanomaterials
- Osei, Emmanuel (Biology, UBCO)
Understanding the role of complex multicellular and multiorgan crosstalk in lung immune protection*
- Oxland, Thomas (Orthopaedics)
Biomechanical Implications of Skeletal Muscle Stiffness on the Human Spine
- Pai, Dinesh (Computer Science)
Computational Models of Humans
- Paradis, Gregory (Forest Resources Management)
Integrated modelling of strategic forest management and industrial capacity planning in the Canadian forest sector*
- Pollock, Courtney (Physical Therapy)
Interaction between physiological arousal, attention and motor learning when walking is challenged*
- Ponga de la Torre, Mauricio (Mechanical Engineering)
Mechanics of Materials across time, length, and composition scales
- Poole, David (Computer Science)
Foundations of Learning and Reasoning about Entities and Relations under Uncertainty
- Pottinger, Rachel (Computer Science)
Improving querying and data access for non-expert users
- Pramanik, Malabika (Mathematics)
Patterns, operators and geometry - many faces of analysis
- Queyranne, Maurice (Sauder School of Business)
Optimization models and methods in Operations Management
- Rahmani, Mona (Chemical and Biological Engineering)
Understanding the fate of microplastics in oceans and lakes*
- Ramankutty, Navin (Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Institute for)
Data science and modelling to examine sustainable food system solutions
- Rechnitzer, Andrew (Mathematics)
Topology preserving sampling algorithms
- Reichstein, Zinovy (Mathematics)
Torsors over fields
- Richardson, John (Forest and Conservation Sciences)
Cross-ecosystem resource subsidy quality and the dynamics of landscapes after disturbance affects freshwater ecosystems
- Richman, Joy (Oral Health Sciences)
Reptilian tooth and jaw development
- Robillard, Julie (Neurology Division)
Intergenerational Determinants of Social Robot Usability*
- Rottler, Joerg (Physics and Astronomy)
Polymers out of equilibrium: nanoscale morphology, nonlinear mechanics, and thermal transport
- Salibian Barrera, Matias (Statistics)
Robust estimation methods for complex data models
- Sinclair, Chad (Materials Engineering)
Design and Manufacturing of Recycling Friendly Alloys
- Singh, Amritpal (Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics)
Integrative methods for single cell multiomics*
- Slade, Gordon (Mathematics)
Critical behaviour of random systems
- Somasekharan, Syam (Urologic Sciences)
Investigating the role of RNA-binding motif protein X-linked 2 (RBMX2) in nucleolar phase separation and functions*
- Stairs, Ingrid (Physics and Astronomy)
Unlocking the Universe with Pulsars and Fast Radio Bursts
- Tang, Shuo (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography for Skin Imaging
- Tocheva, Elitza (Microbiology and Immunology)
Origin and evolution of the bacterial outer membrane
- Todesco, Marco (Michael Smith Laboratories)
Understanding the genetic basis of local adaptation in wild sunflowers*
- Tokuriki, Nobuhiko (Michael Smith Laboratories)
Evolutionary Mechanisms for Novel Metabolic Pathways
- Trites, Andrew (Oceans and Fisheries, Institute for the)
Impacts of marine mammal recovery on ecosystem stability, biodiversity and productivity
- Tsai, Tai-Peng (Mathematics)
Incompressible fluids: vortex stretching, critical drifts, boundary singularity, and local energy solutions
- van Heusden, Klaske (Engineering, School of, UBCO)
Data-driven modeling and control for safety-critical applications*
- Wang, Shawn (Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics, UBCO)
New horizons in nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization: regularity theory and splitting algorithms
- Wang, Siyun (Land and Food Systems, Faculty of)
Mechanisms of nontyphoidal Salmonella enterica response to bacteriophages in foods
- Ward, Michael (Mathematics)
Localized Patterns in PDEs: Theory, Computation, and Applications
- Weary, Daniel (Land and Food Systems, Faculty of)
Welfare, affect and agency in animals
- Wei, Kevin (Zoology)
Evolutionary causes and molecular consequences of recurrent adaptation in the synaptonemal complex*
- Weijs, Steven (Civil Engineering)
A reliable and sensitive nervous system for our water resources under change
- Wijewickreme, K. Dharmapriya (Civil Engineering)
Characterization of the mechanical response of silts for earthquake engineering practice
- Wilton, Steven (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Computer-aided design ecosystems for Field-Programmable Gate Arrays and Quantum Computing platforms
- Winstanley, Catharine (Psychology)
The effects of arousal and noradrenergic signalling on decision making
- Wood, Christopher (Zoology)
Transport and Metabolism in Aquatic Animals
- Woodward, Todd (Psychiatry)
fMRI-detectable Brain Networks Involved in Working Memory in Humans
- Xia, Guangrui (Materials Engineering)
Germanium for next-generation semiconductor lasers
- Yang, Tianxi (Land and Food Systems, Faculty of)
Development of novel analytical tools and advanced materials for sustainable food production*
- Yilmaz, Ozgur (Mathematics)
Mathematical problems in analysis, processing, and use of deep neural networks in signal processing
- Zandberg, Wesley (Chemistry, UBCO)
Development of high-throughput techniques and tools enabling glycomic analysis of gastrointestinal mucus
The Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants program
Three UBC-led projects and programs were awarded funding of $3.8m over two to five years through the Subatomic Physics (SAP) Discovery Grants program.
- Hearty, Christopher (Physics and Astronomy)
The Belle II and Chiral Belle projects
- Oser, Scott (Physics and Astronomy)
The SuperCDMS Experiment
- Semenoff, Gordon (Physics and Astronomy)
Particles, Strings and Fields
Discovery horizons grant program
Discovery Horizons grants support investigator-initiated individual and team projects that broadly integrate or transcend disciplines to advance knowledge in the natural sciences and engineering.
One UBC project was awarded funding of $0.2m over four years through the Discovery Horizons Grant program.
- Rob Shave (School of Health and Exercise Sciences)
The impact of social adversity on cardiovascular aging
RESEARCH TOOLS AND INSTRUMENTS GRANTS
The NSERC Research Tools and Instruments grants foster and enhance the discovery, innovation and training capability of university researchers in the natural sciences and engineering by supporting the purchase of research equipment.
14 projects led by UBC researchers were awarded a combined $1.6m through this competition.
UBC RECIPIENTS
- Borduas-Dedekind, Nadine (Chemistry)
Illuminating an 8 m3 environmental chamber for atmospheric photochemistry for air quality
- Cooke, Ilsa (Chemistry)
A vacuum-ultraviolet source for the study of interstellar and prebiotic molecules
- Fewster, Kayla ( Kinesiology, School of)
A high speed pressure mapping system for non-invasive force distribution characterization
- Gates, Derek (Chemistry)
Urgent Replacement of Gel Permeation Chromatograph to Characterize Novel Polymers
- Grecov, Dana (Mechanical Engineering)
Replacement of a Multi-function Tribometer
- Hill, Jane (Chemical and Biological Engineering)
Instrument to recapture and handle VOCs
- Li, Xin (Michael Smith Laboratories)
A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system for analyzing plant defense hormone salicylic acid
- Liu, Jian (School of Engineering, UBCO)
In-situ Analysis of Mass and Mechanical Changes of Interfaces and Interphases in Energy Storage Systems by Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation Monitoring
- Salcudean, Septimiu (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Collaborative robots for medical robotics research
- Schulte, Patricia (Zoology)
Urgent replacement of real-time PCR machine
- Smukler, Sean (Land and Food Systems, Faculty of)
Field deployable instrumentation for spatiotemporal quantification of greenhouse gas emissions
- Song, Liang (Botany)
A Quantitative platform to expedite gene and genomic discovery from model species to crops and wild berries.
- Tortell, Philippe (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences)
A sea-going mass spectrometer for the analysis of climate-active trace gases in surface ocean waters
- Ziels, Ryan (Civil Engineering)
Advancing microbiome science with long-read sequencing