Memorial University gets grant to attract and retain top researchers

St. John’s, NL – The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) has granted nine researchers at Memorial University a total of $827,954 to support their innovative research programs. The funding was awarded through the CFI’s Leaders Opportunity Fund, a program designed to help universities attract and retain the very best researchers at a time of intense international competition. Awards are made to researchers who are recognized leaders in their field, or those with a clear promise of becoming future leaders and who require specialized infrastructure.

The recipients were: Dr. Kelly Hawboldt, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science with Dr. Robert Helleur, Department of Chemistry and Dr. Lesley James, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science for the project Maximizing Energy Efficiency – Analytical fuel research for enhanced oil recovery and second generation biofuels; Dr. Ronald Haynes, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Science with Dr. Colin Farquharson, Department of Earth Sciences for their GPU-based high performance computer for geophysical applications; Dr. Mani Larijani, Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Oncology, Faculty of Medicine – Mechanisms of genome mutators governing adaptive immunity and lymphomagenesis; Dr. Iain McGaw, Ocean Sciences Centre, Faculty of Science for development of a crustacean biology laboratory; Dr. Penny Morrill, Faculty of Science and Dr. Vaughan Grimes, Faculty of Arts for Compositional and isotopic characterization of complex organic samples for the study of origin and preservation of hydrocarbons and biological tissues; Dr. Barbara Neis, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Co-Director of the SafetyNet Centre for Research in Occupational Health and Safety – On the move: employment-related geographical mobility in the Canadian context; Dr. Kapil Tahlan, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science with Dr. Dawn Bignell, Department of Biology – Molecular and biochemical research laboratory for studying pathogenic and industrially relevant microorganisms; Dr. Lev Tarasov, Canada Research Chair in Glacial Dynamics Modelling, Faculty of Science – High performance scientific computing infrastructure for Canada Research Chair in Glacial Dynamics Modelling; Dr. Jianghua Wu, Sustainable Resource Management, Grenfell Campus – Impacts of agricultural drainage and climate change on greenhouse gas emissions from northern peatlands.