Twelve UCalgary researchers awarded funding under inaugural New Frontiers program

The inaugural New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), launched December 2018 by the federal government, is focused on supporting innovative, interdisciplinary research that has the potential to deliver significant benefits to Canadians. Twelve early-career University of Calgary researchers from across the academy received NFRF funding to pursue their high-risk, high-reward work.

"Our government's vision is for our researchers to take risks and be innovative,” says the Honorable Kirsty Duncan, minister of science and sport. “We want our scientists and students to have access to state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment, and we want the halls of academia to better reflect the diversity of Canada itself. This new fund will help us achieve that vision."

“Our early-career researchers are a critical part of the research engine of our university,” says Dr. André Buret, interim vice-president (research). “The recipients bring leading-edge ideas and methodologies to their fields, and increase the potential impact of their work by collaborating across disciplinary boundaries. They inspire us all to get creative in our pursuit of solutions to the most pressing challenges faced by Canadians.”

This portion of the NFRF is the Exploration stream, one of the three that comprise the funding: Exploration; Transformation, which will provide large-scale support for interdisciplinary and transformative research; and International, which will focus on internationally partnered research.

The UCalgary recipients of the NFRF – Exploration funding are:

• Dr. Ashley Harris, PhD (Cumming School of Medicine): Brain metabolites and blood biomarkers of treatment response to aerobic exercise for post-concussion syndrome
• Dr. Catherine Lebel, PhD (Cumming School of Medicine): Advanced neuroimaging of the effects of prenatal BPA exposure on brain structure: a translational study
• Dr. Mozdeh Shahbazi, PhD (Schulich School of Engineering): Intelligent autonomous aerial systems: Breakthrough technology for search-and-rescue
• Dr. Quan Long, PhD (Cumming School of Medicine): Developing a Machine Learning Framework for Medical Genomic Projects with Small or Moderate Sample Sizes
• Dr. Dana Olstad, PhD (Cumming School of Medicine): Protecting children from unhealthy food and brand marketing in the digital age: A novel artificial intelligence system to assess food and brand marketing on digital media
• Dr. Jan Dettmer, PhD (Faculty of Science): Towards next-generation geohazard monitoring: Distributed acoustic sensing and probabilistic machine learning for volcano- and landslide-hazard monitoring
• Dr. Jennifer Leason, PhD (Faculty of Arts): Exploring the Complex Contexts of Indigenous Maternal Child Health through an Indigenous Maternity Experiences Survey
• Dr. Timothy Shutt, PhD (Cumming School of Medicine): Stem Cell-Mediated Mitochondrial Replenishment
• Dr. Craig Jenne, PhD (Cumming School of Medicine): Advanced Microscopic Imaging of Living Human Liver
• Dr. Brent Else, PhD (Faculty of Arts): Mobile Labs to Support Interdisciplinary Research Along Shipping Corridors in the Canadian Arctic
• Dr. Amy Metcalfe, PhD (Cumming School of Medicine): Impact of residential proximity to hydraulic fracturing sites on human reproduction and child development
• Dr. Amanda Melin, PhD (Faculty of Arts): The aging eye: integrating genomics, anatomy, and behaviour across the lifespan in a non-human primate model