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Laurentian University celebrates federal NSERC Discovery Grants

Laurentian University celebrates federal NSERC Discovery Grants

Funding in amounts of $820,000 and over $470,000 will support discovery research.

(June 27, 2022) - Researchers with Laurentian University and affiliated researchers with NOSM University and Health Sciences North Research Institute have received $820,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to fund five research projects. 

The Discovery Grants Program is NSERC’s largest and longest-standing program supporting areas of research including Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Human Kinetics, Math and Computer Science, and Physics. Grants that derive from this program typically last for five years and provide the core funding for Canada’s top researchers to pursue their most promising ideas and breakthrough discoveries. An additional $470,000 was also received to support affiliated faculty conducting research in subatomic physics. 

“The Discovery Grant program is critically important for researchers in natural sciences and engineering. This investment from the Federal government will ensure researchers at Laurentian University and its affiliated partners at Health Sciences North Research Institute and the NOSM University have the resources needed to advance knowledge in areas critical to Canada, said Dr. Tammy Eger, Laurentian University's Vice-President, Research. “We are extremely proud of the grant recipients and their teams including graduate students who will have an opportunity to advance their learning through these grants.”

NSERC Discovery Grant recipients from Laurentian and its affiliates: 

  • Dr. Brent Lievers: Quantifying the nature and consequences of morphological changes in trabecular bone structural units
  • Dr. Corey Laamanen: Microalgae production of high-value antioxidants in Canada
  • Dr. Guangdong Yang: Deciphering the roles of cystathionine gamma-lyase/H2S system in Fe-S protein biogenesis and iron homeostasis
  • Dr. Sujeenthar Tharmalingam (primary appointment at NOSM University): Elucidating the role of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) in the DNA damage response
  • Dr. Chris Verschoor (primary appointment at Health Sciences North Research Institute): Exploring how age impacts the TNF-mediated activation of monocytes

Three of the above researchers (Drs. Laamanen, Tharmalingam, and Verschoor) also received Discovery Launch Supplements, awarded to early career researchers in the first year of the Discovery Grant. 

“Laurentian University continues to push the boundaries of discovery research,” added President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Robert Haché. “We recognize the efforts of our skilled researchers who make significant investments in scientific research. Congratulations to all recipients who merit these grants and will pursue breakthrough discoveries.”

Laurentian Scientists Celebrate $3-Million ‘Breakthrough Prize’ Awarded To Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Project

Laurentian Scientists Celebrate $3-Million ‘Breakthrough Prize’ Awarded To Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Project

November 8, 2015 – The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) Collaboration, represented by Queen’s University professor emeritus Arthur McDonald, have shared the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

 

In particular, Laurentian wants to acknowledge Professor Doug Hallman.  With the steady expansion of Laurentian’s research in particle astrophysics, he and a total of 22 Laurentian faculty members, past graduate students and post-doctoral researchers are all among the recipients of this honour.

 

The Prize was presented by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation “for the fundamental discovery of neutrino oscillations, revealing a new frontier beyond, and possibly far beyond, the standard model of particle physics”. The $3-million prize is shared with four other international experimental collaborations studying neutrino oscillations: the Superkamiokande, Kamland, T2K/K2K and Daya Bay scientific collaborations.

 

The research at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, two kilometers underground in Vale’s Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario Canada demonstrated that neutrinos change their type – or flavour – as they travel to Earth from the Sun.  The finding proves that neutrinos have a mass greater than zero. The results also confirmed the theories of energy generation in the Sun with great accuracy.

 

Professor McDonald, SNO Project Director, stated: “Our collaboration members are very pleased to receive this testimony to the scientific significance of their work. Our findings are a result of many years of hard work starting in 1984 when our collaboration began with 16 members, led by co-spokesmen Professor George Ewan of Queen’s University and Professor Herb Chen of the University of California, Irvine who were joined in 1985 by Professor David Sinclair of Oxford University. Our international collaboration grew substantially and provided an exciting education for many young scientists over more than 20 years. Our full author list includes over 270 scientists sharing this prize.”

 

The award was presented at a ceremony at the NASA Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California. The ceremony, hosted by comedian Seth Macfarlane, was broadcast live in the U.S. on Sunday, November 8 on the National Geographic Channel, with a one-hour version of the broadcast scheduled for Fox on November 29, at 7 p.m. For more information see breakthroughprize.org.

 

Founded by Russian entrepreneur, venture capitalist and physicist Yuri Milner, The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics recognizes individuals who have made profound contributions to human knowledge. It is open to all physicists — theoretical, mathematical and experimental — working on the deepest mysteries of the Universe. The prize is one of three awarded by the Breakthrough Foundation for “Outstanding contributions in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics, and Mathematics.”

 

Along with Dr. Hallman, Professors Jacques Farine, Rizwan Haq, Christine Kraus and Clarence Virtue are the Laurentian faculty who have contributed to the SNO research.  “The good fortune to have worked on a project of fundamental importance, that we believed in passionately, with a terrific group of dedicated and talented physicists was its own reward.  This honour is really icing on the cake,” said Professor Virtue.  

 

“We are delighted to congratulate the Particle Astrophysics Research group at Laurentian on this latest honour,” said Laurentian University President and Vice-Chancellor Dominic Giroux. “Our SNOLAB scientists are truly expanding the boundaries of knowledge about our universe and its building blocks.”

 

Laurentian University was a founding institution in the SNO Collaboration. With the completion of SNO’s measurements in 2006, and analyses in the near future, the members of Laurentian’s Particle Astrophysics Group (numbering 37 researchers in 2015) continue their work in frontier physics at SNOLAB, with major responsibilities and leading roles in the SNO+, HALO, DEAP, PICO and EXO collaborations. The work of the SNO collaboration was also recognized recently with the awarding of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics to Professor McDonald.

 

Backgrounder

Laurentian University celebrates Nobel Prize in Physics

Laurentian University celebrates Nobel Prize in Physics

Colleagues of Dr. Arthur McDonald toast “the ultimate prize in science”

October 9, 2015 – Colleagues and associates of Dr. Arthur McDonald at Laurentian University and at the SNOLAB research facility are applauding the news that Dr. McDonald is a co-winner of the  2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.  Dr. McDonald, emeritus professor at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario was jointly named this year’s Nobel Laureate with Dr. Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan. Dr. McDonald was honoured for his work in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, a collaboration between Laurentian University and five other Canadian universities.

 

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prize was awarded to Doctors McDonald and Kajita for their “key contributions to the experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities. This metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass. The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe.” (Full release: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2015/press.html)

 

Word of the Nobel award spread through the Laurentian community “at the speed of a neutrino,” said Dr. Doug Hallman, professor emeritus of Physics at Laurentian University and an early collaborator in the SNOLAB work with Dr. McDonald.  “This is terrific news for all of us who have been engaged in the SNO neutrino research,” said Dr. Hallman.  “This is the ultimate prize in science, and we are thrilled to see the work recognized at this level.”

 

Laurentian University is a founding member of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute. Over a 20-year period, Laurentian’s SNO group  has been a major contributor to the design, construction and operations of the SNO laboratory, a unique facility built two kilometers below surface at the Vale Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Ontario. The underground  environment enabled SNO researchers to make their groundbreaking neutrino measurements  with minimal background interference.   More than 150 researchers from universities and research institutions in Canada, the United States and Europe participated in the SNO project.

 

The SNO laboratory ended its data taking in 2006 but analyses and publications of results are  continuing.  The SNO detector is now in the final stages of conversion to a new SNO+ experiment, which will measure lower energy neutrinos from the sun and the earth and search for a rare nuclear decay process to find out more about the nature of neutrinos.

 

Building on the success of the SNO experiment, an expanded underground facility, SNOLAB  has been constructed adjacent to the SNO laboratory and now houses a group of new  experiments. The underground cleanroom facility, the deepest in the world, has the lowest background radiation environment, allowing researchers to take highly sensitive measurements with minimal interference. 

 

“We are thrilled with the awarding of this prize and congratulate Dr. McDonald and all of our faculty and collaborating researchers for their contributions to this exciting area of science over the years,” said Laurentian University President and Vice-Chancellor, Dominic Giroux.  “We welcome the new groups of scientists who will be doing their work at the facility, and are excited by the additional collaborations and research initiatives at SNOLAB as the next generation of underground experiments gets underway.”

 

Laurentian University is working with SNOLAB to organize a national media tour of the SNOLAB facility in the near future.