UNews - Christopher Hopkinson

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge awarded record $3.9 million in NSERC funding

trevor.kenney — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 22:04:26 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge was awarded a record $3.9 million of funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) this year, with U of L researchers earning support for projects in neuroscience, biological sciences, psychology, chemistry & biochemistry, physics & astronomy, geography and mathematics & computer science.

This unprecedented level of support was announced earlier today by Canada’s Minister of State (Science and Technology), the Honourable Ed Holder, at a national funding announcement in Oshawa, Ont.

Dr. Robert McDonald’s base grant of $355,000 (over five years) is the largest NSERC grant awarded to the U of L this year.

“This latest round of NSERC funding clearly demonstrates the outstanding research our faculty and students are undertaking,” says Interim Vice-President (Research) Dr. Lesley Brown. “That our research portfolio continues to grow as it does is testament to the quality of the work being done and also speaks to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ striking the right balance as a comprehensive teaching and research institution.”

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers receiving NSERC Discovery Grant funding include: Dr. Gerlinde Metz (neuroscience); Dr. Aaron Gruber (neuroscience); Dr. Alice Hontela (biological sciences); Dr. Jean-Baptiste Leca (psychology); Dr. David Logue (psychology); Dr. Artur Luczak (neuroscience); Dr. Robert McDonald (neuroscience); Dr. Majid Mohajerani (neuroscience); Dr. Gregory Pyle (biological sciences); Dr. Masami Tatsuno (neuroscience); Dr. Paul Vasey (psychology); Dr. Robert Laird (biological sciences); Dr. René Boeré (chemistry & biochemistry); Dr. Paul Hayes (chemistry & biochemistry); Dr. Locke Spencer (physics & astronomy); Dr. Mark Walton (physics & astronomy); Dr. Christopher Hopkinson (geography); Dr. Robert Benkoczi (mathematics & computer science); Dr. Shahadat Hossain (mathematics & computer science); Dr. Habiba Kadiri (mathematics & computer science); Dr. Nathan Ng (mathematics & computer science).

In addition, Drs. John Zhang and Olga Kovalchuk were each awarded NSERC Discovery Development Grants.

Luczak and McDonald will also both receive an additional $120,000 in funds through the Discovery Accelerator Supplements program (over a three-year period), while McDonald’s base grant of $355,000 (over five years) is the largest NSERC grant awarded to the U of L this year. He is studying neural circuits and mechanisms of context-specific conditioned inhibition.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s doctoral students were extremely successful in the NSERC Doctoral Scholarship competitions, led by Katie Wilson (chemistry & biochemistry), who was named a Canada Vanier Scholar, demonstrating leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies. Jason Flindall (neuroscience) was awarded a Canadian Doctoral Scholarship, while Kayla Stone (neuroscience), Allonna Harker (neuroscience) and Stefan Lenz (chemistry & biochemistry) were awarded NSERC Postgraduate Doctoral Scholarships. Additionally, five masters students were awarded the NSERC Canadian Graduate Scholarship, including: Justin Lee (neuroscience), Serena Shandik (neuroscience), Matthew Robbins (physics & astronomy), Rhys Hakstol (chemistry & biochemistry) and Douglas Turnbull (chemistry & biochemistry).

“We are pleased with the amount of money invested in our researchers and what this could yield in terms of the results they will achieve and the benefits their work will bring to society,” adds Brown. “Our continuing success with the federal research funding agencies is testament to our researchers’ ability to compete on the national stage.”

NSERC grants aim to develop, attract and retain the world’s most talented researchers at Canadian universities who are working in a multitude of scientific and engineering disciplines.

ARTeMiS helps Hopkinson get a better look at our Earth

david.kirby — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:59:28 +0000

In the world of academic research, acronyms are pervasive, condensing the titles of everything from funding agencies to prestigious fellowships. But in the case of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge geography researcher Dr. Christopher Hopkinson, the acronym for his latest project is not only an easy-to-remember abbreviation, but also a symbol of the initiative’s ambitions.

Dr. Christopher Hopkinson is the Unversity's new Chair in Terrestrial Ecosystem Remote Sensing.

“I’m interested in enhancing our understanding of the environment and natural resources,” says Hopkinson.

With such an ecologically minded focus, it’s perhaps not surprising Hopkinson is using his research to pay homage to a Greek goddess best known for protecting the wilderness and natural world. The advanced-resolution terradynamic monitoring system (ARTeMiS for short) is a suite of hardware and software technologies that Hopkinson is integrating to improve simultaneous imaging of the Earth’s surface and what’s happening just beneath it.

A national leader in remote sensing technology and its applications, Hopkinson was named a Chair in Terrestrial Ecosystem Remote Sensing in 2013. He was one of three new Chairs who were added to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ last year as part of the Government of Alberta’s Campus Alberta Innovation Program Chairs plan (a fourth will be announced later in 2014).

Previously an adjunct professor at Acadia, Dalhousie and Wilfrid Laurier Universities, Hopkinson came to the U of L from his most recent post in Canberra, Australia. There, he spent a year as an environmental research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the country’s national research agency, combining ground-based, airborne and satellite lidar (remote sensing) data to estimate changes in forest biomass carbon stocks.

Today at the U of L, Hopkinson has received more than $233,000 in funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to develop ARTeMiS, an integrated system of field-based sensors that will support 3-D monitoring of seasonal and long-term environmental changes and vegetation processes.

The initiative also involves U of L professors Dr. Hester Jiskoot and Dr. Laura Chasmer. In addition, while three postdoctoral fellows will begin working alongside Hopkinson in the coming months, he envisions that undergraduate and graduate students will contribute to the research in the future, supporting such activities as system integration, field testing, data collection and environmental modeling.

ARTeMiS will map and quantify surface and sub-surface features and rates of change. “The landscape is complicated,” explains Hopkinson. “There are many environmental processes to observe at once – for example, freezing and thawing – and those changes are imperceptible right now because we can’t see below and above the ground surface at the same time.”

ARTeMiS, meanwhile, will enable concurrent 3D imaging of the surface and sub-surface. And the resulting data will eventually help researchers to better grasp the intricate connections among environmental changes, such as forest growth, snowpack evolution, wetland regeneration, and climate change, natural resource management, human disturbance and land reclamation in boreal, alpine, montane and floodplain ecosystems.

“Without this new technology, it will be very difficult to get a handle on these changes and just how important they are,” says Hopkinson.

U of L researchers get funding boost from Canada Foundation for Innovation

trevor.kenney — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 22:48:29 +0000

From below the earth’s surface to the farthest reaches of the universe, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers are embarking on a pair of significant study projects thanks to research infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

On Wednesday, CFI announced a $63-million investment in support of cutting-edge research equipment, laboratories and tools through the John R. Evans Leaders Fund and the Infrastructure Operating Fund. A total of 250 facilities in 37 universities across Canada will receive funding.

For the U of L, it translates into nearly $350,000 in CFI infrastructure support. It will allow Drs. Christopher Hopkinson and Locke Spencer, and their colleagues, the opportunity to pursue imaging studies both on the ground and deep into space.

Dr. Chris Hopkinson is the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's Chair in Terrestrial Ecosystems Remote Sensing.

“The tremendous impact that Drs. Spencer and Hopkinson make in their respective fields will only be enhanced by this important investment,” says the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s Vice-President (Research) Dr. Dan Weeks. “The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge has increased its research capacity through the attraction of world-leading talent such as these two faculty members and these CFI funds will help ensure the full potential of their research programs is realized.”

The funded projects are as follows:

An Integrated System for High Resolution Terradynamic 3D Imaging

Principal Investigator– Dr. Christopher Hopkinson

Co-applicants– Dr. Laura Chasmer and Dr. Hester Jiskoot

Hopkinson, the Campus Alberta Innovates Program (CAIP) Chair in Terrestrial Ecosystems Remote Sensing, is leading a study that will look at a range of geosciences research questions related to seasonal and long-term environmental changes.

The CFI support of $233,670 will assist in creating a suite of field-based sensors that will support 3D monitoring of environmental processes at plot to landscape scales.

“Our understanding of earth surface/vegetation processes and feedbacks are often limited by an inability to simultaneously observe causes and effects both above and below the ground surface,” says Hopkinson. “This unique integrated advanced-resolution terradynamic monitoring system (ARTeMiS) will be deployed to map and quantify 3D surface and sub-surface features and rates of change. From forest growth to mountain snowpacks to wetland regeneration, ARTeMiS will help characterize both natural and modified ecosystem dynamics.”

The work is significant in that it focuses on issues related to climate change impacts, natural resource management, human disturbance and land reclamation in boreal, alpine, montane and floodplain ecosystems.

Imaging the Universe in the Far-Infrared

Principal Investigator– Dr. Locke Spencer

Spencer (MSc ’05, PhD ’09), a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Experimental Astrophysics, in collaboration with an international team working on related research, is leading an instrumentation project that will improve experimental astrophysics observations in the Far-Infrared (FIR) spectral region, thereby helping us to better understand the formation and evolution of stars, galaxies and the universe as a whole.

“Within Canada, the need to increase support for laboratory-based experimental astrophysics has been identified as a top priority,” says Spencer, who just recently returned to the U of L through the Canada Research Chairs program. “Over half of the energy emitted by the universe appears in the relatively unexplored Far-Infrared spectral region. With the help of this funding, instrumentation will be developed to advance the technologies and techniques needed by future space instruments exploring the Far-Infrared. Many of the current open questions in astrophysics are waiting on better observations in this region.”

The CFI support of $115,200 will allow Spencer to develop a hybrid instrument combining a Fourier transform spectrometer with a spatial interferometer.

While the equipment will initially be developed in a lab, the overall goal of the program is to enhance observations from space-based telescopes. It will also support the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s continued emergence as a key contributor to astronomy research on both the national and international stage.

“This investment, in parallel to current Canadian efforts in the FIR, presents a ground floor opportunity for Canada to become a key partner in future-generation ground and space-based FIR astronomy observatories,” adds Spencer.

By funding projects such as those initiated by Drs. Hopkinson and Spencer, CFI is helping to ensure that Canada remains a world leader in terms of research and innovation.

“Canadian institutions benefit from investments in research infrastructure which provide the tools needed to be at the forefront of innovation,” says Dr. Gilles Patry, president and CEO of CFI. “The research conducted in these labs and facilities will also train a new generation of researchers which will help Canada maintain its position as a global economic leader.”

UNews - Christopher Hopkinson

��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge awarded record $3.9 million in NSERC funding

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��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge awarded record $3.9 million in NSERC funding