UNews - Marc Bomhof

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers awarded federal research grants worth more than $3 million

caroline.zentner — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 21:50:59 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers are among the successful applicants for federal grants announced by The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, and the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health.

The more than $1.3 billion in funding supports over 9,700 researchers and research projects in Canada through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

“From brain plasticity and the mechanism of low-dose radiation to supporting newcomers through mentoring, these grants illustrate the diversity of research being done at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge,” says Dr. Dena McMartin, vice-president of research. “This funding not only helps established researchers continue their work but also helps our early career researchers build their research programs. Ultimately, our students benefit with increased opportunities to engage in research throughout their post-secondary careers.”

In total, ULethbridge received funding from NSERC for nine Discovery Grants and two Discovery Development Grants. The Discovery Grants will bring in nearly $475,000 a year for the next five years. The research projects include the following:

Dr. Gerlinde Metz (Neuroscience) will receive $96,000 per year for a study looking at the social determinants of experience-dependent brain plasticity.
Dr. Stacey Wetmore (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $89,000 per year for a project involving computer modelling of modified RNA.
Dr. Olga Kovalchuk (Biological Sciences) was awarded $55,000 annually to study the fundamental mechanisms of low-dose radiation.
Dr. Borries Demeler (Chemistry & Biochemistry) is set to receive $47,000 yearly for solution studies of interacting biopolymer systems.
Dr. Hadi Kharaghani (Mathematics & Computer Science) will receive $32,000 a year for his project on special orthogonal matrices.

The remainder of the NSERC recipients are four early career researchers, each of whom received a Discovery Launch Supplement of $12,500 in addition to their Discovery Grant.

Dr. Corina Birghila (Mathematics & Computer Science) was awarded a yearly amount of $31,000 for a project titled Optimal Decision under Uncertainty.
Dr. Jessica Willi (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $44,000 annually for a project on ribosome functions through synthetic biology.
Dr. Vineet Rathod (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $38,000 annually to examine the structure-function relationship of natural and engineered amyloid proteins.
Dr. Dylan Girodat (Chemistry & Biochemistry) will receive $42,000 per year for a project on the structural dynamics of ribosomes during translation.

In addition, Discovery Development Grants, worth $22,000 each, were awarded to Drs. Christopher Hopkinson (Geography & Environment) and Marc Bomhof (Kinesiology and Physical Education).

Hopkinson will use remote sensing to model vegetation and snowpack response to wildland fire in headwater basins.
Bomhof intends to look at the interplay between exercise and dietary factors on appetite regulation.

ULethbridge social science and humanities researchers were awarded $645,000 in SSHRC Insight Grants.

Dr. Daniel O'Donnell (English) will work on a project involving Research Data Management and Research Data Infrastructure by humanities researchers.
Dr. Scott Rathwell (Kinesiology) wants to enhance sport participation, promote physical activity and improve health outcomes for aging adults by establishing a framework for effective sport programming in middle-aged and older adults.

Several ULethbridge researchers are the recipients of Insight Development Grants totalling more than $291,000.

Dr. Toupey Luft (Education) has designed a project to address the gap in understanding how arts-based mentorship may enhance a sense of belonging for newcomer young adults.
Dr. Kenneth Holyoke’s (Geography & Environment) project investigates the nature and scope of climate impacts on the Wolastoqiyik and Wabanaki archaeological record in New Brunswick.
Dr. Justin Raycraft’s (Anthropology) objective in this project is to increase understanding of the social dimensions of human-carnivore coexistence in the Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania.
Dr. Jeffrey MacCormack (Education) will develop a professional development intervention consisting of a community of practice for teachers and principals where they learn evidence-based practices to support students with profound and multiple disabilities.
Dr. Miranda Leibel (Liberal Education) will examine how the creation and maintenance of postal services are an important component of Canadian state- and nation-building.

Faculty and student researchers buoyed by NSERC funding

trevor.kenney — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 18:07:49 +0000

A diverse and comprehensive group of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers was awarded $1.98 million in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) this week, part of $558 million in total funding to post-secondary researchers and students, the largest investment in research from NSERC this year.

Projects in chemistry & biochemistry, neuroscience, kinesiology & physical education, mathematics & computer science, environmental science, biology and psychology all received funding support.

In addition, eight graduate students received $336,000 in funding, further broadening the impact of the federal government’s investment in research activities at the U of L.

“Canada supports science and our talented researchers. We are delivering on our historic investment in research and in the next generation of scientists. These remarkable researchers and students we are celebrating are working to make the world a better place and to secure a brighter future for all Canadians,” says The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport.

Dr. Erasmus Okine, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s vice-president (research) says he is impressed with the breadth of research being funded.

“It speaks to the level of activity we have going on throughout the institution, and the variety of issues our researchers and students are tackling,” says Okine. “This level of funding is a recognition by NSERC that our people are making a real difference through their research work and will continue to do so.”

Projects in chemistry & biochemistry, neuroscience, kinesiology & physical education, mathematics & computer science, environmental science, biology and psychology all received funding support. Dr. Robert Sutherland’s study in the Department of Neuroscience, Hippocampus and memory: A systems level approach, earned $285,000 over five years, the largest award of the funded projects.

Sutherland describes the hippocampus as being situated at the hub of a set of distributed cortical networks that represent movement and perceptual information. Amnesia is the most prominent effect of damage to or dysfunction of the hippocampus and most forms of human memory disorder involve the hippocampus.

“The current proposal examines, in detail, how the interactions between the hippocampus and other cortical networks establish long-term memories,” says Sutherland, director of the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience. “We will discover exactly which types of information depend on the hippocampus and how the hippocampus modifies the functioning of the cortex through long-term interactions.”

Dr. Louise Barrett, Canada Research Chair in Cognition, Evolution and Behaviour and member of the U of L’s Department of Psychology, will receive $200,000 over five years (plus an accelerator supplement of $120,000 over three years) for her project, Behavioural Flexibility, Fertility and Social Network Influences in Human and Non-Human Primates.

In her work, Barrett aims to understand how evolutionary processes influence the behaviour of human and non-human primates.

“More specifically, I am interested in exploring those aspects that we share with other primate species, and those that make us different,” she says.

Other funded researchers include:

Dr. Matthew Tata, neuroscience; Dr. Steven Mosimann, chemistry & biochemistry; Dr. Marc Roussel, chemistry & biochemistry; Dr. Athanasios Zovoilis, chemistry & biochemistry; Dr. Marc Bomhof, kinesiology & physical education; Dr. John Anvik, mathematics & computer science; Dr. Alexey Popov, mathematics & computer science; Dr. David Euston, neuroscience; Dr. Sergio Pellis, neuroscience; Dr. Stephanus Henzi, psychology; Dr. Cameron Goater, biological sciences; Dr. Majid Mohajerani, neuroscience.

Graduate students who received funding include:

Elijah Dueck, chemistry & biochemistry; Lukas Grasse, neuroscience; Samantha Krause, psychology; Kailyn Nelson, environmental science; Candace Burke, neuroscience; Serena Jenkins, neuroscience; Justin Lee, neuroscience; Conner MacNeil, chemistry & biochemistry.

UNews - Marc Bomhof

��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers awarded federal research grants worth more than $3 million

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Faculty and student researchers buoyed by NSERC funding

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��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers awarded federal research grants worth more than $3 million