UNews - Matthew Tata

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers secure support through Alberta’s Major Innovation Fund

caroline.zentner — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 17:13:11 +0000

From using robotic systems in health-care delivery and building on quantum technologies to adapting highly sensitive space instruments to space and defence applications, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers are involved in a host of projects receiving grants through Alberta’s Major Innovation Fund.

The Honourable Nate Glubish, Minister of Technology and Innovation, announced today an investment of $27.3 million into innovative research in Alberta’s post-secondary institutions. The funding is designed to accelerate research and commercialization in medical devices, electronic and mobile health, clean energy and space and defence technologies. The funding goes to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta (U of A) and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary (U of C) to lead four province-wide strategic initiatives. ULethbridge and Athabasca ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ are partners in the projects.

“Supporting fundamental research and initiatives that commercialize new technologies is critical to strengthening and diversifying the Alberta economy,” says Dr. Dena McMartin, ULethbridge vice-president (research). “This investment will encourage new and traditional sectors to grow, improving the economic prospects and quality of life for all Albertans.”

Led by the U of C under the Space and Defence Technologies theme, Drs. David Naylor and Locke Spencer, professors in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, will be involved in migrating the technologies developed by the Astronomical Instrumentation Group (AIG) at ULethbridge. Advances made by the AIG resulted in the most sensitive instruments to be deployed in space.

“The announcement of the Major Innovation Fund for the Space and Defence Technologies theme is reflective of our increasingly more complex world,” says Naylor. “The MIF funding will allow us to migrate the technologies in which we are recognized as world leaders and develop them to meet the broader needs of the space and defence community.”

Another project led by the U of C is centred on quantum technology innovations and ULethbridge’s Dr. Saurya Das, a professor in the physics and astronomy department, is one of nine principal investigators.

“The second quantum revolution is on, which will change the way one thinks of computers and computation and will revolutionize communication and commerce,” he says. “Alberta researchers are key players in this, and their research will help diversify Alberta’s economy, create jobs, develop made-in-Alberta quantum technology, and make it accessible to end users in Alberta and beyond. ULethbridge researchers have been working on problems in Quantum Computation and Quantum Sensing and have made significant contributions to the project. In the process, they have published papers in top-rated international journals and trained students and postdocs.”

Dr. Matthew Tata, a professor at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, is the ULethbridge lead for a U of A-led project. A-MEDICO is a pan-Alberta network of researchers, industry and health-care professionals working on medical technologies for broad applications, especially for underserved populations. Tata was previously involved in a MIF project that focused on medical robotics, image-guided surgery and machine intelligence-based solutions for medicine.

“In both of these projects, my team is focused on applying state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for audio processing,” says Tata. “We have been developing audio AI for human-robot interaction in health care and industrial scenarios.”

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers awarded more than $2.3 million in NSERC, CFI funding support

trevor.kenney — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 22:07:42 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers across a breadth of disciplines have earned more than $2.3 million in funding support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), as announced by the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, and the Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health in Edmonton today.

The funding support is part of a $960-million investment by the federal government in research activities across the country.

“This funding is an integral part of the research process and supports our faculty members and their teams in multiple ways, from hiring essential personnel to training graduate and undergraduate students, to acquiring essential equipment and more,” says Dr. Dena McMartin, ULethbridge vice-president (research). “This support allows our researchers to continue to pursue the solutions to a host of issues facing society today and in the future.”

“My best wishes to all the recipients of these grants, awards and scholarships,” adds Minister Holland. “The government is pleased to invest in your diverse array of health, natural sciences and engineering research projects because we know that your ideas, passion and hard work, as well as the evidence you uncover, are instrumental in improving the health and quality of life of people in Canada, and your findings contribute to the international research effort around the world.”

In all, nine ULethbridge researchers were successful in their NSERC grant applications, which included funding for projects in neuroscience, biological sciences, chemistry & biochemistry and mathematics & computer science. As well, Drs. Majid Mohajerani and Stacey Wetmore earned CFI John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF) awards.

Among the projects are Dr. Roy Golsteyn’s (biological sciences) work investigating human cell division and utilizing beneficial chemicals in Canadian prairie plants, which was funded at $300,000 ($60,000 per year over five years). As well, Dr. Bruce McNaughton (neuroscience) receives $420,000 over five years for his study to understand the neural basis of long-term, episodic memory, and Dr. Robert Benkoczi (mathematics & computer science) is receiving a Discovery Development Grant valued at $40,000 over two years as he conducts fundamental research into finding new and more efficient algorithms for planning large scale evacuations.

“The projects our researchers are involved in cover a wide range of topics, all of which are focused on bettering society while providing excellent mentoring and training to undergraduate and graduate students,” adds McMartin. “These funding awards give just a glimpse of the breadth of research activity taking place daily across our campuses.”

Following are details on today’s grant announcements.

NSERC

Discovery Grant (5 years)

Dr. Roy Golsteyn (biological sciences) — Natural products as novel tools to investigate human cell division ($300,000) — Our research uncovers how human cells divide and seeks beneficial chemicals in Canadian prairie plants. From potential cancer treatments to sustainable practices, we are supporting scientific and economic innovation, while fostering cultural exchange with southern Alberta Indigenous communities.

Dr. Igor Kovalchuk (biological sciences) — Transgenerational response to stress in Arabidopsis ($255,000).

Dr. Marc Roussel (chemistry and biochemistry) — Delays in gene expression models: methodological developments ($225,000) — Development of methods for building and analyzing mathematical models of gene expression systems, where transcription, translation and splicing may play a significant role in the timing of events.

Dr. Bruce McNaughton (neuroscience) — Consolidation of cortical memory representations into hippocampus-independent form: neural ensemble dynamics and mechanisms ($420,000) — We are attempting to understand the neural basis of long-term, episodic memory, and its integration into generalized knowledge encoded by brain cells in the cerebral cortex.

Discovery Development Grant (2 years)

Dr. Olga Kovalchuk (biological sciences) — Exosomes - important mediators of direct and bystander radiation effects on the brain ($40,000).

Dr. Robert Benkoczi (mathematics & computer science) — Models and algorithms for facility location ($40,000) — This award supports fundamental research into finding new and more efficient algorithms for planning large scale evacuations.

Dr. Shahadat Hossain (mathematics & computer science) — Efficient computation with sparse and structured matrices – mathematical derivatives and beyond ($40,000).

Research Tools and Instruments (1 year)

Dr. Trushar Patel (chemistry & biochemistry) — Isothermal Titration Calorimetry for Studying Macromolecular Interactions ($150,000) — The installation of ITC (Isothermal Titration Calorimetry) at ULethbridge strengthens the biochemical and biophysical infrastructure as well as the research programs aimed at examining communication events that are at the heart of viral infections and cancer.

Dr. Matthew Tata (neuroscience) — Critical Refit and Upgrade to Electroencephalography Lab at ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge ($149,140) — This upgrade includes state-of-the-art electroencephalography systems to study how brain regions communicate with each other while solving the computational problems of perception and cognition.

CFI

John R. Evans Leaders Fund

Dr. Majid Mohajerani (neuroscience) — Innovative brain imaging techniques for aging-associated diseases ($563,466).

Dr. Stacey Wetmore (chemistry & biochemistry) — Tools for modeling the chemistry of modified nucleic acids ($139,702).

PUBlic Professor Series event explores how humans talk to robots

trevor.kenney — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 15:58:39 +0000

Robotics is a transformative technology, and within the coming decade, we’ll likely have smart and helpful machines that will exist alongside us at home and in the workplace. Those machines should, quite literally, do what we tell them to do. That is, we should be able to communicate our goals to robotics systems in the same way we interact with other people; we should be able to talk to robots. However, there’s a significant problem: most robots can’t hear.

Dr. Matthew Tata’s Cognitive Robotics Lab in the U of L’s Department of Neuroscience has been developing auditory AI for the past five years.

On Thursday, Oct. 24, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge neuroscience professor, Dr. Matthew Tata, will present How to Talk to Your Robot: Using Cognitive Neuroscience to Make Robots That Can Hear. This is the second talk of the 2019/20 season for the Faculty of Arts & Science’s PUBlic Professor Series. The free event runs from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Sandman Signature Lethbridge Lodge and is open to the public.

Tata’s Cognitive Robotics Lab in the U of L’s Department of Neuroscience has been developing auditory AI for the past five years, and this talk will explore how we solve some of the problems that face all hearing systems, whether they are biological or machine. Auditory AI needs to solve these computational problems in fast and efficient ways, so we turn to the human brain for inspiration in developing our algorithms. By studying how we localize sounds, understand speech, and focus our auditory attention, we not only achieve a better understanding of how the human brain works, but we also can translate these discoveries into algorithms for robots so they can behave more naturally in the auditory world.

His research program explores how the brain solves the computational problems of vision and hearing, using a range of technologies including dense-array electroencephalography (EEG), perceptual psychophysics and computer simulations. He is passionate about applied science and the translation of basic research into technologies that help people

Tata is also the co-founder and CEO of Reverb Robotics, a Lethbridge-based tech startup that develops auditory artificial intelligence for robotics and autonomous applications.

U of L researchers awarded more than $1.8 million in NSERC funding

caroline.zentner — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 16:47:48 +0000

Eleven ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers have been awarded Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grants worth approximately $1.8 million, payable in instalments of anywhere from one to five years.

“��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers were very successful this year, with 11 out of 14 applications being awarded funding,” says Dr. Erasmus Okine, U of L vice-president (Research). “This funding of almost $2 million demonstrates the calibre of research our scientists are engaged in and I congratulate each one of them.”

Dr. Gerlinde Metz, a neuroscience professor, received the U of L’s largest grant worth a total of $510,000. She and her research team will continue exploring early life stress and its effects on brain plasticity. They’ll examine how early life stress alters brain development, connections between neurons, and behaviour. They’ll also look at whether factors such as age and sex determine the response to early life stress and whether early life stress affects subsequent generations.

Dr. Theresa Burg, a biology professor, studies how the evolution of high-latitude species is linked to historical and present-day environmental changes. Examining how landscape features and past climate changes have shaped today’s populations can further the understanding of population dynamics and help predict how these species might respond to future climate change.

Dr. Dmytro Yevtushenko, a professor in the Department of Biology and Research Chair in Potato Science, was awarded an early career researcher supplement in addition to a Discovery Grant. Yevtushenko will conduct research into the natural defense mechanisms of potato plants. His work could lead to higher crop yields, less crop loss, increased food safety and could help point the way to improving disease resistance in other crops.

Dr. Borries Demeler, Canada 150 Research Chair and a professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, is a leading biophysics scientist with expertise in analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC). AUC is used to analyze molecules in solution. He has established the Canadian Center for Hydrodynamics, which is equipped with three unique AUC instruments to accelerate biophysical research in Canada. He hopes to develop new analysis protocols and software tools that will benefit basic research in biochemistry, physics and material science.

Other U of L researchers who received grants include Dr. Jon Doan (kinesiology and physical education), Dr. Stewart Rood (biology), Dr. Lawrence Flanagan (biology), Dr. Anthony Russell (biology), Dr. Hadi Kharaghani (mathematics and computer science), Dr. Matthew Tata (neuroscience) and Dr. Saurya Das (physics and astronomy).

Mitacs award winner takes studies overseas to Italy

trevor.kenney — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 22:35:20 +0000

Have you ever wanted to combine your studies with your interest in traveling overseas? Austin Kothig is a computer science student who had the wonderful opportunity to do just that, by completing a semester abroad in Italy during Fall 2018.

Computer science student Austin Kothig, left, was able to work on the iCub robot at the Italian Institute of Technology.

Kothig was awarded the Mitacs Globalink Research Award through collaboration between ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge neuroscience professor, Dr. Matthew Tata, and Dr. Francesco Rea from the Department of Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Science at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa, Italy.

Kothig’s U of L story actually began five years ago when, as a member of Lethbridge’s high school International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team that won first place at the iGEM 2013 High School Jamboree, he was awarded a scholarship to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. Having grown up in Lethbridge, he was happy to stay home for his post-secondary education. During the Spring 2017 semester, Kothig took Tata’s 3000 level interdisciplinary studies course, Introduction to Robotics. Inspired, he jumped at the opportunity to take an independent study in the Tata lab that involved working with the iCub robot, a complex humanoid robot. Through this project, Kothig met Rea and together with Tata and two other students, the group developed new algorithms for the iCub. The work required very specific procedures to create new behaviours and skills, and focused on various applications involving the implementation and improvement of cognitive models of the human attention system.

Through the Mitacs Globalink Research Award, Kothig was able to travel to Italy and continue working on developing biologically inspired software for the iCub as part of a four-month co-op work term. More specifically, he was working on a computational model for localizing human speech. The goal was to give the robot better context of what is happening in the auditory world. The project took inspiration from how human brains can effortlessly decode complex mixed signals. This context is then represented as the probability that there is a speaker at all angles around the robot.

“This project is significant because audio is a difficult computational challenge. The iCub platform is unique because between the two microphones on the head is a computer with a cooling fan. This ends up causing a lot of noise in the auditory world,” explains Kothig.

Kothig established numerous collaborative relationships while overseas.

“In a lot of the demos with the iCub, the person giving instructions to the robot (i.e. pick up the toy octopus) is speaking to a monoaural microphone in their hand. This is done to ensure that the speech recognition they are using has ‘clean’ input. A long-term goal would be to take what we have developed and use the probabilities of where human speech is coming from as the target locations for where the robot should be attenuating to, ignoring all other positions.”

It wasn’t all work for Kothig in Italy. Over the course of his semester, he made several new friends among the PhD students at IIT, especially enjoying the “lab dinners” they would enjoy at the many different restaurants and pizzerias in Genoa. His journey with robotics has inspired him to pursue a master’s program doing research on AI and robotics.

“Getting involved in research in your undergrad is an excellent experience. It can help foster skills and knowledge beyond lectures. Showing interest in academic research is a great way to build connections, not only internally but also externally,” says Kothig. “Don’t be afraid to look for opportunities outside of your department. A key strategy in software engineering is to make your team diverse and interdisciplinary; having vastly different academic perspectives on a project often results in better solutions.”

Kothig goes on to say, “Find out from your supervisors if they have had any previous collaborations, partnerships, or colleagues that are with institutes outside of Canada. Preexisting connections are a fantastic way to jumpstart your application.”

The Mitacs Globalink Research Award provides $6,000 for senior undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows in Canada to conduct 12 to 24-week research projects at universities overseas.

For more information about the Mitacs Globalink Research Award, click here.

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.

Coding the iCub – making connections with cognitive robotics

trevor.kenney — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 23:12:51 +0000

An international partnership between ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge neuroscience professor Dr. Matthew Tata and Dr. Francesco Rea (Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa) has given three undergraduate students the unique opportunity to work on an independent study focused on cognitive robotics.

Tata started working with Rea during a sabbatical year in 2013-2014 when he lived in Genoa, Italy and worked full time at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Each of the students had an opportunity to work on different features of the iCub's interactivity.

“It was a perfect example of how a sabbatical study leave should work. I spent a year working with Dr. Rea learning everything I could about robotics, which was completely absent from the curriculum and research environment at the U of L. I brought robotics back with me and set up a lab and an introductory course, and maintained the collaboration with Dr. Rea so that students and researchers at the U of L can tap the expertise of IIT,” says Tata. “Our collaboration with colleagues at IIT aims to translate our discoveries about human cognitive neuroscience into technologies for robot perception and attention. This will make robots better at understanding and responding to human instructions.”

Rea received a BSc in Software Engineering from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Bergamo, Italy and went on to do an MSc in Robotics and Automation at Salford ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, England. He then received a PhD from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Genoa in 2013 where he developed machine vision and attention algorithms for human-robot interaction. Since 2013, he has been a researcher at IIT where he takes a brain-inspired approach to develop advanced cognitive robotics for the iCub humanoid robot.

“My research is focused on human-robot interaction and also cognitive robotics. These two disciplines work together, and we strongly believe that if we want to interact with robots, we need to share the same neuroscientific models of interaction,” says Rea. “We know that the U of L is a very important university where research in the field is well-known across the world. We are convinced that by studying those models here, we can more easily port them on a complex humanoid robot such as the iCub.”

The iCub is the humanoid robot developed at IIT as part of the EU project RobotCub and subsequently adopted by more than 20 laboratories worldwide. It has 53 motors that move the head, arms and hands, waist and legs. It can see and hear, and it has the sense of proprioception (body configuration) and movement (using accelerometers and gyroscopes).

“The humanoid robot, iCub, is complex – and there is a very specific reason. We want to create the perfect platform for the study of humans, so we need a little bit of complexity that is justified by the fact that we really want to reproduce some human behaviours,” says Rea. “It is complex, but there is a huge community of iCub users that collaborate together. By doing so, we can easily build on each other’s work and quickly provide very new innovative achievements, which relaxes the complexity of the platform a bit and is definitely one of the advantages of working with the iCub.”

Rea was in Tata’s lab working with computer science undergraduate students Lukas Grasse, Austin Kothig and Alex Hochheiden on the iCub robot. The students have been focused on various applications involving the implementation and improvement of cognitive models of the human attention system. He is working on introducing the students to developing new algorithms on a complex humanoid robot, which requires very specific procedures to create new behaviours and skills. “The idea is to achieve cognitive robotics and apply neuroscientific plausible models to robots.

The goal is to improve and validate those models – at the same time trying to give the robot skills that are human-like, skills that will eventually allow the robot to interact with humans in a natural fashion,” says Rea.

The students found their work with Drs. Tata and Rea to be very rewarding, and gained a lot from working with the iCub. Alex Hochheiden has been getting up to speed working with the robot for the first time.

“Other team members have been working with it for a semester or more, so I'm just trying to learn what they know and how I can contribute,” he says. “In addition to that, I've been looking at how we can optimize our code, helping troubleshoot issues and thinking about how to apply some software engineering best practices.”

Lukas Grasse has been working on the iCub’s understanding of speech in the environment and its response to when someone addresses it with “Hello iCub” or in Italian “Ciao iCub”. Like the others, he was first introduced to robotics through an Introduction to Robotics course offered by Tata, and has pursued the interest ever since.

“I really liked the class and have been doing independent studies in Dr. Tata’s lab since then. Cognitive robotics is an awesome field because it requires knowledge from many different areas, and you get to work with people that have different backgrounds and experience,” he says. “The field of cognitive robotics is just getting started. Working with Dr. Tata and Dr. Rea has made me realize how important it is for people to be able to interact with robots naturally using speech, touch, etc. I think this is true for technology in general, and I plan to keep working on solutions that enable these natural interactions.”

Austin Kothig also has plans to continue working with robotics.

“I've been spending a lot of time working in the lab with Dr. Tata and Dr. Rea, and have definitely learned a lot about how the global iCub community develops software for the robot,” he says. “Prior to doing my summer independent study I thought that I would be happy with a Bachelor in Computer Science. Since then I have been inspired to continue on to apply for a master's program doing research on AI and robotics.”

It is important to consider the impact of cognitive robotics in a world where humans have been building machines to help us do work for thousands of years.

“Now, with the advances of computer science, engineering and cognitive science we can build machines that are interactive and smart. They can make decisions. This is the most important technology of the 21st century and it will be highly disruptive,” says Tata. “There are many important technical and societal implications that we need to carefully consider and understand, so Canada needs to have highly-trained scientists working on the state-of-the-art in the field. That means working at the interface between neuroscience and robotics.”

Connect with Dr. Matthew Tata to learn more, or visit his lab website: tatalab.ca

Graduate students honoured with research awards

trevor.kenney — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:34:27 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge celebrated the achievements of 21 graduate students last night at the 2012 Graduate Student Research Awards reception.

"These graduate students are exemplars of academic achievement," says Dr. Robert Wood, dean of the School of Graduate Studies. "The exciting academic work that they do is advancing the frontiers of knowledge and creativity, and it cultivates and builds an essential foundation for our growing reputation as a comprehensive university. Indeed, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ community is immensely proud of these accomplished graduate student scholars."

Following is a list of the 2012 award winners.

Alberta Innovates Health Solutions
Erin Zelinski
(Robert Sutherland)
Neuroscience

Corinne Sidler
(Olga Kovalchuk)
Biological Sciences

Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures
Aaron Mullin
(Craig Coburn)
Geography

Alberta Cancer Foundation
Lidiya Luzhna
(Olga Kovalchuk)
Biological Sciences

Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral (NSERC)
Patrick Barks
(Robert Laird)
Biological Sciences

Andrew Hudson
(Camron Goater & Tony Russell)
Biological Sciences

Jenni Karl
(Ian Whishaw)
Neuroscience

Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship Master (NSERC)
Kathryn Kuchapski
(Joseph Rasmussen)
Biological Sciences

Kirsten Rosler
(Hans-Joachim Wieden)
Chemistry and Biochemistry

Aaron Mullin
(Craig Coburn)
Geography

Natalie Freeman
(Louise Barrett & Peter Henzi)
Psychology

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship Master's (SSHRC)
Gillian Ayers
(Claudia Malacrida)
Sociology

Leslie Bush
(Robbin Derry)
Management

Stacey Leavitt
(Michelle Helstein & Sean Brayton)
Kinesiology & Physical Education

Daniel Rutledge
(Sameer Deshpande)
Management

Rachel Shields
(Jason Laurendeau)
Sociology

Mark Bruce
(Dawn McBride)
Education

School of Graduate Studies Fellowship
Darcy Best
(Hadi Kharaghani)
Mathmatics & Computer Science

Health Quality Council of Alberta
Shannon Vandenberg
(Judith Kulig)
Health Sciences

endMS
Brietta Gerrard
(Artur Luczak)
Neuroscience

Alberta Gambling Research Institute
Scott Oberg
(Matthew Tata)
Neuroscience

UNews - Matthew Tata

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