A doctoral citation summarizes the nature of the independent research, provides a high-level overview of the study, states the significance of the work and says who will benefit from the findings in clear, non-specialized language, so that members of a lay audience will understand it.
| Year | Citation | NID |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Dr. Tennant examined the role of a specific protein called Myt3 in the context of pancreas development and diabetes. His work identified this protein as a novel regulator of cell survival in the cells responsible for controlling blood glucose. His research points to Myt3 as a potential therapeutic target for improving the lives of diabetic patients. | Doctor of Philosophy in Cell and Developmental Biology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Laidlaw explored how individuals look at and pay attention to other people. She documented several factors that influence whether and how people direct their attention to others in both everyday situations and while looking at images or videos. Her work bridges a gap between traditional theories of visual attention and everyday experiences. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Nguyen investigated the regenerative activity of normal and malignant breast stem cells and developed a model to generate breast tumours from normal human breast cells. This work was instrumental in understanding the early changes that occur during tumour formation and how the diversity of breast cancer arises from normal starting cells. | Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (MDPhD) |
| 2016 | Drift chambers are used in high-energy physics experiments to detect charged particles. Dr. Caron built prototype drift chambers that identify particles better than previous designs. He showed that the new technique is not expensive to implement, so all future experiments with drift chambers could benefit from implementing his technique. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Amirzeheni used computational methods to study the seismic performance of basement walls during an earthquake. Her research provided insights and recommendations for an appropriate fraction of the code-mandated loads in seismic design as they relate to current practice in BC. Her findings contribute to more economical seismic designs in BC. | Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Mancini explored how linguistics research on the production and reception of speech can contribute to understanding poetry, literature and literary history. He found that rumour, reported speech and unhappy laughter have been important forces in shaping literary canons. His work contributes to dialogue between social sciences and humanities. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Hu created a crowdsensing platform which addresses the research challenges in the overall workflow of crowdsensing in vehicular social networks (VSNs) in terms of task allocation and task execution. This platform supports the creation of different context-aware mobile crowdsensing applications and facilitates their real-world deployments in VSNs. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Erfani explored current practices and challenges of mobile app development through a series of empirical and qualitative studies. Based on her findings, she proposed automated techniques to generate state models and detect inconsistencies in multi-platform mobile apps. Her research will provide new ideas and models for mobile app development. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Glier investigated the role of methyl metabolism in obesity-related heart disease. She discovered that disturbances in methyl metabolism contribute to obesity-related changes in cardiac energy metabolism and function. Her research provides insight into molecular mechanisms linking obesity and the development of heart disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PhD) |
| 2016 | Aerosols are an important component of the atmosphere that influence weather and climate. Dr. Mason's research examined how aerosols may modify cloud formation, lifetime, and reflectivity by causing ice formation. In developing a new technique and deploying it in field studies, his results provide insight into the properties of ice-active aerosols. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Smendziuk studied stem cell regulation in the fruit fly testis. He identified the gap junction proteins that help the soma and germline communicate with each other during sperm development and characterized their roles in the stem cell niche. These studies assist us in understanding how stem cell behaviour is controlled in all animals. | Doctor of Philosophy in Cell and Developmental Biology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Bround studied the role of the RYR2 protein in heart cells. He found that the same signals that cause heart contraction are also involved in maintaining heart rate and promoting energy production. His work provides both insights into how heart cells coordinate their activity as well as a greater understanding of heart health and disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Cell and Developmental Biology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Cloud gaming is a future form of digital entertainment that enables gamers to play the latest computer games anywhere and anytime. Dr. Cai completed his research in optimizing the quality of service delivery including video encoding and software decomposition. His research provided insightful ideas for designing next generation cloud gaming systems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Tong studied how the E3 ligases and helper NLRs affect plant immunity.These studies help us to better understand how plants defend against pathogens. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Pickell examined the impacts of human appropriation of Canada's boreal forest on the spatial patterns of forested ecosystems. He developed new approaches for evaluating forest land management strategies and remotely monitoring the ecological condition of our forests. | Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Melashvili studied the leaching of gold with thiosulphate that had been generated by the simultaneous oxidation of pyrite. She derives an equation predicting thiosulphate yield based on a conceptual model for the progress of a series of reactions. Her findings offer an interesting possibility for process development in the gold sector. | Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Engineering (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Naddafzadeh Shirazi studied different aspects of wireless communication technologies and optimized them for supporting large networks and automated communications. He developed novel communication protocols for reducing the cost of operations and increasing the lifetime of wireless devices. Dr. Naddafzadeh Shirazi holds 7 US Patents. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Blasberg examined how perfectionistic personality impacts the thoughts and feelings people have when ostracized. He found people who need to be or appear perfect, react to being ostracized with more intense feelings and negative thoughts. His work helps explain how perfectionistic personality leads to emotional distress in response to ostracism. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Hanson conducted research on virus-mediated heart disease at the Centre for Heart and Lung Innovation at St. Paul's Hospital. Specifically, his work focused on viral proteases and their cellular targets. These findings may be useful in future diagnosis and treatment of this disease, preventing heart failure and death in these patients. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Wicaksono investigated the interaction between metals and added impurities. Using networks of computers, he tracked the movement of individual atoms to develop models that incorporate atomistic information about the microstructural design of the materials. This work has the potential to improve the structural performance of metal materials. | Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Engineering (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Mason studied school-aged children's speech in long words, that may impact learning to read. Her results indicated that children with a history of speech therapy had difficulty with multi-syllabic words even though they were able to pronounce short words. Her work also contributed a clinical measure for assessing speech in long words. | Doctor of Philosophy in Audiology and Speech Sciences (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. McMullin constructed a set of artificial languages for people to learn in the laboratory, and showed that the way humans learn linguistic sound patterns influences the range of patterns found across the world's languages. His dissertation argues that current linguistic theory cannot account for this, and proposes a mathematically principled definition of what constitutes a possible language. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Singh examined the relationship between tribal communities and forests in India. Her research establishes the criminalization of tribal way-of-life on account of inconsistent forest laws. The research offers insights into participatory forest management to protect tribal rights and forests, advocating a serious overhaul of forest laws. | Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Connolly studied how the mutant protein in Huntington's Disease affects inflammation of the brain. He found that although monocytes both in the brain and periphery have altered function, this does not play a role in the progression of Huntington's. This knowledge will aid the design of future studies and therapies for people who have this devastating disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Genetics (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Schmitt studied drug concentrations in skin tissue fluid for use in therapeutic drug detection. She found that many drugs are detectable in skin tissue fluid and that their concentrations can be quite different from blood concentrations. In the future, this can lead to the development of blood- and pain- free drug monitoring devices. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Sciences (PhD) |