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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Dr. Solomonson studied how bacteria cause the disease tuberculosis, or TB, which is still a major world-wide problem. He provided a glimpse of the tiny molecular machines used by the bacteria to manipulate human cells during an infection. The findings will hopefully contribute to the development of better drugs and vaccines to prevent and treat TB. | Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. French investigated how the philosopher Rudolf Carnap understood logic as a kind of conceptual technology. The result is philosophy as conceptual engineering: scientific concepts can be designed and constructed to satisfy the pragmatic demands of scientists. His work has implications for how to view the conceptual foundations of the sciences. | Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Welsted developed a model to explain the excessive accumulation of objects by individuals with hoarding disorder. Her results suggest that these individuals are particularly adept at finding value in items others consider worthless. This work contributes to a better understanding of this complex and little studied form of psychopathology. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Noel studied the potential for artificial devices in fluids to share information by sending molecules. He developed a theoretical model for a device to learn about its fluid environment and how it receives information from other devices. His model will aid in the design of new communication networks, and helps us understand biological communication. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Ryz studied the ways in which vitamin D affects the gut during colitis. Her novel research showed that high levels of vitamin D can negatively affect the intestinal immune system, increasing the risk of infection by dangerous gut bacteria. Her findings may help patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, who are at high risk of bacterial infection. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Montes-Aste found fractal patterns in the temporal dynamics of commercial shrimp catches off the BC coast. He discovered a close link between a long-range temporal memory in fisheries and oceanographic variability. This led to development of a novel early warning indicator to be used in predicting major changes through the history of the fishery. | Doctor of Philosophy in Oceanography (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Ruan completed doctoral studies in the field of Botany. She explored the function of microtubules in root development in plants, and investigated how microtubules and hormones coordinate, to control root growth. Her findings contribute to a better understanding the evolution of land plants, and can be applied to important agricultural questions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Tewari completed his doctoral work in mathematics, focusing on research in the field of combinatorics, and spending many hours counting. He studied a prominent analogue of the ubiquitous Schur functions. These functions show up and have applications in fields as diverse as Informatics and Quantum theory. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Wrightson's research looked at the ways in which Indigenous peoples challenge museum exhibitions that reflect a colonial perspective. She found that Indigenous communities engage museums directly by creating new pieces and representing themselves. The result of these engagements supports Indigenous decolonizing political movements. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. McAuliffe studied speech perception, the field in linguistics that focuses on how listeners are able to perceive and understand speech. Specifically, he focussed on perceptual learning, which refers to how listeners update their perceptual system in response to hearing speech. His findings contribute to cognitive models of speech perception. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Nobarany investigated the scholarly peer-review process used to select papers for journals and conferences. Specifically, he examined fairness, anonymity, motivations for reviewing, politeness of reviewers, and opinion measurement mechanisms. Based on the findings, he devised and proposed solutions for improving computer-support for peer review. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Lee studied the neural basis of stress and emotional behavior in adolescence. She found that neural and behavioural responses to stress exposure differ across the life span. Her research enhances our understanding of how stress and cannabis exposure affects the developing brain, behaviour, and the development of stress-related disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Hajipour completed his PhD in the field of wireless networks in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He proposed sophisticated and efficient algorithms for allocating system resources in mobile networks. As a result of his research, high-data-rate services can be provided in mobile networks with better quality and lower overhead and complexity. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2015 | Have you ever tried to do so many things at once that you couldn't get anything done? Dr. Rogers' research into designing computer hardware demonstrates that computer processors suffer from a similar problem. His work on scheduling mechanisms to reuse data in computers improves the speed and energy usage of both smartphones and large scale data centres. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Ardila Garcia examined the diversity of fungal parasites, or Microsporidia, in the Northwest Pacific ocean. He discovered and characterized the first case of a microsporidian infection in a marine roundworm. This discovery led to novel insights into the co-evolution of host-parasite interactions between microsporidian parasites and roundworms. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Muthukrishna developed theories to explain the evolution of the human brain and human social networks. He used mathematical and computational modeling techniques to construct theories, then tested them using psychological experiments. His findings suggest that human "smarts" are acquired, not hardwired, and the key lies in our social networks. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Kasaian studied the molecular cause of several head and neck endocrine malignancies. While the commonly diagnosed papillary thyroid carcinomas harbored very few mutations, the rare but deadly anaplastic thyroid cancers were found to have accrued numerous genomic alterations. Molecular analysis hinted to potential drug targets in some patients. | Doctor of Philosophy in Bioinformatics (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Cai studied the 802.11 interference problem in WiFi networks, and showed a direct correlation between network congestion and wireless interference. He argued for trading some bandwidth for less interference and better fairness in 802.11 networks. He proposed a system to identify interference by correlating throughput changes of wireless devices. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Zhang studied navigation systems in small robots. He developed the technology so that those mobile robots can learn to detect obstacles and people in a home environment, and avoid bumping into them. This research shows promising developments in the use of robots to assist the elderly and the differently abled in daily activities. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Scholes examined how American periodicals materially shaped the ethos of women's poetry in the mid-nineteenth century. She argues that this ethos directly impacted Emily Dickinson's representation of herself as a poet, and reveals Dickinson's life-long avoidance of publication as a commitment to specific, interpersonal, non-public, poetic address. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Yu studied econometric models that may have multiple equilibria. He developed an approach to detect multiplicity of equilibria directly from observed variables. His study advanced our understanding of the relationship between the equilibrium behaviour and distribution patterns of data. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Ford studied the properties of thousands of galaxy clusters in large astronomical surveys. She developed new techniques for measuring the amount and distribution of dark matter, using the gravitational bending of light rays. This work contributes to our understanding of structure formation in the universe. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Niu's doctoral research focused on optimizing the allocation of radio resources for wireless communication systems. He designed several resource allocation mechanisms which achieved high speed wireless data services for cellphone users. His research provided insightful ideas for designing next generation wireless communication systems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Ramogida developed new medical imaging agents for positron-emission tomography scans, to detect cancer and heart disease using radioactive metals. She studied methods to safely incorporate the metals into pharmaceuticals. These non-conventional metals have the potential to mitigate the global shortage of the metal used in current imaging agents. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
| 2015 | The marine gas dimethyl sulfide plays a role in natural climate regulation by bridging the atmospheric and oceanic sulfur cycles. Dr. Asher developed new methods to measure the variability and production of this gas across time and space. Her work advances our understanding of the marine sulfur cycle and informs climate change research. | Doctor of Philosophy in Oceanography (PhD) |