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 | Social networks have grown dramatically, Facebook has over a billion users and 150 billion friendship connections. It is expensive to analyze such large networks, e.g., to aid marketing by identifying influential users. Dr. Gharaibeh designed and developed low-cost, yet powerful parallel computing framework for analysing such large-scale networks. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Voth's research helps to explain the political divisions between Métis and First Nations peoples living in Manitoba's Red River Valley. Dr. Voth traced the roots of Métis-First Nations political tensions, and developed a framework for building a de-colonial political movement that includes both First Nations peoples and the Métis. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Duhaime-Ross evaluated public policies related to education in Canada. She found evidence that educating immigrant children in the main language spoken in their host region had a large impact on their employment outcomes at adulthood. Her research also advanced our understanding of how parents save for their children's postsecondary education. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (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. 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 | Obesity is associated with chronic inflammation, which greatly increases the risk of various health problems such as type 2 diabetes. Why does obesity-associated inflammation develop? Is there a way to reverse it? Dr. Han's research shows that a type of immune cells called regulatory T cells plays an important part in answering these questions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (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. 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. Stouffer examined Reading Recovery training, an early literacy intervention. He investigated whether that training could be transferred into the literacy instruction in Canadian primary classrooms. This research adds to discussion of teacher preparation and professional development, and those teachers' personal theories of literacy instruction. | Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literacy Education (PhD) |
| 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. 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. 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. 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. Khong characterized a family of agriculturally important viruses called dicistroviruses. Notable members of this family infect shrimps, aphids, and honey bees. Dr. Khong's work sheds light on how these understudied viruses replicate and usurp the host, and evade antiviral defenses. These strategies are conserved across other viral families. | Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (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. Milutin studied Japanese court tales written between the 9th and 13th centuries. She examined the representations of sexual violence in those tales and the cohesive patterns used by women to write about rape. Her research revealed that due to its fictional nature the tale genre provided the necessary safe space for addressing sexual violence. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (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. Gunawardana's doctoral studies focused on discovering novel mutations that are frequent in B cell lymphoma, the cancer in blood cells. He found these gene mutations play an important role in the formation of these cancers. These findings will lead to the development of potential new drugs and better treatments for patients affected by lymphoma. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (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) |
| 2015 | Dr. Mulder studied the role of dietary fats during early brain development. She identified that some women in Vancouver had omega-3 fatty acid deficiency, and that their babies were more likely to have slower development. Although the long-term effects are unclear, her work improves our understanding of nutritional needs in the developing brain. | Doctor of Philosophy in Human Nutrition (PhD) |