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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Dr. Bolen studied the role of the five primary senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste) in contemporary québécois literature. Her research examines the fascinating, albeit complex, relationship between sensory memory and storytelling in novels written by "migrant" writers. | Doctor of Philosophy in French (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Stephens studied the climate trends, carbon, and water use of two forests in central Canada for the past two decades. This study helps to quantify the carbon uptake potential of these forests in the future under further climate change. | Doctor of Philosophy in Soil Science (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Hotte studied the creation of trust between Indigenous representatives and regional or national governments collaborating on natural resource governance. She highlights the role of individual, interpersonal, and institutional influences on trust, and shows the negative impact that lived experiences of discrimination have on trusting behaviour. | Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Moosvi did his research at the intersection of physics and medicine. He developed new techniques to probe the tumour microenvironments in mice. The most promising technique is oxygen-enhanced MRI, which supports the delivery of cancer therapies targeted at tumours whose lack of oxygen makes them particularly difficult to treat. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
| 2020 | Optoelectronic links in datacenters connect servers across vast distances in order to communicate and carry a massive amount of data. Dr. Ahmed's research demonstrates different techniques for enhancing the energy efficiency and improving the performance of such links in order to support higher data throughput. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Leung examined candidate obesity and diabetes genes, and found that reducing the amount of one gene, called Pdk1, affects lipid metabolism and the heart. Further, this research shows that the metabolic effects of Pdk1, as well as environmental factors, are important to consider when using inhibitors of this gene as a potential therapeutic. | Doctor of Philosophy in Cell and Developmental Biology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Gaudet explored how health awareness discourse under capitalism shapes understandings of health and what it means to be healthy. Her findings show that while health awareness has been long analyzed in terms of individual public health campaigns, the rhetoric of "health awareness" is often taken up by commercial marketing campaigns. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Post examined the impact of genetic differences associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) compared with those found in control populations. Through the use of high throughput assays, she identified genetic variants that impact protein function and structure. This will improve our understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying ASD. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Asadian investigated the impact of involving patients and community members in the education of health professional students. Through years of practice in teaching, research, and evaluation, she has contributed to the understanding of ways to enhance education and learning. | Doctor of Philosophy in Human Development, Learning, and Culture (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Munz examined how plants and algae respond to a lack of nitrogen, a macronutrient that is essential for growth and development. Using the genetics model of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a single-cell green algae, Dr. Munz makes a critical first step toward uncovering the elusive signaling mechanism that responds to cellular nitrogen status. | Doctor of Philosophy in Botany (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Chen studied numerical algorithms for stiff elastodynamic simulation, a key procedure in computer graphics applications. He developed models for natural physical movements that would maintain stability and produce lively simulations at a lower cost. This work will improve the efficiency and accuracy for physically-based computer simulation. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Dorri explored methods for detecting genetic mutations with a resolution down to one cell. The accumulation of genetic mutations disrupts regular cell activity and leads to tumour development. Her findings can be applied to the study of clonal dynamics in tumours, which can potentially lead to enhanced cancer diagnosis and treatment. | Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Sanford examined brain activity and working memory deficits in schizophrenia. Using a novel multi-dataset approach, she found that a brain network that activated during initial memory encoding predicted both verbal and visual memory capacity. This will inform the development of treatments to improve working memory in schizophrenia patients. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Saket solved a long-standing trade-off in the design of high-frequency transformers for power supplies and battery chargers. His approach makes it possible to design transformers that are highly efficient and have a minimal noise emission. This proposed method will lead to a new era of compact and efficient power converters. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. McFadden studied the dynamics of lithium ions at ultra-dilute concentrations inside single crystalline materials. The results from these novel experiments will help to refine models of ion transport in solids, which can be applied in the operation of many practical devices, such as lithium-ion batteries. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Mei developed a universal coating that could prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections. With the application of the new coating, interactions between the catheters and urine components can be reduced. This study improves the safety and performance of medical devices, thus improving patients' health. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Reza developed a highly-scalable, distributed solution to support practical pattern matching based analytics in large graph datasets. He demonstrated the effectiveness of this technique through scaling experiments on massive real-world graph datasets and at platform scales, orders of magnitude larger than used in the past for similar problems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Booth investigated the development of small airways disease in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He showed that patients in the early stages of COPD already have chronically inflamed airways and tissue destruction. His work increases our knowledge of small airways disease in COPD and provides new avenues for treatment. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmacology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Toselli studied pancreatic beta-cell development and regeneration. She created a new model to study and track beta-cells and discovered important cues for beta-cell development and regeneration. Her work gives us a better understanding of pancreas biology and renewal. | Doctor of Philosophy in Cell and Developmental Biology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Roberson investigated the impact of immigration background on social belonging. Situating the measurement of social belonging in schools within an international comparative context, he shows that immigration background and national multicultural integration policy are valuable explanatory variables in the ecological validity argument. | Doctor of Philosophy in Measurement, Evaluation and Research Methodology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Crippen studied the endangered Tlingit (CLING-kit) language of Alaska, BC, & Yukon. He showed that its complex verb has an internal structure that is fundamentally the same as whole sentences in other languages. His work fits Tlingit into the larger theory of human language structure and supports its revitalization within the Tlingit community. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2020 | How natural is the link between topology and properties of materials? The first part of Dr. Sheinbaum Frank's thesis fills a gap in the classification of materials using a method that studies shapes using algebra, known as K-theory. What makes quantum mechanics weird? A new connection between K-theory and contextuality is presented in part 2. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Karimibiuki studied security solutions for dynamic systems within the Internet-of-Things (IoT), such as drones and rovers. He developed mathematical-based methods to detect software vulnerabilities in mobile computer systems such as drones. His work enables the detection of malicious behaviors in autonomous IoT systems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Ai developed a photo-acoustic imaging system through optical excitation and acoustic detection to illuminate the prostate from within the urethra using a transurethral probe. This technique will improve the detection and imaging of malignant tissue and prostate cancer. | Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Engineering (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Mohseni studied matrix defects in aerospace composites manufacturing. He developed analytical models and approaches for process optimization to minimize waste and reduce the manufacturing cost, especially for small enterprises. This research will inform improvements to cure cycle design, which will enable defect-free part manufacturing. | Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Engineering (PhD) |