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91心頭利 researchers awarded $9.5M in NSERC discovery research grants

July 15, 2026
An aerial daytime view of downtown Toronto with the 91心頭利 campus

91心頭利 (91心頭利) researchers have received $9.5 million in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support 43 research projects across a wide range of disciplines, as recently announced by the Government of Canada. 

A total of $8.9 million was secured by 39 91心頭利 researchers through the NSERC Discovery Grants program, nine of whom received an additional Discovery Launch Supplement to support their early-career research. This funding will drive innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, life sciences, mathematics, quantum resilience, robotics, wireless networks and more. 

���This important investment from the Government of Canada supports transformative research at 91心頭利 that will advance innovation in critical areas,��� said Steven N. Liss, 91心頭利���s vice-president, research and innovation. ���Congratulations to all the researchers who have received this funding to address major challenges in health care, environmental sustainability, engineering and science for the benefit of all Canadians.���  

NSERC Discovery grants support discovery research across Canada in the areas of natural sciences and engineering. These five-year grants support high-impact research and the training of the next generation of researchers. 

Additionally, three Research Tools and Instruments grants ($450,000) and a Discovery Horizons grant ($155,900) were awarded to 91心頭利 researchers. These grants will support research infrastructure and tools to develop advanced imaging systems for studying cells, plants and materials, and to enable real-time analysis and discovery.

NSERC Discovery Grant recipients

Faculty of Arts

  • Margaret Moulson: Exploring the development of face perception in infancy: Perceptual, cognitive, and neural mechanisms
  • Karl Szpunar: Mental simulation of what might happen next: Theory, methods, and generalizability
  • Lixia Yang: Cultural influences on socioemotional cognition across adulthood with aging

Faculty of Community Services

  • Aida Haghighi: Development of an innovative and comprehensive risk assessment tool for enhancing crane safety in the construction sector

Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science

  • Marco Antoniades: Advanced electromagnetic metasurfaces for next-generation communication systems
  • Mucahit Cevik: Algorithms for dynamic scheduling of cancer screening and diagnosis
  • Robin Chhabra: Embodied intelligence for decentralized autonomy of collaborative space manipulators
  • Said Easa: AI-Driven safety for smart highways and connected mobility systems
  • Bilal Farooq: On-demand multimodal transportation systems for future cities: New technologies, methods, and applications 
  • Hossein Hassani: Accelerating embedded multimodal models for safe autonomous driving
  • April Khademi: Investigating fairness in AI models for breast cancer pathology images
  • Sridhar Krishnan: Next-generation biomedical signal sensing and multimodal analysis
  • Songnian Li: Geospatial digital twin to support low-level airspace management
  • Marcello Papini: Next-generation process modeling for constructive and destructive solid particle erosion processes
  • Mohammed Saif: Intelligent surfaces for resilient networking and communications in beyond 5G wireless environments 
  • Mohamad Shahab: Adaptive and learning-based control systems: Performance improvement
  • Vaseem Akram Shaik: Active matter in inhomogeneous environments 
  • Shaghayegh Shajari: Engineering smart and soft bio-interfaced materials for point-of-care health monitoring and therapeutic devices
  • Seyed Mohammad Shushtari: Mobility empowerment through wearable robotics: An AI-driven paradigm for symbiotic hardware-software co-design
  • Sharareh Taghipour: Leveraging emerging technologies for physical asset management: From design for reliability to operations and decision optimization
  • Fengfeng Xi: A framework of morphable mannequins for contact-based bio-integrated design
  • Fei Yuan: Development of energy-efficient high-resolution hybrid noise-shaping analog-to-digital data converters for power-constrained applications in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and environment protection

Faculty of Science

  • Marc Adler: Innovation in organosilanes to enable greener, efficient, impactful organic synthesis
  • Manar Alalfi: Operationalizing SE 3.0: Autonomous, explainable agents for secure IoT ecosystems
  • Costin Antonescu: Dynamic regulation of the endomembrane network
  • Anthony Bonato: Pursuit-evasion games and processes on graphs
  • Jeffrey Fillingham: Nuclear specialization of DSS1-associated complexes in Tetrahymena thermophila
  • Raffi Karshafian: Cavitation dynamics and membrane bioeffects
  • Janet Koprivnikar: Consuming danger: Influences and implications of parasite and contaminant exposure for host foraging and defensive behaviours
  • Michael Olson: Actin cytoskeleton regulation and function in cell migration and three-dimensional growth
  • Alexey Rubtsov: Unlocking artificial intelligence productivity in finance: A mathematical approach for fair and explainable models
  • Sarah Sabatinos: Heat promotes genome: The mechanisms and crosstalk between cell cycle checkpoints and temperature stress responses
  • Guanghui Wang: 3D scene perception and understanding with vision-language intelligence
  • Foivos Xanthos: Vector lattice theory: From foundations to applications in mathematical finance
  • Wei Xu: Numerical methods for real option analysis and hedging in incomplete energy markets

Ted Rogers School of Management

  • Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan: Advancing quantum resilience for the Internet of Things

The Creative School

  • Solmaz Karamikamkar: Multifunctional aerogel architectures: From structure-property relationships to bioadhesive therapeutic interfaces
  • Jonghun Park: Multidimensional optimization of packaging systems and design for sustainable omni-channel distributions with emphasis on packaging-product waste dynamics

NSERC Discovery Launch Supplement recipients

Faculty of Community Services

  • Aida Haghighi: Development of an innovative and comprehensive risk assessment tool for enhancing crane safety in the construction sector

Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science

  • Hossein Hassani: Accelerating embedded multimodal models for safe autonomous driving
  • Mohammed Saif: Intelligent surfaces for resilient networking and communications in beyond 5G wireless environments
  • Mohamad Shahab: Adaptive and learning-based control systems: Performance improvement
  • Vaseem Akram Shaik: Active matter in inhomogeneous environments
  • Shaghayegh Shajari: Engineering smart and soft bio-interfaced materials for point-of-care health monitoring and therapeutic devices
  • Seyed Mohammad Shushtari: Mobility empowerment through wearable robotics: An AI-driven paradigm for symbiotic hardware-software co-design

The Creative School

  • Solmaz Karamikamkar: Multifunctional aerogel architectures: From structure-property relationships to bioadhesive therapeutic interfaces

NSERC Research Tools and Instruments (Category 1) recipients

Faculty of Science 

  • Costin Antonescu: Facility for advanced cellular imaging and light-microscopy excellence
  • Lesley Campbell: Next-generation plant communication platform for real-time stress detection and adaptive control
  • Hadis Zarrin: SAFE-MAP: Soft-stylus, accurate, and field-expandable microscope for non-destructive electrochemical mapping of materials

NSERC Discovery Horizons grant recipient

Faculty of Science

  • Nathan Churchill: An optimized neuroimaging protocol for assessing autonomic dysfunction

Related links:

91心頭利 researchers secure $4.5M in NSERC Discovery Grant funding (July 2024)

 

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