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. Bowes investigated reductive elimination, a chemical reaction critical to the production of high-performance materials, pharmaceuticals, and fine chemicals. He developed a framework for predicting and controlling the outcome of this reaction that will inform more cost-effective and sustainable approaches to the preparation of these products. | Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Baronas discovered new regulatory mechanisms for a potassium channel involved in severe childhood epilepsy and movement disorders. Her findings demonstrate how a potassium channel can be influenced by its environment, and reveal unexpected ways that electrical signaling in the brain can be regulated and disrupted in neurological diseases. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmacology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Wiggermann examined two MRI techniques in the context of myelin health in multiple sclerosis. Through simulations, studies of tissue samples, control and MS populations, she linked the MR measures to the biology of MS. By establishing their robustness for probing myelin at different field strength, she addressed a key issue of using MRI for MS. | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Bi investigated cell behavior in the regulation of periodontal disease. He found that a receptor molecule plays a central role in the regulation of periodontal inflammation and bone loss through transforming growth factor and epidermal growth factor receptor signaling. This research will impact treatment methods for periodontal diseases. | Doctor of Philosophy in Craniofacial Science (PhD) |
| 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. Shukla's research explored the complicated nature of algebraic structures, focusing on two measures of complexity: essential dimension and the number of generators of an algebra. This research contributes to our understanding of objects with highly complex symmetries that frequently arise in mathematics. | Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics (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 | Dr. Pesteie explored machine learning algorithms to improve image-guided procedures in healthcare. He devised models that can learn from partial or limited expert supervision in environments, where data annotation is costly and time consuming. His methods can provide automatic feedback for more accurate decision making in clinics. | Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Glass studied the relationship between human and livestock wellbeing in a traditional Maasai community. She found that herd size is associated with wealth and happiness, and her findings support the community belief that livestock are not a major source of human illness, as human and livestock diseases are most strongly correlated with climate. | Doctor of Philosophy in Population and Public Health (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Wong studied membrane contact sites, locations in cells where membranes come together to share material and information. He discovered that a protein holding two membranes together also brings in other proteins that shuttle lipids between the two membranes. These studies provide fundamental insight into how cells use contact sites to survive. | Doctor of Philosophy in Genome Science and Technology (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. 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. 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. Farahbod studied gene expression in human tissues and showed that observed patterns of expression can be attributed to the diverse cellular composition of the samples. By characterizing this feature of expression data, her study assists us in furthering our knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms behind the regulation of gene expression. | Doctor of Philosophy in Bioinformatics (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. McBride's research focused on women's experiences of wellbeing during the menopausal transition, shifting the discourse from a biomedical and pathology focused perspective to one of developmental growth and thriving. | Doctor of Philosophy in Counselling Psychology (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. 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. Shim found that the protein CD45 regulates red blood cell progenitors in the spleen, which protect mice from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by interacting with cells in the spleen. This work shows the importance of CD45 as a modulator of immune response and suggests a novel approach to treating the systemic inflammation associated with IBD. | Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology and Immunology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Scholer showed how avian traits, such as body size, number of eggs laid, and metabolic rate, along with a less seasonal climate, are all linked to the long lifespan of tropical birds. His work brings together some of the first empirical support for several key concepts in life history theory. | Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Sanad developed tools and techniques to design relay communication satellite constellations for servicing Earth observation satellite constellations. This will allow for the fast delivery of Earth images to the end-users, which is significant in natural disaster and national security situations. | 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. Colovic studied the use of radioactive amino acids (RAAs) in cancer detection. Using an imaging technique called positron emission tomography, she evaluated several RAAs as probes for imaging biomarkers of altered cancer metabolism. Her research brought the development of fluoroaminosuberic acid or FASu one step closer to clinical use. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |
| 2020 | Dr. Bolderston studied the experiences of gay and lesbian radiation therapists coming out at work. Using an authoethnographic narrative inquiry approach, her findings showed that sexual orientation disclosure is dependent on context and can affect relationships with patients and co-workers in positive and negative ways. | Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy (EdD) |
| 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) |