Meet some of the , exemplifying聽academic excellence across the full range of disciplines.
Mohan Agrawal, Physics
Development of a new radio telescope to obtain the world's first high-resolution maps of the low-frequency radio sky and probe the cosmic dark ages.
My family hails from a small, rugged village called Saleha in India鈥檚 Vindhyachal plateau. I completed my bachelor鈥檚 in engineering physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, located at the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. For my Ph.D. in physics, I am working on a new radio telescope acronymed ALBATROS that will image the sky at the lowest observable frequencies possible from Earth with ten times better resolution than the current state-of-the-art. The primary installation is on Axel Heiberg Island in Nunavut, Canada鈥檚 first long-term radio telescope in the high Arctic. Another test installation is located near the Manicouagan reservoir in northern Quebec, and until 2023, the telescope operatedfrom Marion Island, a tiny sub-Antarctic island in the Southern Ocean. Deployments to these incredibly remote places have given me amusing stories for a lifetime.
Aline Atallah, Experimental Medicine
The functional complexities of macrophage ontogeny in glioblastoma outcomes.
Glioblastoma is the most common type of primary brain tumour and remains very hard to treat. Even when treated with aggressive therapies, affected patients will, on average, survive less than 15 months. One key feature of glioblastoma is the accumulation of certain immune cells called macrophages, which make the tumour more aggressive. However, some other types of macrophages are highly beneficial and can help fight cancer cells. Therefore, my research goal is to learn whether I can manipulate the development of these macrophages to favour the accumulation of 鈥済ood鈥� anti-tumour subsets. One proposed way to achieve this is by educating these cells at the level of the bone marrow so they remember how to fight cancer better. Overall, by understanding the development of these anti-tumoral macrophages and leveraging their ability to mediate cancer death, we can develop novel therapeutics and help glioblastoma patients live longer.
Christy Au-Yeung, Psychology
Understanding and Treating Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Cognitive Lens.
Schizophrenia is one of the most debilitating mental health disorders, which greatly decreases quality of life. A core feature of schizophrenia, which is unfortunately understudied, are negative symptoms. Negative symptoms are deficits of expressions (facial, vocal, gestures) in social settings and in goal-directed behavior. Despite the profound impacts of negative symptoms, there are no effective treatments available to treat them, and we have a limited understanding of how they develop.
A promising area of understanding negative symptoms, and subsequently establishing treatments, is the role that cognitive processes like memory and executive function (i.e. higher level thinking and reasoning), have in how negative symptoms occur. My research investigates the relationship between cognitive processes and negative symptoms, and how we could use and adapt treatments that improve cognitive processes to treat negative symptoms. Ultimately, to improving the quality of life and functioning of those with schizophrenia.
Rasel Babu, Educational and Counselling Psychology
Pedagogues' Readiness to Integrate Educational Technology for Teaching Language and Mathematics in Bangladeshi Secondary Classrooms.
Technology-based learning materials have been used to teach literacy and numeracy in secondary classrooms of Bangladesh since 2004. However, teachers face numerous challenges using technology, e.g., inadequate equipment, inadequate training, and difficulty engaging learners with digital tools. This led most secondary-level teachers to avoid technology and perceive it as a barrier to covering all required course content. Thus, there is a need to understand teachers鈥� readiness for using technology in classrooms. Survey and interview methods will be used to collect data from the teachers, school principals, and administrators. The activity theory framework will be used to analyze and interpret the data. This study will contribute to a) understanding of the practical side of adopting EdTech; b) developing policies to enhance the use of technology in classrooms; c) informing national training programs that aim to improve teachers' mental, pedagogical, and personal technology readiness; and d) the theorization of teachers鈥� EdTech readiness.
Photo courtesy of: Shamnaz Arifin Mim
Jae Hyun Byun, Experimental Medicine
Identifying the Role of Sex Hormones in Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaque Instability.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. A major driver of CVD is atherosclerosis, which involves the build-up of fats in major arteries forming what is known as plaque. Over time, the plaque can become unstable and rupture, reducing blood flow to vital organs and leading to CVD-related events which include heart attacks and strokes.
Sex differences also exist in plaque morphology and composition; while males are more prone to develop unstable plaques, females exhibit worse outcomes post-stroke. Despite these differences however, there is currently a lack of sex-specific guidelines for carotid atherosclerotic disease management, leading to suboptimal prevention and/or treatment of stroke. As such, my research will explore how sex hormones might influence these differences in atherosclerotic plaque instability, identifying potential markers that relate to sex-specific plaque phenotypes for better stroke risk prediction and management in both men and women.
Nour Chahine, Neuroscience
Circuit-Behavior Analysis of Fragile X ASD/ID Rat Model Through the Head-Direction System.
My project explores the origins of autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disabilities (ASD/ID). Despite known genetic and cellular links, how these factors cause cognitive deficiencies remains unclear. Using a rat model of Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), which mirrors an ASD/ID-associated gene, the study focuses on the head-direction (HD) system鈥攁 brain system that tracks the direction an animal faces. This system is well-characterized, allowing us to examine cellular and brain network anomalies and their connection to cognitive and behavioral deficiencies. Objectives include evaluating the FXS rat model's spatial skills through navigation and memory tasks, studying the HD system鈥檚 development and functionality in hard-wired and adaptable brain regions, and investigating how the retrosplenial cortex, a flexible brain region, changes its directional representation over time. This research aims to understand circuit-level irregularities in the FXS rat model, guiding new animal model evaluations and potential intervention tests, ultimately aiming for effective ASD/ID treatments.
Judy Chen, Neuroscience
Towards lifespan approaches for epilepsy biomarker discovery and validation.
Champ Darabundit, Music Technology
Estimation of woodwind playing parameters using hybrid physics-machine learning models.
Despite the fundamental role musicians play in making music, there is a dearth of research on how a musician's physical actions translate to the acoustics of their instruments. Measuring these actions, called playing parameters, is particularly difficult in woodwind instruments due to the complexity of capturing data within a player鈥檚 mouth. I propose using a hybrid physics-machine learning (ML) model to estimate playing parameters directly from audio data. The model utilizes an ML-based 鈥漹irtual player鈥� that learns to perform computational physics-based models of woodwind instruments. Through imitating recordings of human performances on computational models, the virtual player implicitly extracts physical playing parameters that produce a realistic performance. My work aims to provide insight into how musicians manipulate the physics of their instruments and further the field of musical acoustics by incorporating ML methods with existing domain knowledge.
Homa Fathi, Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences
Towards structural competency in health care: how Iranian-heritage healthcare professionals in Canada have changed their perspectives following the Woman-Life-Freedom movement.
Social determinants of health, such as employment, housing, social protection, and discrimination, significantly impact health outcomes, accounting for 30 to 55% of them. The World Health Organization urges healthcare professionals to adopt biopsychosocial approaches to address these determinants. However, clinicians often struggle due to education focused on the biomedical model and a lack of "structural competency." Recently, Iranian Canadian healthcare professionals have become socially and politically active: following the Woman-Life-Freedom movement in 2022, they formed NGOs, provided telemedicine, connected injured protesters with legal resources, raised awareness, published research, and lobbied for change. Understanding their transformation can promote biopsychosocial approaches and structural competency in Canadian healthcare. My research aims to understand how these professionals navigated the Canadian sociopolitical landscape and how these experiences impacted their services. I will conduct 30-40 interviews with Iranian Canadian healthcare professionals to develop a theory on how Canadian healthcare professionals can address social determinants of health.
Photo courtesy of: Mehrnoosh Alborzi
Jamie Magrill, Human Genetics
Identification of biomarkers using single cell technology that inform on targeted and immune therapy treatment in melanoma.
Jamie Magrill completed his MSc in Biomedical Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2021 and an HonBSc from the University of British Columbia in 2018, with a focus on cancer and diabetes research. He is now completing a dual-doctorate MD-PhD at 平特五不中 in the lab of Dr. Ian Watson, focusing on melanoma immunotherapy research and the tumor microenvironment. His research investigates the role of the tumor microenvironment in patient response to melanoma immunotherapy and targeted therapy, applying and adapting cutting-edge spatial-transcriptomics technologies to search for and validate biomarkers of treatment response, with the goal of improving therapy outcomes for metastatic melanoma patients.
Photo courtesy of: Diana Berry, Goodman Cancer Institute
Omotayo Olaoye, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, & Occupational Health
The Use and Safety of Central Nervous System (CNS) Depressants in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death globally accounting for about 3.2 million deaths yearly. Patients with COPD often have several comorbidities for which CNS depressants including opioids, gabapentinoids, and sedative-hypnotics are indicated. Previous cohort studies among patients with COPD have reported new opioid, benzodiazepine and gabapentinoid prescriptions in up to 68%, 69% and 14% of patients. However, changes in prescription trends, and the frequency of CNS-depressant co-prescriptions remain unknown. A significant knowledge gap also exists in the understanding of the safety of sedative-hypnotics in patients with COPD. While opioids and gabapentinoids have been shown to increase the risk of adverse respiratory events in these patients, evidence on the risk of these outcomes associated with the use of sedative-hypnotics alone or in combination with other CNS depressants is limited. Thus, my research aims to address these knowledge gaps using a large nationally representative database.
Daniel Romm, Geography
Sustainable and Equitable Transportation Outside the City: Using Micromobility to Connect to Regional Transit in Small Population Centres.
There is increasingly accepted recognition that Canada's mobility landscape must move away from its reliance on automobiles and support alternative transport modes. One of the biggest challenges limiting mass public transit adoption is suitable options for travellers to get from their home to their regional commuting station, sustainably. This is referred to as the last mile problem. Micromobility sharing systems, using small, lightweight vehicles, have the capability to address this problem, by connecting travellers from their home to transit stations, and from transit stations to their destination. Large municipalities have the resources to assess the viability of these systems, while smaller communities often lack the resources to conduct such assessments. Given the importance of finding environmentally sustainable and equitable solutions to this issue, this research will perform analyses of potential micromobility use to connect to public transit, in cooperation with a Canadian regional public transit agency.
Hugo Sch茅rer, Physics
Cosmological and astrophysical searches for dark matter through in-medium effects.
The Standard Model of Particle Physics, despite its success, fails to explain dark matter, which makes up 85% of the universe's matter. Dark matter's fundamental nature remains unknown, and its extremely weak interactions with standard matter have led to inconclusive search results. Current research often inaccurately treats dark matter particles as if they were interacting in a vacuum, overlooking significant in-medium effects in hot and dense environments like the early universe or the interior of stars. My research focuses on developing a comprehensive theoretical framework that accounts for all in-medium effects, and applying it across various cosmological and astrophysical systems to uncover previously overlooked phenomena. My work will produce theoretical predictions that are much more accurate and rigorous than previous ones. It will further allow for the exploration of new dark matter signals from the early universe and stellar environments, and provide key insights on our understanding of the universe.
Tarek Taifour, Experimental Medicine
Investigating the role of Chi3l1 in non-small cell lung cancer progression and resistance to immunotherapies.
Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Canada. Immunotherapies, agents that harness the patients鈥� immune system to fight tumors, are often used to treat lung cancers but have limited success. Improving response to immunotherapies requires an understanding of how cancers suppress the immune system. Recent data from our lab suggest that this may occur through a protein called Chitinase-3 like 1 (Chi3l1). We have previously shown that this protein prevents immune cells from attacking the cancer, leading to tumor growth. In this project, we will use preclinical models to investigate the role of Chi3l1 in lung cancer and evaluate its utility as a therapeutic target that can improve response to immunotherapies. Our findings will shed light on the potential for Chi3l1 inhibition as a treatment for lung cancers.
Sripadh Guptha Yedire, Biological and Biomedical Engineering
An integrated epi-fluidic wearable platform for non-invasive multianalyte sensing in skin-derived biofluids via Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy.
Healthcare systems in Canada and worldwide are already overburdened. In Canada, there are only 140 Primary Care Providers for every 100,000 Canadians. Traditional methods of monitoring vital indicators of health-biomarkers- often involve skilled personnel, frequent hospital visits, and invasive detection procedures like blood draws or biopsies. These complexities hinder the delivery of personalized care and treatment. Remote health monitoring is a valuable tool to address this challenge. This Ph.D. project proposes a wearable biosensor featuring a nanomaterial sensor for the optical detection of biochemical biomarkers in skin-derived biofluids. The wearable patch will feature a nanomaterial integrated microfluidic circuits as a tool for next-generation of remote long-term time-dependent biomarker tracking. This work will not only alleviate the burden on healthcare infrastructure but also improve our understanding of disease-biomarker correlation. The successful lab-to bedside translation of the project will have an impact on health monitoring of other forms of life beyond humans.
Raffles Xingqi Zhu, Neuroscience
Investigating the internal spatial noise in normal and amblyopic vision using an equivalent noise paradigm.
The world we see seems so sharp yet this perception is a construct of the underlying physiology which is subject to noise of all kinds. One form of internal noise we experience is positional in nature, as our visual system is made of a hierarchy of topographic maps that preserve relative positions of the visual field. It is unclear however how this internal spatial noise affects visual functions in normal and diseased vision. In people with amblyopia or lazy eye, some report seeing distortions of the visual field and it has been hypothesized to be linked to the uncalibrated neuronal projections as a result of abnormal visual development. My doctoral research aims to understand how this internal spatial noise limits object recognition in normal and amblyopic vision using psychophysical and modern machine learning approaches.
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