Theodore Noseworthy, associate professor of marketing and Canada Research Chair in Entrepreneurial Innovation and the Public Good is the first Schulich School of Business professor to receive the Early Researcher Award (ERA) from Ontario’s Ministry of Research & Innovation.
Noseworthy will put the $190,000 grant to good use by exploring the real-world impact of how dressed-up junk food can hinder peoples’ ability to self-regulate consumption, leading to over-consumption. The ERA will help Noseworthy build on his innovative research.
“The grant will bring in a postdoctorate student who will run and operate our behavioural lab (NOESIS) at Schulich,” Noseworthy said. “We will specifically dig deeper into food consumption, public opinion of GMOs, the psychology of man-made food and the marketing of functional food specifically to children.”
The results will have a direct impact in the real world by informing public policy makers and raising public awareness. Primarily, the findings of Noseworthy’s research conducted in the NOESIS Lab will extend the discussion around food consumption to the psychological consequences of market-driven food ambiguity.
“Our area of research tends to do field studies and experiments that cost a lot of money and resemble what is going on in the real world,” Noseworthy said. “We are building an expertise in the lab that allows us to get a better approximation of reality and fabricate an environment so as to get an accurate read on what is going on. It is in the pursuit of ecological validity where we try and test something in a real-world setting.”
The province’s ERA program will support 77 projects across 17 leading institutions. It will help sharpen Ontario’s competitive edge by fostering discoveries, including new technologies, treatments and cures for illnesses, while supporting high-quality, knowledge-based jobs across the province.