Two dozen researchers in the Faculty of Science have received more than $3 million in Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grants to pursue promising ideas and breakthrough discoveries.
“A Discovery Grant from NSERC is allowing us to build a team of researchers here at York that will use data from the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, which is launching in early 2019,” says Professor Adam Muzzin in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, who received a Discovery Grant, as well as a Discovery Accelerator Supplement, which provides additional resources to accelerate progress and maximize the impact of research programs. “This cutting-edge observatory is designed to see the first galaxies in the universe forming, and our team at York will be ready to deal with early data from the spacecraft and learn how baby galaxies form.”
The Faculty of Science professors who received Discovery Grants are: Ilijas Farah (Mathematics & Statistics), Patrick Hall (Physics & Astronomy), Marko Horbatsch (Physics & Astronomy), Patrick Ingram (Mathematics & Statistics), Raymond Kwong (Biology), Patricia Lakin-Thomas (Biology), Gino Lavoie (Chemistry), Dong Liang (Mathematics & Statistics), Helene Massam (Mathematics & Statistics), John McDermott (Biology), Adam Muzzin (Physics & Astronomy), Thomas Salisbury (Mathematics & Statistics), Vivian Saridakis (Biology), Yi Sheng (Biology), Paul Skoufranis (Mathematics & Statistics), Juris Steprans (Mathematics & Statistics), Gary Sweeney (Biology), Walter Tholen (Mathematics & Statistics), William A. van Wijngaarden (Physics & Astronomy), Augustine Chi Mou Wong (Mathematics & Statistics), Yuehua Wu (Mathematics & Statistics), Muhammad Yousaf (Chemistry), Michael Zabrocki (Mathematics & Statistics) and Thomas Baumgartner (Chemistry).
The Discovery Grants typically provide funding for five years and support ongoing research programs with long-term goals. This means that researchers have the flexibility to explore the most promising avenues of research as they emerge.