2023–24 Scholars
Hamid Abdolvand
Hamid Abdolvand is a Canada Research Chair in Advanced Materials for Low-Emission Energies and a faculty member of the department of mechanical and materials engineering. His research focuses on deformation and failure mechanisms of engineering materials across length and time scales. Before joining Western Engineering, he was a postdoc researcher at the University of Oxford where he spent three years working on electron and synchrotron x-ray diffraction analysis of engineering materials. Prior to Oxford, he worked at the University of Manchester, developing finite element codes for Rolls-Royce Plc and AMEC-Europe.
Research Interests
- Mechanics of materials across length and time scales- both modeling and experimental
- Fatigue, fracture, and (irradiation) creep
- Finite element, crystal plasticity, and dislocation dynamics
- Synchrotron x-ray, neutron, and electron diffraction/tomography
Kelly Anderson
Kelly Anderson is a Canada Research Chair in Public Mental Health Research, and a professor and graduate chair in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University. She received her PhD in epidemiology from McGill University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
Anderson leads the Public Mental Health Research Group, and her research interests lie at the intersection of population health and health services research. She is interested in the risk, course, and outcome of mental illness for different population groups, as well as in the social determinants of health service access and utilization. She has a particular interest in the mental health of adolescents and young adults, and her research to date has typically focused on first-episode psychosis and early intervention services.
Research Interests
- Epidemiology of psychotic disorders
- Hearservices research on early psychosis intervention
adam patrick bell
adam patrick bell is a Canada Research Chair in Music, Inclusion, and Accessibility and is a professor of music education. He is the author of Dawn of the DAW (Oxford, 2018) and editor of the Music Technology Cookbook (2020). adam is the editor of Canadian Music Educator and serves on the editorial boards of International Journal of Music Education, Journal of Music, Technology & Education, Journal of Popular Music Education, TOPICS, and Visions of Research in Music Education. Currently, adam is the principal investigator of three projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), including “Disability-Led Musical Instrument Design” (Insight Grant), “Canadian Accessible Musical Instruments Network” (Partnership Development Grant), and “Facilitating Anti-Ableist Remote Music Making” (Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative).
Research Interests
- Disability studies and music education
- Music technology and music education
- Music production and music education
- Music software/instrument design
- DIY (do-it-yourself) learning
Lauren Cipriano
Lauren Cipriano is a Canada Research Chair in Healthcare Analytics, Management, and Policy and a professor in Management Science at the Ivey Business School. She holds cross appointments in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.
Dr. Cipriano has consulted for the World Health Organization, US Veterans Health Administration, US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the US Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, and the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH). During the pandemic, Dr. Cipriano served on the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table’s Modelling Consensus Table.
Research Interests
- The application of statistics, decision analysis, economics and operations research to health policy programs
- The economic evaluation of clinical diagnostics and novel therapeutics, resource allocation and infectious disease policy.
Emma Duerden
Emma Duerden is a Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience and Learning Disorders, the scientific lead of the Developing Brain research program and is a professor in the Faculty of Education. She is also a member of the graduate program in Biomedical Engineering. She did her undergraduate degree in Psychology at McGill University. She completed her Master's degree in Neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Dr. Duerden then trained at the University of Montreal for her PhD in Neuroscience. Her postdoctoral fellowship was in developmental paediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She then later worked as a research associate & senior research associate at the Hospital for Sick Children in the division of neurology.
Research Interests
- The impact of early adversity on cognitive ability in infants and school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder or who are born very preterm
Spy Dénommé-Welch
Spy Dénommé-Welch (Algonquin-Anishnaabe) is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous arts, knowledge systems and education and is an interdisciplinary scholar, educator and artist. His scholarship examines multimodal approaches to Land-based research and creation, qualitative research methodologies, curriculum and assessment, art, and dramaturgy (process and development), looking at how these can produce new forms of knowledge production, education, intercultural collaboration, and artistic expression. He recently completed a two-year SSHRC-IDG funded research project that examined gender representation and expression in historical music and cultural production. He currently leads research through his exploratory creation/sound lab, such as the projects Sonic Coordinates: Decolonizing through Land-based music composition (funded by the New Frontiers Research Fund program) and Repatriating music, sound, and knowledge through a series of miniatures, which investigate the epistemologies of music composition, sonic expression, and visual text.
Research Interests
- The intersections of collaborative research, composition, storytelling, multimodal texts, and performance through dramaturgical methodologies.
Barbara Fenesi
Barbara Fenesi is a Canada Research Chair in the Science of Learning. Her passion is rooted in understanding how the entire human organism (both the brain and the body) plays a role in student success. Her research draws on work from fields of psychology, education, health, neuroscience and kinesiology to identify intervention strategies that can promote cognitive function and mental health in typically developing children and youth, and in those facing academic challenges (e.g., students with ADHD).
Her work combines both laboratory and classroom research to translate basic science into applied settings. Fenesi uses a range of techniques including cognitive and behavioural testing, and neuroimaging to identify strategies that help students better focus their attention and consequently perform better academically.
Research Interests
- Identifying intervention strategies that can promote cognitive function in children
- Developing school-based and community-based programs that increase the opportunities for academic success across diverse student abilities
Amanda Friesen
Amanda Friesen is a Canada Research Chair in Political Psychology and the director of The Body Politics Lab. She is interested in how social identities and individual dispositions interact with social and political contexts, particularly as it pertains to resilience and efficacy. Her methodological approaches draw from behaviour genetics, psychophysiology, personality psychology, experimental design, and other social and life science methods.
Research Interests
- Political Psychology
- Gender
- Religion
- Resilience and Efficacy
- Biology and Politics
Elizabeth (Beth) Greene
Beth Greene is a Canada Research Chair in Roman Archaeology and a professor in the department of classical studies.Her current research focus, the Vindolanda Archaeological Leather Project (VALP), takes a comprehensive approach to the largest assemblage of Roman leather and shoes from the fort and settlement at Vindolanda in northern England. The project centers on a scientific database with dozens of data points allowing researchers to cross-reference archaeological information, such as date, occupation period and contextual location, with details of leather characteristics, such as decoration, shoe size, shoe morphology and health data, in order to visualize patterns in the use and deposition of over 7000 leather objects.
Research Interests
- Roman archaeology and social history
- Roman provinces and frontiers
- Conquest and imperialism
- Cultural exchange
- Roman military
- Women and families in the Roman world
- Roman shoes and leather industries
- Latin epigraphy
Matt Grol
Matt Grol is a Canada Research Chair in Musculoskeletal Biology and Health, a professor in the department of physiology and pharmacology and member of the Bone and Joint Institute. Grol pursued their doctoral degree in the laboratory of Jeffrey Dixon, where he investigated the role of P2 nucleotide receptor signaling in bone biology. Following his PhD, his research focused on evaluating gene therapies for Osteoarthritis (OA) and investigating tendon pathologies in preclinical models of connective tissue diseases such as Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI).
Research Interests
- Musculoskeletal biology and signaling
- Novel strategies for treating OA and musculoskeletal disorders
Katarina Grolinger
Katarina Grolinger is a Canada Research Chair in Engineering Applications of Machine Learning, is a professor with the department of electrical and computer engineering and is a Vector Institute faculty affiliate. Before joining Western Universit, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Western where she was working on developing data analytics solutions for energy domain, clickstream data analytics, and Big Data processing. Her work is largely carried out in collaboration with industry where she develops research to solve industry problems. Also, she has over ten years of industry experience in various roles including software engineer, Oracle certified database administrator, and technical team leader.
Research Interests
- Data analytics and Big Data
- Machine learning
- IoT data analytics
- Databases, data management
- NoSQL and NewSQL data stores
- Software integration and interoperability
Pingzhao Hu
Pingzhao Hu is a Canada Research Chair in Computational Approaches to Health Research and a professor in Biochemistry. Dr. Hu was trained in computer science and applied statistics. His group has published over 160 peer-reviewed articles with over 6900 citations and H-index 40. Dr. Hu is an Associate Editor of Annals of Medicine (Section of Medical Genetics and Genomics), and Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal(CSBJ).
His research is performed in an independent, multidisciplinary and collaborative team framework where his expertise in AI, statistical genetics and bioinformatics complements that of his collaborators.
Research Interests
- Building bridges between artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning, statistics and multimodal health data (mainly omics data).
Jibran Khohkar
Jibran Khohkar is a Canada Research Chair in Translational Neuropsychopharmacology and a professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology. Khokhar's research aims to understand the mechanisms underlying co-occurring serious mental illness and substance use disorders, using a variety of behavioural, pharmacological and translational neuroimaging techniques. In addition, his research interests also include assessing the long-term effects of adolescent drug (e.g., cannabis) use, and how these effects might contribute to the risk for serious mental illness and addiction. Lastly, Dr. Khokhar is also very interested in profiling the pharmacokinetic parameters related to different routes of exposure to drugs like nicotine and cannabis, as well as the impact of development and sex on these profiles.
Research Interests
- Preclinical imaging for mental illness and addiction
- Treatment development
- Development of pre-clinical models based on GWAS findings
- Behavioural neuropsychopharmacology
Yanping Li
Yanping Li is a Canada Research Chair in Climate Change Risk and Resilience and is a professor in the department of earth sciences. Her research seeks to establish a more integrated understanding of what controls convection (the vertical transport of heat and moisture in the atmosphere), climate change risk, and resilience.
In the short term, she and her research team are determining the mechanisms that influence summertime precipitation over the plains east of the Rockies and how convection over the tropical western Pacific affects precipitation over the Canadian Prairies. They also aim to better predict extreme precipitation risks in Canada overall due to climate change and to understand the impact of climate change on prairie croplands and wetlands. This information will help them to evaluate the effectiveness of different adaptation strategies.
Research Interests
- Multi-hazard Risk Analysis
- Assessment of Hazards Induced by Climate Change
- Big Data Analytics and Application of Artificial Intelligence in the Field related to Climate Change
Kaitlynn Mendes
Kaitlynn Mendes is a Canada Research Chair in Inequality and Gender and is a sociologist whose work sits at the intersection of media, education, and politics. Her research and teaching adopt an intersectional feminist perspective to better understand and combat gender inequalities and their relationship with media technologies. Using a mixed methods approach, she explores how digital technologies pave the way for new forms of online abuse, while simultaneously being used to challenge sexism, sexual violence, rape culture, and harassment in on and offline spaces. Insights from her research have been used to inform policies, practices, and public understanding on contemporary gender inequalities. Kaitlynn is also the Principle Investigator on 5-year SSHRC project DIY: Digital Safety.
Research Interests
- Gender inequality
- Social media
- Sexual violence
- Young people
- Deepfakes
- Feminist activism
- Online harms
- Mixed methods research
- Technology-facilitated sexual violence
Lindsay Nagamatsu
Lindsay Nagamatsu is a Canada Research Chair in Activity for Brain Health and Aging and is a professor in the School of Kinesiology. As the director of the Exercise, Mobility, and Brain Health Lab, professor Nagamatsu's research focuses on: 1) identifying neural correlates of falls risk and mobility issues in older adults, and 2) examining the effects of exercise on cognitive function and brain health in older adults at-risk for cognitive decline. With expertise in advanced neuroimaging techniques (MRI and EEG), she examines changes in brain structure and function over time in both healthy and clinical populations. Taken together, her work aims to identify strategies to improve functional independence and quality of life for our aging population.
Research Interests
- Effects of exercise on cognitive function and neural plasticity
- Cognitive risk factors for falls
- Functional neuroimaging (EEG and fMRI)
- Healthy aging
Arghya Paul
Arghya Paul is a Canada Research Chair in Advanced Cell-Instructive Materials and Biotherapeutics and a professor in the department of chemical & biochemical engineering with a joint appointment to the department of Chemistry. His work focuses on developing new classes of mechanically robust nanocomposite hydrogels with bioactive properties for tissue regeneration, regenerative medicine and wound healing applications.
He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals with funding support from National Institutes of Health (NIH), State of Kansas, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ) at different stages of his research career. He won the prestigious 2018 Young Innovator Award for Cellular and Molecular Engineering from Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), USA.
Research Interests
- Developing material-based therapeutics and innovations
- Understanding stem cell-material (polymers, minerals, biologics) interactions and mechanistic pathways at cellular and molecular level
- Therapeutic strategies which can be translated to point-of-care patient applications
Jessica Prodger
Jessica Prodger is a Canada Research Chair in Genital Immunology and STI prevention, with a primary appointment in the department of microbiology and immunology. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto and completed Postdoctoral Fellowships at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and at the Laboratory for Immunoregulation at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Prodger is a longstanding Research Collaborator at the Rakai Health Sciences Program in Uganda and is the Director of the Global Health Systems Master’s program – a collaborative professional degree program at Western University run jointly between the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Research Interests
- Drivers of inflammation in the genital mucosa
- Downstream effects of inflammation on sexual health, with a specific focus on penile HIV susceptibility and neovaginal health in transfeminine individuals.
Angela Roberts
Angela Roberts is a Canada Research Chair in Data Analytics and Digital Health in Cognitive Aging and Dementia and holds a joint appointment in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders and department of computer science. She is also a speech-language pathologist. She is a founding Co-Director of Western’s Collaborative Specialization in Machine Learning in Health and Biomedical Sciences and is a research associate with the Canadian Centre of Activity and Aging. She was on faculty at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, prior to moving her research program to Western University.
Her clinical research program uses robust randomized control trial designs and telehealth service delivery systems that have a global reach. Her influence extends to health charity organizations as a research board member for Parkinson Canada and an author of internationally distributed patient and family education materials.
Research Interests
- Aging
- Dementia and neurodegenerative disorders
- Cognitive-Communication, Connected Speech, Language impairments in adults
- Remote monitoring and telehealth clinical trials
Sarah Smith
Sarah Smith is a Canada Research Chair in Art, Culture and Global Relations and a professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies. In 2015, Smith was the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. She previously held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Transnational Studies Initiative at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. Smith studies contemporary art and cultural institutions, with a specific interest in the relationship between culture, economics, and globalization. In 2017, Smith co-founded the North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative, a global research network of academics, policymakers, and practitioners, which advances interdisciplinary conversations on cultural diplomacy.
Research Interests
- Cultural diplomacy, emphasizing the contributions of practitioners such as artists and cultural workers
Jane Thornton
Jane Thornton is a Canada Research Chair in Injury Prevention and Physical Activity for Health and clinician scientist specializing in long-term athlete health, female athlete health, and physical activity in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease. She is a professor in the department of family medicine, with cross appointments in the department of epidemiology & biostatistics and the School of Kinesiology. She treats athletes and active individuals of all ages and abilities.
She is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM) and Editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM). Dr. Thornton represented Canada for over a decade in the sport of elite rowing, becoming both a World Champion (2006) and Olympian (2008), and has been recognized with the 2015 AthletesCan Social Responsibility Award for her contribution to society by sport/volunteer initiatives.
Research Interests
- Physical activity for the prevention and treatment of chronic disease
- Injury and illness prevention in sport
- Long term athlete health
- Female athlete health
- Rowing Injuries
Ana Luisa Trejos
Ana Luisa Trejos is a Canada Research Chair in Wearable Mechatronic and is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering. Her research has focused on the design, integration and evaluation of mechatronic devices that are aimed at providing medical care. This experience led her to establish the Wearable Biomechatronics Laboratory in 2013, dedicated to the design of wearable mechatronic devices for upper body rehabilitation and motion assistance, including wearable devices for tremor suppression and smart orthotic devices for elbow, wrist, hand and neck rehabilitation.
Research Interests
- Designing novel sensing and actuation components
- Creating models based on sensed biosignals
- Developing intelligent and adaptive control systems, as well as their overall integration into unobtrusive wearable mechatronic devices
Francesca Vidotto
Francesca Vidotto is a Canada Research Chair in Foundations of Physics and is a professor in the department of physics and astronomy. Her research explores the quantum aspects of the gravitational field. This involves a reflection on the nature of space and time, as well as the foundations of quantum mechanics. Vidotto is interested in the structural, relational and perspectival aspects in those theories. She is considering the contribution of different epistemologies, in particular feminist epistemology, in order to understand the relational ontology that emerges from current theoretical physics.
Research Interests
- Loop Quantum Gravity
- Cosmology
- Foundations of Physics
