Go to page content

Great minds

Memorial University experts tackling global issues thanks to more than $3.3-million federal investment

By Jeff Green and Jackey Locke

Fifty-seven researchers from the faculties of Business Administration, Humanities and Social Sciences, Medicine, Science and Nursing, the School of Social Work, School of Pharmacy and the School of Graduate Studies are continuing their work, thanks to a recent investment by the Government of Canada.

More than $3.3 million in funding to Memorial was announced on Sept. 13 by the federal government.

The investment included awards from a number of funding programs, including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Insight Grants and Insight Development Grants and the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund as well as tri-agency scholarships and fellowships.

“Congratulations to all our recipients — from students and post-doctoral scholars to early-career and established researchers,” said Dr. Tana Allen, vice-president (research). “We are always delighted to celebrate these incredibly talented individuals and their teams. Thank you to the Government of Canada for continuing to support our experts, whose creativity, ideas and innovation are helping create positive outcomes to benefit Canada and the world.”

The news was made by Marie-Claude Bibeau, minister of National Revenue, on behalf of François-Philippe Champagne, minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and Mark Holland, minister of Health, at l’Université de Sherbrooke.

“The recent announcement of greater funding support for graduate students and their research was welcome news to say the least,” said Dr. Amy Warren, associate vice-president (academic) and dean, School of Graduate Studies. “We have seen growth in many graduate research programs, as well as increased need for funding to support graduate students as they do their master’s and PhD research.

“Not only does this funding help society through the knowledge gained from research, but it also improves the lives of those graduate students who are able to focus more on their research without as much financial burden as they might face without these opportunities,” she continued. “The team at the School of Graduate Studies congratulates graduate students, faculty and staff who continue to help further enrich the research culture at Memorial.”

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Insight Grants

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

  • Dr. Isabelle Côté, Department of Political Science, for Internal Migration and Nativism in Federal States, $327,469
  • Dr. Barry Gaulton, Department of Archaeology, for Engineering Avalon: an archaeo-engineering investigation of protoindustrial and domestic wastewater systems in 17th-century Ferryland, Newfoundland, $176,004
  • Dr. Dominique Bregent-Heald, Department of History, for Moving Pictures at the Exhibition: Film and American World’s Fairs, 1893-1964, $84,773

Total: $588,246

Faculty of Science

  • Dr. Carole Peterson, Department of Psychology, for Impact of information inconsistencies on the credibility of children’s accounts, $93,060

Total: $93,060

Insight Development Grants

Faculty of Business Administration

  • Dr. Alyson Byrne, for Navigating grief: Empowering leaders to support employees in times of loss, $68,003

Total: $68,003

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

  • Dr. Maureen Scheidnes, Department of Linguistics, for Retrieval-based learning and noun-ending regularities in grammatical gender assignment, $41,149
  • Dr. Natasha Leclerc, Department of Archaeology, for A Novel Approach to Understanding Past Resource Management in Coastal Environments: Geochemical & Biomolecular Imprints in Archaeological Mollusk Shells, $66,201
  • Dr. Lori Oates, Department of Sociology, for Cursed: How the Resource Curse Manifests in Newfoundland and Labrador, $44,065
  • Dr. Eric Tenkorang, Department of Sociology, for Assess and usage of digital financial services (mobile money) and Ghanaian women’s social and economic empowerment, $71,250

Total: $222,665

School of Social Work

  • Dr. Paul Adjei, for African Elders Critical Teachings (ELDERCRITS) as Epistemic Gift for Educational Reforms, $74,112
  • Dr. Ami Goulden, for Experiences of Reproductive Care and Decision-Making for Young Women with Disabilities in Newfoundland and Labrador: A Phenomenological Research-Creation Project, $74,975

Total: $149,087

Faculty of Nursing

  • Dr. Ahtisham Younas, Resilience redefined: Collaborative Exploration of Poverty Stigma to Support Trans Folks Living with Chronic Illness, $59,968

Total: $59,968

Scholarships and fellowships

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Canada Graduate Scholarships – Master’s

  • Taylor G.J. Anthony, for A Cognitive-Behavioural Single Session Intervention for Weight Bias Internalization in Youth: A Pilot Study, $17,500
  • Alexandra B. Brothers, for Negotiating Madness: Evolving Strategies of Representation in Women’s Mental Illness Narratives, $17,500
  • Calum J. Brydon, for Where the Old Fort Was: Archaeological Mapping and Metal Detector Survey of the Vieux Fort in Placentia (Plaisance) (ChAl-4), NL, $17,500
  • Riley Cotter, for Community-Based Methodologies and Indigenous Sovereignty in Arctic Microplastics Research, $17,500
  • Robyn K. Cumben, for Life After Sexual Assault: An Ecological Momentary Assessment of Survivors’ Experiences in Subsequent Romantic Relationships, $17,500
  • Tiffany Curnew, for In the Name of the Law: Policing and Sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic 1920-1940, $17,500
  • Emil Francis, for Constructions of Masculinity in Canadian Figure Skating, $17,500
  • Isobel D. McMahon, for Perceptions of Prenatal Cannabis Use Among Canadian Birthing Parents, $17,500
  • Felix P.C. Morrow, for Environmental Advocacy in International Fisheries: An institutional ethnography of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, $17,500
  • Ethan Pon, for Beyond the automobile: the relationship between active transit and wellbeing in small cities, $17,500
  • Heather P. Tough, for Representation of Black Heritage and identity in Canadian Colonial cemeteries (1600-1900), $17,500
  • Louis-Charles J. Vaillancourt, for Social acceptability and slow violence with energy projects, $17,500
  • Emily A. White, for The Impact of Social Cognition on Relationship Satisfaction Post Traumatic Brain Injury, $17,500
  • Kristina Yurchenko, for Emotions and Actions over Gender in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, $17,500

Total: $245,000

Canada Graduate Scholarships – Doctoral Program

  • Megan E.H. Boothby, for Speaking with Monsters and Mushrooms: The Neuroqueer Potential of Nonhuman Communication in Speculative Fiction and Media, $105,000
  • Ashlee R.L. Coles, for Cannabis health literacy and perceptions of help-seeking for cannabis as a coping mechanism, $105,000
  • Edwin O. Mansook, for Mapping Sonic Acts Through Revival and Sustainability, $105,000
  • Chantal A. Pennell, for West Coast Wildflowers: Traditional Medicinal Healing on the West Coast of Newfoundland, $105,000
  • David P. Storey, for Understanding views on and experiences with medicinal cannabis among Canadian Veterans who live with pain: A mixed-method examination of perceptions, stigma and gender, $105,000

Total: $525,000

Canada Graduate Scholarships – Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplements

  • Leanna J. Butters, for Designing for transformative practices in a mining space: Reflexive and experiential learning in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, $6,000
  • Shannon C. Fraser, for Islanded: Unemployment and Underemployment in the Gozitan Labour Market, $6,000
  • Natasha Farrell, for Jan and Cora Gordon’s Multimedia Portraits of America’s Dream Factory, $6,000

Total: $18,000

Doctoral Fellowships

  • Chantelle Caissie, for Cultivating space for “unproductive” writing and creative process in an online doctoral writing group, $60,000
  • Christine S. Fearing, for Dyslectures: The Emergent Dyslexic Lens In Disruptive Practice And Metaphorical Research Creation, $80,000
  • Allison C.M. Graves, for Affective Economies and Crisis in Contemporary Irish Women’s Fiction, $40,000

Total: $180,000

Post-doctoral Fellowships

  • Leah Fusco, for Centering Equity and Justice in Canada’s Energy Transition, $90,000
  • Angeline M. Letourneau, for Climate change as lived reality: mapping social networks of climate disaster, $90,000

Total: $180,000

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral

  • Jacob Hoare, for Incorporation of amino acids into metal-organic frameworks, $105,000
  • Graydon Gillies, $105,000

Total: $210,000

Postgraduate Scholarship – Doctoral 

  • Laura Dawson, for Puffin Perception: Neurobehavioural Insights Into Seabird Visual Ecology, $63,000
  • Mackenzie Grace, for Exploring Generations of Predator Stress: Impacting Factors and Biomechanics, $63,000
  • Sarah Hartery, for Placental factors regulating fetal-placental mineral metabolisom and skeletal development, $63,000
  • Emily Johns-Buss, for Timing, rates and spatial distribution of Mesozoic rift-related exhumation in the Newfoundland and west Iberian (Portugal) magma-poor rift margins using low-temperature thermochronometry, $63,000
  • Emma Porter, for Advancing Our Understanding of Fish Cardiovascular Function, Regulation and Plasticity, $105,000
  • Corrie Vincent, for Function and regulation of the concanamycin phytotoxins in the potato common scab pathogen Streptomyces scabiei, $63,000

Total: $420,000

Canada Graduate Scholarships – Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplements 

  • Benjamin Nazaroff, for Do antihistaminergic drug probes affect motoneuron output in humans?, $6,000

Total: $6,000

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s 

  • Brandon F. Hannam, for The Role of Locus Coeruleus Firing Activity in Emotional Memory and Regulation in a Pre-tangle Tau Animal Model of Alzheimer’s Disease, $17,500
  • Jenna M. Hanrahan, for Magnetic resonance imaging in mice to study gene therapies for Huntington’s disease, $17,500
  • Liam Osmond, for Analysis of endocannabinoid signalling in seizure models during phytocannabinoid treatment, $17,500
  • Monawar Shahwan, for Identifying hippocampal gene biomarkers associated with chemotherapy-induced cognitive deficits and its potential treatment, $17,500
  • Taylor Stone, for Client Experiences and Outcomes with Measurement-based Care on a Digitized Stepped-care Platform in Newfoundland and Labrador, $17,500

Total: $105,000

Canada Graduate Scholarships – Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplements

  • Brandon Hannam, for The Role of Locus Coeruleus Firing Activity in Emotional Memory and Regulation in a Pre-tangle Tau Animal Model of Alzheimer’s Disease, $6,000

Total: $6,000

Canada Foundation for Innovation

The John R. Evans Leaders Fund

Dr. Noriko Daneshtalab, School of Pharmacy, for $300,000

Total: $300,000

A number of other Memorial researchers are co-applicants, collaborators and partners on other projects that received support.

In addition to those noted above, other recipients received awards for future study at another university.

Learn more about research at Memorial and check out Research Strategy 2023-28 to learn how we’re moving ideas forward.


To receive news from Memorial in your inbox, subscribe to Gazette Now.


Latest News

Studentview

Gazette student columnist says cigarette butts are litter, too

Update to the university community

Message from Board Chair Justin Ladha and President Neil Bose

‘New energy and creativity’

Work term tales: computer science co-op pair trade town for central N.L.

Graduate research continuity

Science grant program supports student research, faculty on parental leave

Fall convocation

Memorial University to hold three ceremonies in St. John’s

Op-ed: Roxana Fazli

Mentoring is a ‘vital tool’ but can also perpetuate discriminatory practices, says PhD student