Thursday, August 4, 2016

$13.4M awarded to Waterloo researchers

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has awarded five researchers from the University of Waterloo with $13.4 million to advance health research.

The majority of the funding was awarded through a foundation grant which provides long-term support for innovative and high-impact research programs. Project grants are awarded to ideas with the greatest potential to advance health-related knowledge and research, as well as health care, systems, and outcomes.

“This funding recognizes the value and impact of the diverse and innovative research at the University of Waterloo which includes health research. We appreciate both the investment and recognition from CIHR for the transformational research underway at Waterloo,” said D. George Dixon, vice-president, university research, University of Waterloo.

The researchers are:

Scott Leatherdale, School of Public Health and Health Systems – $1,678,695

Project grant: Extension of the COMPASS Study: building on our current success shaping the direction of youth health ($1,578,695 over five years)

Project grant: Development of a mental health module for the COMPASS system: improving youth mental health trajectories ($100,000 for one year)

Ellen MacEachen, School of Public Health and Health Systems – $191,125 over three years

Project grant: The new “sharing economy” and Uber: A developmental evaluation of emergent conditions for occupational health risk and regulation

Geoffrey T. Fong, Psychology – $11,318,248 over seven years

Foundation grant: Evaluating and understanding the impact of tobacco control policies of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in a rapidly changing global tobacco market: The International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project

David Moscovitch, Psychology – $100,000 for one year

Project grant: Understanding the Psychological Effects and Mechanisms of Imagery Rescripting for Social Anxiety Disorder: A Controlled Experimental Study

Ben Thompson, School of Optometry and Vision Science – $100,000 for one year

Project grant: Treating amblyopia and convergence insufficiency with non-invasive brain stimulation

Subpar finish doesn't sink team's spirits

By Brian Caldwell. This is an excerpt of an article that originally ran on the Waterloo Stories page.

They lost the race, but not their sense of humour – or their determination to make a much better showing the next time they launch their pedal-powered submarine in a maritime testing facility.

After a comedy of technical and logistical errors contributed to a dead-last finish at a competition in England last week, student members of a University of Waterloo design team are chalking it all up to experience.

Waterloo team improvises with zip ties

Lesson one? How about the importance of improvisation when things aren’t, well, going exactly as planned.

That’s what it came down to for members of WatSub, as the team is called, when their underwater vessel was first held up in customs, then arrived late and in rough shape after the competition involving 10 other teams from Europe, North America and New Zealand had already started.

“Every single thing that could fall apart did and we fixed them all with zip ties,” said Ojaswi Tagore, a third-year mechanical engineering student and founding member of the team.

Never mind that their craft, nicknamed Amy, didn’t record an official speed because Tagore, the driver, kept hitting his knees on the cramped hull while pedalling and crashed before reaching the timing gates.

After taking on the challenge of designing and building a small submarine just over a year ago, the students – about 15 in all, with a core group of five - consider it a success just to have qualified for the third biennial European International Submarine Race in Gosport, UK.

Team motto: Everything is simple until you go underwater

Getting there meant learning to scuba dive, lining up corporate sponsors and finding out the hard way that “everything is simple until you go underwater,” a saying the team adopted as its motto. Among the many obstacles to overcome: rust.

Competing against university teams with a decade or more of experience, WatSub’s three representatives in England – Tagore and fellow engineering students Gonzalo Espinoza and Janna Henzi  – even came home with a prize for perseverance.

“I think the greatest thing we learned is never to give up,” said Ana Krstanovic, a third-year political science student who does communications for the first-ever Waterloo entry. “We’re more motivated now than ever.”

Read the rest of the article on Waterloo Stories.

Thursday's notes

Beginning today, the Mathematics Undergraduate Office will have reduced operating hours for the remainder of August. The office, located in MC 4022, will be open from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. until August 31.