Ontario Research Fund

Friday, April 12, 2013

Professors Ashraf Aboulnaga (Cheriton School of Computer Science), Ali Ghodsi (Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science), Ian Goldberg (Cheriton School of Computer Science) and Kristen Morris (Department of Applied Mathematics) have received new funding from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation's Ontario Research Fund. Through this fund, the provincial government "is providing talented researchers with the support they need to undertake cutting-edge research."

Ashraf Aboulnaga's funded project is called "Research infrastructure for computational analytics on big data in the cloud." Business decisions and scientific discovery are increasingly reliant on complex analysis of big data from multiple sources. This project will provide essential infrastructure for research that will enable innovative and novel types of big data analytics leading to advances in business, science and public policy.

Ali Ghodsi's grant will fund new equipment in support of his project "Data analytics and computational biostatistics." He will develop new statistical and computational methodologies for application to medical, environmental and industrial research.

Ian Goldberg's funded project "Privacy enhancing technologies at a global scale" seeks to acquire leading-edge equipment to develop testbeds for large-scale experiments on next-generation privacy-enhancing technologies. This will enable the development of new products and services allowing Ontarians to participate in the digital economy without sacrificing their privacy.

Kirsten Morris will investigate "Computing infrastructure for control of complex physical systems." Her research grant will fund a high-performance shared memory computer to help develop models and control strategies for complex systems such as smart materials and intracellular networks. This will lead to breakthroughs in the manipulation and control of these systems.