NSERC Awards

"Every day, your ingenuity benefits humanity in myriad ways. And while each of you has a unique story, there are several commonalities that run through this distinguished group. Your actions and your work demonstrate the importance of science and engineering. You know the value of education and learning. And you are well aware of the impact of sharing and collaboration."

The Governor General presented a series of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) awards during a ceremony at Rideau Hall. On this occasion, His Excellency delivered a speech on the importance of learning and innovation, and recognized the work of outstanding and highly promising scientists and engineers who are part of Canada’s academic research community.

Talena Rambarran (McMaster University) received an NSERC André Hamer Postgraduate Prize. She hopes to develop more effective and environmentally friendly alternatives to silicone elastomers currently used in many medical devices and biomedical products. Using a class of reactions known as "click chemistry," her work could lead to a new generation of biomaterials that improve patient health and reduce risks to the environment.

Alex Hayat (University of Toronto) received the NSERC Howard Alper Postdoctoral Prize. Quantum technologies that exploit the laws of quantum mechanics for information storage and processing could power the next generation of smaller and faster information devices. But the technologies fall short because key components are still too bulky. Alex Hayat’s research aims to develop compact, highly efficient quantum devices by combining quantum optics with novel states of matter, such as superconductors, that could once again revolutionize information and communications technology.

Sheelagh Carpendale (University of Calgary) was one of the recipients of the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowships. An internationally renowned leader in information visualization and interactive tabletop displays, Sheelagh Carpendale undertakes research to enable the design of innovative, people-centred information technologies. She studies how people interact with information, images, technology and each other. She then applies her observations to the design of interfaces and visual representations of data used in information technologies to make them more natural, accessible and understandable for the people who use them.

NSERC’s Synergy Awards for Innovation honour the most outstanding achievements of university-industry collaboration in the natural sciences and engineering. Rung Tien Bui (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi) received a Synergy Award for his partnership with Rio Tinto Alcan. Aluminum is infinitely recyclable, lightweight and can be adapted to a wide variety of uses, putting it in high demand for everything from packaging consumer products to making more fuelefficient vehicles. This partnership is ensuring Canada’s continued leadership in aluminum smelting—a major contributor of jobs and economic growth. Ongoing research into better processes and technology is leading to more economical and sustainable production.

Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering was awarded to Alberta Carbohydrate Science (David Bundle, John Klassen and Todd Lowary of University of Alberta and Glen Armstrong and Kenneth Ng of University of Calgary). The Alberta Carbohydrate Science Group is a highly interactive team representing diverse disciplines focused on solving problems that span the spectrum of chemistry, structural biology and microbiology. This broad range of expertise has propelled the group to make discoveries that are recognized at the forefront of glycobiology—one of the top fields that will impact the future of biomedicine. The team’s research is leading to new ways of developing vaccines and better tools to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.

The NSERC John C. Polanyi Award was presented by Mr. Polanyi himself (second from left) to Brendan John Frey and Benjamin J. Blencowe (University of Toronto). They have taken a major step forward in unravelling the riddle of how the human genome can do so much with what seems like a relatively small number of genes. Their discovery of a sophisticated DNA code that cells use to rearrange parts of genetic messages in a process called "splicing" sheds new light on how our bodies function and how DNA mutations can result in disease. This breakthrough will further guide the design of a new generation of diagnostic tests and biomolecular therapies.

The prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering was awarded to W. Richard Peltier (University of Toronto). His research has helped pioneer Earth system science—a multidisciplinary, holistic approach to explaining how the Earth functions. His seminal contributions to geophysics, atmospheric physics, and climate change research have spawned a new sub-discipline in the solid Earth and climate dynamical sciences. Using sophisticated mathematical concepts, his models depict how climate evolved over the past 750 million years, and project how it will evolve in the future. His research on ice-age climate variability is considered the gold standard for scholarship on past climate change. He is the founding director of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Global Change Science.