nine lakehead-led projects receive nserc alliance grant funding

august 14, 2024 – thunder bay, ont.

nine 阿根廷vs墨西哥竞猜 researchers across a variety of disciplines have been awarded natural sciences and engineering research council of canada (nserc) alliance grants, for a total investment of $1,097,000. two projects in particular are driving transnational innovation at the local level.

dr. ashley thomson, associate professor in the faculty of natural resources management, is collaborating with the ministries of northern development, mines, and natural resources, as well as the superior-woods tree improvement association, on a study to understand the patterns of genetic diversity and adaptive variation among boreal tree populations in response to climate change.  

“given black spruce's significance as the most important commercial forest species in ontario, with the largest scale of annual forest renewal in the province, this research will substantially impact the health, resilience, and productivity of crown forests and the broader forest sector economy,” says thomson.

by examining genetic variation and biological traits such as growth, survival, and tolerance to cold and drought, thomson aims to identify climate variables most strongly associated with variation among black spruce populations.

“as global temperatures rise, many boreal tree populations, including black spruce, are predicted to experience decreased growth and survival,” explains thomson. “however, the response is expected to vary among populations and species due to differences in ecophysiological tolerances and their capacity to adapt.”

using this data, thomson and her team will map patterns of adaptive variation and construct predictive models to assess the risk of maladaptation under climate change. the results will be used by research partners to develop species-specific seed transfer guidelines to maintain black spruce health and productivity under climate change. because black spruce is a significant forest species across canada, the impacts of this research could expand far beyond ontario.

the same can be said for research being conducted by dr. ehsan atoofian, associate professor in the department of electrical engineering, in partnership with trojai inc.

atoofian and his research team are tackling the vulnerabilities of deep neural networks (dnns) to malicious attacks. neural networks are a means of machine learning where a computer is trained to perform some task (i.e., object recognition) by analyzing thousands or even millions of examples. despite their success in various real-world applications, these dnns are susceptible to carefully crafted attacks that can deceive even well-trained networks. adversarial attacks exploit the fundamental aspects of how a machine learning algorithm is designed and built and can lead to the corruption of entire systems. this vulnerability poses significant risks in security-sensitive applications like online banking and autonomous driving and could result in identify theft, financial losses, and even loss of human lives.

“as machine learning is being embedded into so many products and services around us, we need to make sure that we are also researching and continually working on the vulnerabilities of these systems,” atoofian says.

atoofian's research will focus specifically on finding ways to defend adversarial attacks that target the energy and execution time of dnns. “computer scientists have done a great job improving the energy-efficiency of machine learning algorithms in resource constrained applications like mobile devices, but this has created vulnerabilities,” he explains. “the outcome of this research will help canadian high-tech industry detect and disable malicious attacks that impact energy consumption of computing systems.”

by leveraging the correlation between firing neurons and predictions made by dnn, atoofian and the research team will monitor the firing neurons during the inference phase so that they can detect the neurons that are activated maliciously. this groundbreaking approach will enhance the robustness of dnns and will be critical to the success of mobile computing.

“from natural sciences to data driven technology, lakehead researchers are continuing to drive real-world innovation locally,” says dr. andrew p. dean, vice-president, research and innovation. “thank you to nserc and our partner organizations for enabling this innovative research activity.”

in 2023/24, 阿根廷vs墨西哥竞猜 received almost $2.5 million in assistance from the research support fund to support the indirect costs of research, which includes costs for supporting the management of intellectual property, research and administration, ethics and regulatory compliance, research resources, research facilities, and research security.

nserc alliance grants 2023-24

$1,097,000 in funding from nserc, plus $465,000 from partner organizations

alliance grants (one-to-five-year grants)

ehsan atoofian, associate professor, electrical engineering, “boosting robustness of deep neural networks against sparsity-aware adversarial attacks”, $120,000 ($60,000 from nserc, $30,000 from mitacs, and $30,000 from the partner organization, trojai inc.).

peter hollings, nohfc irc chair in mineral exploration, professor, geology, “mineral chemistry as an exploration tool for gold and copper deposits”, $310,000 ($240,000 from nserc, $70,000 from evolution mining ltd., $50,000 from northisle copper and gold inc.).

• collaborator: university of tasmania

peter hollings, nohfc irc chair in mineral exploration, professor, geology, “geochemistry and mineralization of the indin lake belt of the slave province, nwt”, $240,000 ($160,000 from nserc, $50,000 from nighthawk gold corp., and $30,000 from the government of the northwest territories).

noah phillips, assistant professor, geology, “does dynamic recrystallization enrich gold deposits? a field-to-micro-scale study of the goliath gold complex”, $90,000 ($60,000 from nserc, $30,000 from treasury metals inc.).

amanda diochon, associate professor, geology, “clearing the way for agricultural expansion in the north: evaluating alternative land conversion practices'', $27,000 (nserc preparatory funds to support the development of an application to the nserc-sshrc sustainable agriculture research initiative).

amanda diochon, associate professor, geology, “growing pains? the effect of land conversion on soil health, soil organic carbon stores, and clubroot spread in northern ontario”, $120,000 ($80,000 from nserc, $40,000 from the ontario canola growers association).

ashley thomson, associate professor, natural resources management, “understanding genetic response of black spruce to climate change project / combining phenotypic and population genomic data to assess patterns of adaptive variation and the risk of maladaptation due to climate change in black spruce”, $225,000 ($150,000 from nserc, $60,000 from the ministry of northern development, mines, natural resources and forestry, $15,000 from superior-woods tree improvement association).

robert stewart, associate professor, geography and the environment, “lake nipigon cumulative impacts partnership”, $180,000 ($120,000 from nserc, $60,000 from biinjitiwaabik zaaging anishinaabek).

alliance international (one-to-three-year grants)

ehsan atoofian, associate professor, electrical engineering, “approximate quantum arithmetic units”, $25,000.

• collaborators: dr. alexandru paler at aalto university, finland, and dr. basmadjian at clausthal university of technology, germany.

muhammad khalid, assistant professor, mechanical engineering, “odor-guided underwater propulsion: towards bio-inspired mechanisms for sensing, detection, and navigation”, $25,000.

• collaborator: dr. chengyu li at villanova university, usa.

maryam ebrahimi, canada research chair in low-dimensional nanomaterials, assistant professor, chemistry, “arpes measurements of carbon-based 2d quantum materials with different lattice symmetry”, $25,000.

• collaborator: dr. yannick fagot-revurat, université de lorraine, france.

janusz kozinski, dean, faculty of engineering, “biomass-to-hydrogen conversion: innovative processing and societal implications”, $25,000.

• co-applicant: dr. kang kang, research assistant professor, biorefining research institute, 阿根廷vs墨西哥竞猜
• collaborator: dr. aneta magdziarz, agh university of science and technology, poland.

sudip rakshit, canada research chair in bioenergy and biorefining processes, professor, chemical engineering, “effective depolymerization of pet plastics in the presence of additives towards a circular economy”, $25,000.

• collaborator: dr. vijai gupta, dublin city university, ireland.

salama ikki, associate professor, electrical engineering, “quantum entanglement: unraveling full duplex communication”, $25,000.

• collaborator: dr. murat uysal, new york university, usa.

kang kang, research assistant professor, biorefining research institute, “a collaborative effort to develop biomass‐based graphene quantum dots for metal ion sensing”, $25,000.

• collaborator: dr. dongbing li, university of nottingham (ningbo campus), china

salama ikki, associate professor, electrical engineering, “spatial and temporal prediction of wireless communication channels for 5g+ communication systems”, $25,000.

• collaborator: professor muhammad zeeshan shakir, university of the west of scotland, uk.