CU Research Achievement Awards

The Carleton University Research Achievement Awards are administered by the Office of the Vice-President (Research and International). The purpose of these awards is to recognize outstanding research achievements. The awards were established in 1989 to enhance the quality of research and to recognize research excellence. The recipients’ terms run from May to April.

Be sure to view past Research Achievement Award winners and the Teaching Achievement Award winners too!

Abid Hussain

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bio-electrochemical systems for carbon recovery and chemical production from organic waste

Organic waste comprises a major fraction of municipal solid waste. The current treatment and disposal methods lead to significant greenhouse gas emissions or yield a product of relatively low value. Bio-electrochemical systems represent innovative technologies capable of converting organic waste to carboxylates which are highly prized as industrial chemicals. This project focuses on the fundamental aspects of the intricate microbial and electrochemical reactions that facilitate carboxylate production in these systems to maximize yields and carbon recovery.

Andrew Harris

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Investigating the Role of Mechanical Forces in Platelet Production

Platelet transfusion is an effective treatment strategy for patients with a reduced platelet count, but it demands a high number of uncontaminated platelets. An intriguing alternative source of platelets to donor blood is to make them synthetically, but current approaches fall short of producing clinically usable platelet counts. This research will take a new perspective by considering the role of mechanical forces in platelet production and will lead to new methods to generate platelets ex vivo.

Azar Masoumi

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

The Politics of Hope and Hopelessness

This project takes the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Iran as a case study to investigate why young people engage in political action under conditions that offer little hope for meaningful change. The project will analyze social and broadcast media content to theorize the affective politics of youth-engaged social movements and will use the findings to create cross-cultural, transnational and inter-generational forums for bridging academic knowledge and communities with histories of suppressed political dissent.

Christina Gabriel

Department of Political Science

The Care Crisis and International Student Mobility

This project focuses on how immigration policy is deployed to address health worker shortages. Specifically, it examines how international nursing students negotiate the intersection between the terms of their entry to Canada as students on a study permit and their transition to the health labour force through mechanisms such as the post-graduate work permit. In doing so the project will identify systemic barriers migrants encounter in the labour market and evaluate available policy options.

Francine Darroch

Department of Health Sciences

Trauma- and Violence-Informed Movement for Equity-Owed Fathers

The benefits of physical activity are well-documented, however, there is limited research examining access to physical activity for single fathers in equity-owed communities who may face multiple vectors of oppression such as income instability, precarious housing, and trauma. Through this community-based research, we aim to co-create gender-based trauma- and violence-informed physical activity (TVIPA) programming and assess if this strategy may promote health and create social and community connections for single fathers and their families.

Guoliang Frank Jiang

Sprott School of Business

Better Governance or Greater Legitimacy? Examining the Impact of Shareholder and Stakeholder Pressures on Female Board Appointments

Appointments of women to corporate boards are often explained by shareholders’ desire to enhance governance effectiveness and the need to obtain legitimacy from non-shareholder stakeholders. However, while shareholders and stakeholders may both have a positive impact on women’s board appointments, their objectives and preferences are often misaligned or in conflict. The proposed research aims to add theoretical and empirical clarity to the existing literature on board gender diversity by differentiating between these two perspectives.

Kyle Biggar

Institute of Biochemistry

Unraveling KDM5A’s role in p53 modification and cancer therapy response

Our lab investigates the impact of certain protein modifications on cancer, with a focus on methylation. In particular, we study the enzyme KDM5A and its interaction with the tumour suppressor protein p53. We originally discovered that KDM5A removes a specific modification on p53 (K370me3), linked to how cells respond to chemotherapy. As this work continues, our findings will shed light on potential new avenues for understanding and treating cancer.

Murray Richardson

Department of Geography and Environmental Studies

A process-based hydrology model of renewable freshwater supply for Iqaluit, Nunavut

Iqaluit is the largest city in Canada’s Eastern Arctic, and the rapidly growing capital of Nunavut, on southern Baffin Island. The community faces seasonal water shortages in their municipal surface water reservoir, requiring emergency supplementation from a nearby lake. Building on the long-term hydrology research program and datasets I have established for Iqaluit, I will develop a scientifically defensible surface water model to support forecasting and management of the community’s renewable freshwater supply.

Scott Bucking

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Tiny 2.0: A deeply affordable climate-friendly housing solution

Tiny2.0 builds upon established principles of sustainability, resilience, and affordability to explore cutting-edge concepts within the realm of sustainable and resilient housing solutions (thenorthernnomad.ca). This multidisciplinary research project extends beyond net-zero solutions to incorporate emerging themes like net carbon sequestration and energy trading facilitated by digital blockchain ledgers. Energy storage and trading addresses ongoing issues with the electrical grid such as arbitrage, curtailment, peak emission avoidance and outages due to extreme weather events.

Stéfy McKnight

School of Journalism and Communication

Watching Territory: Art of surveillance and territory

This project seeks to visualize and understand surveillance and territory through the lens of art and artists who are affected by Western implications of territory. Using the Research Achievement Award, I will curate an exhibition of artworks in my CFI JELF and ORF SIF funded research lab “SurveillART: Care-laboratory for Disruptive Exhibitionism” at Carleton University, that critically examines surveillance and contemporary colonialism, specifically in the context of territory and land.