NSERC University Faculty Award

The NSERC University Faculty Awards Program was designed to increase the representation of women and Aboriginal peoples in faculty positions in the natural sciences and engineering by encouraging Canadian universities to appoint promising researchers in those groups to tenure track positions. NSERC contributes to a portion of the salary and research costs of recipients The following individuals within the Faculty of Science are winners of this prestigious and fiercely competitive award.

Dr. Wai Ling Yee, Department of Mathematics and Statistics was the recipient of a 2007 NSERC University Faculty Award. She joined the faculty in July 2006. Dr. Yee belongs to an international group of mathematicians studying the Unitary Dual Problem. Computing the unitary dual would finish a fundamental mathematical tool desired by scientists for decades, from oceanographers modelling ocean currents to physicists studying the geometry of the universe.

Dr. Stephanie Doucet was the recipient of a 2006 NSERC University Faculty Award. She joined the Department of Biological Sciences as an Assistant Professor on July 1, 2006. Dr. Doucet’s research interests fall broadly within the fields of evolutionary, behavioural, and tropical ecology. To date, her research has focused on visual communication in birds with a particular interest in visual sensitivity, mechanisms of color production, mechanisms of condition-dependent variation, the signal function of intraspecific variation in color, and the evolution of different types of plumage colors in birds. She also studies how natural and sexual selection interact to shape avian morphology and ornamentation.

Dr. Tricia Breen Carmichael received a 2005 NSERC University Faculty Award and joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as an Associate Professor in May 2005. Dr. Carmichael is interested in organic and organometallic surface science and the applications of this research in the microelectronics industry: the use of self-assembled monolayers in micro- and nanofabrication; the study of self-assembled monolayers as barriers to corrosion and oxidation; the low-cost micropatterning of materials ranging from organic polymers to inorganic oxides for use in microelectronic devices; and the self-assembly of ordered materials with potential use as active elements in electronic and memory devices.

Dr. Maria Cioppa, Department of Earth Sciences, was the recipient of an NSERC University Faculty Award in 2001. Dr. Cioppa’s primary research interests are environmental geo-physics and paleo-magnetism of oil and gas containing rocks.