Canada Research Chairs

Canada Research Chair in Freshwater Restoration Ecology

As a CRC in Freshwater Restoration Ecology, Dr. Febria will take a multidisciplinary approach to building an internationally-recognized research program focused on the conservation and restoration of freshwater ecosystems.  Her lab and team - the Healthy Headwaters Lab - is partnering with local farming and First Nation communities to co-design research to address species-at-risk, freshwater and farming sustainability challenges.  Her discovery-based research on the structure and functioning of headwater ecosystems is also directly applicable to conservation, restoration and management challenges of our time.  Understanding ecological processes and biodiversity in intermittent streams, wetlands and riparian zones is critically important for ecosystem health issues in the Great Lakes basin.  Thus this diverse research team co-designs research with collaborative partners to ensure that science can inform decision-making at multiple scales.  Dr. Febria’s research approach includes the establishment Indigenous Allyship Program to recruit and train a minimum of five indigenous scientists in freshwater restoration research on territorial lands, and, the creation of a local Farmers Research Network to advise and advance solutions-focused research across farms and freshwater ecosystems.

Learn more about Catherine Febria

Learn more about the Healthy Headwaters Lab

Canada Research Chair in Trophic Ecology

Dr. Aaron Fisk

All animals must eat. The availability of edible food, however, is profoundly influenced by nature’s rhythms pressing up against increasing consumptive demands and man’s impact on the environment.

All animals, including humans, are embedded in food webs. An organism’s position within a food web is central in determining the amount of energy and nutrients available to it. Strategic positioning is key to survival. Global change can profoundly alter the structure and links within food webs, ultimately changing the types and abundance of organisms able to survive in an ecosystem. Our ability to sustain healthy ecosystems and feed burgeoning populations depends on understanding how nature and humans interact with the structure and function of ecosystems.

Dr. Fisk’s research will simultaneously examine the structure, function and flow of nutrients in aquatic food webs, using a suite of naturally-occurring and anthropogenically-introduced chemical tracers. In controlled laboratory studies he will calibrate the tracers for aquatic organisms (e.g., walleye) and in detailed field studies he will apply study results to questions on the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems. These tracers are also important for the health of humans and wildlife. The right combination of essential fatty acids, for example, promotes human health and fish growth, but often results in simultaneous exposure to toxic mercury and PCBs.

Characterizing and understanding the influence of natural variation and anthropogenic stress on food webs is essential for effective conservation and management and ultimately for healthy and sustainable ecosystems. Dr. Fisk’s research will develop tools for studying ecosystem structure and provide new information on how ecosystems function and how they react to environmental stressors.

Learn more about Dr. Aaron Fisk

Narayan KarMajor challenges the global automotive industry faces today related to mass adaptation of electrified vehicles (EVs) include: purchasing cost; driving range; performance; charging infrastructure and charging time. These are key technical barriers and challenges for advancing EV technologies and ensuring their consumer friendliness. Under Dr. Narayan Kar’s leadership, this CRC program will address these challenges through research in vehicle powertrain component and system areas. Research will be conducted in areas of electric machines, power converters, controls, energy storage, and battery charging and management through innovative multidisciplinary industry, academia, and government collaborations. Its ultimate goal is to create consumer friendly EVs.

Learn more about the CHARGE Lab.

Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Invasive Species

Hugh MacIsaac

Alien species are one of the greatest ecological problems affecting global biodiversity today.  The Great Lakes have been invaded by at least 180 alien species, while our coastal marine ecosystems face an increasing number of harmful invasions.  These alien  species disrupt foodwebs and harm economic resources.  Canada has placed a very high priority on preventing introduction of new alien species, and on early detection programs for when prevention fails.  Early detection of aquatic invaders is very difficult, however, because initial population numbers are typically very low and because visibility of species is less apparent in aquatic than in terrestrial environments.

Dr. MacIsaac's lab will explore use of molecular techniques to detect the entire species complement present in a number of vulnerable aquatic ecosystems across Canada.  These techniques rely on identification of species by their species-specific DNA patterns rather than traditional methods that use microscopy.  Water samples will be collected from ports, following which DNA will be extracted, amplified and sequenced.  DNA sequences will then be compared to reference databases, allowing species determination.  

The risk of a successful invasion is determined both by the number of alien species introduced and by their abundance when released – often by ships – into Canadian waters. These relationships will be studied in experiments conducted using ballast water contained in ships arriving to Canadian ports. Efforts will focus on the relative importance of these two parameters and the identification of ships and shipping routes that pose the greatest threat of new species introductions.  

These studies will allow the more effective management of arriving ships to reduce the overall number of alien species that successfully colonize Canadian waters. 

Learn more about Hugh MacIsaac

Learn more about MacIssac Lab

Canada Research Chair in Sexual Violence 

Charlene Senn

University is meant to be a place where all students can focus solely on learning in a safe environment. Yet, as many as one in four women attending a postsecondary institution will experience rape or attempted rape before they graduate.

The scope and impact of the problem underscores the importance for researchers to develop and evaluate interventions on campuses to help combat this reality.

Over the course of more than 10 years, Charlene Senn, who is Canada Research Chair in Sexual Violence, has developed a sexual assault resistance education program for women in their first year of university or college, which is when their risk is the highest. Senn’s Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act (EAAA) program affirms men’s responsibility to stop rape, while empowering female students with the knowledge and skills to fight back against a sexual attack.

The effectiveness of this program was demonstrated in a randomized controlled trial, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in which the rate of one-year incidence of completed rape was reduced by almost 50% among women who took the intervention program compared to the control group.

Senn’s research now focuses on studying and enhancing the effectiveness and implementation of the EAAA as it is rolled out on campuses across North America. Her research on institutionalizing bystander programs for students of all genders will contribute to broader changes in campus culture. This research has the potential to reduce the incidences of rape on campuses across North America.

Learn more about Dr. Charlene Senn

Canada Research Chair in Art, Science and Ecology

Dr. Jennifer Willet is an internationally recognized artist and researcher in the field of bioart. Bioart is a contemporary art form that uses biological media—such as living cells, bacteria and plants—rather than paint or clay to create art.

Willet’s focus is on creative biotech research and teaching biotech skills to the next generation of artists interested in science and technology. Her creative artworks also promotes critical thinking in science and technology literacy in general.

She has worked in laboratories globally researching tissue culture, microbiology, and molecular biology from an arts perspective, with an emphasis on subjective experience and bioethics. Her research has resulted in artworks like “The Great Lakes Algae Organ”—a bicycle-pulled street organ that grows and displays a large algae colony and plays organ music—and “Windsor Yeast,” where live yeast colonies sampled from the City of Windsor post-industrial ecology are grown in petri dishes over photographs of the city.

Ultimately, Willet’s goal is to encourage non-specialists and researchers across disciplines to work with scientists, industry and policy-makers in co-determining our shared biotech future.

Learn more about the INCUBATOR Art Lab.

Canada Research Chair in International and Intercultural Reciprocal Learning in Education

Shijing Xu

Challenging the East-West Dichotomy: What can we reciprocally learn from each other?

Research that looks at educational similarities and differences between two cultures and aims to explore how teachers can reciprocally learn from each other is at the core of Dr. Shijing Xu’s program in international and intercultural reciprocal learning in education. Her research program focuses on identifying educational needs and issues shared by stakeholders in both Canada and China and builds a multidimensional bridge to bring people together from both educational research and practice to study these needs and issues and learn from one another in a diverse and interdependent world. 

Dr. Xu’s Canada Research Chair program will build on her previous work, the Shanghai-Toronto-Beijing Sister School Network and the Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program between the University of Windsor and Southwest University in China, which established a Canada-China reciprocal learning partnership that includes  two Canadian and five Chinese universities, two Canadian school boards, 40 associated schools in Canada and China, and 42 researchers, 35 graduate students and two post-doctoral fellows working together on six Canada-China research teams.  The CRC research program is aimed at comparing and contrasting Canadian and Chinese education in such a way that the cultural narratives of each provide frameworks for understanding and appreciating educational similarities and differences. Specifically, some of the questions to be answered are:  How different and similar are Chinese Confucian and Western educational systems and practices? How are school practices and student accomplishments functions of socio-cultural narratives? What can we learn reciprocally from each other as global issues continue to come to the forefront in educational planning and practice?  The results of these studies will aim to make an impact on public educational discourse, policy and practice.

Learn more about Shijing Xu

Canada Research Chair in Edge Computing and Internet of Vehicles

Ning Zhang HeadshotThe Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is a wireless network used to exchange information between vehicles, infrastructure and pedestrians using smart devices and sensors inside and outside of vehicles. By providing information to support decision-making, the IoV can improve road safety and efficiency. But to work properly, it depends on timely data acquisition and processing.

As Canada Research Chair in Edge Computing and Internet of Vehicles, Dr. Ning Zhang is investigating mobile edge computing, in which roadside edge servers cache data contents and execute different computational tasks for vehicles. This can reduce latency in content delivery and data processing. He and his research team are also developing intelligent systems for caching and delivering content, scheduling computational tasks, and managing AI-aided resources to ensure vehicles can access the data needed to complete computational tasks in real time.