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Six University of Ģ����ý researchers have been appointed as new  as part of a  to UĢ����ý announced by the Government of Canada on May 13. 

“Investing in Canada’s top researchers and professors is an investment in our students today, and our present and future prosperity,” Karim Bardeesy, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Industry, said in a media release. “Across Canada, these investments are building a strong pipeline of talent equipped to take on tomorrow’s challenges and contribute to a more innovative and inclusive economy.” 

The new Canada Research Chairs represent a diverse range of expertise and research priorities.

“These new Chair appointments reflect the extraordinary talent and ambition of our research community,” says , vice-president (research). “I’m excited to see how their work will push the boundaries of knowledge and deliver real impact in areas that matter deeply to society.” 

To gain insight into their work and its potential impact, we asked each chairholder one question: “What are you most excited about in your research program?”

, PhD,  

Canadian Institutes of Health Research Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Precision Immunotherapy

“I am most excited about building a multidisciplinary research program at the University of Ģ����ý that uses bioinformatics and artificial intelligence to advance precision immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases. This Canada Research Chair provides an opportunity to link expertise across the university, including computational biology, immunology, oncology, engineering, data science, microbiology, and clinical research, to address questions that no single discipline can solve alone. 

“My program will focus on understanding how the immune system recognizes cancers and infections, why some patients respond to immunotherapy while others do not, and how multiomic data can guide more precise therapeutic strategies. This includes work on cancer immunotherapy as well as infectious diseases such as syphilis, where new computational approaches can help us better understand immune evasion, pathogen biology, and opportunities for vaccine and therapeutic development. Bioinformatics and artificial intelligence will be central to this work, helping us integrate complex datasets, identify biomarkers of response and resistance, and use generative AI to design therapies that can be tested experimentally and clinically.

“I am also excited to build national and international collaborations, and to help position Ģ����ý within a broader network of discovery, computation and patient-focused research.”

, PhD, Cumming School of Medicine  

Canadian Institutes of Health Research Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Childhood Neurodevelopment 

“What excites me most is the opportunity to build an interdisciplinary and innovative research program focused on how cells in the developing brain change, mature and become vulnerable in disease. In my lab, we study how protein networks inside cells are regulated and recycled to guide how the brain develops during childhood. 

“I am also excited to develop this work in Ģ����ý. The neuroscience, developmental biology and stem cell communities here are highly collaborative, and I see a real opportunity to expand my program into new areas, including repair, regeneration and brain aging biology. I am particularly interested in looking beyond just neurons and toward other brain residents such as astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and microglia, using human and animal models that push my research outside of its current ‘comfort zone.’

“My major goal is to build an international and transdisciplinary team that draws on strong Canada-Europe connections, bringing together expertise in proteomics, developmental neuroscience, stem cell biology and disease modelling. I hope this creates a lab environment where people challenge each other, support and grow together, and develop research directions that would be difficult to imagine from within a single discipline.”

, PhD, Cumming School of Medicine

Canadian Institutes for Health Research Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Brain Tumour and Glial Biology

“Paediatric gliomas are still among the leading causes of cancer-related death in children, and many survivors continue to face neurological and developmental side-effects from current therapies. Our goal is to better understand brain development and how these tumours evade treatment by focusing on how they interact with the immune system and on their epigenetic profile. With this approach, we aim to uncover vulnerabilities that can be targeted with therapies that are both more effective and less toxic, and to develop strategies that enable the immune system now to recognize and attack these tumours. So, what excites me most about our research program is the opportunity to contribute toward improving treatment options and outcomes for children with brain tumours in the future.”

, PhD, Faculty of Science

Canadian Institutes for Health Research Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Molecular Genetics for Microbiome Editing

“Humans are colonized by trillions of microbes: roughly the same as the number of human cells in the body. These microbes are collectively called the human microbiome and have many beneficial functions to our health. However, the sheer number and diversity of species in the microbiome make it challenging to understand how they exert their beneficial functions and whether we can influence them to be more helpful. Indeed, each person can have hundreds of species of bacteria in their intestines. I study the interactions between microbes to understand what drives the composition of a microbiome, how a given composition influences our health, and how we might engineer microbiomes for our own benefit.

“I am currently most excited about repurposing microbial competition for our own advantage. In our intestines, bacteria use an amazing arsenal of weaponry or strategies to harvest nutrients better than others. We are trying to understand in which contexts bacteria use these different strategies. This can then help us design new microbial therapeutics that may help us treat a variety of health problems such as infectious disease, colorectal cancer, or even neurodevelopmental disorders, just by repurposing the way that microbes normally behave.”

, PhD,  

Canadian Institutes for Health Research Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Child Mental Health and Well-Being

“What excites me most about my research program is the possibility that a discovery made in our lab today could help a parent, clinician or policymaker make a better decision tomorrow. As a researcher, clinician and parent, I am motivated by the opportunity to address some of the most pressing challenges facing children and families today, including mental health, adversity, climate anxiety, and the rapidly evolving role of digital media and AI. 

“Through the , I have the privilege of working alongside talented students, postdoctoral fellows, and collaborators who are committed to improving the lives of children and families. Using meta-analytic methods and large-scale datasets, our team seeks to understand how early experiences shape children’s mental health and well-being. A cornerstone of this work is the  study, one of Canada’s largest birth cohort studies, which has followed thousands of parents and children for more than 15 years and provides a unique opportunity to understand mental health trajectories across development.

“We are also focused on translating these discoveries into social innovations that directly support children and families. Through initiatives we have developed in partnership with youth, caregivers, practitioners and policymakers, including  and , we are translating research into free, evidence-informed resources that support families, practitioners and policymakers. Ultimately, we aim to ensure that research moves beyond academic journals to improve policy, practice and public understanding, while training the next generation of scientists and clinicians.”

, PhD,  

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Quantum Chemistry on Quantum Computers

"What excites me most is the possibility of making computer modelling an important tool in a chemist's tool box, making it fast and accurate so that chemists can use it to predict molecular properties, explain chemical phenomena and complement experimental discovery. The calculations needed to accurately describe how electrons behave in the microscopic world and how chemical bonds form and break can take days or weeks of computing time for even a single molecule with just a few dozen atoms. This creates bottlenecks when numerous computations are needed and forces a compromise between accuracy or speed of discovery. My research develops computational quantum chemistry methods that reduce this resource burden while delivering high accuracy by integrating artificial intelligence and quantum computing. My group creates broadly applicable machine learning-based methods capable of accurately predicting molecular properties in milliseconds, quantum machine learning models that offer new ways to process chemical data, and hybrid quantum–classical algorithms suited for a quantum-centric supercomputing future.

“I am excited about how the developed methods will potentially accelerate molecular discovery while reducing energy consumption and experimental costs, with applications spanning drug design, catalysis, synthesis planning, materials discovery, clean energy and greenhouse-gas capture."