My doctoral research focuses on developing scientific literacy in young children. Currently, in the field of science education, there are different interpretations of a scientific literate person and this includes being knowledgeable about scientific content and developing an ability to apply this knowledge in meaningful way. Despite the importance of teaching science to young children, […]

The project aims to validate the effectiveness of “phase contrast” synchrotron (x-ray) imaging techniques in detecting very small-scale features (particularly amyloid plaques) commonly associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. This will be done though comparison of synchrotron-generated images of Alzheimer-afflicted brain tissue, against their optical microscopy image counterparts. The experimental process will involve five […]

The great interest of shifting towards biodiesel from vegetable oils or was fats is leading to a tremendous increase of glycerol production as an inevitable by-product. This waste sparked the need for glycerol valorization to justify biodiesel as alternative for diesel from petroleum. Our research efforts are to partially electro-oxidize glycerol into value-added chemicals in […]

The current picture of structure formation in cosmology suggests that initially over-dense regions of dark matter collapse to form halos. These halos also host most of the luminous matter like galaxies. However, we cannot trace the dark matter directly since it does not interact with light. Therefore, the relationship between the underlying cosmic density and […]

Lignin, a carbon neutral and an underutilized feedstock, can be used to produce a variety of products, such as oils, syngas, benzene, toluene, xylene as well as high molecular weight products such as wood adhesives (binders), carbon fibers and polyurethane foams using thermal, chemical, biological and electro-biochemical processes. Globally, approximately 64 million tonnes of lignin […]

Oligonucleotides will be structurally integrated within complementary architectures in order to synthesize hybrid nanomaterials featuring biomolecular-driven behavior. We plan to synthesize nanoparticles featuring nucleic acid conjugates embedded in the structural network, so that their dynamics could be programmed for cancer therapy. We intend to make use of the biodegradable organosilica technology developed in De Cola’s […]

Septic shock is an acute pathology that is the leading cause of admission to ICUs across Canada, and the developed world. Unfortunately, no treatment to date has yet to be proven beneficial. Cardiac failure is a major factor in the mortality induced by septic shock. A major player to be targeted in treating this dysfunction […]

Some biochemical processes are challenging to be studied due to the number of components that they are comprised. Splicing is a challenging process that involves removal of unnecessary information from messenger RNA for synthesis of a protein of interest. This process gives raise to much of the protein diversity in humans; therefore, it is not […]

A specific region of the brain, the intra-parietal sulcus (IPS) has reliably been shown, through studies using a variety of methodologies (brain injury, developmental abnormality and neuro-imaging studies), to be a crucial substrate for mathematical competence (Brannon, 2006; Bugden, Price, McLean, & Ansari, 2012; Dehaene, 2004; Dehaene, Piazza, Pinel, & Cohen, 2003; Holloway & Ansari, […]

In our data-saturated world, people could greatly benefit from understanding data in their daily lives through visualization. Currently, many visualizations are situated out of context from the physical world, leading to a loss of data-richness gained from in-context analysis. Using tabletop robotic devices and projectors, Dr. Jansen’s research team are developing infrastructure to generate and […]

In order to improve the sustainability of salmonid aquaculture, it is now essential to reduce dietary levels of fish meal by replacement with alternative and terrestrial plant products, and particularly digestible carbohydrates, in the aquafeed formula. However, when fishmeal is substituted at more than 20% by digestible carbohydrates, rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), the economically most […]

This proposal introduces a method for finding corresponding regions between 3D shapes automatically. Existing methods require users to provide several point-to-point correspondences, but are not capable of solving correspondence problems when we have a large amount of 3D objects. I propose to resolve the correspondence problem by studying the relationship between functions on shapes, rather […]