Federal dollars flow to UOIT
Ed Holder, the federal minister of state for science and technology, was at UOIT on Monday to announce $340 million in funding for university research across the country, including $1.9 million for the Oshawa university.
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
The University of Ontario Institute of Technology has received a friendly boost from the federal government in the form of $1.9 million in grants.
A part of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s (NSERC) Discovery Grant program, 70 Canadian universities are sharing more than $340 million in funding announced on Monday.
Ed Holder, the minister of state for science and technology, was on hand at UOIT as part of the announcement and to share some friendly advice with students in attendance.
Also on hand was Whitby-Oshawa MP Pat Perkins.
“Canada’s future is looking pretty bright due to Ed’s leadership in science, technology and innovation,” she said.
UOIT president Tim McTiernan says the funding will go a long way toward assisting new and innovative research at the institution “to address issues and opportunities that build our communities.”
More than 3,500 Canadian researchers will benefit from the grants, 20 of which are at UOIT. Dr. Christopher Collins is one of those 20.
Collins will receive $300,000 to further his research in the field of linguistic information visualization, which will look for better techniques to process and present large volumes of information.
In the digital age, Collins work looks to ease the information overload and pull out the important and culturally significant information that exists among the throngs of information people analyze on a daily basis.
He says a group of 10 students will receive specialized training in the field due to the grant funding.
“(It) will enable my group to discover hidden patterns, hidden correlations and market trends,” he says.
Professors in the faculties of business and information technology, energy systems and nuclear science, engineering and applied science and health sciences are also received a portion of the funding.