July 26, 2025
Education News Canada

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
More than $32 million awarded to advance University of Waterloo research

July 18, 2025

For 17 consecutive years, the University of Waterloo has been recognized as Canada's top comprehensive research university driven by a bold, multi-disciplinary approach and strong industry partnerships that turn ideas into impact.

Waterloo researchers are receiving more than $32 million to support research as part of a $1.3 billion Government of Canada announcement for research across Canada.

The funding announced for Waterloo researchers includes support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Government of Canada's New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF).

This year, more than 100 Waterloo researchers from all six faculties were awarded funding through the NSERC Discovery research program, including:

The recent Government of Canada announcement was made by the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, and the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health supporting more than 9,700 researchers and research projects across Canada.

Numerous researchers have also received funding under the following grants and programs:

Several Waterloo researchers received awards through the NFRF 2024 Exploration Competition, a Government of Canada program that supports high-risk, interdisciplinary projects with the potential to drive transformational innovation in areas with strong engineering and societal applications.

The recipients have demonstrated exceptional research leadership across engineering, natural sciences, health sciences and social sciences. With this federal government funding, Waterloo researchers are advancing bold ideas that will transform future societies, health, economies, technologies and the environment. Learn more about their research projects below.


SSHRC Insight grant

Wendi Adair | Faculty of Arts

Understanding diversity cues and buffering social identity threat to improve representation, collaboration, and climate in Canada's diverse workplace

$258,291

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Jennifer Asanin Dean | Faculty of Environment 

Immigration and small communities: Exploring regional place-based settlement initiatives in Ontario and their impact on immigrant and community wellbeing

$99,953

Read more about this project.

Hilary Bergsieker | Faculty of Arts

Responsive social support for lived experiences of racism

$188,233

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Douglas Brown | Faculty of Arts

Mitigating Abusive Supervision by Enhancing Self-Control: An Examination of Four Processes

$277, 351

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Frankie Condon | Faculty of Arts          

In The House of the Hangman

$73,182

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Robert Danisch | Faculty of Arts

Primal Communication: What Rhetoric Can Learn from Mycelium, Mammals, and Machines

$132,779

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Jonathon Andrew Deman | Faculty of Arts

Sequential Scholars

$116,764

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Brian Doucet | Faculty of Environment

Transit-induced gentrification and displacement: centring tenant experiences in policy solutions to build and maintain affordable housing along new rapid transit lines

$175,407

Read more about this project.

Lai-Tze Fan | Faculty of Arts

Interdisciplinary Approaches toward Responsible Facial Recognition AI: Developing Technical, Ethical, and Regulatory Recommendations for Policymaking in Canada

$ 382,300

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Bryan Grimwood | Faculty of Health

Tourism, ruination, and regenerative futures

$379,953

Greta Kroeker | Faculty of Arts

The Artemisia Project: Rape in Early Modern Europe

$76,840

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Kimberly Lopez | Faculty of Health

Listening to make care labour harm-less: Restorative practices for personal support care (PSC) workers amidst gender and race-based harm (GRBH)

$388,982

Ian Milligan | Faculty of Arts

Digital Terror: The September 11th, 2001 Attacks Online

$75,543

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Mingyue Zhang | Faculty of Arts

Human Capital Investment in Financially Distressed Firms

$98,668

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.


SSHRC Insight Development grant

Muhammad Azim | Faculty of Arts

Government Sensitivity to Negative Tax News in Procurement

$51,879

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Marta Berbés | Faculty of Environment

Looking 'Blackward' to the Future: Reclaiming the place of African American communities in Phoenix, AZ

$75,000

Read more about this project.

Hilary Bergsieker | Faculty of Arts

Identifying illusory indirect effects and indexing individual-level variation in mediation analysis
$57,567

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Rosella Carè | Faculty of Environment

Decarbonizing Finance: Frameworks and Tools for Institutional Divestment Strategies

$68,294

Read more about this project.

Warren Dodd | Faculty of Health

Enhancing adaptive capacity to extreme heat amid housing precarity: A community-based research study in Waterloo Region

$75,000

Ana Ferrer | Faculty of Arts

Outcomes of youth attending the Future Launch Program

$50,135

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Fatma Gzara | Faculty of Engineering

Workload balance and measurement in multi-tasking environments: The case of airline flight dispatching

$69,000

Sheereen Harris | Faculty of Health

Exploring dynamic interactions between psychological and contextual factors on effort-based decision-making

$70,917

Colin Hastings | Faculty of Arts

Mobility Data for Public Health? An Institutional Ethnography of the Promises (and Perils) of Emerging Surveillance

$55,649

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Sharleen He | Faculty of Engineering

The Psychology of Innovation with Generative AI: Understanding Human Ideation Processes

$69,254

Wenqian Hu | Faculty of Arts

A Tipping Point? The Effect of Tipping on Employee Motivation

$55,444

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Christine Logel | Renison University College

A psychological approach to understanding barriers to affirmative consent communication

$73,150

Reina Neufeldt | Conrad Grebel University College

Desegregating Peace: Interracial Peace and 20th Century Peace and Conflict Studies

$53,228

Kim Hong Nguyen | Faculty of Arts

Resisting Chemical Futures in the Waterloo Region: A Curatorial Project

$74,979

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Nicole Nolette | Faculty of Arts

Cinquante ans de recherches théâtrales au Québec sous le prisme de la SQET

$74,904

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Gennaro Notomista | Faculty of Engineering

Painting music with robot swarms

$74,054

Christopher Perlman | Faculty of Health

Suicidality amongst Black people living in the Americas and Carribean

$74,447

Clemens Possnig | Faculty of Arts

Strategic Algorithms: Impacts on the Economy

$63,834

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Andrea Quinlan | Faculty of Arts

Technology-facilitated Sexual Violence in Canadian Sport

$66,626

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Uzma Rehman | Faculty of Arts

The emotional blueprint: How early home environments shape gendered avoidance of anger and sadness

$74,858

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Brendan Riggin | Faculty of Health

Accessibility in Learning in Higher Education Through Open Education Resource Implementation

$64,813

Olga Vechtomova | Faculty of Engineering

Reimagining Dance: Real-time Music Co-creation between Dancers and AI

$68,439

Brianna Wiens | Faculty of Arts

Reactionary Rhetorics: Mapping Digitally Mediated Rhetorics of Gendered Violence

$71,940

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.

Seth Wynes | Faculty of Environment

Dietary shifts as climate mitigation: Understanding emerging trends and testing novel interventions

$72,969

Read more about this project.

Mingyue Zhang | Faculty of Arts

Business Combinations, Innovation, and the Valuation of Intangible Assets

$52,759

Read on the Faculty of Arts website.


SSHRC Partnership Development grant

Lola Sheppard | Faculty of Engineering

Title: Uvaguqatsiarniq (A Home for All): Co-Designing Supportive Housing in Nunavut

$199,735


NFRF 2024 Exploration

Rodrigo Costa | Faculty of Engineering

A computer-vision-based approach for retrieving longitudinal disaster recovery data from past events

$250,000

Moojan Ghafurian | Faculty of Engineering

Training System for Dementia Caregivers to Gain Knowledge on the Affective Component of Interactions

$249,587

HJ Kwon | Faculty of Engineering

Transforming Non-Invasive Cancer Therapy with AI-Enhanced Imaging for Precise Treatment Guidance

$250,000

Kevin Musselman | Faculty of Engineering

Enzyme-laden smart-coating technology to eliminate microplastics

$250,000

Hamed Shahsavan | Faculty of Engineering

Soft Microrobots for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SMART)

$250,000

Ting Tsui | Faculty of Engineering

Developing Sustainable Processes for Advanced Microchip Manufacturing

$250,000

Read more on the Faculty of Engineering website.


For a full list of recipients and funding amounts, visit the Government of Canada website.

For more information

University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo Ontario
Canada N2L 3G1
uwaterloo.ca/


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