Two University of New Brunswick (UNB) faculty members are among the recipients of federal research investments announced on Nov. 14, 2024. The funding package included support for new and renewed Canada Research Chairs (CRC), as well as the institutional Research Support Fund.
As a result of this funding, UNB will see one CRC renewed on the Fredericton campus, and one new CRC funded on the Saint John campus. The CRC program seeks to attract and retain some of the world's most accomplished and promising minds across all disciplines supported by Canada's national funding councils.
Dr. Veronica Whitford, associate professor of psychology and Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Bilingual Reading Across the Lifespan, has been awarded funding for a second chair term. Whitford's research focuses on eye movement patterns and brain activity to better understand how language is learned and used during early childhood and throughout adulthood.
In her first term as CRC, she investigated how different language backgrounds, such as English monolingualism and English-French bilingualism, affect the effort required in reading.
During her second term, she will use these same techniques to investigate differences in the behavioural and neural processes that underlie reading between native French and English speakers and newcomers to Canada. Her research will explore how newcomers contend with both integrating into a new culture and learning to interact in one or both of Canada's official languages as additional languages through reading.
Marine biologist Dr. Suchinta Arif will take up the new Canada Research Chair in Ecological Modelling alongside a professorship in biological sciences and mathematics and statistics when she begins at UNB in January. In her research, Arif is working to better understand the causes and drivers of the rapid and large-scale ecological changes currently happening in marine environments.
By using community-engaged causal analysis of marine and coastal ecosystems, assessing fisheries recovery through causal discovery and effect estimation and quantifying impacts of global marine change, she hopes to support the creation of better conservation and management plans that lead to a sustainable marine future.
Arif comes to UNB from Dalhousie University, where she recently completed her PhD and is presently a postdoctoral fellow. Arif has been awarded this CRC alongside her first full-time academic appointment, reflecting her talent and the groundbreaking potential of her research.
"Congratulations to Dr. Whitford and Dr. Arif," said Dr. David MaGee, UNB vice president research. "These appointments reflect the leading expertise of these two scholars, and will enable them to pursue research that has the potential to profoundly and positively impact our world."
In addition to the CRC funding, the announcement included institutional support for UNB under the Research Support Fund program, and its associated Incremental Project Grants and Research Security streams.
These funds support the indirect costs associated with managing the research funded by the three national funding councils, including research management and administration, library resources, the support for research ethics and animal care and more. For the 2024-2025 year, UNB was awarded $3,585,855 across the three streams.
