U of L researchers receive $1.98M in funding

A group of University of Lethbridge researchers was recently awarded $1.98 million in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

In addition, eight graduate students received $336,000 in funding.

Erasmus Okine, the university’s vicepresident (research), said he is impressed with the breadth of research being funded.

“It speaks to the level of activity we have going on throughout the institution, and the variety of issues our researchers and students are tackling,” said Okine in a news release from the U of L. “This level of funding is a recognition by NSERC that our people are making a real difference through their research work and will continue to do so.”

Projects in chemistry and biochemistry, neuroscience, kinesiology and physical education, mathematics and computer science, environmental science, biology and psychology all received funding support. Robert Sutherland’s study in the Department of Neuroscience, Hippocampus and Memory: A Systems Level Approach, earned $285,000 over five years, the largest award of the funded projects.

“The current proposal examines, in detail, how the interactions between the hippocampus and other cortical networks establish long-term memories,” said Sutherland, director of the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, in the release. “We will discover exactly which types of information depend on the hippocampus and how the hippocampus modifies the functioning of the cortex through long-term interactions.”

Louise Barrett, Canada Research Chair in Cognition, Evolution and Behaviour, and member of the U of L’s Department of Psychology, will receive $200,000 over five years (plus an accelerator supplement of $120,000 over three years) for her project, Behavioural Flexibility, Fertility and Social Network Influences in Human and NonHuman Primates.

In her work, Barrett aims to understand how evolutionary processes influence the behaviour of human and nonhuman primates.