Research Projects Receive Federal Funding for Lab Equipment

December 17, 2009

Three professors with the Faculty of Engineering have received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation Leaders Opportunity Fund to help equip their labs.

The funding was announced today by Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology). McMaster received almost $1.9 million in funding for a total of nine projects, including six to faculty members in sciences and health sciences.

Professors receiving funding in the Faculty of Engineering include:

	Martin von Mohrenschildt, chair of the Department of Computing and Software, together with professor Judith Shedden and professor Scott Watter of the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, received $235,407 for modifications to the motion simulator to create different immersive environments for driving and flying with high fidelity stimuli.
	Gregory Wohl, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received $250,000 to help establish a Laboratory for Bone Adaptation and Biomechanics, which will undertake multidisciplinary biomechanical engineering to explore how bone responds to mechanical environments. He is exploring how injury, diet, surgical interventions and pharmaceutical therapies influence skeletal function, which can lead to improved approaches for prevention and therapies for bone-related disorders.
	Michael Noseworthy, assistant professor of both radiology and electrical and computer engineering, has been awarded $100,000 for his project Non-invasive imaging of healthy and diseased human skeletal muscle. Noseworthy’s lab is the only one like it in Canada, and one of only a handful globally, geared to evaluating muscle health and disease in an non-invasive fashion.

Both professor Wohl and professor Noseworthy are members of the McMaster School of Biomedical Engineering.

“The investments announced today will further enhance our country’s reputation as a destination of choice for outstanding researchers,” said Dr. Eliot Phillipson, president and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation. “They will make our universities even more competitive when it comes to attracting the best and brightest researchers from around the world.”