The U of M recently announced the appointment of four Canada research chairs (CRC), with three new chairholders and one renewal.
The CRC program consists of chair-holders that work across diverse fields such as engineering, natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences.
The university has a total of 50 CRCs that support innovative research initiatives.
The CRC program acknowledges outstanding researchers to strengthen academic research and quality, attracting top talent.
Appointments of the new chairs not only support individual research projects, but also intend to correspond with U of M’s priority research areas identified in the Change Through Research: Strategic Research Plan 2024-29. These research spheres include health, well-being and foundations.
The newly appointed chairs include Ji Hyun Ko, Mina Nouredanesh and Amani Hamad. The renewed chair is Jorg Stetefeld.
New Canada research chairs and their research initiatives
Ji Hyun Ko, associate professor of human anatomy and cell science in the Max Rady college of medicine, is now also the CRC in neuroimaging and neuromodulation.
His focus is to develop artificial intelligence (AI) programs that will help in the diagnosis, prognosis and treatments for brain disorders. His aim for the AI programs is to transform clinical use of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques.
Ko expressed his gratitude to UM Today, stating, “I’m humbled and I really appreciate that I was selected as a Canada research chair. Now there’s a lot of work to do.”
Mina Nouredanesh, assistant professor in the department of community health sciences in the Max Rady college of medicine, is now also the CRC in AI for complex research.
Nouredanesh’s focus is on developing AI-powered tools to treat complex age-related conditions such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease to help improve the lives of Canadians.
She stated to UM Today that her goal was to create innovative AI-powered personalized tools that will help understand and treat the factors contributing to these complex age-related conditions to improve the lives of older adults and their caregivers.
Amani Hamad, assistant professor of community health sciences at the Max Rady college of medicine, is now also the CRC in population data science and data curation.
She is currently studying multi-generational cases of mental illness and other chronic conditions. Her focus is on researching and analyzing administrative health-care data to develop family health profiles for Manitobans.
Renewed Canada research chair and his initiatives
Jorg Stetefeld is the renewed CRC in structural biology and biophysics. The main goal of his research is to understand the specifics of structure-property relationships of protein-protein interaction networks that will aid in developing therapeutic approaches to treating human disease.
Research at the U of M is supported in part by funding from the Government of Canada research support fund.
