On June 22nd, the Honourable Ed Holder announced that UOIT researchers and trainees will receive $1.9 million through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)’s Discovery Grants program. Of this funding, $300,000 will be given to Vialab’s Dr. Christopher Collins in order to develop new techniques, purchase new equipment, and conduct training to allow for the development of new ways to present large volumes of text-based data easily to users.
During his speech at the announcement, Dr. Collins had this to say: “My laboratory focuses on new ways of visualizing big data, extracting meaningful information that makes those data relevant to groups like businesses and policy makers. The NSERC Discovery Grant and Discovery Accelerator Supplement enables us to explore how visualizing big-data can discover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences and other useful information that can help Canadians make informed decisions. The grants also assist the next generation of researchers, like the students in my lab, to become future leaders and innovators.”
This new funding will allow 10 students to work at Vialab, provide the ability to give them data science training, and increase the budget to enable the purchase of new equipment for the lab.
After the announcement, a tour of the lab was given to the Minister, MP Pat Perkins, and the President of NSERC, Dr. Mario Pinto, during which members of Vialab gave demos to showcase their research projects. The reception they received was favorable, and the demos being shown impressed many of the guests.
The UOIT and NSERC news websites have the full story.
Credit for the photos goes to: Kalvin Taylor/UOIT
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