The skilled trade industry expects a significant labour shortage in the next ten years. Drs. Amin Yazdani and Marcus Yung of the Canadian Institute for Safety, Wellness, & Performance (CISWP) are leveraging their interdisciplinary applied research expertise and network of industry partners to develop job specific data-driven solutions to support a rapidly aging and increasingly diverse workforce and reduce the risk of disabling injuries. Collectively, these solutions will address challenges related to recruitment and retention of skilled trade workers and will ultimately ensure Canadian businesses succeed and prosper.

As part of the research team at Canada’s Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats, headquartered at McMaster, I work alongside some of the country’s best and brightest who are dedicated to keeping Canadians safe. Our unique ecosystem that fosters innovation through multidisciplinary and multi-sector collaboration has catalyzed made-in-Canada breakthroughs that will speed our path to recovery and enhance our preparedness for future infectious disease threats.

Matthew Miller
Associate Professor
McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research

Niagara College research teams are recognized for their ability to move forward with agility, responding to industry needs. For example, team leaders Amal Driouich and Gordon Maretzki led their innovation centre to acquire materials, design and produce more than 35,000 face shields to overcome supply-chain issues for healthcare facilities in the early months of the pandemic. For their efforts, the team earned a 2021 Everyday Heroes Award of Excellence from the Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities.

Dr. Karthik Tennankore is making great strides in kidney disease research and care. He played a key role in the establishment of a highly regarded nephrology research program and has also made a name for himself throughout Canada, and around the world. By identifying clinical issues that are impacting the health of patients with kidney disease and trying to better understand them, he is informing future treatments to better their health.

Dr. Karthik Tennankore
QEII Foundation Endowed Chair in Transplantation Research
Nova Scotia Health

Modelling disease with novel software tools
By harnessing powerful tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence for medical images, at Ryerson University, Dr. April Khademi is furthering our understanding of diseases such as dementia and breast cancer.

At the Image Analysis in Medicine Lab, she is leading the development of novel software tools to extract insights from magnetic resonance and digital pathology images, investigating the causes and progression of neurodegeneration and breast cancer.

This critical work offers an innovative approach to disease modelling.

Dr. April Khademi
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering
Ryerson University

Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Digital Integration Centre of Excellence Technology Access Centre (DICE-TAC) has achieved its five-year revenue goal in two years. Dr. Terry Peckham leads the 40 person DICE-TAC team to work with industry partners across Canada.

Terry’s area of expertise involves data analytics, artificial intelligence and data storage. The vast majority of his current research projects involve the industrial application of machine learning (especially with sensor-based systems), data integration and migration for machine learning across data silos.

Dr. Terry Peckham, PhD
Director and Research Chair,
Digital Integration Centre of Excellence Technology Access Centre (DICE-TAC)
Saskatchewan Polytechnic

COVID-19 has heightened inequities faced by many groups. Dr. Katrina Milaney is a local and national advisor on the relationship between the pandemic and growing vulnerabilities and is leading several innovations to bridge systemic gaps. One national project is focused on healing and reunification for at risk families. Lessons from the pandemic are being used to re-imagine homelessness prevention as a strategy towards inclusion and equity, necessary to break multi-generational marginalization for children and youth.

Dr. Katrina Milaney, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences
Cumming School of Medicine
University of Calgary

At the forefront of research on the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants, Dr. Marc-André Langlois of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine leads the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network (CoVaRR-Net). The network brings together interdisciplinary researchers in more than 90 teams across the country, whose rapid research findings help the Canadian government and public health authorities address the potential threat of emerging variants to keep Canadians safe.

Dr. Marc-André Langlois
Faculty of Medicine
University of Ottawa

A ground-breaking optical imaging system is reducing wait times for diagnosis of cancer and eye disease. Photoacoustic Remote Sensing (PARS®) microscopy, invented by Professor Parsin Reza, has replicated the gold-standard histology from fresh unprocessed cancerous human tissues shrinking diagnosis from weeks to seconds while guiding complete cancer removal during surgery. PARS non-contact eye-imaging has captured the attention of top ophthalmologists internationally by showing promise in detecting blinding diseases before vision is affected.

Parsin Haji Reza
Assistant Professor, Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo

Can we use artificial intelligence to detect patients at risk for Alzheimer’s disease? York Research Chair and VISTA member Shayna Rosenbaum studies the relationship between brain and behaviour. She is collaborating with Baycrest Health Sciences and VISTA researcher James Elder to harness AI to characterize and correct spatial navigation difficulties in older adults. The research could help health care providers detect and treat individuals who are at risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Shayna Rosenbaum
Professor, Faculty of Health
York Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory