UPEI awards research grants to 11 faculty members

UPEI has awarded research grants totalling $53,999.00 in 2023 to 11 outstanding faculty members. Five faculty members received internal research grants (IRG), and six were awarded SSHRC Explore research grants (SERG).

The IRG program supports research projects across a broad range of fields at UPEI. Through this internal funding, researchers provide high-quality student training opportunities and often develop new collaborations with others from different but complementary disciplines. The SERG program supports research pursuits in the Social Sciences and Humanities. 

Recipients of the IRG awards are as follows:

• Dr. Amani Abdelghani, Faculty of Science (Chemistry): “Natural Products Fluorescent Cyclotriphosphazene (CTP) Dendrimers for Nanomedicine Treatments”
• Dr. Amy Hsiao, Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering: “Zero Construction Waste”
• Dr. Paul Sheridan, Faculty of Science (School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences): “Comparing of Keyword Extraction Method Efficacy on Benchmark Document Collections”
• Dr. Stephanie Shaw, Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering: “Waste Resource Mapping”
• Dr. Stevan Springer, Faculty of Science (Biology): “Determining the Presence and Abundance of Transmissible Mussel Cancer in PEI”

The SERG recipients are as follows:

• Dr. Gabriela Arias de Sanchez, Faculty of Education: “Establishing relationships between play and learning. The development of a play pedagogical framework for PEI schools”
• Dr. Margie Burns, Faculty of Nursing: “Connecting Families to Critically Ill Relatives During Interhospital Transfers”
• Dr. Alyson Campbell, Faculty of Nursing: “Rural family experiences managing their child's chronic health condition: A scoping review.”
• Dr. Sarah Finch, Faculty of Science (Applied Health Sciences): “Development of a validated approach to measure behaviors, knowledge and quality of life outcomes associated with complementary and alternative therapies in patients living with arthritis through the use of a PREMS (Patient Reported Experience Measures) and PROMS (Patient Reported Outcome Measures) framework”
• Dr. Kenneth MacKinnon, Faculty of Education: “Shifting Perspectives of Educational Leadership: Moving from the outside in”
• Dr. Shannon Murray, Faculty of Arts (English): “There was Never Yet Philosopher Could Endure the Toothache Patiently: Shakespeare and the Dramatic Limits of Neo-Stoicism"

“On behalf of UPEI, I congratulate these faculty members who received IRG and SERG funding,” said Dr. Greg Naterer, vice president academic and research at UPEI. “This internal funding will support the high calibre of research conducted by these and other faculty members at UPEI. Their work is contributing to the University’s strong reputation for excellence in research.”