Media Releases >  Media Releases Archive  > SFU Researchers net half a million in CFI funding

SFU Researchers net half a million in CFI funding

Document Tools

Print This Page

Email This Page

Font Size
S      M      L      XL



July 4, 2002
Three Simon Fraser University assistant professors, appointed in the last two years, have collectively netted $550,000 in new Opportunity Funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). Steven Robinovitch, a kinesiologist; Nadine Schuurman, an expert on geographic information systems (GIS) and Jeff Sonier, a physicist will use their grants to equip newly created state-of-the art research facilities within their departments.

Sonier’s $200,000 grant will enable him to purchase key components to set up a rare solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) facility. It analyses a material’s surface, which often has the most interesting properties and physical phenomena applicable to the electronics industry. Conventional labs can only analyse local magnetic, electronic and structural properties inside a material.

Schuurman’s $160,000 will pay for the setup of a geospatial data lab dedicated to resolving compatibility problems when geographic and spatial databases are overlapped. New computer hardware, software, and data sets will enable Schuurman to devise solutions for making health population, epidemiological and groundwater databases easily transferable among applications and institutions. Newly renovated lab space will contain seven networked workstations dedicated to the study of GIS data integration and spatial analysis.

Robinovitch will use his $190,000 to acquire infrastructure for a centre of injury prevention, mobility and aging. The grant will cover the purchase of a 3D-motion analysis system for examining the neuromuscular and behavioural variables that underlie age-related changes in balance, fall protective responses and the performance of daily tasks. Computer equipment to develop engineering-based mathematical models of human movement will also be purchased.

The CFI is a non-profit corporation set up by the federal government in 1997 to fund research infrastructure at Canadian universities. The new Opportunities Fund supports the infrastructure needs of newly recruited academic researchers.

—30—

CONTACT
Jeff Sonier, 604.291.4223, jsonier@sfu
Steve Robinovitch, 604.291.3566, stever@sfu.ca
Nadine Schuurman, 604.291.3320, nadine@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035