Meet some of the 2025 recipients of one of Canada’s most prestigious postdoctoral awards, exemplifying world-class research capacity at an internationally competitive level of funding.
Louis-Pierre Auger, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy
Enhancing clinical practice and entry-level education to improve sexuality-related services for individuals with disabilities: Insights from two integrated knowledge translation studies
In Canada, 400,000 stroke survivors face challenges related to sexual health, with half experiencing sexual difficulties. Unfortunately, patients often lack access to sexual rehabilitation, which increases the risk of depression and reduces quality of life. A major barrier to proper care is the lack of training for clinicians, including occupational therapists (OTs). Two studies aim to tackle these issues. The first will evaluate a knowledge translation intervention in six Quebec stroke rehabilitation centers, involving patients, clinicians, and coordinators. The second study will assess sexuality education in 14 Canadian OT programs and co-design an evidence-based curriculum for OTs. Both studies aim to improve sexual rehabilitation services across Canada by addressing gaps in training and healthcare delivery for persons with stroke.
Mayura Balakrishnan, Astronomy
A New Window Into Galactic Feedback and Our Own Cosmic History
I study how the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, has influenced the Milky Way over time. Using archival data from space-based X-ray telescopes like NASA’s Chandra and ESA’s XMM-Newton, I will analyze high-energy light to uncover evidence of past activity from Sagittarius A*. These outbursts can launch vast amounts of hot, ionized gas into their surroundings, leaving behind subtle imprints that persist for tens of thousands of years. By applying data-driven techniques to archival datasets, I will investigate how this material may have traveled outward from the black hole, shaping regions far beyond the Galactic Center and even reaching above and below the plane of the galaxy. Understanding this kind of energetic feedback is key to building a complete picture of galaxy evolution, as supermassive black holes are now seen as powerful engines that regulate the growth and structure of galaxies.
Amanda Cook, Physics and Astronomy
Statistically Mapping Sparse Cosmic Plasma with Fast Radio Bursts
My research is about illuminating the otherwise-invisible gas that lies between galaxies to understand how galaxies form and evolve over billions of years. Half of the normal matter in our Universe is sparsely distributed around and between galaxies and is invisible to us on Earth except via highly uncertain tracers. My research focuses on using Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)—short, intense flashes of radio waves from cosmological distances—to study this elusive gas. By analyzing how these radio waves are affected as they travel through space, we can learn about the gas they pass through. The FRB sample comes from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope and its super-computer, which have allowed the capture of a hundred times more FRBs than before. As a Banting Fellow, I will develop a Bayesian statistics to analyze this unparalleled FRB sample, resolving long-standing uncertainties in the thermodynamic structure of gas in and around galaxies.
Robin Khanfir, Mathematics and Statistics
Criticality in multisource invasion percolation
Asking whether pesticides contaminate groundwater or neurons trigger seizure reflects a broader problem: when do random local links yield global connectivity? This fundamental question can be studied via a universal mathematical framework: the percolation theory. This reveals that near minimal connectivity, networks exhibit fascinating behaviors called criticality, illustrating the emergence of complex properties from simple rules. Still, basic percolation models require fine-tuning to be critical, which rarely happens in the real world. Invasion percolation, where links are added successively, answers this problem because it self-stabilizes at criticality.
My project combines invasion percolation with a competition mechanism by considering multiple sources whose territories cannot merge, mimicking dynamics in ecosystems, markets, and opinion spread. Prior work shows that many sources result in shared control (democracy), while few lead to dominance by one (autocracy). I aim to explore criticality for multisource invasion percolation and show that at a "sweet spot", an oligarchy arises.
Sarah McCrackin, Psychology
Masking the face, unmasking the brain: How face occlusion affects neural processing
Widespread face mask adoption has been critical for preventing the spread of disease, but it has also highlighted that visually occluding the face can make social tasks like recognizing facial expressions much harder. Dr. McCrackin’s research seeks to better understand the social repercussions of face occlusion and to identify strategies to overcome these barriers. Her research will help identify the brain mechanisms that support emotional face recognition under occlusion and explore whether those mechanisms are affected by plastic changes in the brain that may occur with learning or visual expertise with face occlusion (e.g., doctors who frequently interact with masks). This work will reveal how the brain processes the emotional value of faces when seen in full or partial view, and has important implications for restoring communicative functions during pandemics, facilitating doctor-patient interactions, and preventing bias against world cultures with face coverings.
Anaïs Médieu, Natural Resource Sciences
Interactive effects of climate change and plastic-related contaminants on Arctic seabirds
Climate change and environmental pollution, including plastic contamination, pose major threats to Arctic wildlife. As temperatures rise, ice cover declines, forcing top predators to alter their migration routes. Some Arctic predators are also affected by plastic pollution, but little is known about the impact of plastic-related chemical contaminants. These stressors interact, with climate change influencing contaminant levels and migration patterns exposing wildlife to varying contamination risks. My research will examine how climate change and plastic-related contaminants affect thick-billed murres, the most abundant seabird in the Canadian Arctic. I will quantify contaminants, including microplastics, flame retardants, ultraviolet stabilizers, PFAS, and mercury, in murres from breeding and wintering sites. Using bio-loggers, I will track migration patterns to infer where and when seabirds are exposed to contaminants. This study will provide insights into how climate change is likely to influence contaminants exposure, informing wildlife conservation and food security for Northern communities reliant on murres.
François Papale, Philosophy
Epistemological analysis of the impact of AI on science: AlphaFold and evolutionary biology as a case study
My work in philosophy of science focuses on biological practices, especially those that revolve around the theory of evolution by natural selection. I was awarded a Banting postdoctoral fellowship to study the impact of AlphaFold on evolutionary biology. AlphaFold is a machine learning software that provides unprecedented access to protein 3D structures. Because proteins are involved in virtually all biological processes, AlphaFold deeply impacts biological and medical sciences. By analyzing published material in evolutionary biology, I will attempt to show that researchers mold the algorithm’s output to their need in a way that, contrary to expectations, stabilizes rather than revolutionizes the field. Generalizing this insight to the impact of AI on science more broadly, I suggest that it fails to radically alter what is recognized as good science. AI’s unprecedented efficiency nonetheless leads to new dynamics in scientific practices that this project aims to characterize from a philosophical perspective.
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