The University of Toronto is now home to 26 new Vanier Canada Graduate Scholars and eight new Banting Postdoctoral Fellows. Minister of State (Science and Technology) Ed Holder and Member of Parliament Peter Van Loan announced the scholarships on August 14, 2014 at U of T.
The two awards are the most prestigious in the country and are designed to retain outstanding researchers in Canada. Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, these scholarships are awarded to world-class doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows performing innovative research.
The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships are valued at $50,000 for up to three years of research, and the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are valued at $70,000 scholarships for up to two years of research.
The Honourable Ed Holder, minister of state for science & technology (left) and Miles Montgomery, 2014 Vanier winner and PhD candidate in chemical engineering and applied chemistry (right) at the announcement of the 2014 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships . PHOTO COURTESY OF U OF T NEWS
At the announcement, Van Loan said, “As a city powered by our country’s knowledge economy, Toronto will continue to benefit from developing, attracting, and retaining the world’s most promising young researchers at the University of Toronto.”
Dr. Locke Rowe, U of T’s recently appointed dean of graduate studies and vice-provost of graduate research and education, added, “Having these awards in place in Canada’s research environment helps universities like the University of Toronto attract and retain the world’s best talent from within Canada and beyond… I’m proud that more than one in 10 of these awards has gone to the University of Toronto.”
U of T Banting Fellows include Ian Burgess, who is researching low-cost disease diagnosis, and Niels Niessen, who is researching realism in a posthuman age. Vanier scholars include Miles Montgomery for designing an elastic scaffold with shape-memory for functional tissue delivery, and Shrey Sindhwani for studying blood proteins for the detection and monitoring of cancer.
This year, the scholarships amount to a total of $37.4 million. Scott French, director of communications and parliamentary affairs at the Office of the Minister of State (Science and Technology), says that the funding has been maintained from previous years.
