UCalgary Arts research chairs
UCalgary Arts is the proud home of research chairs who are redefine boundaries and make groundbreaking discoveries.
The Canada Research Chairs Program invests approximately $265 million per year to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders aim to achieve research excellence in engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities, and social sciences.
UCalgary Research Excellence Chairs is a prestigious internal chairs program that is designed to recognize UCalgary scholars who have a record of outstanding scholarship and research leadership, and display exceptional promise in their research and creative work. The program builds capacity and provides leadership for strategic and transdisciplinary research initiatives.
The remaining chairs are endowed research chairs, specific to UCalgary.
Wendi Adamek
Chair: Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies
Dr. Adamek holds the Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies. Her research interests include medieval Chinese Buddhism and living systems theory. The Numata Chair in Buddhist Studies was established in 1987 by Dr. Leslie S. Kawamura, with the kind assistance of first visiting Numata Scholar, Dr. Akira Yuyama.
Maria Bakardjieva
Chair: Communication and Media Studies
Dr. Bakardjieva’s research examines the evolution of the Internet and the use of digital media in various cultural and practical contexts with a focus on user agency, critical reflexivity and emancipation. Her current projects investigate the role digital media plays in citizen engagement and democratic participation.
Pallavi Banerjee
Chair: UCalgary Research Excellence Chair
Dr. Banerjee works at the intersection of immigration, refugee settlement, families, and intersectional feminist theories. Through her innovative research and community collaborations she centers the voices of newcomers in research and policy. Her scholarly work is rooted in public sociology, translating scholarly work for the public
with a goal to foster justice-oriented social change.
Brandy Callahan
Chair: CIHR Tier II Canada Research Chair in Adult Clinical Neuropsychology
Dr. Callahan’s research is aligned with the Healthy Brain Aging program and contributes to improving the diagnosis of neurocognitive disorders. Her research program works to optimize the diagnosis of neurocognitive disorders in adults and older adults, with a focus on co-morbid conditions that may increase risk for cognitive decline, or mask, mimic, or alter signs of dementia.
Jackson Cone
Chair: NSERC Tier II Canada Research Chair in Computational Behavioural Neuroscience
Dr. Cone investigates how neuronal responses in cerebral cortex are decoded by the brain to generate perception and guide behaviour. His program of research is advancing our understanding for how neuronal computations produce brain functions and inform the design of next-generation neural prostheses.
Charlene Elliott
Chair: UCalgary Research Excellence Chair
Dr. Elliott is a research leader in child health via an innovative, transdisciplinary research program that addresses vulnerable populations, informs federal policy on food, and fosters national and international collaborations and reach. Her program of research on Food Marketing, Policy and Children’s Health aims to help foster an enabling food environment for children.
Deinera Exner-Cortens
Chair: CIHR Tier II Canada Research Chair in Childhood Health Promotion
Dr. Exner-Cortens’ research advances our understanding of effective, healthy relationships through a focus on mental health promotion tools in school settings and an exploration of how to successfully implement these as part of daily practice. Her research program is providing robust Canadian evidence on best practice approaches in school mental health and building capacity for improving child/adolescent health and well-being in school settings.
Chris Hugenholtz
Chair: UCalgary Research Excellence Chair
Dr. Hugenholtz and his team specialize in developing and deploying scalable technology to help diverse stakeholders identify, understand, and act to mitigate GHG emissions. One of the key outcomes of this research is best-in-class technology used today across Western Canada, helping industries lower their carbon emissions and meet their climate obligations.
Abdolmohammad Kazemipur
Chair: Ethnic Studies
Dr. Kazemipur’s research is in two distinct areas: the socio-economic experiences of immigrants in Canada and socio-cultural trends in Iran. He is currently working on a new book manuscript on the international migration ecosystem, tentatively titled Homo Emigraturus.
Jennifer Leason
Chair: CIHR Tier II Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Maternal Child Wellness
Dr. Leason’s CRC program focuses on Indigenous reproductive health, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early childhood. Her research expands scholarship on Indigenous maternal–child wellness by exploring the unique and complex contexts, strengths, gaps, needs, and priorities.
Sheri Madigan
Chair: SSHRC Tier II Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development
Dr. Madigan’s CRC program examines the social environments and contexts that shape children’s mental health. The core components of her research are to lead innovative research studies advancing understanding of child mental health, to partner with clinical teams to develop actionable solutions for children and families, and to disseminate empirically sourced knowledge on mental health.
Amanda Melin
Chair: NSERC Tier II Canada Research Chair in Primate Genomics and Dietary Ecology
Dr. Melin’s CRC program examines genotype–phenotype relationships, primate foraging adaptations, and evolution of sensory systems. Her microbiome work additionally provides foundational information that helps researchers interpret human microbial variation and improve health outcomes.
Erica Myers
Chair: Environmental Economics and Energy
Dr. Myers is exploring the efficacy design of energy conservation programs in terms of consumer decision-making and cost effectiveness. Her research examines how incentives for workers, social nudges for conservation, and energy cost information all impact the efficacy of energy conservation programs.
Carolyn Muessig
Chair of Christian Thought
Dr. Muessig is an historian of premodern Christianity, focussing on western Europe. She is currently studying the history of premodern female preaching in Western Europe and the New World. Her research highlights the diversity of the history of Christianity, as well as its role in politics, art, and urban affairs.
Melanie Noel
Chair: Killam Memorial Emerging Leader Chair
Dr. Noel is the Director of the Alberta Children’s Pain Research Lab and a full member of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Her research aims to understand and harness mechanisms underlying trajectories of acute and chronic pediatric pain to improve the health of children and their families and offset a trajectory of pain and mental health issues persisting into adulthood. She has made ground-breaking discoveries that have advanced our knowledge of memory of child pain, of how those memories are co-constructed within families, and why pain is developed and maintained beyond childhood experiences.
Cora Voyageur
Chair: North American Studies
Dr. Voyageur is the Chair in North American Studies. As a sociologist and a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, Dr. Voyageur focuses on Indigenous experiences in Canada that include Indigenous health, women’s issues, politics, employment, community, and economic development, as they relate and contribute to individual and communal wellness.
Kenneth Waters
Chair: SSHRC Tier I Canada Research Chair in Logic and Philosophy of Science
As a philosopher of science, Dr. Waters examines the way scientists seek to investigate, manipulate, and understand scientific phenomena, investigating how and why scientists identify and categorize entities and generalize about their behaviours within categories. This philosophical approach to understanding science, its activities and its limitations can inform societies seeking solutions to complex problems.
Joshua Whitehead
Chair: UCalgary Research Excellence Chair
Dr. Whitehead’s research program is focussed on Indigenous literatures, languages, intersections, and epistemologies (with specificity from his peoplehoods: the Anishinaabeg and nêhiyawak) regarding the blossoming field of Indigenous futurisms. His creative and critical research focuses on how genre and form are used to describe Indigenous literatures and how Indigenous stories are simultaneously realism and futurism.