Dr. Lauren Emberson and Dr. Noah Silverberg, assistant professors in UBC’s department of psychology, are two of the UBC researchers who received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF).
This funding will allow allow Dr. Emberson and Dr. Silverberg to expand their research programs through new infrastructure and equipment.
Dr. Emberson’s research is in the areas of learning, perception (audition, vision, crossmodal or multisensory), language development, face/object perception, and attention. Emberson investigates these capacities in young infants using behavioural and neuroimaging techniques.
“This funding will allow us to continue to uncover the mysteries of the infant mind and brain. How the infant brain supports an infant’s incredible learning capacity and cognitive abilities. We also plan to investigate how these abilities may be negatively impacted by premature birth.”
Dr. Emberson will use the funding to invest in neuroimaging equipment which allows for a more expansive view of the infant brain.
“With this funding, my lab will purchase some truly cutting-edge neuroimaging equipment that not only makes our neuroimaging studies with infants even more comfortable for them (super light weigh caps with very few wires) but also expands of view of the infant brain more than 20 times! We are going from ~70 channels of recording to 1400!”
Dr. Silverberg directs the Coping with Neurological Symptoms (CNS) Lab, which studies brain health symptoms – including memory difficulties, sensory sensitivity, fatigue – and how people think about and cope with them. Silverberg says the CFI infrastructure funds are critical for expanding the CNS Lab’s telehealth capacity.
“So grateful to the Canada Foundation for Innovation that we can welcome back Coping with Neurological Symptoms Lab members to a fully renovated and tech-equipped space. This research infrastructure award will enable us to expand our telehealth capacity and complement our behavioural measures with measures of underlying biological processes.”
Both Dr. Emberson and Dr. Silverberg express their thanks and gratitude towards the Canadian Foundation for Innovation for their support of their important work.
