A biodiversity expert expects his renewed and advanced Canada Research Chair appointment will help him take his research to the next stage.
Fangliang He, an ALES researcher from the Department of Renewable Resources and Canada Research Chair in Biodiversity and Landscape Modeling, is well-known for his work in species diversity and conservation, and community ecology. He moves from a tier 2 Canada Research Chair, which comes with a five-year appointment and funding of $100,000 per year, to a tier 1 CRC, named for seven years with annual funding of $200,000.
"I'm pleased," He said. "This is really great recognition."
Among other things during his previous two tier 2 CRC appointments, He developed a method to estimate species extinction rates due to habitat loss and discovered that it is competition rather than climate change that drives the changing composition of the forest in western Canada.
Over the past decade, He also built a close partnership with the Centre for Tropical Forest Science. Together, they monitor and map more than six million trees around the world in the CTFS-Forest GEO project. And with China's Sunyat-sen University, He has formed the Alberta-Sunyat-sen Joint Laboratory for Biodiversity Conservation that facilitates international collaboration with researchers from Canada, China, the United States, Australia, Russia, Finland, France, Spain and Germany.
He anticipates the renewed and advanced CRC appointment will extend such international collaboration and deepen his studies in the effects of climate change and species survival.
He's renewal and advancement was one of 10 CRC appointments across the University of Alberta.
Mechanical engineer Amy Tsai, Canada's newest tier 2, was named Canada Research Chair in Fluids and Interfaces while chemist Dennis Hall was named tier 1 CRC in Boron Chemistry for Catalysis and Drug Discovery.
Besides Hall, the university had four renewed tier 1 chairs including physicist Mark Freeman as CRC in Condensed Matter Physics, biological sciences professor Mark Lewis as CRC in Mathematical Biology, computer engineering professor Witold Pedrycz as CRC in Computational Intelligence, and renewable energy researcher Jillian Buriak as CRC in Nanomaterials for Energy.
Tier 2 renewals included physical education and recreation professor Tanya Berry as CRC in Physical Activity Promotion, physicist Natalia Ivanova as CRC in Astronomy and Astrophysics, and permafrost researcher Duane Froese as CRC in Northern Environmental Change.
The U of A now lays claim to 49 tier 1 chairs and 35 tier 2 chairs worth $13.3 million annually.
Fangliang He, an ALES researcher from the Department of Renewable Resources and Canada Research Chair in Biodiversity and Landscape Modeling, is well-known for his work in species diversity and conservation, and community ecology. He moves from a tier 2 Canada Research Chair, which comes with a five-year appointment and funding of $100,000 per year, to a tier 1 CRC, named for seven years with annual funding of $200,000.
"I'm pleased," He said. "This is really great recognition."
Among other things during his previous two tier 2 CRC appointments, He developed a method to estimate species extinction rates due to habitat loss and discovered that it is competition rather than climate change that drives the changing composition of the forest in western Canada.
Over the past decade, He also built a close partnership with the Centre for Tropical Forest Science. Together, they monitor and map more than six million trees around the world in the CTFS-Forest GEO project. And with China's Sunyat-sen University, He has formed the Alberta-Sunyat-sen Joint Laboratory for Biodiversity Conservation that facilitates international collaboration with researchers from Canada, China, the United States, Australia, Russia, Finland, France, Spain and Germany.
He anticipates the renewed and advanced CRC appointment will extend such international collaboration and deepen his studies in the effects of climate change and species survival.
He's renewal and advancement was one of 10 CRC appointments across the University of Alberta.
Mechanical engineer Amy Tsai, Canada's newest tier 2, was named Canada Research Chair in Fluids and Interfaces while chemist Dennis Hall was named tier 1 CRC in Boron Chemistry for Catalysis and Drug Discovery.
Besides Hall, the university had four renewed tier 1 chairs including physicist Mark Freeman as CRC in Condensed Matter Physics, biological sciences professor Mark Lewis as CRC in Mathematical Biology, computer engineering professor Witold Pedrycz as CRC in Computational Intelligence, and renewable energy researcher Jillian Buriak as CRC in Nanomaterials for Energy.
Tier 2 renewals included physical education and recreation professor Tanya Berry as CRC in Physical Activity Promotion, physicist Natalia Ivanova as CRC in Astronomy and Astrophysics, and permafrost researcher Duane Froese as CRC in Northern Environmental Change.
The U of A now lays claim to 49 tier 1 chairs and 35 tier 2 chairs worth $13.3 million annually.