NSERC announces Arthur B. McDonald Fellowship winners

Marie-Claire Arrieta has expanded our understanding of how the microbiome shapes human health from the earliest stages of life. She and her research team are investigating how microbial communities influence immune development, metabolism and long-term disease risk. Their findings have revealed that healthy development depends not only on genetics, but on the ecological relationships that are established between hosts and microbes after birth.

Dr. Arrieta helped open a new frontier by demonstrating that intestinal fungi actively regulate immune and metabolic development. Using longitudinal infant cohort data, gnotobiotic models (models whose microbiome is completely known), and advanced multi-layered analyses (multi-omic analyses), her laboratory has shown how disruptions to early-life microbial communities can change the way the immune system develops and increase the risk of chronic inflammatory disease. Her team also discovered how the fungal genus Malassezia adapts to human breast milk, providing new insights into the ecological processes that shape the infant microbiome.

Dr. Arrieta’s discoveries are reshaping how scientists understand early-life development, revealing that human health is not shaped by genetics alone, but by a complex partnership between hosts and their microbial communities.

Kathryn Grandfield is making breakthroughs in our ability to visualize living tissues and biomaterials. She and her research team have developed multidimensional microscopy techniques that capture biological structures at the atomic, chemical and tissue levels, revealing how bone forms, remodels and interacts with implanted materials. Their work provides new tools for the next generation of medical treatments and therapies.

Successful joint replacements and dental implants depend on biological processes that take place at a scale far too small for conventional imaging. To overcome this limitation, Dr. Grandfield developed a microscopy framework that combines atom probe tomography, ion beam microscopy and liquid electron microscopy, allowing specimens to be examined in unprecedented detail while preserving their native structures. Using this approach, she and her team discovered “nano-osseointegration”— a phenomenon that occurs when bone and implant surfaces become integrated at the atomic level — and were able to identify previously unknown mineral structures within human bone that had escaped detection for decades.

By revealing biological phenomena that were once invisible, Dr. Grandfield is reshaping our understanding of skeletal tissues and providing new foundations for advanced implants, regenerative therapies, and next-generation biomaterials.

Feng Jiang is developing sustainable materials that can compete with petroleum-based products in terms of performance, cost and environmental impact. His research transforms underutilized forest residues into high-value bioproducts, creating new opportunities to support the development of a low-carbon bioeconomy.

Many renewable materials show promise in the laboratory, but are too expensive or resource-intensive to produce for widespread adoption. To overcome this challenge, Dr. Jiang’s research team has pioneered scalable methods for producing lignocellulosic nanomaterials — tiny materials made from plant fibres — using recyclable, environmentally friendly solvents. These innovations have dramatically improved the sustainability of the materials’ production process while enabling the development of advanced products, from super-insulating aerogels and biodegradable packaging to durable textile and structural materials.

Beyond the laboratory, Dr. Jiang works closely with First Nations communities and industry partners to translate these discoveries into practical applications and economic opportunities.

Lawrence Kazak is advancing our understanding of how the body expends energy. His research investigates the molecular mechanisms that allow fat cells to convert nutrients into heat — a process known as thermogenesis that has important implications for obesity, metabolic disease and skeletal health.

For decades, scientists believed that thermogenesis in adipose tissue depended primarily on a single protein known as UCP1. Dr. Kazak challenged this view by discovering the futile creatine cycle, a previously unknown thermogenic pathway that enables fat cells to burn energy independently of UCP1. His research team subsequently demonstrated that these pathways work in parallel to maximize energy expenditure, a finding that reshaped the fundamental understanding of adipose biology.

These discoveries have sparked international research efforts, providing researchers with new targets for understanding, monitoring and ultimately treating metabolic and skeletal disorders.

Nicolas Papernot’s research examines how machine learning systems can fail, be manipulated, or expose sensitive information. He is also developing methods to make these systems more secure, reliable and accountable.

For governments, industries and citizens around the world, ensuring that artificial intelligence systems behave safely and predictably has emerged as a critical challenge. Dr. Papernot helped establish the field of adversarial machine learning by revealing how seemingly accurate AI systems can be systematically deceived using carefully crafted inputs. Since then, he and his research team have developed techniques to strengthen the robustness and privacy of machine learning models while advancing new approaches to independent verification. Most notably, his team developed methods that use zero-knowledge proofs to audit important properties of AI systems without exposing proprietary models or sensitive training data.

As more responsibilities are delegated to artificial intelligence in our workplaces and societies, Dr. Papernot’s work is helping to ensure that these systems can be independently verified and responsibly governed to earn public trust.

Corinna Schindler is transforming how chemists construct complex molecules. She and her research team are developing innovative chemical reactions that use catalysts and light to create molecular structures important in medicine, materials science and chemical biology. Through a series of breakthrough discoveries, she has solved longstanding challenges that had limited synthetic chemistry for decades.

Many promising therapeutics and advanced materials remain difficult to produce because the chemical transformations needed to build them are inefficient or difficult to achieve. Dr. Schindler’s team is pioneering new strategies that overcome these barriers. Notably, they established the first general catalytic platform for carbonyl–olefin metathesis — a reaction long regarded as a major unsolved challenge in synthetic chemistry. They also developed a visible-light approach for constructing azetidines, valuable molecular structures increasingly sought in pharmaceutical research.

These advances are expanding the possibilities for discovery across medicine, materials science and chemical biology.