John Charles Polanyi Prizes 2022
John Charles Polanyi Prizes 2022
2022 Polanyi Prizes Honour Ontario University Researchers
The innovative and ground-breaking work of five Ontario university researchers is being recognized with the 2022 Polanyi Prizes. Their award-winning research ranges from exploring the relationship between Indigenous artwork and resource extraction, understanding how public policy supports low-income Canadians, improving access to palliative care supports, providing new insights into the Milky Way and designing nanomaterials that support the early detection of disease.
“Ontario is home to a world-class postsecondary, research and innovation system producing discoveries that advance knowledge, drive progress and create a better and brighter future,” said the Honourable Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities. “Recipients of the John C. Polanyi Prizes and the critical work they’ve undertaken, represent the lifeblood of our innovation ecosystem that is creating jobs, opportunity and growth across Ontario.”
“These award winners are trailblazers in their fields and demonstrate the exceptional depth and breadth of the research taking place at Ontario’s universities,” said Steve Orsini, President and CEO of the Council of Ontario Universities. “This research is helping create the kinds of Ontario-made solutions the province needs to address complex challenges across industries and create a brighter future for all Ontarians.”
The prestigious Polanyi Prizes are awarded annually in honour of Ontario’s Nobel Prize winner, John C. Polanyi, who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics. The prizes are awarded to early-career researchers who are either continuing postdoctoral work or have recently gained a faculty appointment. Each of the five winners receives $20,000 in recognition of their exceptional research in the fields of chemistry, literature, physics, economic science and physiology/medicine.
Learn more about 2022 Polanyi Prize winners by reading their research summaries below.
Polanyi Prize in Literature
Dr. Isabella Huberman, University of Toronto
Dr. Isabella Huberman’s research examines the literature and visual art of Indigenous writers and artists from Manitoba and Quebec who document, contest and reimagine the implications of resource extraction projects in general, and hydropower in particular.
Working across English-language and French-language Indigenous artistic and literary production, her work analyses archival documents, public art, literature and film to address how these creators call into question colonial perspectives on the benefits of hydro power and, in their place, put forward narratives that celebrate Indigenous kinship, lands and stories. This research presents a novel approach to Indigenous literary studies where Francophone and Anglophone research have traditionally operated in isolation.
Dr. Huberman’s overarching goal is to contribute to a deeper understanding of Indigenous critiques of the inequities created by resource extraction in a settler colonial society and reveal how these creative works serve as starting points of conversation for a more just future.
Polanyi Prize in Chemistry
Dr. Alana Ogata, University of Toronto
Detecting diseases early leads to better treatment results for patients and can lessen the overall burden on the health-care system. With the goal of helping fill critical research gaps in medical diagnostics and women’s health, Dr. Alana Ogata is investigating the use of bioinspired nanomaterials in the creation of diagnostics that could help detect gynecological diseases sooner.
By studying and designing nanomaterials that can mimic biological structures and natural processes, biological components typically used in diagnostics can be replaced by superior nanomaterials to develop better technologies and measure specific proteins associated with gynecological diseases found in biofluids, such as blood and urine.
Dr. Ogata’s research can be applied to the creation of more sensitive diagnostic tests that clinicians can use in hospitals or labs. It could also lead to the creation of more at-home diagnostics – similar to a COVID-19 rapid test – to test for diseases, such as endometriosis and ovarian cancer, providing more accurate results at a faster rate.
Polanyi Prize in Physiology and Medicine
Dr. Kieran Quinn, University of Toronto
To help the health-care system better recognize, plan, organize and improve end-of-life care for people with heart failure and long COVID, Dr. Kieran Quinn is leveraging big data and advanced statistical methods with the goal of better understanding their palliative care needs.
The data collected by Dr. Quinn’s research will help describe a person’s palliative care needs and predict their use of health services, such as their need for hospitalization and use of palliative care. The results of this research will help inform new models of palliative care delivery and health policy. This could include new approaches to organizing care at a regional level, promoting collaboration between health-care providers, and creating new ways to reach people in their home, such as through virtual palliative care.
In partnership with people with lived experience, caregivers and policymakers, this research will help people with heart failure and long COVID access the high-quality care they need.
Polanyi Prize in Physics
Dr. Joshua Speagle, University of Toronto
By leveraging the study of astrophysics, statistics and computer science, Dr. Joshua Speagle is developing new statistical techniques to create a high-resolution 3-D map of the Milky Way, as well as create new machine learning methods that will help accelerate data processing. This map will be critical in helping scientists and astronomers better visualize the galaxy and understand its past, present and future.
To do this, Dr. Speagle is focusing his research on collecting two types of data – interstellar gas and the chemical composition of older stars. The former will provide insight into where new stars are being born and the latter will help determine how stars migrate to new locations across the galaxy.
Additionally, this research will help shed light on what makes the formation of the Milky Way unique to other galaxies and provide insight into how other galaxies have formed – helping paint a picture of what the future of the universe might look like.
Polanyi Prize in Economics
Dr. Michael Stepner, University of Toronto
Understanding the relationship between health and financial security and how it impacts low-income Canadians can help create public policy that better supports society’s vulnerable populations. Dr. Michael Stepner is exploring the relationship between health and income inequality to help inform public policy that supports equality.
Through his research program, Dr. Stepner will be developing four major research projects exploring the root causes of economic and health disparities during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The first project includes developing databases that help identify how income losses, public health policies and new government income support programs shaped mortality and inequities during the pandemic.
The second project will focus on quantifying the long-term evolution of health inequality across high-income countries, using detailed data to uncover which income groups are driving differences in life expectancy across countries and identify the economic, medical and behavioral factors associated with those differences.
Dr. Stepner’s third project will examine how the effects of unemployment insurance on consumption and employment vary across groups accessing unemployment insurance to help inform unemployment insurance policies that address the unique needs of its recipients.
Lastly, his fourth project will explore the long-term effects of an undergraduate education on disability, longevity and earnings, using the elimination of the Social Security Student Benefit Program in the United States in 1982, which provided financial assistance to more than one in ten undergraduate students in the country.
Together, these research projects will offer data-driven solutions to help create effective public policy that better supports society’s most vulnerable.
Additional Resources:
For more information about how the awards are administered, click the link below.