Dalhousie University

Dalhousie University, founded in 1818 in Nova Scotia, has been delivering exceptional education for almost 200 years. Dalhousie University is a member to the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities it is well distinguished by its world-class research. Home to 51 Canadian Research Chairs and over 180 projects approved by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Dalhousie University is often gaining international recognition for research. The Industry Liaison and Innovation manages and facilitates collaborations between companies and the University’s researchers, commercializes research and assists in the creation of spinoff ventures.

Research Capabilities

Sustainable Development Goals Signature Research Clusters
  • Sustainable Ocean
    • Changing climate effects on the ocean
    • Sustainable aquaculture and agro-ecosystems
    • Sensors, analytics and autonomous vehicles
    • Ocean engineering, networks, communications, materials and tidal energy
    • Marine and environmental law, policy and governance
    • Cultural and social development of coastal landscapes and communities
    • Marine risk evaluation
  • Healthy People, Healthy Communities, Healthy Populations
    • Infection, immunity, inflammation and vaccinology
    • Genomics, bioinformatics and health
    • Community, population and Indigenous health and well-being
    • Primary and continuing care transformation
    • Mental health, resilience and health equity
    • Chronic disease prevention, treatment and management across the lifespan
    • Body function and mobility
    • Neuroscience and brain function
    • Health data analytics, AI and technologies
    • Critical health, health law, health policy and bioethics
  • Clean Tech, Energy, the Environment, Renewable energy generation, storage and fuels
    • Energy security
    • Clean water, clean soil, clean air
    • Clean and NextGen materials
    • Sensors, AI and data streams
    • Social and biophysical dimensions of resource and environmental sustainability
  • Culture, Society, Community Development
    • Culture and identity
    • Ethics and social justice
    • Reconciliation and Indigenous peoples
    • Governance, security and global affairs
    • Building diverse, sustainable, responsible, smart organizations and communities
    • AI, privacy, ethics and social impact
    • Immigration and migration settlement and integration
    • Development of Indigenous and rural communities
  • Food Security
    • Sustainable aquaculture and agro-ecosystems
    • Applied molecular biology, genomics and biotechnology
    • Marine biodiversity and wild catch fisheries
    • Bio-products and bio-resources
    • Agri-food economics, business, trade and marketing
    • International development, agriculture, and food technology
    • Food policy, access and distribution

Cross-Cutting Themes

  • Big Data
    • Data science
    • Machine learning, analytics and big data
    • Information systems, cloud and web-scale computing
    • Data-driven decision- and policy-making; social, behavioral, and business analytics; and the management of data
    • Law, technology, and ethical use of data
  • Innovation & Entrepreneurship
    • Technical leadership and innovation management
    • Software design for rapid innovation
    • Disrupting through innovation and entrepreneurship
    • Sustainable and social entrepreneurship
    • Business law
Multi-Faculty Centres
  • Healthy Populations Institute: 
    • Healthy Cities / Healthy Communities
    • Starting Healthy, Staying Healthy
    • Marginalized Populations
    • Indigenous Health and Wellbeing
    • Health of People of African Descent
    • Implementation Science
  • Brain Repair Centre 
    • Atlantic Mobility Action Project (AMAP) Cluster
    • Neurodegeneration Cluster
    • Neurodevelopment Cluster
    • Traumatic Injury (TBI) Cluster
    • Proteomics
    • FACS Aria III flow cytometry
    • Laser confocal microscopy
    • Laser micro-dissection microscopy
  • Centre for Comparative Genomics & Evolutionary Bioinformatics 
    • Comparative genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics
    • Microbial biodiversity
    • Environmental and health microbiomics
    • Development of bioinformatic and statistical tools for genomics and molecular phylogeny
  • Health law institute: 
    • Conscientious refusals and health care
    • Privacy and confidentiality of health information
    • Food security in the Canadian north
    • Public health emergencies
    • End of life treatment policy and practice
    • Commercialization of biomedical research
    • Emergency contraception
    • Neuroethics
    • Health care in correctional systems
    • Death determinations in intensive care units
    • Patient safety
    • Research involving humans
    • Migrant health risks and needs
    • Federal-Indigenous health care transfers
    • Foetal/maternal rights
    • Harm reduction and safe abortions
    • Mental capacity and medical decision-making
    • HIV/AIDS policy
    • Mental health; and
    • Criminal law/sentencing and health.
  • Clean Technologies Research Institute 
    • Renewable energy generation, storage and fuels
    • Solar fuels
    • Photovoltaics
    • Batteries
    • Supercapacitors
    • Thermal storage, including phase change materials
    • Clean water, clean soil, clean air
    • Drinking water
    • Waste water
    • Atmospheric monitoring
    • Soil health
    • Sensors, AI and data streams
    • Sensors for environmental monitoring
    • Clean and NextGen materials
    • Advanced and additive manufacturing
    • Architectural materials
    • Social and biophysical dimensions of resource and environmental sustainability
    • Energy policy
    • Life cycle analysis
    • Industrial sustainability
    • Sustainable architecture
  • Ocean Frontiers Institute
    • Atmosphere-Ocean Interactions
    • Marine Safety
    • Ocean Data & Technology
    • Shifting Ecosystems
    • Sustainable Aquaculture
    • Sustainable Fisheries
  • Deepsense 
    • Neural networks
    • Prediction
    • Classification
    • Image recognition
    • Machine vision
    • Planning schedule optimization
    • Information extraction
Engineering
  • Emera IDEAHub 
    • Advanced incubator space for students, faculty, local startups
    • Focus on supporting new products emerging from engineering and applied sciences in areas such as: ocean technology, clean energy & technology, advanced materials, food science, water resources, deep software, AI, IoT, cyber-security and other physical and cyber-physical products
    • Major engineering labs and workshops including: mechanical assembly room, electronics building & testing room, 3D printing room, heavy prototyping lab
  • Canadian Institute of Fisheries Technology 
    • Aquaculture development
    • Biotechnology
    • Fermented beverages sector
    • Fish/food process engineering
    • Marine oils and nutrition
    • Physical properties of foods
    • Process chemical science
    • Seafood biochemistry
    • Toxicology
  •  Centre for Water Resources Studies 
    • Clean Water Lab Physical
      • Chemistry, particle microbiological properties of water
      • Membrane and coagulation treatment at bench scale
      • Analytical Chemistry
    • Pilot Water Treatment Plant
      • Understand and optimize treatment practices
      • Testing of coagulants, mixing energies, filter backwash, detention times, filtration rate, pH, temperature, turbidity, particle counts at critical points
    • Northern Water Quality Lab (Iqualuit, Nunavut)
      • pH, Dissolved Oxygen, conductivity
      • Carbonaceous Biochemical Oxygen Demand (CBOD)
      • Solids Analysis – suspended, dissolved, volatile, fixed
      • E. coli and total coliforms through Colilert processes
      • Nutrients
      • Turbidity
      • Free & total chlorine
      • UV254
    • On-Site Wastewater Research Facility (Bible Hill, NS)
    • Environmental Hydrology Lab
  • Minerals Engineering Centre 
    • Processes and technical evaluation for recovery of minerals
    • Documented and regularly updated mining library
    • Labs:
      • Rock mechanics, numerical modelling, rock sample preparation, rock testing
      • Subsurface imaging
      • Non-destructive testing
      • Mine tailings and waste treatment
      • Mineral processing
      • Mining geology
    • Mining Computer Laboratory
      • Digitizing tables and software for mine planning, ore body modelling, geotechnical design and reservoir modelling
    • Mineral Processing Equipment
    • Analytical Equipment
  • Centre for innovation in Infrastructure
    • Structural Analysis and Design
    • Structural Health monitoring
    • Bridge engineering and innovations
    • Soil-steel structures
    • Fibre reinforced polymers
    • Fibre reinforced concrete
    • NDT of bridge decks and pavements
    • Sustainable asphalt technology
  • Particulate Material Research Group 
    • Powder production
    • Additive manufacturing
    • Powder metallurgy
    • Secondary processing
    • Characterization
  • Nova Scotia Product Design & Development Centre NSPDDC
    • Computer aided design and modeling (including associated FEA analysis if applicable)
    • Prototyping work including pre-mould work, prototype development and limited product runs
    • Workflow and process automation consulting / design, etc.
    • CNC mill, CNC lathe, CNC Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM)
    • A full machine shop
    • 3D Printers/ 3D Design and analysis software
    • Injection Moulding Machine (for plastic part prototyping)
Computer Science
  • Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
  •  Human-Computer Interaction, Visualization & Graphics
    • Persuasive computing
    • Mobile, embodied and ubiquitous interaction
    • Text visualization and visual analytics
    • Augmented and virtual reality
    • Game-related technologies
    • Computer graphics and image processing
    • Information seeking and sensemaking
    • E-learning
    • Usable privacy and security
    • Serious games and gamification
  • Systems, Networks & Security
    • Network and information security
    • Network and traffic analysis
    • Insider threat analysis
    • Predictive and machine learning algorithms for security
    • Cyber physical systems
    • Internet of Things
    • Emerging wireless technologies
    • Data privacy
    • Blockchain
    • High-performance computing
    • Distributed systems
    • Cloud computing
  • Algorithms & Bioinformatics
    • Graph algorithms
    • Computational geometry
    • Parallel algorithms
    • Algorithms for large data sets
    • Metagenomics and the human microbiome
    • Modeling and simulation of proteins
    • Genomic epidemiology tools
    • Phylogenetic methods
Agriculture
Medicine
Science
Law
Management
Social Sciences

Springboard Representatives

  • Adam Haller

    Adam Haller

    Managing Director, Commercialization & Licensing, Office of Commercialization & Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University

  • Annette Rushton

    Annette Rushton

    Manager, Health & Life Sciences, Office of Commercialization & Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University

  • Ayodeji Arowolo

    Ayodeji Arowolo

    Associate Legal Counsel, Office of Commercialization and Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University

  • Ben Goldberg

    Ben Goldberg

    Managing Director, Industry Engagement and Customer Experience, Office of Commercialization and Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University

  • Brennan Gillis

    Brennan Gillis

    Manager, Agriculture and Aquaculture, Office of Commercialization & Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University

  • Jade Jiang

    Jade Jiang

    Program Coordinator, Office of Commercialization and Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University

  • Matthew Doyle

    Matthew Doyle

    Manager, Computer Science, Office of Commercialization and Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University

  • Michelle Gurrola-Gal

    Michelle Gurrola-Gal

    Manager, Engineering & Science, Office of Commercialization and Industry Engagement (OCIE), Dalhousie University