WATERLOO - Ten new faculty members at the University of Waterloo will launch their research projects with special funding from the Ontario government.

The early researcher awards will help establish research programs aimed at, among other things, finding better ways to identify the risks of heart disease, cope with obesity, investigate social inequality and explore cloud computing.

The awards will allow the new professors to build their research teams by recruiting graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and research associates. Each professor will receive $140,000 under the early researcher awards program, funded by the Ministry of Research and Innovation.

"The awards will make it easier for the University of Waterloo to recruit promising young researchers for our research teams," said George Dixon, Waterloo's vice-president, university research. "Their investigations will lead to important scientific breakthroughs that will benefit society."

At Waterloo, faculty members receiving the early researcher awards are as follows:

* Ken Stark, a professor of applied health sciences who heads the laboratory of nutritional and nutraceutical research, investigates whether the fatty acids in blood can help people identify the risks of heart disease. His team of researchers are developing patentable automated devices and technologies to help monitor and study fatty acids in the food supply and in human blood. Project title: Fatty Acid Determinations in Food and Blood with Novel Automated Devices and High Throughput Methodologies.

* Russell Tupling, professor of kinesiology, works on finding treatments for the global obesity epidemic. His team explores whether altering calcium cycling efficiency in muscles can have a significant effect on metabolic rate and susceptibility to obesity and type II diabetes. Muscle contraction and relaxation are processes, regulated by the body's calcium pumps, that depend on energy. Project title:Examination of a Potential Link Between Ca2+ Pump Energetics in Muscle and Metabolic Disorders.

* Aaron Kay, a professor of psychology, aims to find out how people's viewpoints about society can have important consequences for discrimination and inequality in Ontario. Some people view the inequalities they see as representative of how society should be structured. This makes it difficult for women and other groups to achieve equality and poses a challenge to policies aimed at fostering a level playing field. Project title: The Stagnation of Social Inequality: Causes and Consequences of a Motivated Bias to Preserve the Status Quo.

* Ashraf Aboulnaga, a professor of computer science, seeks to speed up data analysis tasks in cloud computing environments, which allow thousands of interconnected computers to cooperate in complex analysis of large amounts of data. The work allows these tasks to deploy the computing power of the cloud more effectively. This will quicken the pace of data-driven innovation in such sectors as health, environment, manufacturing and media. Project title: Improving Database Management in Cloud Computing Environments.

* Shahrzad Esmaeili, a professor of materials engineering, investigates innovative solutions to processing lightweight aluminum alloys for high-quality automotive panel applications. Esmaeili's work builds on her recent invention with industrial collaborators to process aluminum sheet with excellent forming capability at high temperatures and the use of novel multi-layer aluminum alloys. Project title: Innovative Processing and Microstructural Modelling of Advanced Aluminum Alloy Systems

* Chaitanya Swamy, a professor of combinatorics and optimization, studies algorithmic game theory and approximation algorithms. His work could lead to leading solutions for algorithm-design tasks in computer environments, ranging from Internet routing to bandwidth allocation to search-engine advertising. Project title: Algorithm Design for Game-theoretic Environments and Settings with Uncertainty.

* Mohab Anis, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, aims to develop a design framework and circuit techniques that maximize the yield of minuscule computer chips. The device characteristics of these chips make them less predictable than larger models. He will design circuits that contain an understanding of the manufacturing step that makes the device characteristics of these tiny chips unpredictable. Project title: Maximizing Yield of Nanometer Circuits using a Design for Manufacturability Approach.

* Zhou Wang, professor of electrical and computer engineering, probes network visual communications, which are key for digital media and information and communications technologies. He will develop novel human vision-inspired technologies that can automatically assess and improve the visual quality of the video signals transmitted in networked communication environments. The advanced technology will significantly improve the visual quality of Internet video, personal digital assistants, interactive video-on-demand, high-definition TV and digital cinema. Project title: Enhancing the Perceptual Experience in Network Visual Communications.

* David Jao, professor of combinatorics and optimization, examines elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) technology in order to make electronic communication more secure. Relatively slow devices, such as mobile phones, do not have sufficient computational power for traditional security solutions. Jao will explore the exact level of security that ECC can offer. Project title: Mathematical Foundations of Elliptic Curve Cryptography.

* Kevin Resch, professor of physics and astronomy and faculty member at the Institute for Quantum Computing, plans to build an advanced imaging prototype based on chirped-pulse interferometry and apply it to complex biological systems. The new type of interferometry draws on insights from quantum information science and may be an attractive alternative to more conventional techniques, especially for imaging lossy or dispersive materials. The imaging system should provide sharp, high-resolution views of biological tissue for non-invasive disease detection. Project title: Dispersion-cancelled Biomedical Imaging Using Chirped-pulse Interferometry.