WATERLOO – The Canada Research Chairs program has announced two new appointments fo Wilfrid Laurier University.

Dr. Mark Eys, who is cross-appointed in Kinesiology and Physical Education and Psychology, is the new Canada Research Chair in Group Dynamics and Physical Activity. Dr. Ashley Ward, who is currently a senior research fellow at the University of Sydney, will become the Canada Research Chair in Animal Behaviour when he joins Laurier’s biology department next summer.

Dr. Mark Eys (left) and Dr. Ashley Ward

Both appointments are at the Tier 2 level “for exceptional emerging researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field.”

The Chairs are tenable for five years with the potential to be renewed once. For each Chair, the university receives $100,000 annually.

“Canada’s government is investing in science and technology to strengthen the economy, improve Canadians’ quality of life and create the jobs of tomorrow - today,” said Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science and technology), who visited Laurier today to discuss strategy for economic development in Southern Ontario. “The Canada Research Chairs Program helps attract and retain the best researchers from the country and around the world to Canadian universities, which has direct benefits for our communities.”

Dr. Mark Eys’ research involves the dynamics of groups involved in physical activity.

“The majority of Canadians do not meet reasonable physical activity guidelines,” he said. “Consequently, many individuals from across the age spectrum miss out on the benefits derived from physical activity.”

An active lifestyle frequently involves participation in group activities at both the recreational and competitive levels, Eys said.

In his research, he looks at the dynamics of groups involved in either sports or exercise activities.

“Specifically, I am interested in the roles that cohesion – the unity of the group – and other group perceptions play in adherence to physical activity, interventions promoting active living, and group performance.”

Eys also received $74,683 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation towards equipping a laboratory.

Dr. Ashley Ward researches fish, specifically how contaminants disrupt the chemical cues that are vital to fish communication.

Largely because of human activity, the world’s fisheries are declining at an alarming rate.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in its 2008 World Review of Fisheries and Aquaculture, noted: “Overall, 80 percent of the 523 selected world fish stocks for which assessment information is available are reported as fully exploited or overexploited…the maximum wild capture fisheries potential from the world’s oceans has probably been reached.”

In addition to harvesting fish, humans may also be contributing to their decline by interfering with their breeding.

“Fish rely on communication as they organize their social groups and choose mates,” says Ward. “They use a combination of sensory cues in the process of social recognition, combining visual cues and chemical olfactory cues.

“Human contaminants that enter water systems can seriously disrupt the chemical cues vital to fish communication.”

The first stage of Ward’s research tests how fish detect chemical cues and how they respond to them. His research then looks closely at fish communication in the context of forming shoals, territoriality, and mating.

One result of Ward’s research will be to help policymakers and other stakeholders determine appropriate limits for aquatic contaminants.

Wilfrid Laurier University has a growing body of expertise in water science, as evidenced by the creation of the Laurier Institute for Water Science in 2008.

Laurier’s other Canada Research Chairs are in: Cognitive Neuroscience; International Human Rights; Mathematical Modelling; Cold Regions Hydrology and Social Psychology.