2020-2021 Innovation Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr. Belanger’s research focuses on the impact of leadership behaviours, behavioural workplace interventions impact on employee mental well-being, and workplace performance. A behaviour change scientist, Dr. Belanger combines her background in exercise physiology and her PhD in behavioural medicine to provide empowering strategies to help people make positive life-long changes to improve their health and wellbeing.

An overarching theme throughout Dr. Belanger’s research and professional practice, is her belief that small changes in attitude and behaviour can have tremendous impact in increasing a person’s happiness, productivity and overall wellbeing.

As the founder and CEO of ConsciousWorks, Dr. Belanger customizes programs for organizations interested in investing in their employee’s health and wellness resulting in a solutions based approach to maximize a return on investment (ROI). Whether an organization wants to create a new health and wellness model for their workplace, or improve on one they already have, Dr. Belanger evaluates the organization’s own data to create a framework for success – the organization and its employees.

In 2018, Dr. Belanger received $110K from Mitacs and industry partner ATB Financial for a post-doctoral fellowship at the Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business at the Haskayne School of Business. Wanting to change their ‘break’ culture, ATB sought out Dr. Belanger’s expertise to design a training intervention program for ATB leadership, to role-model and encourage healthy work behaviours among their employees. Incorporating health behaviour education with behaviour change research provides business leaders a scientific foundation to reframe their own work behaviours and beliefs.

In addition to her research and professional practice, Dr. Belanger is also the founder and Scientific Director of a national registered charity called Knight’s Cabin Cancer Retreats, set-up in 2013 and named in honour of her friend Jane Knight, who lost her battle with cancer. Dr. Belanger organized a crowdsourcing campaign to raise $2 Million in toonie donations to set-up the charity.

While most post-treatment programs provide support to cancer survivors, the Knight’s Cabin program includes an opportunity for support persons to join in the retreat weekend too. Created to be a catalyst for behaviour health change, in-person retreats, followed by online behaviour change groups, help cancer survivors focus on post-treatment next steps in relation to their health and wellbeing. Knight’s Cabin video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4iOObvwOXk

As a published author, and keynote speaker, Dr. Belanger continues to share her enthusiasm and passion for helping others improve their lives by making small habit changes. Her most recent book, A Cup of Mindfulness: For the Busy & Restless blends science and humour together and challenges readers to consider how they might incorporate mindfulness into their own lives.

With her Innovation Fellowship, Dr. Belanger plans to continue her work on how breaks impact the mental wellbeing and workplace performance in employees.

Quote from Dr. Lisa Belanger:

"The 2020 Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowship is invaluable support as I bridge academia, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship to provide evidence based behavioural and wellness practices across systems for what I hope can be an amplified impact."

Dr. Vadlamani’s research focuses on the cultivation and scale-up potential of cyanobacteria. His current research includes developing economical and sustainable production processes for phycocyanin, a natural blue photosynthetic pigment found in cyanobacteria. With increased global market demand for phycocyanin, and the need to decrease CO₂ emissions Dr. Vadlamani’s research will have environmental and commercial impacts.

As a member of the University of Calgary’s Bioenegy team, Dr. Vadlamani is involved with the bioenergy pilot plant project, an industrial scale carbon capture and conversion technology designed to achieve negative CO₂ emissions. His work on this project, led to Dr. Vadlamani developing a novel technology to extract phycocyanin. Based on this new extraction process, along with its commercial potential, Dr. Vadlamani and his team secured a $260,000 grant through the University of Calgary’s Global Research Initiative (GRI) and in 2019, a provisional patent application was made.

Additionally, this innovation led Dr. Vadlamani to co-found Synergia Biotech Inc., a cleantech start-up focused on developing an innovative approach to cultivate, harvest and extract phycocyanin. This new technology has the potential to replace current practices, by eliminating energy use and other cost intensive steps current technology employs. Working with Creative Destruction Labs – Rockies (CDL), the Synergia Biotech team has successfully graduated from Prime stream.

Furthermore, Dr. Vadlamani has developed three novel technologies, which he has filed patents for: a high yielding algal biomass production without a concentrated CO2 supply from open pond conditions, stimuli-sensitive hydrogels to harvest microalgae, and a biochemical route to extract sugars and simultaneously covert them to organic acids.

With his fellowship, Dr. Vadlamani will continue to advance his research and technology for developing an economical and sustainable process to produce phycocyanin.

Quote from Dr. Agastewar Vadlamani:

"I see the University of Calgary has definitely taken the initiative to lay the foundation to facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship. Synergia Biotech Inc., a university spin-off, is one such outcome of this initiative. Now with receiving this fellowship, I am even more excited. It would not only help me to achieve professional independence and success, but also motivates me to drive Synergia Biotech Inc. forward."