Monday, July 25, 2011
BRANDON, MB – Dr. Tyler Foster, Associate Professor (Chair) of the Physics and Astronomy department, received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) PromoScience Grant, totaling $16,791 for the astronomy outreach program at Brandon University’s Astronomical Observatory.
The PromoScience grant received will continue to help support the facility’s community astronomer position over a three year span. Brandon University’s Astronomy outreach program called “Bringing the Digital Universe to Brandon: Open Access Astronomy”, delivers regular astronomy programs at the observatory to school groups from Brandon and surrounding communities, special interest groups and the community of Brandon and surrounding area. This grant will also help fund an innovative video system for the observatory, providing full-color images of deep-sky objects like nebulae and galaxies.
Through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)’s PromoScience Program, the Government of Canada will provide $2.9 million to 58 organizations promoting science and engineering to young Canadians. The organizations include universities, non-governmental organizations, museums, science centres and other groups.
“Fostering scientific discovery is central to NSERC’s mandate,” said NSERC President Suzanne Fortier. “These organizations play a vital role in promoting science to children and youth. They provide the spark that, in the right environment, will lead to a lifetime of creativity, generating new knowledge and the researchers of tomorrow.”
NSERC is a federal agency that helps make Canada a country of discoverers and innovators for all Canadians. The agency supports some 30,000 post-secondary students and postdoctoral fellows in their advanced studies.
“Dr. Foster’s leadership in promoting Open Access Astronomy to the Brandon and regional community is commendable. This additional NSERC support will assist BU in welcoming Brandonites and the citizens of Westman to experience astronomy first hand at their local university,” said BU President, Dr. Deborah Poff.
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For more information, please contact:
Joanne F. Villeneuve
Communication Officer
Brandon University
P: (204) 727-9762
communications@brandonu.ca
Contact
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- communications@brandonu.ca
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