Early-career researcher first humanities winner of prestigious award

For Dr. Amanda Melin, BSc’03, MA’06, PhD’11, finding innovative ways to collect data from wild environments in non-invasive ways is a key part of her research programme. 

Melin is currently using this approach to study wild primates in Costa Rica, and the evolution of sensory systems, how they interface with the outside world. 

A professor in the Faculty of Arts’ Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, and an NSERC Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Primate Genomics and Dietary Ecology, Melin is the first humanities researcher to be awarded the Arthur B. McDonald Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Showing the scientific community the value of humanities research 

“This is an example of why the Faculty of Arts is so important in the context of transdisciplinary studies,” says Dr. Aoife Mac Namara, PhD, dean of the Faculty of Arts. 

“We could not be prouder that we have Amanda showing us, and showing the rest of the university and the scientific community, why the Arts are important and why working across disciplines means that we get to new knowledge and understanding that’s going to transform all of our lives.” 

While Melin’s research has historically focused on colour vision and the evolution of visual systems, with this fellowship, she is going to look at chemical senses: taste and smell.  

“This is a high honour for Amanda and we’re incredibly proud of her,” says Dr. William Ghali, MD, vice-president (research). 

“She brings credit to herself and the University of Calgary through her work. We are so honoured to have her here in our midst.” 

“I’m really proud to be representing my discipline and am really excited about the research,” says Melin. 

“This is huge.”