Start-up funding lures back native

By Jennifer Campbell – Telegraph Journal | link to original article

A Saint John native and rising star in the field of chemistry has been lured back to his home province from a university in California where he'd been working as a post-doctoral fellow.

Adam Dyker, a 30-year-old father of two, did his undergraduate degree at the University of New Brunswick and went to Dalhousie in 2002 to do his PhD. Five years later, he and his family went to the University of California, Riverside, where he was still working when he was head-hunted back to the province.

“Coming back was the ideal situation and it worked out,” said Dyker, who grew up in Quispamsis and is now based at UNB in Fredericton.

He chose to take the position of assistant professor in the department of chemistry in part because of additional start-up funding posted by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, which led to a substantial infusion of research dollars from other sources.

“That's made it feasible because when you get the job, it's up to the applicant to decide it they want to take the offer,” Dyker said. “For me, it was (enticing) because of the start-up funding from NBIF and also the university.”

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation provided a total of $126,526 in laboratory equipment and research funding, giving him a nice base from which to launch his research career. The university threw in a $35,000 research incentive as well.

“The start-up offer is important to get the research going and be successful,” Dyker said. “It's money to set up a laboratory to do the kind of research that needs to get done. Each branch of chemistry requires different equipment.”

Dyker, who has already started working and teaching at UNB, wants to develop environmentally safe battery technology.

“We're taking out some of the metals that are generally toxic and replacing them with organic compounds,” Dyker said of his research, which he said is unique to New Brunswick.

“These are organic compounds based around carbon and nitrogen and those sorts of elements as opposed to metals like cadmium which are harmful and often toxic. These are less harmful compounds that are easier to dispose of.”

Dyker said there are only a handful of researchers worldwide doing what he's doing.

“Once you replace toxic metal compounds with organic compounds, some of the advantages are that you can get much faster recharging times, and they're also better suited to higher-powered applications such as power tools, and potentially even regenerative braking for hydro-electric vehicles.

“I'm just getting started but it's the kind of technology that could be useful for that.”

The NBIF's contribution to Dyker's research program helped him leverage an additional $665,000 in funding from a number of other agencies including the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and UNB.

“A lot of our funding goes to applied research projects that have potential for future commercialization,” said NBIF president and CEO Calvin Milbury. “We know that a lot of the universities are up against it when they're recruiting people to New Brunswick so part of our funding program is geared toward that.”

He said universities look for great candidates and then go to NBIF to request additional dollars to entice the would-be employees.

“Dr. Dyker is a rising star,” Milbury said.