UPEI biology professor named Jeanne and J.-Louis Lévesque Research Chair in Human Health
Dr. Désirée Seib, assistant professor in the UPEI biology department, has been awarded the Jeanne and J.-Louis Lévesque Research Chair in Human Health at the University of Prince Edward Island, effective April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2028.
As chair, Dr. Seib will receive a $25,000 grant per year, plus an annual award of up to $25,000 to provide a replacement for teaching or other duties.
Dr. Seib is interested in how diet, stress, and the gut microbiome—bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites that live in the intestines—affect brain development and function. Specifically, she is investigating how a maternal diet high in sugar alters the physiology and brain of offspring. She is also studying the effects of a high-fat diet on physiology and the adult brain.
In her research, she uses custom-made diets to ensure that the effects are specific to fat content or sugar type and content in the diet and not due to a lack of other nutrients or micronutrients.
More broadly, she is examining how acute or long-term exposure to environmental challenges during early life or adulthood impacts the risk of developing psychiatric disorders. She is specifically focused on the brain’s mesocorticolimbic system—the brain’s reward circuit—which drives complex forms of behaviour, such as decision-making. It is also the region of the brain that plays a role in psychiatric disorders like depression, addiction, autism, ADHD, and schizophrenia, depending on the developmental age.
“Dr. Seib is an exceptional scientist whose research has long-term implications for the improvement of human health,” said Dr. Marva Sweeney-Nixon, Associate Vice-President Research at UPEI. “We are grateful to the Fondation J-Louis Lévesque for supporting Dr. Seib and for its ongoing support of the University’s nutrisciences and human health research programs.”
With the funding from the Fondation J-Louis Lévesque and the release from her teaching duties, Dr. Seib will be able to establish new collaborations with the University and provide her students with training in animal research, microscopy, mass spectrometry, and data analysis.
Dr. Seib completed her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She joined UPEI in 2023 and was awarded the UPEI J.-Louis Levesque Research Grant in 2024.
The Fondation J-Louis Lévesque is a generous supporter of health research at UPEI and other universities and institutes across the country. The late J.-Louis Lévesque graduated from Saint Dunstan’s University—one of UPEI’s founding institutions—in 1934 and was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from his alma mater in 1964.
UPEI acknowledges the assistance of Canada’s tri-council of federal granting agencies—Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)—through its Research Support Fund, which helps fund services and infrastructure that support research activities at the University. In 2025–2026, UPEI’s RSF allocation is $1,168,176.
