Devan Becker, Wilfrid Laurier University

Research

Bioinformatics Dynamic clustering Dynamic topic modelling Genetic sequences Infectious disease modelling SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern Time series Uncertainty quantification

Latest papers

UnMuted: Defining SARS-CoV-2 lineages according to temporally consistent mutation clusters in wastewater samples.
Epidemics · 2026 · first author
Genomic surveillance of Canadian airport wastewater samples allows early detection of emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineages.
Scientific reports · 2024

All 2 publications

Latest funding

Measuring the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Genetic Variants via Wastewater Samples
NSERC · 2023 · Principal investigator
$54,000
Measuring the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Genetic Variants via Wastewater Samples
NSERC · 2023 · Principal investigator
$12,500

All 2 grants and awards

2 publications.

01

UnMuted: Defining SARS-CoV-2 lineages according to temporally consistent mutation clusters in wastewater samples.

Becker D

Epidemics2026First author

DOI: 10.1016/j.epidem.2025.100876 PMID: 41420966

02

Genomic surveillance of Canadian airport wastewater samples allows early detection of emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineages.

Overton AK, Knapp JJ, Lawal OU, Gibson R, Fedynak AA, Adebiyi AI, Maxwell B, Cheng L, Bee C, Qasim A, Atanas K, Payne M, Stuart R, Fleury MD, Knox NC, Nash D, Hungwe YC, Prasla SR, Ho H, Agboola SO, Kwon SH, Naik S, Parreira VR, Rizvi F, Precious MJ, Thomas S, Zambrano M, Fang V, Gilliland E, Varia M, Horn M, Landgraff C, Arts EJ, Goodridge L, Becker D, Charles TC

Scientific reports2024

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-76925-6 PMID: 39489759

Measuring the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Genetic Variants via Wastewater Samples

Principal investigatorNSERC2023Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Becker, Devan

Keywords: sars-cov-2 variants of concern; time series; dynamic clustering; infectious disease modelling; uncertainty quantification; bioinformatics; genetic sequences; unsupervised machine learning; dynamic topic modelling

$54,000

Measuring the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Genetic Variants via Wastewater Samples

Principal investigatorNSERC2023Discovery Launch Supplement

Principal investigators: Becker, Devan

$12,500

From CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions: CIHR since 2008, NSERC since 1991 and SSHRC since 1998, including their latest published competition results.

Frequent collaborators

Lawrence Goodridge

Food Science

1 shared papers, latest 2024

Write to this professor

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Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their NSERC grant from 2023

Subject: Prospective PhD student: Bioinformatics Dear Professor Becker, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "UnMuted: Defining SARS-CoV-2 lineages according to temporally consistent mutation clusters in wastewater samples." (2026), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your NSERC-funded project "Measuring the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Genetic Variants via Wastewater Samples" (2023), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]