When Ukrainian university students Yana Hulak and Sofiia Shmyhovska applied for research internships in Canada during the fall of 2021, they were excited by the opportunity to work on a unique project aimed at strengthening social work collaboration between Canada and Ukraine. What they did not expect, however, was that the full-scale invasion of their homeland by Russia would have such a profound impact on their view of the world that they would choose to rethink the focus of their research. 

Dagoberto Torres García, a biotechnology student at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico, is spending the summer in Quebec putting his knowledge and expertise in DNA extraction and PCR testing to help identify which insects are carrying a bacterium responsible for spreading a new, harmful disease affecting strawberry fields in Quebec, in Canada, and around the world.

Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), the Canadian-led consortium of pharmaceutical companies, clinicians and academia, supports open-access drug discovery around the world. And it’s bringing hope to the 300 million people afflicted by rare diseases and a world ravaged by COVID-19. 

Sophie Charron’s childhood interest in the queens of Europe drove her to pursue a master's degree in Medieval Studies. Working under Professor Shami Ghosh at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies, Charron’s highly original research focuses on the queens and noblewomen of medieval Bohemia.  

When Vladyslav Los, an undergraduate student at RWTH Aachen University, in Germany, applied to the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship program, he knew he wanted to study in the area of quantum physics and quantum computing. It was during an interview with Dr. Adrian Lupascu, Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing, that he began to see an exciting path forward.

Dr. Lupascu had a project for an intern that wanted to look at how to do optimal control in multi-level systems, or how to control quantum systems that have multiple states.

With the goal of reducing the risk of arsenic contamination in drinking water, American chemical engineering student Andrea Green is helping a University of Victoria (UVic) lab create a rapid, low-cost, and reliable detection test using a cellphone — all from the comfort of her home in Atlanta, Georgia.

Border closures and international travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic aren’t stopping some of the world’s top talent from collaborating with Canadian researchers this summer. Relying on video calls and other advanced technology tools, Hina Tomar, an undergraduate student at Aligarh Muslim University’s Zakir Husain College of Engineering and Technology, in India, is one of over 1,000 students from 12 countries working remotely on leading-edge research with universities in Canada during the summer of 2021.

Indumathi Prakash, a 21-year-old undergraduate student at Harvard University, is working remotely from home under the guidance of Dr. Robert Colautti, who heads a lab at Queen’s University devoted to the study of genetics and biological invasions. Prakash is helping to develop a first-of-its-kind device to quickly extract and purify DNA from ticks in the field as part of a project for rapid detection of pathogens using on-the-spot gene sequencing.

A global pandemic didn’t stop Toronto entrepreneur Raghavender Sahdev from innovating. On the contrary, he spent the time propelling his start-up, NuPort Robotics, Canada’s first autonomous trucking company, which will help advance Canada’s trucking industry far into the future by using eco-friendly, self-driving electric trucks for short-haul shuttle runs between distribution centres, warehouses, and ports.

During her undergrad studies at the University of Calgary, Taylor Markham found her passion for mathematics and how cryptography demonstrates the use of mathematical concepts in everyday life applications.

In 2019, she was the first Faculty of Science student at the University of Calgary to apply for the Mitacs Globalink Research Award. Through this program, Markham spent her final summer as an undergrad student conducting research at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, where she was supervised by Annie Carter in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.