Innovative Projects Realized

Accès 5 : Un pari économique

Dans ce projet de recherche, l’organisme partenaire, la Maison Jeunes-Est vise à démontrer, avec le soutien du chercheur principal et du stagiaire, comment la participation à un programme découlant d’une approche territoriale et motivationnelle (Accès 5) permet à des jeunes de cheminer positivement dans la société pour devenir des citoyens fonctionnels. Cette étude coût-bénéfice compare donc les indicateurs de deux cohortes de jeunes ayant participé au programme Accès 5 pendant 5 années (2012-2017, 2017-2022) à ceux de jeunes provenant du même milieu mais n’ayant pas pu s’inscrire au programme, faute de places. Il s’agit ici de démontrer la pertinence de l’intervention communautaire et le bénéfice des efforts de prévention.

Home Away From Home

Home Away from Home is a research-creation project aimed at exploring the hereditary links to Italy by first and second generation immigrants that are visiting the country of their parents and grandparents. My objective is to create a short research-creation sketch that examines the flexible identity of these individuals and how this identity can be viewed in the making of personal subjective creative work. I will be interviewing Italians on their perspective of those who have moved away in past generations and how they view the return visit of first and second generation immigrants. Through in-depth discussions with experts in the autobiographical film, I will gain knowledge in how the research-creation process can help utilize different strategies and approaches to creating a personal subjective vision explored in cinema.

Curating the potential for BIPoC-Jewish solidarity art activism in Poland

Since September 2021, I have worked as a research assistant for Professors Erica Lehrer (Concordia University, Canada) and Joanna Wawrzyniak (University of Warsaw, Poland) to survey existing decolonial curatorial practices in Poland’s museum landscape. My proposed Mitacs Outbound project aims to enrich the current discussion of Poland’s difficult past by bringing Jewish and BIPoC perspectives in dialogue with each other to generate new intersectional understandings of Poland both as a victim and a perpetrator of racist violence. Toward the end of my research process, I will organise a public programme at FestivALT in Kraków. I will present my research outcomes as part of a discussion panel with selected experts, and will organise an invitation-based visioning meeting to identify further research areas and next steps with representative of Poland’s key ethnic minorities. Upon my return to Canada, I will give back to the Concordia’s community by presenting my findings at Dr. Lehrer’s Curating and Public Scholarship Lab (CaPSL).

Investigation of the physical format of silk for the promotion of neural stem cell differentiation in vitro

Recent advances in stem cell research have shown the use of silk cultures as an effective and timely method to grow and test stem cell cultures. Silk cultures have the propensity to incorporate bioactive ques,
either covalently linked to the protein, or physically adsorbed. With the use of silk material, this proposed project will investigate if the stem cells can be engineered to differentiate into cells of interest by a culture in silk containing bioactive cues. To explore this, we will first physically isolate the factors needed for neural induction within the silk support. Ultimately, this project will investigate if the physical format of silk can promote neural stem cell differentiation.

Développement de nouvelles molécules bioactives et d’acides aminés biosourcés par dérivatisation de triterpènes naturels

Les végétaux demeurent de nos jours une source incontournable de molécules bioactives pour le développement d’agents thérapeutiques novateurs. Par contre, l’étude et l’utilisation des molécules d’origine végétale sont souvent limitées par leur manque de solubilité dans l’eau et leur faible biodisponibilité. Pour surmonter ces limitations, l’ajout de groupements polaires sur les molécules appelé dérivatisation est une approche attrayante pour améliorer les propriétés physico-chimiques et pharmacologiques des produits naturels. Dans ce projet, nous nous intéressons particulièrement à la bétuline, un triterpène bioactif de la famille des lupanes présent dans l’écorce du bouleau à papier. Malgré son énorme potentiel, la forte hydrophobicité et faible solubilité dans l’eau de la bétuline limitent son étude et son utilisation. L’objectif du projet est donc de dérivatiser la bétuline avec des groupements fonctionnels polaires pour améliorer ses propriétés physico-chimiques et générer des molécules bioactives innovantes et acides aminés biosourcés.

Occupational Health and Safety

The SDI Group has been a part of the Co op program for the last 13 years. We have supported many students in providing a well rounded experience and mentorship as part of their education. A student being able to be in the field and working directly with the health and safety organization, complements their education by actual practical experience in a variety of areas.

During their four month intern they will be engaged in several objectives both within SDI and for our client base. Our challenge and opportunity are to review key clients health and safety management systems and provide solutions on where we can improve performance. This is through training and procedural updates. The areas are learning and providing input into how controls can be put in place for occupational hygiene work conducted. Lastly, updating formal hazard assessments based on work environments and proper controls can reduce incidents.

The student will first go through a detailed orientation provided by the SDI Group before work is to be performed. From there project work will be presented in the first month.

Investigating Microplastics Contamination in Yukon’s Freshwaters and Fish

Microplastics (MP), defined as any plastic polymer particles <5000 ?m, are quickly becoming one of the most ubiquitous forms of anthropogenic pollution due to their detection in almost every natural system on the planet. To begin to understand the extent of microplastics (MP) contamination in the Yukon Territory’s surface water and in the food web in the Yukon, we propose to design a comparative study of a pristine water body and water body with known sewage effluent inputs. This study will help inform standardized protocols for field sampling, laboratory analytical techniques aimed at quantifying MP in the Yukon freshwaters and fish and characterize the risk MP pose to aquatic life and humans based on available toxicity data for MP. With close collaboration between industry partner Core Geoscience Services Inc. (Whitehorse, Yukon) and Simon Frazer University (Vancouver, BC), maximizes the chances of project success and ultimately leads to the betterment of the state of plastics science in the freshwater systems of the Yukon, and Canada’s North in the following years.

Equipping students for energy transition careers through education, business, and government multi-disciplinary partnerships

Ten Peaks Innovation Alliance is an Alberta not-for-profit organization with the mandate to educate Alberta youth in the areas of innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship as it relates to energy, environment and climate. My project will involve developing a suite of workshops, lesson plans, web-content, and student action programs which centre around energy transition, emerging climate technologies, social innovation, and entrepreneurial thinking. Original content lesson plans and student action programs will be developed and offered to high school educators as ready-made resources useful for instructing on topics that may be unfamiliar to educators because of the rapidly evolving nature of climate innovations and technologies. The target audiences for the project outputs will be high school students (Grades 9-12) and high school educators. In addition to educator resources, activities will include the coordination and execution of a two-day hybrid online/in-person teachers’ conference in May 2022, and a one-day hybrid online/in-person student conference in the fall of 2022. The topics mentioned above will guide the selection of guest speakers, seeking to invite a balanced line up of industry, government, and academic speakers.

Enhancement of the Performance of the Prefail’s Implant Health Monitoring System

This research and development project intends to improve the performance of a dental implant stability measurement (ISMS) device made by Prefail Dental Solutions Inc. The technical improvements proposed by this project includes (i) developing an impeoved and reliable signal processing technique, (ii) designing a calibration unit, (iii) designing a new tip for the ISMS clinical application, and (iv) fine-tuning the parameters in the quotient calculation algorithm of the ISMS. Clinical tests will also be conducted at two stages along with the laboratory improvement experiments that are planned to make the final version of hardware and software of ISMS. The feedback from dentists and patients and human test data will also be used to improve the performance of the final ISMS. The outcome of this project will help Prefail to have a device which is ready for commercialization.

Force Finder – Bringing Force Time Characteristics Into Real-World Gym Settings

Ignite Athletics Inc. is the partner organization and works with thousands of athletes every year as Coaches in the strength and conditioning field. The goal of the project is to bring together Engineers, Sports Scientists and Strength and Conditioning Coaches to create a device that can easily measure force-time characteristics in a real-world setting. Collection of force-time characteristics up this point has typically been limited to a laboratory setting or professional organizations with very large financial budgets. This project will create a new portable and low-cost single-axial load device called the “Force Finder”.

Machine learning techniques in magnetic systems

Algorithms for a Generic Particle Detector Readout