Projets novateurs réalisés

Étude de la mise à l’échelle d’un procédé de synthèse de catalyseurs biosourcés innovants

La valorisation des déchets alimentaires constitue un enjeu majeur pour le développement de procédés circulaires et durables. Parmi les voies prometteuses, la récupération du calcium et du phosphore issus de résidus tels que les coquilles d’œufs, les arêtes ou les os de poisson permet la synthèse d’hydroxyapatite (Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2), un matériau reconnu pour ses propriétés structurales et sa capacité à servir de support catalytique. Dans le cadre de projets de recherche sur la valorisation de déchets en catalyseurs pour procédés énergétiques et environnementaux, cette recherche vise à étudier la transposition à une plus grande échelle (scale-up) d’une méthode de synthèse d’hydroxyapatite développée au sein du Groupe de Recherche sur les Technologies et Procédés (GRTP) à l’UdeS, ainsi qu’à évaluer ses propriétés physico-chimiques et catalytiques après incorporation d’un métal actif.

Climate change and its effect on bioturbation and sedimentary character of tidal flats and tidal channels in the Venice Lagoon

Climate change is becoming an increasingly prominent global phenomenon causing damage and alteration to various aspects of our environment. The Venice Lagoon, a unique coastal environment elected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is extremely vulnerable to these disruptions. Since infauna (organisms that live within the sediment) are in constant interaction with the environment, their behaviour and traces reflect the conditions of the ecosystem. Therefore, by studying traces, we can better understand how environmental stresses are influencing the ecosystem. This project will last 12 weeks in Italy and consist of both field and laboratory work.

This research project will promote the exchange of knowledge, resources, and expertise, as well as establish lasting connections between the participating international institutions. Interns will apply comparable research methods to other modern and ancient environmental case studies as part of their thesis work. Consequently, the skills and experience gained through this project will strengthen both field and laboratory approaches in future research. The objective of this project is to improve our understanding of how sedimentary environments and infauna respond to changing climate, which will help us better assess the future impact of climate change on coastal lagoons and compare it to past climate change occurrences.

Processus moléculaires aux interfaces environnementales

La surface de la glace est le siège d’importants processus moléculaires qui influent sur le réchauffement climatique comme sur la chimie de l’atmosphère. Des phénomènes comme la formation du trou dans la couche d’ozone et les flux (photo)chimiques de NOx émanant du couvert nival dans le milieu polaire sont deux exemples concrets de la catalyse hétérogène environnementale par les surfaces glacées. En examinant les mécanismes réactionnels en condition contrôlée au laboratoire, nous jetons un éclairage sur l’interprétation des dynamiques moléculaires impliquées dans des phénomènes responsables de l’évolution de la composition de l’atmosphère de notre planète, des changements climatiques jusqu’à l’interprétation des traceurs paléoclimatiques qui sont emprisonnés dans les calottes polaires depuis des millénaires. Le projet de recherche portera sur l’étude de phénomènes élémentaires fondamentaux d’adsorption de molécules sur la glace en utilisant les techniques de jets moléculaires et de spectro-microscopie optique et électronique de système modèles en laborartoire.

Engineering Curvature in Metal-Embedded Molecular Macrocycles

Macrocycles are ring-shaped molecules with internal cavities that can interact with single molecules, ions, or small clusters, making them valuable across areas such as catalysis, optoelectronics, sensing, and environmental remediation. Most known macrocycles are purely organic because their synthesis is well established, while macrocycles that incorporate metal atoms directly into their ring backbone remain rare and poorly understood. The host research group at the University of Saskatchewan is developing new strategies to build these metal-containing molecular rings and explore the unique properties they enable, including tunable optical, redox, and magnetic behavior.

This project explores a new way to construct curved molecular structures by embedding platinum or palladium centers directly into ring-shaped molecules rather than attaching metals at the periphery. These precisely defined ‘molecular nanhoops’ allow systematic investigation of how molecular curvature influences electronic and light-responsive properties, which is important for the rational design of advanced functional materials.

The collaboration brings together complementary expertise in macrocycle chemistry and self-assembly from the home institution in Mexico (Cinvestav, Tiburcio Lab) with advanced synthetic and characterization capabilities in Canada. It will provide high-level research training while fostering long-term international collaboration and strengthening Canada’s leadership in fundamental molecular and materials science.

Studies of Magnetic Fluctuations and Disruption Dynamics Using Internal Mirnov Coil Array in the STOR-M Tokamak

Tokamak is the most promising magnetic confinement fusion reactor configuration for clean energy with practically inexhaustible fuel supply on the Earth. Even though significant progresses have been made, challenges still exist. For example, catastrophic disruptions due to various instabilities in tokamak must be avoided since the sudden interruption of a huge current may destroy the expensive reactor beyond repair. Identifying disruption precursors and mitigation of disruptions are among the most important research topics for tokamak physics and engineering development.

STOR-M at the University of Saskatchewan is currently the only tokamak in Canada for research and training. The intern will utilize the excellent facility to conduct experimental studies of instabilities and the induced minor disruptions in STOR-M. Being small in size, STOR-M is robust enough to withstand the disruptions artificially induced and allow studies of the disruptions. This study may help to identify the precursors leading to disruptions and to develop technology to suppress the instabilities and to avoid major disruptions. Intern will learn rich laboratory skills such as vacuum, electrical, control, data acquisition and processing.

Advancement in Visualization Design for Intensive Outreach and Education: Novel Denture and Anti-snore Devices

Dentures are oral appliances or prosthetic devices that replace missing teeth and restore oral function, speech, and aesthetics. The denture market is driven mainly by the older adult population, which is expected to grow by 68% in the next 20 years according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. These individuals often suffer from sleep-related breathing disorders such as sleep apnea, exhibiting moderate to excessive snoring which is typically ignored or neglected. This neglect can increase the risk of more severe health problems such as stroke, hypertension, chronic heart failure, diabetes, and many others. This applied design research project will explore the continued development of novel denture and anti-snoring devices that aim to address these issues. It will build upon earlier concepts previously explored. More particularly, this project will focus on communication and visualization design aspects to explore ways of increasing awareness around such issues and the proposed solutions. The ultimate goal is to move product concepts up the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale and establish a more effective outreach and education strategy that will support the introduction of new innovations in materials, manufacturing, and design to the target markets.

Cognitive Navigation and Task Reasoning in Field Robotics

This project explores how a mobile field robot integrates semantic perception, task reasoning, and task-aware planning to operate autonomously in unstructured, real-world environments. The work focuses on implementing and evaluating existing perception and task-reasoning components that enable the robot to interpret visual and spatial information, infer task intent, and select feasible actions under uncertainty. Experiments are conducted primarily on the ANYmal quadruped robot, with Unitree Go1/A1 platforms used for rapid prototyping and early validation. The project progresses from simulation to field testing over a four-month period, assessing task execution performance and the quality of semantic environment mapping. Conducted in collaboration with the UCL Robot Perception and Learning Lab, the project supports supervised undergraduate research training and strengthens international research ties by providing access to advanced robotic platforms and academic expertise in AI-enabled robotics.

Caractérisation de MEMS RF à des températures cryogéniques

Des microcommutateurs MEMS RF ont été fabriqués sur une ligne de prototypage industrielle de 200 mm. Compacts et à très faible consommation énergétique, ils sont particulièrement adaptés aux environnements cryogéniques où la dissipation thermique doit rester minimale. Le projet vise à qualifier ces dispositifs et des matrices de commutation à très basses températures dans un frigo à dilution. Cette approche permettrait de remplacer les macro-relais actuels, dont la consommation énergétique entraîne une élévation de température.

Un premier stage Mitacs a permis d’identifier des MEMS fonctionnels, de développer un protocole et un banc de mesure adapté, ainsi que de concevoir et fabriquer les pièces nécessaires aux mesures cryogéniques. Le projet actuel poursuit ces travaux en validant la fonctionnalité et la disspation de chaleur de composants uniques et de matrices à quelques millikelvin. Ces étapes contribueront à la mise au point de solutions innovantes pour la commutation RF dans des systèmes quantiques.

Living on the edge: reducing species at risk data deficiency in the heart of Alberta’s most threatened ecological region – the Central Parkland

Located in the zone between Alberta’s grasslands and boreal forests, the Central Parkland natural subregion is an area of ecological transition, where many endangered species persist tenuously on the edge of their ranges, or have already been silently lost before conservationists understood what habitats and connections on the landscape were critical to their survival. In Alberta, only 5% of the Central Parkland’s natural vegetation remains, even less is protected, and virtually none has been restored. This project is intended to fill in gaps as to where Central Parkland affiliated species at risk and species of potential concern have been observed, survey sites within Alberta’s Capital Region to assess if those areas are still being used, and develop next steps for habitat conservation and restoration initiatives and recommendations.

As Canada’s only Zoological park located within the Central Parkland – a critically endangered ecological region – the Edmonton Valley Zoo and its conservation partners (SENSR, ABMI, University of Alberta) are working to conserve the endangered wildlife and wild spaces that call the Central Parkland home. By combining municipal collaboration with modern biodiversity monitoring sensor technologies, this project will strengthen environmental stewardship along Kisiskâciwani-sîpiy (the North Saskatchewan River) and provide practical tools to inform conservation across Alberta’s broader Central Parkland.

GraphRAG for Network Autonomy: A Framework for Proactive Telecom Operations

This project will design a new AI system to help Ciena’s Blue Planet division automatically understand and solve complex problems in communication networks. Currently, AI tools can only answer simple, fact-based questions. The research intern will develop a more advanced “GraphRAG” system that connects all network data—like equipment status and error logs—into a smart knowledge graph. This will allow the AI to answer broad, analytical questions, such as identifying the root cause of recurring network slowdowns across different regions.

The expected benefit for Ciena is a fundamental shift in its software capabilities, transforming its Blue Planet platform from a management tool into an AI-driven, proactive assistant for network operators. This innovation will provide a significant competitive advantage by reducing operational costs, improving network reliability, and enabling faster service delivery for their customers.

The Business of Development Aid: A Case Study of For-Profit Development Contracting in Timor-Leste

This project proposes the use of ethnographic research to analyze for-profit development aid programs in Timor-Leste by examining the everyday interactions of global and local contractors and the technologies of governance through which development work is shaped. The internship would function as an immersive 12-weeks training experience in anthropological research methods for Audrey Lefort. Dr. Laurentina ‘mica’ Barreto from the National University of Timor-Leste and Dr. Susanna Barnes from the University of Saskatchewan would supervise the intern as she 1) conducts participant observation in development-related settings and assists with semi-structured interviews, 2) analyzes development documents and tools, and 3) synthesizes the information gathered in a 10-15 page report and present her findings to the host institution. Her engagement with development professionals and community members would foreground the informal relational, and non-market practices of trust, reciprocity, and localized knowledge that influence development contracting in Timor Leste. This project is intended as a foundation for ongoing, interdisciplinary research collaboration between Canadian and Timorese scholars. Consequently, the internship would create opportunities for future co-authored outputs, collaborative grant applications, and student exchanges to support the existing relationship between the University of Saskatchewan and National University of Timor-Leste.

Manufacturer-Supported Product Analysis

This project will partner with an Alberta-based manufacturer(s) producing recycled-rubber products (e.g., recycled-rubber noise barrier panels, traffic barriers, fitness flooring, brake pads, and agricultural mats). The goal is for the Sustainability Scholar to work in partnership with the Alberta Recycling Management Authority (ARMA), the manufacturer and a municipal partner(s) to understand and align product performance (lab and field-testing data) with product information for public-sector procurement needs. The goal of the project is to create a repeatable framework for manufacturers using recycled materials to follow so that secondary markets for recycled materials are strengthened in Alberta.