Projets novateurs réalisés

Composites de polyuréthane et de biochar activé

Ce projet vise à développer un matériau isolant durable et performant, en renforçant des mousses polyuréthane avec du biochar. Bien que ces mousses soient très largement utilisées dans le secteur de la construction, leur origine fossile soulève des enjeux environnementaux importants. L’incorporation d’un résidu de biomasse sous forme de biochar pourrait réduire cet impact environnemental tout en améliorant les performances des mousses obtenues.
Les deux stagiaires participeront à la fabrication et à la caractérisation de mousses polyuréthane renforcées avec du biochar, selon deux axes complémentaires. Le premier portera sur l’amélioration de l’adhésion entre le biochar et la matrice polyuréthane, notamment par l’activation du biochar. Le second visera à développer une méthode de caractérisation mécanique non destructive basée sur la propagation d’ondes acoustiques. Cette approche permettra d’évaluer les propriétés des mousses sans les endommager.
Les résultats attendus permettront de mieux comprendre l’effet de la modification chimique du biochar sur son adhésion avec la matrice. Par ailleurs, le développement d’une méthode de caractérisation avancée non destructive facilitera le suivi des performances des mousses polyuréthane en service. À long terme, ce projet contribuera au développement et à la caractérisation de matériaux isolants plus performants, durables et adaptés aux besoins industriels.

Therapeutic effects of N-Arachidonoyl methionine on a chronic demyelination model

This project will test whether a naturally occurring molecule in the body, called N-arachidonoyl methionine (NAM), can help repair brain damage. The research focuses on a condition where the protective coating around nerve fibres (myelin) is lost, which can lead to problems with movement, memory, and overall brain function. Using a well-established mouse model, the intern will examine whether NAM can reduce this damage and restore healthy brain structure. For the partner organization, Thesselis, this project will provide important early-stage data on the therapeutic potential of NAM, supporting its development as a possible treatment for neurological disorders. These findings will help guide future research and product development, strengthening the company’s innovation pipeline in brain health.

International Touring Strategy Development for 2b theatre company: Asia-Pacific Expansion, New Production Planning, and Organizational Capacity Assessment

2b theatre company will develop international touring strategies for its productions across Australia, New Zealand, China, and Hong Kong, including market research, presenter relationships, and regulatory navigation. The project also assesses the company’s organizational capacity to sustain multi-production global touring, building frameworks for long-term international expansion.

Impact Investing Summer School – Skills Building for the Next Generation

Across Canada, impact investing is gaining momentum as a tool to address pressing social and environmental challenges. However, a key barrier to growth is not capital: it’s talent. There is a shortage of emerging professionals with the practical skills and experience needed to participate meaningfully in social finance.

Propel Impact is addressing this gap through the Impact Investing Summer School, an immersive, in-person training program taking place at University of Victoria, British Columbia in August 2026. The program will bring together students from across Canada to build foundational knowledge in impact investing, climate finance, and social finance through hands-on, applied learning.

Through this project, Propel will co-design and co-deliver a high-impact training model in partnership with the Impact Investing Hub, combining technical skill-building with real-world application. A Mitacs intern will support program development, partner coordination, participant recruitment, and assist in program delivery and evaluation.

By equipping the next generation with the tools to move capital toward impact, this project strengthens Canada’s social finance ecosystem and expands access to careers in the field.

Development and evaluation of principled distance measures for high-dimensional random representations such as LLM and process-based behavioral embeddings, to support interpretable, and fair inference in scoring, test security, and feedback generation

Distance Measures for High-dimensional Representations

This project addresses a foundational challenge in the use of high-dimensional representations, such as large language model (LLM) embeddings and process-based behavioural embeddings: how to define and evaluate distance measures that are principled, interpretable, and suitable for scientific inference. Current practice often treats embeddings as fixed vectors with ad-hoc geometric assumptions. This project instead reconceptualises embeddings as stochastic representations and develops distance measures grounded in statistical, psychometric, and information-theoretic principles.

The partner organisation, Educational Testing Service (ETS), develops and administers educational assessments used worldwide. Many assessment-related systems increasingly rely on embedding-based models to represent language, responses, and behaviours. ETS is committed to ensuring that decisions derived from these models—such as clustering, scoring, and anomaly detection—are valid, reliable, and fair. Project activities focus on designing principled distance metrics, evaluating their properties, and demonstrating their relevance to assessment use cases.

Anticipated benefits for ETS include improved interpretability and validity of embedding-based models, stronger fairness and robustness arguments, and reduced operational risk. More broadly, the project advances trustworthy AI methodologies that support fairer and more reliable use of AI in education.

Topology-preserving surface fitting in limbus neuroimaging using histology-informed anatomical priors

This research project aims to improve how brain MRI images are analyzed by creating more accurate 3D models of deep brain regions involved in memory, emotion, and neurological disorders such as epilepsy. The intern will develop advanced software and artificial intelligence methods that use highly detailed anatomical reference data from research imaging and tissue studies to better represent complex brain structures that are often difficult to capture using standard clinical MRI scans. By making these brain models more biologically accurate, the project will help generate more reliable measurements and improve the interpretation of MRI data in both research and clinical settings. For BrainScores, this work will strengthen the performance and scientific validity of its neuroimaging software platform, leading to more precise and interpretable outputs for clinicians and researchers. In the longer term, these improvements may support earlier detection of subtle brain abnormalities and enhance BrainScores’ ability to develop innovative AI tools for neurological disease assessment and personalized brain health solutions.

North Point Douglas Womens Resource Centre Summer Inclusion Programming

The North Point Douglas Women’s Resource Centre (NPDWRC) serves community members of Winnipeg’s inner city North Point Douglas neighbourhood. The Centre has many programs including a drop-in, counselling, support groups, men’s night, community events, a community oven, and offers basic needs and support. The drop-in is the first point of contact for participants, providing basic needs, resources and referrals, advocacy and a safe space to relax, socialize and build connections. The Centre also offers a variety of programs on topics from healing to interpersonal violence and abuse, to community safety, and grief. The centre currently offers walk-in supports five days a week, and is home to the Mama Bear Clan, which operates Fridays and Sundays, providing community outreach and safe walks. In August, NPDWRC hosts the Austin Street Festival, a free-to attend event with food, live music and activities which bring the community together in celebration.

Despite limited staff and resources, NPDWC continues to look for ways to expand the range of programs and services they offer and ways to strengthen community partnerships and relationships. NPDWC will expand its program offering by developing and then launching a community based arts program. This will help NPDWC fulfill its goals of bringing the community together, fostering feelings of safety, and building new relationships and partnerships. Community arts programming for residents will also give people of all ages a means of self expression and connection. The community art activities also create more opportunities to connect residents with additional supports and services.

Athlete Customization Feature

This project involves making enhancements to the athlete customization for our sport organizations using SkillShark. Currently organizations using SkillShark are limited to a list of 16 color choices (eg. Black, White, Yellow,etc). The goal of this project is to allow users to create a custom list of colors (and be able to name them) to match their existing jersey colors which exists during tryouts. Our existing color choices may not line up with a set of jersey they physically own (eg. ‘Biege’) so the customer would be able to select a color from a color wheel and assign a name to that color and be able to use that in the SkillShark System moving forward.
Not a trivial task as player attributes touch nearly everything in the SkillShark system.

The North End Women’s Centre Growth & Network

The project will help the North End Women’s Centre improve their programs to make them easier and accessible for our gender diverse individuals and women to access. I will support daily activities in the drop in space, build relationships with our participants and gather feedback to gain an understanding of barriers. The information gathered will help identify the gaps in the programs and help give feedback to improve them based on our community needs. The expected benefit for the organization is creating a stronger community relationships and services that meet the exact needs of our women in the community.

Regional variation in body condition of the endangered little brown bat

Fat stores affect the ability of bats to survive white-nose syndrome (WNS), but disease models that account for bat body condition (i.e., fat stores) do not yet account for intraspecific variation in body size of susceptible bats. We will use a large dataset to test how previously described body size variation across the North American range of little brown bats may also affect their relative body conditions, and therefore their vulnerability to bat WNS.

Les impacts socio-environnementaux de la piétonnisation de l’avenue du Mont-Royal

Ce projet vise à comprendre les retombées sociaux-environnementales de la piétonnisation de l’avenue du Mont-Royal, à Montréal. Les thématiques abordées sont celles de la mobilité, de l’agriculture urbaine ainsi que du lien social. Il vise également à comprendre s’il y a des éléments qui peuvent favoriser un changement de comportement en faveur de la transition socio-environnementale chez les usagers. Ce projet mènera à un état des lieux ainsi qu’à la production de recommandations qui seront adressées à la Société de développement de l’avenue du Mont-Royal afin de bonifier certains éléments de la piétonnisation, et de la rendre d’autant plus favorable à la transition socio-environnementale.

Centre Kapwa: Toward Equitable and Culturally Relevant Mental Health

This project will create a more equitable mental health system by advocating for better access to culturally relevant care, particularly for underserved communities like Filipinx-Canadians. The research will help Centre Kapwa, a non-profit focused on decolonizing mental health through art, movement, and conversation, secure sustainable funding and expand their community-driven mental health programs. By examining the challenges of current funding structures and healthcare policies, the project will reveal how traditional biomedical models often overlook community-based approaches, which are vital for addressing the unique mental health needs of underserved individuals and communities. This project will look at barriers to access explore how community-centered mental health practices can be a powerful alternative. The anticipated outcomes include improved access to mental health services and a stronger, evidence-based advocacy strategy for Centre Kapwa to challenge funding inequities and support long-term organizational sustainability.