Projets novateurs réalisés

Understanding Lived Experience and Essential Conditions for Effective Active Transportation

The purpose of this project is to create evidence that describes the influence of urban trail development on population-level physical activity and active transportation. This is a growing field of importance as governments across all levels in Canada will be investing close to one billion dollars in urban infrastructure over the next ten years. There is a severe lack of empirical data surrounding what makes certain urban trails successful. This project aims to answer those questions to help optimize urban trail implementation, particularly in terms of reach, acceptability, and traffic volume of the trails. As part of the 2023-2026 budget, Edmonton’s City Council approved $100 million to proceed with the Active Transportation Network Expansion. Implementation focuses on building infrastructure to connect existing routes, improve access and connectivity, and create a more complete AT network. Implementation has the potential to lead to a modal shift in which more individuals are using AT. This project seeks to understand Edmontonians’ lived experiences to explore factors that affect adaptation and implementation of the Active Transportation Network Expansion and to inform and support the implementation through an equity lens (i.e., what gets built, where, and for whom).

Séjour de recherche à l’École normale supérieure pour le projet de recherche « Filmologie, filmologue. De l’Institut de filmologie de la Sorbonne (1948-1962) aux études cinématographiques contemporaines »

Ce projet vise à redécouvrir l’Institut de filmologie de la Sorbonne (1948-1962), premier centre universitaire en cinéma de l’histoire, caractérisé par son interdisciplinarité, mais qui œuvrait également comme laboratoire incognito des services secrets français. Oublié de nos jours, voire tabou en France, les recherches qui s’y sont déroulées – une tentative d’études quasiment médiatiques mélangeant sciences exactes, humaines et sociales – sont pourtant d’un intérêt crucial pour les laboratoires en cinéma contemporains qui, particulièrement au Canada, sont multisectoriels et pluridisciplinaires. Remettre au jour les recherches de l’époque permettrait de consolider les projets d’études d’aujourd’hui.
De surcroît, en sombrant du fait du scandale le liant aux services secrets français, l’Institut a emporté avec lui le terme « filmologue », alors que la discipline des études cinématographiques est désormais solidement établie mais toujours dépourvue d’un nom pour son chercheur. Démystifier l’histoire de l’Institut de filmologie permettrait de revaloriser le terme « filmologue », et la science que celui-ci étudie : la filmologie.
En somme, par un travail d’archives et d’historiographie, le projet permet de créer un pont entre un passé oublié et les pratiques de recherche médiatique contemporaines, pour contribuer à enrichir la recherche sur le cinéma et renforcer le dialogue entre différentes disciplines.

One Hundred Years of Chilean and Latin American Animated Cinema

Research focused on the history of Latin American animation, from its inception, exploring international collaborations, and concluding in contemporary animation.

TradesLink Enterprise Business Strategy

The skilled trades industry in Canada is facing significant challenges, including labor shortages, an aging workforce, and the need to attract younger generations to the trades. TradesLink, an innovative online platform, aims to address these challenges by creating a community-driven solution that empowers trades employers to effectively manage their workforce and meaningfully connect them with their workers, thereby increasing employee retention.

City of Lloydminster Regional CO-Op Exercise Design

An Emergency Management project that seeks to deliver Emergency training and exercise facilitation to 10 communities within Alberta and Saskatchewan. This project aims to increase communities’ ability to respond to a myriad of applicable hazards, thus increasing regional resiliency while lowering vulnerabilities.

Regional Emergency Management COOP – Household Prepardness

With 10 municipalities combining Emergency Management services, an innovative approach to conduct public preparedness in a joint venture is being pursued to increase risk awareness, create resiliency, lower vulnerability, and encourage homeowners in the area to undertake risk-reducing behaviours. This Co-Op position will be responsible for the creation and delivery of information to the regional area and monitoring releases for effectiveness and improvements.

Determining the root cause of colour changes of PY154 when in contact with caustics

During this internship we will investigate the chemical and spectroscopy (colour) behavior of a new pigment to a variety of variables the new pigment is likely to encounter on application. Dominion Colour Corporation is interested in marketing this pigment as a new and robust colourant.
[note: this overview is purposefully vague as the content of this internship proposal should be taken as confidential. Public disclosure of DCC’s business objectives would place their competitors at an advantage.]

Canadian Equality Consulting Inc. – Summer Intern – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Business Development Strategist

The project is to develop and support innovative marketing and business development campaigns and activities. The responsibilities include conducting desktop research on the latest hot topics, trends and challenges in the DEI field, including emerging topics and best practices. To lead and support campaigns and resources for marketing and business development which can include Instagram lives, reels, LinkedIn campaigns, blogs or cold outreach campaigns with a strong intersectional, anti-oppressive lens.

UDL Digital Process and Marketing Innovation Project

The dental technology field evolves quickly, requiring constant updates to stay competitive. Labs must balance adopting new innovations while ensuring stability in their workflow. Thorough validation and testing must be done to meet clinical standards.
Keeping up with social media marketing trends for a dental lab is challenging due to constantly changing algorithms, high content creation demands, and the need to stay relevant to evolving trends. Balancing educational and promotional content while managing engagement can be time-consuming, especially with growing industry competition. Adapting to new platforms and features requires ongoing learning, and compliance with advertising and patient confidentiality regulations adds complexity. Time and analytical skills are required to track ROI and optimize strategies effectively. Overcoming these challenges requires creativity, consistency, and a well-planned approach to social media management.

This project would provide significant benefits to a dental lab by enhancing both product testing and digital marketing efforts. By assisting in the testing of Carbon Flexible Partial Denture Dual Resin, the work experience student helps improve material evaluation, workflow efficiency, and quality control. Their support in CAD/CAM design, 3D printing, post-processing, and bench testing ensures the lab can accurately assess the durability, flexibility, and overall performance of the material. Additionally, their role in data collection and industry research enables the lab to compare the material against competitors and make informed decisions about its adoption. At the same time, the student’s involvement in social media marketing strengthens the lab’s online presence and brand awareness. By creating content, researching trends, managing engagement, and analyzing performance metrics, they help attract new clients, showcase the lab’s innovations, and keep up with evolving digital marketing strategies. Their fresh perspective and digital expertise allow the lab to stay competitive, improve customer engagement, and build credibility in the industry.

Canadian Equality Consulting, Inc. Summer Intern – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Strategist

The Summer Strategist Intern will contribute to the development of cutting-edge DEI resources, training materials, and toolkits. This internship is an excellent opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the DEI field, working directly with experts and contributing to impactful projects. The intern will have a strong understanding of diversity, equity, inclusion, intersectionality, and feminist frameworks, as well as an entrepreneurial self-starter disposition.

Expanding and Enhancing Awesense’s Digital Twin Sandbox to Support the Clean Energy Transition

Awesense is a clean tech company on a mission to accelerate the transition to clean energy by simplifying the creation of data-driven applications for a decarbonized, decentralized grid. To enable the complex planning and operational decisions required by distributed energy resources (e.g., solar, wind, batteries, EVs), Awesense developed its Digital Energy Platform. This platform allows utilities, consulting firms, and software vendors to rapidly prototype decision-support analytics without repeatedly integrating data. Utilities integrate once and can then easily add multiple platform-compatible applications.

Because this represents a departure from the traditional, siloed approach utilities have used for analytics, Awesense must make compelling demonstrations of the platform’s capabilities. To that end, they created a sandbox environment with synthetic yet realistic data. Potential clients can explore the platform’s capabilities hands-on, while existing clients can speed up analytics development by testing new solutions before their real data is integrated.

Currently, the sandbox is limited in size and lacks several data features, restricting the range of possible use cases. For this MITACS BSI internship, Awesense is looking for an intern to help expand and enrich this synthetic dataset, and then develop more proof-of-concept use cases on top of it. These enhancements will showcase the full power of the Digital Energy Platform and support broader adoption.

Establishing a secure, scalable integration with Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and developing a state-of-the-art, clinician-focused user interface for Tenzr Health’s Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) platform

Tenzr Health is a leading digital health organization specializing in the management of musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions such as arthritis, chronic back pain, and repetitive strain injuries. The company’s innovative Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) platform utilizes cutting-edge wearable sensor technology, engaging gamified mobile applications, and secure cloud computing to continuously monitor patient progress beyond traditional clinical settings. This proactive approach has led to treatment adherence rates that are 2.6 times higher than industry norms, significantly enhancing patient outcomes.
Tenzr Health now faces a critical challenge in evolving its platform to meet the growing demands of modern healthcare. While the current system is highly effective at capturing and processing patient data, it lacks a sophisticated, user-friendly frontend interface capable of integrating seamlessly with diverse Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). Clinicians, who are essential in interpreting this data for real-time patient care, require a more dynamic and intuitive interface that can translate complex datasets into actionable insights, thereby streamlining clinical workflows and supporting informed decision-making.
By combining the practical expertise of Tenzr Health’s engineers with WIMTACH’s advanced research capabilities in data integration, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity, the project aims to extend the RTM platform in two key dimensions that offer an interactive, data-rich user experience that enhances the usability of patient data, ultimately empowering clinicians to deliver more effective and timely care.