Projets novateurs réalisés

Fostering consensus decision-making in collaborative fisheries management

Under the Fisheries Resource Reconciliation Agreement, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and eight First Nations are working to build consensus in joint-recommendations and decisions regarding fisheries resources in areas of the BC coast. This project contributes to best practices from other Nation-Crown decision-making processes to help us build an informed process to reach consensus leading to robust joint recommendations to leadership.

Analyse des sentiments vocaux bilingues : Améliorer l’intelligence émotionnelle de l’IA

Paperminds est une entreprise en intelligence conversationnelle qui repense la façon dont les marques se connectent avec leurs parties prenantes par l’art de la conversation et la science de la compréhension. Nous combinons la science comportementale avec des technologies d’apprentissage profond avancées pour créer des conversations hyper personnalisées à grande échelle, transformant les transactions traditionnelles en relations authentiques et durables. Le projet consiste à développer des modèles d’apprentissage profond pour la détection des sentiments.

Acuity Insights – McMaster Summer Internship Program 2025

This project will provide a marketing intern with hands-on experience supporting Acuity Insights’ business growth and expansion into new markets. The intern will conduct market research, analyze engagement data, assist with event marketing, and optimize marketing processes to help Acuity improve its outreach and impact in the education technology sector. Their work will contribute to better lead generation, more efficient marketing operations, and stronger brand positioning, helping Acuity expand globally while improving access to higher education solutions. Through this internship, the intern will gain valuable skills in marketing, data analysis, and business strategy, while Acuity benefits from enhanced marketing insights and operational improvements.

The Faculty Supervisor will provide mentorship and support to the Student for the duration of the award. Frequency and format of the meetings may vary but the typical amount of support will be for one hour bi-weekly, to be scheduled for the duration of the internship. The faculty supervisor can be contacted at anytime by email as well.

L2M – GradFinder

We are building GradFinder, an online platform that connects students with professors who are actively recruiting for thesis-based graduate programs. Many students struggle to find available positions, and professors are overwhelmed by unqualified inquiries. Our platform streamlines this process, improving access and efficiency on both sides. Through this project, we aim to refine our business model, validate key assumptions, and move closer to market readiness. Support from the Lab2Market Launch program and MITACS BSI will help us accelerate the development of a scalable, tech-driven solution that supports graduate education and enhances Canada’s research and innovation ecosystem.

AI-Assisted Decision Support Tools to Accelerate Catalytic Materials Design/Discovery: Towards Net-Zero Emissions

This project aims to accelerate the discovery of efficient high-entropy alloy (HEA) catalytic materials for CO2 electrolysis by integrating advanced quantum AI-based optimization techniques with quantum mechanics computation. By combining these cutting-edge methods, the project seeks to identify novel, efficient, and costeffective catalysts that can convert CO2 into valuable products, contributing to the achievement of net-zero emissions.
The participating institutions, including Polytechnique Montréal, CanmetENERGY, and Eindhoven University of Technology, will benefit from enhanced collaboration in advanced materials research, the development of state-ofthe-art data-driven models, and a deeper understanding of electrolysis processes for sustainable energy applications.

Enhancing Business Retention and Expansion Strategies Through Data-Drive Economic Development

The Business Retention & Expansion Coordinator provides support to various Economic Development functions, including the Business Retention & Expansion Program, Customer Origin, Trade Area as well as to providing the student with hands-on experience and exposure to Economic Development practices.

Strain Measurement after Martensitic Transformation

This collaborative research project between McMaster University’s Materials Science and Engineering department and Grenoble INP Phelma’s SIMaP laboratory aims to investigate the development of accurate strain measurement techniques using transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Leveraging AI for Data Characterization and Analysis in a Youth Wellbeing Database in UK

This project aims to characterize and analyze the Community Health Dataset using AI techniques. This dataset, sourced from the Cambridge Community Services Trust, contains electronic health records (EHRs) of 111,317 children and young people aged 0–18 years, covering the period from 2007 to 2021. The significance of this project lies in several key aspects: (1) the large amount of available data, enabling the development of robust models and conclusions; (2) the broad age range of subjects, addressing a gap in research focused on youth mental health beyond student populations or controlled conditions; (3) the substantial number of samples related to diagnosed mental illnesses, such as ADHD and ASD, which remain underrepresented in the literature; and (4) the integration of AI tools to enhance data analysis. This analysis will provide key insights into healthcare system utilization and contribute to a better understanding of youth mental health in the UK, with the potential to apply these findings to similar databases in Canada.

Recommender Systems for Investing

(1) The Desjardins Quantitative Strategies department manages a set of internally developed systematic investment strategies. There are two main products; global equity strategies (developed and emerging countries), as well as alternative strategies using futures on global stock indices, resources, interest rates and currencies. The team owns a proprietary technology platform that has been developed over a period of more than 10 years and is actively used for fund management.
(2) The universe of available financial securities and the amount of financial, economic, social, governance, and environmental data is a big data problem. Identifying relevant factors and data to make optimal investment recommendations under constraints is
computationally intensive. Further, the recommender system should be interpretable or explainable so that it is understood what risk factor contribute to the inclusion or exclusion of a particular investment.
(3) The main benefits, due to its impact on our portfolios and to accelerate the adoption of machine learning approaches internally at Desjardins, would be the construction of a novel stock recommendation system based on fundamental and technical properties of investments, and interactions with the macroeconomic environment or environmental considerations.

Investigating brain blood flow control in pre- and post-menopausal women

This project investigates how menopause influences brain function by comparing blood flow in pre- and post-menopausal women. Estrogen plays a crucial role in protecting the vascular system; however, as women transition through menopause and estrogen levels decline, the risk of diseases such as stroke and vascular dementia increases significantly. I will conduct research at Bangor University, utilizing advanced neuroimaging techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to measure brain blood flow and vascular function in both pre- and post-menopausal women. By combining MRI with established ultrasonography techniques, this study will provide a more comprehensive understanding of how menopause affects brain blood flow control. At Bangor University, I will receive training in gold-standard intracranial imaging methods from Dr. Geoff Coombs, expanding my skill set and enhancing my ability to investigate brain health with greater precision. This work will provide an opportunity to integrate expertise from McMaster University, where I have been studying sex and menstrual cycle phase differences in brain blood flow control using non-invasive ultrasound techniques with Dr. Baraa Al-Khazraji. By combining the strengths of from institutions, this research will foster international collaboration, knowledge exchange, and the development of new interdisciplinary approaches to studying women’s brain health.

Instilling Ecological and Emotional Literacy to Engage Youth in Climate Action

The proposed project aims to develop an illustrated children’s book to educate youth on the importance of climate action, which has become increasingly importance due to the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. This project aims to develop a book that instills ecological and emotional literacy in order to empower youth to take action against climate change by integrating empathy, compassion, and care into their ecological perspectives. This project will include work with youth to help inform how children’s can be best utilized to educate them, as well as the utilization of previous research from The Arctic University of Norway’s ECO_CARE project on how empathy, compassion, and care can be instilled within individuals to be agents of change. This project will benefit both McMaster University and The Arctic University of Norway by exploring how to best educate youth, and therefore aid in developing comprehensive curricula within these institutions. The proposed project would contribute to a generation that takes effective climate action and guides their lives and choices through empathy, and make the institutions global leaders in taking climate action.

Postpartum Mental Health in Japanese Women

By systematically reviewing and analyzing existing literature and data on postpartum mental health in Japanese women, this research project aims to understand the cultural expectations of motherhood and perceptions of mental health on mothers in Japan, and how this may impact the uptake of support and public health interventions in the Japanese context. The research will involve literature review, environmental scan, data examination and analysis, as well as meetings with maternal and mental health experts to guide and inform the study. The goal for this research is to inform specific mental health supporting interventions in Japan, interventions for Japanese immigrants in other countries, or in other countries with similar mental health stigma or cultures. Aside from the immediate research outputs, the aim of this collaboration is to continue to strengthen ties between McMaster University and Niigata University, as well as continuing to foster positive ties between Japan and Canada.