Projets novateurs réalisés

“La mesure de la pensée: Hegel et la normativité conceptuelle”

À une époque qui discute abondamment de “concepts”, le projet de recherche vise à mieux comprendre ce que sont les concepts et la manière dont ils organisent la pensée et l’action d’un être pensant. Le projet s’appuie sur une interprétation de la philosophie de Hegel, en particulier sur l’idée selon laquelle un concept fonctionne comme une « mesure » ou un idéal à partir duquel les choses qui l’instancient sont jugées. Cette dimension évaluative s’applique à notre connaissance du monde empirique, y compris dans les sciences de la nature, où certains cas jugés exemplaires d’un concept servent de référence pour expliquer les autres cas. Elle s’applique aussi à la forme de connaissance de soi propre aux êtres pensants : se juger soi-même à partir de concepts (rôles sociaux, identités) que nous acceptons et faisons nôtres est un trait constitutif de ce que nous sommes.

Le FAGI à Leipzig est un lieu idéal pour mener cette recherche, de par son ambition de mettre l’étude de la philosophie allemande au service de découvertes théoriques contemporaines. Il permettra au stagiaire de parfaire son projet au contact d’acteurs importants de la discussion en question et assurera à uOttawa un lien durable avec l’institution.

Evaluation of Yarmouth Collaborative Food Network Program

The Yarmouth Collaborative Food Network (CFN) is a growing partnership working to reduce food insecurity and strengthen community well-being across the Town of Yarmouth, surrounding rural areas, and nearby First Nations communities. Coordinated by Parents’ Place, the CFN brings together local organizations, volunteers, schools, municipalities, and the Acts of Kindness Society (AOK) to deliver accessible, dignity-focused food supports to residents.

As part of the network, Parents’ Place delivers a wide range of volunteer-driven food programs that play a central role in meeting urgent needs. This includes a weekly community meal program that provides approximately 700 meals every Saturday, serving people onsite and delivering meals to households that face transportation, mobility, or accessibility challenges. Parents’ Place also coordinates 21 Free Community Pantries across the region, supports a frozen soup program, and collaborates closely with schools, churches, SchoolsPlus, YACRO, and other community groups to ensure consistent access to nutritious food.

This project will evaluate CFN-supported food security programs delivered between April 2025 and March 2026. An intern, supervised by an academic expert in program evaluation and community-engaged research, will help the CFN better understand how its programs are improving food access, supporting dignity, and strengthening social inclusion. The project will include data collection, community interviews, and the development of simple monitoring tools that volunteers and partners can use on an ongoing basis.

The final outcome will be an accessible evaluation report that highlights what is working well, identifies gaps, and provides clear recommendations to strengthen CFN programs and partnerships. By building evaluation capacity and improving routine data collection, this project will help the Yarmouth CFN communicate its impact, plan more effectively, and continue supporting food-insecure residents with dignity and respect.

Machine Learning-based Intrusion Detection in IoT Systems

IoT device security has become a major concern as these resource-constrained devices are increasingly deployed at scale, limiting the feasibility of advanced onboard security mechanisms. This challenge is particularly critical for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), who must protect their infrastructure and customers from faulty or malicious IoT devices. To address this, MNOs rely on IoT device fingerprinting to profile deployed devices and support effective intrusion detection, despite having limited control over customer-owned devices. Hence, this project aims to develop robust intrusion detection solutions based on IoT device fingerprinting using machine learning approaches, enabling accurate identification of faulty and malicious behavior at the network level.

Neuro-Symbolic AI for Causal Reasoning with Large Language Models for Energy Storage Systems

This research project aims to advance the development of reliable, interpretable, and causally grounded Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods by integrating neuro-symbolic reasoning into Large Language Models (LLMs), with a specific application to energy storage systems such as lithium-ion battery systems. While modern LLMs demonstrate impressive linguistic capabilities, they remain limited in their ability to reason consistently over structured scientific knowledge and physical constraints, which is critical in safety-critical engineering domains. The project addresses this limitation by embedding symbolic knowledge, such as ontologies, causal rules, and physical laws, directly into transformer-based architectures to support transparent and scientifically valid reasoning. Through a combination of ontology construction, causal modeling, and hybrid neural-symbolic inference, the research will develop and evaluate a framework capable of reducing hallucinations, improving reasoning consistency, and aligning AI-generated explanations with established battery science. Conducted as part of a Master’s thesis and in close collaboration between the home institution and the Institute of Applied Artificial Intelligence at TELUQ, the project contributes to emerging research on trustworthy AI while supporting Canada’s innovation priorities in explainable artificial intelligence, energy storage technologies, and sustainable engineering systems.

Optical readout of superconducting qubits using nonreciprocal light propagation

Reading out quantum states is a key bottleneck for scaling superconducting-circuit quantum computers. Current schemes require many high-bandwidth coaxial cables to send and receive microwave readout pulses, leading to prohibitive thermal and physical overheads: a processor with about one hundred qubits would need several hundred readout lines. Optical readout via electro-optic transduction at the processor level is a promising alternative but currently suffers from low signal-to-noise ratios. This project aims to design an optical readout device based on a bosonic Kitaev model to enhance readout efficiency. The group of P. St-Jean has shown that this model can be encoded in the resonant modes of an electro-optic frequency comb, enabling optical readout of microwave signals with a signal-to-noise ratio that increases exponentially with the comb size. The student will use quantum optics tools to assess whether this platform can be extended to the readout of superconducting qubits and whether it offers a real performance gain. The work will involve modeling the electromagnetic field dynamics with Langevin equations, studying the electro-optic properties of commercially available devices (notably thin-film LiNbO3), and simulating the output optical signal to evaluate the platform’s feasibility.

Stage CMAQ x UdeM — Patrimoine et Savoir-faire / Heritage and Craftsmanship

The Conseil des métiers d’art du Québec (CMAQ) is developing the Quartier des métiers d’art (QMA), a new cultural and economic hub that will bring together artisans, creators, and professionals working in heritage, design, and the built environment. Located in Montréal’s Bridge–Bonaventure sector, the project seeks to revitalize a historic industrial area by transforming it into a space for creation, training, and collaboration. The initiative highlights the essential role of crafts in sustainable development and in the preservation and reuse of Québec’s built heritage.

To support this effort, Joëlle De Grâce, a master’s student in Built Heritage Conservation at the Université de Montréal, will complete an internship with the CMAQ during the early stages of the QMA. Her work will focus on documenting the architectural and historical value of the site, identifying the craft skills associated with the restoration of its buildings, and contributing to the preparation of communication and outreach materials. This applied research will give the CMAQ a deeper understanding of the area’s heritage and help inform planning and consultation activities for the next phases of the project.

OfferioAI

This project will help Blü Creative Digital Technologies strengthen and validate the foundation of its secure, closed-loop AI platform used by governments and regulated organizations to manage policies, procurement documents, and institutional knowledge. The internship will focus on organizing large collections of internal documents into a trusted, searchable system that produces accurate, traceable, and permission-based answers and drafts. By improving how information is structured, compared, and reviewed, the project will reduce manual effort, lower errors, and increase confidence in AI-assisted decision-making. The expected benefit to the partner organization is a more reliable, audit-ready AI platform that can be deployed safely in public-sector and enterprise environments, supporting commercialization and long-term growth.

Designing cognitively efficient debugging interfaces for game production teams

Video game development involves complex debugging and quality assurance processes that require teams to analyze large amounts of technical information under tight deadlines. Developers and testers often rely on multiple disconnected tools, making it difficult to quickly identify problems, prioritize fixes, and make informed decisions. This can increase cognitive workload, slow down production, and affect team efficiency.
This project aims to support the development of an intelligent debugging dashboard designed to help game development teams better supervise and resolve technical issues. Using a human-centered and prospective ergonomics approach, the project will involve professionals from the video game industry in creative workshops to imagine future debugging workflows and identify unmet needs. These insights will be used to design innovative interface concepts that better integrate information and support decision-making.
The proposed designs will then be validated using cognitive workload measures to assess how effectively they reduce mental effort and improve usability during realistic debugging tasks. By combining future-oriented exploration with evidence-based evaluation, the project will help the partner organization develop a more efficient, user-friendly tool.
Overall, the project contributes to innovation in digital tools, improves productivity in game development, and supports the training of highly qualified talent in Canada.

Phylogenetic homogenization or differentiation in global urban non-native floras: decoupling environmental, spatial, and connectivity drivers

This project will investigate whether urban plant communities composed of non-native species around the world are becoming more similar to each other or remaining distinct due to environmental, spatial, and connectivity constraints. Using the Global Urban Biological Invasions Compendium (GUBIC), the study will compare plant assemblages across cities to understand how climate, urban characteristics, and global connectivity shape patterns of biodiversity in highly managed urban ecosystems. The project will benefit the participating institutions by strengthening international collaboration between Brazil and Canada, advancing global research on urban biodiversity and biological invasions, and generating reproducible analytical tools and scientific outputs relevant to ecology, urban planning, and conservation. It will also provide advanced training in macroecological and phylogenetic analyses, contributing to capacity building and long-term research partnerships.

Validation of numerical methods for luminescent coupling in novel semiconductor technologies and material systems

This project, “Validation of numerical methods for luminescent coupling in novel semiconductor technologies and material systems,” is a partnership between Canadian and German researchers at the University of Ottawa, the University of Freiburg, and the affiliated Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy. It aims to produce a program for calculating luminescent coupling within semiconducting devices such as photonic power converters and solar cells. Photonic power converters can be used for applications such as data transmission and remote power supply. Solar cell technology continues to be central to the green energy transition with new solar cell materials, such as perovskites, being explored. Improving designs requires computer simulations. Luminescent coupling is an important physical process in these devices which involves light be generated and then re-absorbed at different places within the device. Although this process plays an important role it is often not included in simulations due to its complexity. This research project aims to fill that gap by creating an open-source program capable of performing these calculations quickly and reliably. By making the program open source, we are increasing its reach, keeping it free and accessible, and allowing it grow to meet the changing needs of the research community.

Neuromodulation spinale non invasive en boucle fermée pour la réadaptation de la locomotion

Ce projet de recherche vise à développer et tester une méthode de stimulation électrique non invasive de la moelle épinière afin d’améliorer la marche chez des personnes présentant des troubles moteurs d’origine neurologique, comme un accident vasculaire cérébral, une lésion médullaire ou une paralysie cérébrale. Contrairement aux approches classiques, la stimulation sera ajustée automatiquement et en temps réel en fonction des réponses du corps, telles que l’activité musculaire et les mouvements observés. Cette adaptation continue permet de personnaliser la stimulation pour chaque individu et d’optimiser son efficacité pendant la réadaptation. Les résultats attendus incluent une amélioration du contrôle moteur, une récupération plus efficace de la marche et le développement d’une technologie de réadaptation plus accessible, personnalisée et durable pour les patients.

Comment les prothèses spécifiques de course peuvent améliorer la performance en sprint

Les personnes amputées du membre inférieur (PAMI) peuvent participer à des activités physiques soutenues comme la course grâce à l’utilisation de prothèses spécifiques de course (PSC). Ces prothèses leur permettent donc de remplacer les fonctions de support et de propulsion auparavant assurées par les os et les muscles des jambes afin de courir de façon récréative et même compétitive. Ces PCS sont munis de lames de carbone capables d’absorber de l’énergie et de la restituer afin de favoriser la propulsion. Actuellement, la prescription des PSC se fait uniquement sur le critère du poids de la personne. Le présent projet propose, à partir de la littérature, de documenter les différentes caractéristiques mécaniques (matériaux, dimension, forme, rigidité) des PSC de même que les exigences biomécaniques de différentes activités sportives pouvant être réalisées par les PAMI. Des analyses biomécaniques seront réalisées à partir de vidéos afin d’étudier le patron de course et de sauts de PAMI équipés de PSC. Au terme de ces analyses, des solutions afin d’améliorer le patron de course et la performance des PAMI munis de PSC. Cette étude permettra aussi à proposer des modifications au design des prothèses actuelles et d’influencer la conception de la prochaine génération de PCS.