Social Matching for Health Researchers

The Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute is interested in addressing an organizational challenge associated with its size and the geographical location of its partners, which form a research community that is spread over multiple sites located in distant parts of the city. The large number of researchers and physical disconnection of the buildings limit social interaction amongst researchers, and lead to unawareness about opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. To address this problem, the Institute desires to evaluate innovative solutions based on online social matching. The objective is to create a research collaboration network designed to break down social and physical barriers. We will evaluate possible algorithms to match and connect researchers automatically based on their interests, expertise, program affiliation, and discipline. We will integrate the algorithms into a social network, and perform a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the system.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Robert Laganière

Student:

Diego Macrini

Partner:

Elizabeth Bruyère Research Institute

Discipline:

Engineering - other

Sector:

Life sciences

University:

University of Ottawa