Innovative Projects Realized

VR Gaze and Head Dynamics

Most of what we know about how people attend to the world comes from lab studies where participants sit still and look at flat images on a screen. But in everyday life, we move our heads and bodies freely to explore our surroundings. With new Virtual Reality (VR) technology that includes eye and head tracking, we can now study how people naturally move their eyes and heads while interacting in realistic, yet tightly controlled, 3D environments. This project will examine how the eyes and head work together when people are performing complex tasks—like searching for objects or navigating spaces—in immersive VR. A key feature of the study is a “headlamp” setup that allows us control whether people use their eyes or head to find things, helping us understand how different kinds of movement guide attention. The findings will improve our understanding of how people look and act in the real world, and will also help Cognitive3D improve their VR platform by making it easier for clients to see where people are looking, even when they don’t have specialized eye-tracking hardware.

Imaging Biomarkers for Nanotherapeutics

Poor drug accumulation at tumor sites negatively affects the efficacy of many anti-cancer therapeutics. Development
of non-invasive strategies that can effectively monitor drug biodistribution is important, especially given the increasing
number and complexity of nanotherapeutic agents in clinical development. The use of positron emission tomography
in conjunction with a radiolabeled drug delivery system has the potential to achieve accelerated clinical translation.
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals focuses on the development of nanotherapeutic platforms for cancer therapy and
imaging. Their liposome-based chemotherapeutics have shown clinical benefit in breast and pancreatic cancer
patients. However, the overall efficacy of these compounds has been limited due to high inter-patient response
variability. Merrimack and our research group believe that the development of robust imaging-based methods to
quantify the drug distribution in patients can positively affect the therapeutic outcome as it allows for investigation of
patient-specific drug deposition and its potential for prediction of treatment response.

Norsat International Inc.

Norsat International Inc. specializes in delivering advanced satellite communication solutions for remote and challenging environments. One of the core challenges the organization faces is efficiently developing and presenting customized product solutions to diverse global clients while ensuring technical accuracy and timely delivery. The innovation challenge lies in optimizing the pre-sales process by improving the integration of customer requirements, engineering specifications, and vendor capabilities—without creating bottlenecks in communication or documentation. This project will explore the design and automation of tools and workflows that enhance the generation of custom part numbers, datasheets, and sales collateral. These tasks require expertise in business analysis, technical documentation, and familiarity with systems like CRM, ERP, and PLM tools. By leveraging the intern’s technical background and analytical mindset, this project will go beyond daily operations to streamline complex solution-building processes and support long-term scalability in Norsat’s sales engineering model.

Oxygen vs. Metabolites: investigating Mechanistic Drivers of Skeletal-Muscle Hypertrophy in Low-Load Hypoxic Resistance Training

Many athletes and patients use blood-flow-restriction (BFR) cuffs to make light-weight exercise feel like heavy training, but no one is sure why this type of exercise causes improvements similar to traditional exercise. Is it because the cuff blocks oxygen from entering the muscle, or because it traps byproducts (metabolites) that signal the muscle to grow? Our project will carefully tease apart these two ideas. We will have volunteers exercise in four conditions: (1) regular exercise with low weight, (2) low weight with inflated BFR cuffs (similar to a blood pressure cuff), (3) low weight while breathing low-oxygen air (like training at altitude), and (4) low weight with inflated BFR cuff and low-oxgen air together. We will match the amount of oxygen within the exercising muscle between the BFR and low-oxygen conditions, allowing us to see whether the lack of oxygen or metabolite build-up is the real driver of strength and size gains. The findings will help Delfi, a Canadian company that makes smart BFR devices, fine-tune their algorithms so users from rehab spaces to elite athletes get maximum benefit with minimal risk, strengthening Canada’s position in cutting-edge sports-medicine technology.

Adaptive Human–LLM Teaming for Scalable Cybersecurity at eSentire

This project will explore how AI can best complement human expertise in cybersecurity operations. The intern will collaborate with industry professionals at eSentire to study how tasks are currently performed, develop lightweight AI-based tools to support key workflows, and design a method to assess the impact of these tools in real-world conditions. The goal is to produce evidence-based insights and a roadmap that supports the seamless integration of AI into operational processes. For eSentire, this research will help inform strategic decisions about AI deployment, drive innovation, and support continued excellence in delivering efficient, high-quality security services.

Partnerships for Watershed Governance in Peachland, B.C.

Partnerships for Watershed Governance in Peachland, B.C. is a participatory action research initiative focused on the development of an integrated watershed co-governance model for Peachland Creek Community Watershed. This project, in partnership with the District of Peachland and Syilx communities, is designed to develop relationships, braid epistemologies, and facilitate local-level watershed governance capacity development within a mutually beneficial academic-community research framework. This project will utilize ecological governance and theory of change, community-engaged methodology and a multi-methods approach centred within a six-part governance workshop series to facilitate the collaborative design of the model. The ultimate goal of the project is to support the community of Peachland in its efforts to establish greater local-level influence in provincial watershed decision-making processes and observe the enabling conditions of a practical governance transition for the benefit of sharing lessons with other communities and community-engaged researchers working toward watershed governance development.

Industrial Vision-Based Defect Detection

Magna International Inc., headquartered in Ontario, Canada, is North America’s largest auto parts manufacturer. It supplies automotive components and systems to nearly all global automakers, including General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Volkswagen, Daimler, and BMW. With approximately 170,000 employees across 342 manufacturing operations and 91 product development, engineering, and sales centers in 28 countries, Magna has been at the forefront of introducing innovative automotive products to the market for 67 years through its cutting-edge R&D, design, and manufacturing efforts. Magna International Inc. will provide real-world manufacturing data, domain expertise, and deployment environments for vision-based defect detection systems. Magna will offer access to production facilities, historical quality data, and technical mentorship from their R&D and manufacturing teams to guide practical implementation. Magna faces critical quality control challenges including inconsistent manual inspection processes that are prone to human error and cannot scale with high-volume production demands. Currently, Magna employs visionbased defect detection systems to inspect for manufacturing errors, but these systems require optimization to improve accuracy and reliability in identifying defects across diverse product lines. This workplan outlines strategies to enhance these automated inspection capabilities and integrate them more effectively into the production workflow. Current systems struggle with detecting subtle defects across diverse automotive components, leading to costly recalls, warranty claims, and customer dissatisfaction. The company needs automated solutions that maintain quality standards while reducing inspection time and labor costs. Magna will benefit through significant cost reductions from decreased defective products, improved production efficiency, and enhanced customer satisfaction. The automated systems will enable realtime quality monitoring and data-driven process improvements. Society will benefit from safer, higher-quality automotive products, reduced manufacturing waste contributing to environmental sustainability, and advancement of Industry 4.0 technologies that can be adopted across manufacturing sectors. This research establishes a foundation for widespread deployment of AI-driven quality control systems, enhancing global manufacturing competitiveness and product reliability.

Comparison of Automated vs. Manual Sample Processing for Flow Cytometry in Diagnosing Hematologic Malignancies Using BD OneFlow™ Panels

La cytométrie en flux est une méthode essentielle pour diagnostiquer les cancers du sang tels que les leucémies, les lymphomes et le myélome multiple. Elle permet d’identifier les types de cellules impliquées grâce à des marqueurs exprimés à leur surface. Actuellement, la préparation des échantillons est souvent réalisée manuellement, ce qui peut entraîner des erreurs humaines, des délais prolongés et des résultats variables d’un laboratoire à l’autre.

Ce projet vise à comparer l’efficacité d’un traitement automatisé des échantillons à l’aide du système DUET™ (Becton Dickinson) et des panels BD OneFlow™, par rapport à la méthode manuelle traditionnelle. Ce système standardisé permet un traitement plus rapide des échantillons, avec une meilleure traçabilité.

L’étude inclura 300 patients répartis en trois groupes selon la pathologie suspectée (leucémie, lymphome ou myélome). Chaque échantillon sera divisé en deux parties et traité selon les deux méthodes, afin de comparer les performances analytiques.

Les objectifs sont de déterminer si l’automatisation permet d’obtenir des diagnostics aussi fiables, voire supérieurs, à ceux de la méthode manuelle, tout en réduisant les délais et les erreurs. Si les résultats sont concluants, cela pourrait favoriser l’adoption de solutions automatisées dans les laboratoires, améliorant ainsi la qualité et la rapidité des diagnostics hématologiques.

Investigating the Anaerobic Biotransformation of the Pesticide Chlordecone

The proposed project aims to investigate the pathway and mechanisms of the anaerobic biotransformation of the persistent organochlorine pesticide chlordecone (CLD). At the home institute, University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada), the intern has successfully identified a a trichloroethylene (TCE)-dechlorinating culture, KB-1, that can completely transform 1.5 mg/L (3.1 µM) of CLD within 200 days when supplemented with electron donors and carbon sources (methanol, ethanol and lactate). In addition, it can also transform CLD during the two subsequent refeeding cycles. To further understand the pathway and mechanisms of CLD transformation, the intern will work with Dr. Florence Popowycz and Dr. Maiwenn Jacolot at Institut de Chimie et Biochimie Moléculaires et Supramoléculaires (France) to synthesize a key intermediate 2,4,5,6,7-pentachloro-1H-indene (B1). The goal of this work is to 1) learn to chemically synthesize and purify B1 (Lyon, France), 2) gain experience with analytical techniques such as GC-MS and NMR for detecting chlordecone transformation products (Lyon, France), 3) develop synthesis methods for other intermediates, specifically compounds in family C (Lyon, France), and 4) Investigate the transformation of B1 with KB-1 (Toronto, Canada). The collaboration will combine the strengths of both institutes in environmental microbiology (home institute) and organic synthesis (host institute).

Calcul des performances d’un fuselage intégré hybride en régime transsonique

Dans les années 2000, la NASA et Boeing ont développé un concept d’avion à fuselage intégré, avec des moteurs positionnés au-dessus de la voilure, vers l’arrière de l’appareil. Cette configuration visait à réduire la traînée ainsi que le bruit perçu au sol lors des phases de décollage et d’atterrissage. Un avion en vol stable doit respecter une condition d’équilibre où la somme des moments de force est nulle, ce qui signifie que la portance compense le poids et que la poussée équilibre la traînée. Or, en raison de la position de ses moteurs, l’avion conçu par la NASA ne répondait à cette exigence qu’avec difficulté. Pour corriger ce déséquilibre, il faudrait abaisser les moteurs afin de les aligner avec le centre de masse. Cependant, cette modification soulève un autre défi : des moteurs plus bas seraient davantage exposés aux effets de viscosité de l’air perturbant l’écoulement et réduisant leur efficacité. C’est précisément ce problème que l’on cherche à résoudre: améliorer l’aérodynamisme de l’avion et la performance sans nuire à l’efficacité des moteurs.

Development of a Solvent-Free Technology for Production of High Functional Protein Powders from Oilseeds and Grains

Oilseeds and grains are considered to be excellent sources of non-animal proteins containing the appropriate essential
amino acids required for optimal human health. Conventional protein production methods involve the use of solvents,
concentrated acids and alkali that result in protein denaturation, thereby reducing the quality and functionality of the
protein ingredients. The proposed project will explore the potential of a dry or solvent free electrostatic-based
separation technique for the production of high-quality protein powders from soy and navy beans. This methodology
employs an electrostatic technique to selectively charge proteins, carbohydrates, and fibers in the bean flour and
separate them based on the magnitude and type of their charge. It preserves the bio-functionality of the protein and
averts the likelihood of toxic microbial contamination common in currently used wet processes. Advanced CERT
Canada is willing to conduct process optimization, fine-tuning and scale-up studies to move towards designing a pilotscale
plant.

Mechanochemical Chan-Lam couplings

This research collaboration explores the application of Chan-Lam coupling (expertise of the Schaper group) in mechanochemistry (expertise of the Jurca group) to explore new and more efficient preparation methods in drug development and production.