Innovative Projects Realized

Suivi démographique et comportemental des mésanges bleues en Corse

Les animaux d’une même population mangent-ils tous la même chose? Si ce n’est pas le cas, pourquoi montrent-ils des régimes alimentaires différents? Les différences de personnalité, ou différences comportementales individuelles, qui persistent dans le temps et se maintiennent entre les situations, pourraient expliquer ces différences alimentaires. Par exemple, un individu qui explore généralement plus lentement et minutieusement son environnement pourrait inclure davantage de proies difficiles à trouver qu’un individu qui explore plus rapidement et superficiellement. Dans deux populations de mésanges bleues corses, les individus diffèrent dans leur façon d’explorer l’environnement et nous soupçonnons que ces différences sont liées aux proies qu’ils sélectionnent pour nourrir leurs oisillons. Ce que mangent les jeunes a un impact sur leur développement et leur survie. Entre autres, les chenilles et les araignées constituent deux sources importantes et complémentaires d’énergie et de nutriments. Considérant ces impacts importants de la diète sur les oisillons, il est vital de comprendre comment le choix des proies par les parents dépend de leur façon d’explorer l’environnement et comment cela se reflète dans les traits de leurs oisillons. Un bouleversement des communautés d’arthropodes causé par les changements globaux pourrait avoir des conséquences sur les caractéristiques des populations de mésanges.

Systematic Mapping of the Cell Surface Proteome for Target Discovery

This project seeks to advance the discovery of future cancer therapies by comparing healthy cells with abnormal cancer cells. By examining how proteins, the key functional components of cells, change between normal and diseased states, the intern(s) will help identify novel targets that may point to new therapeutic opportunities. The work uses established, quantitative proteomic approaches to generate comparative insights into differential proteoforms. Through this industry–academic partnership, the research is guided by practical considerations of drug-discovery pipelines with a clear pathways toward practical application. The partner organization benefits from access to a unique dataset that will provide biological insights, access to highly trained research talent, and results that can inform longer-term innovation strategies. Overall, this project combines curiosity-driven research with applied impact, accelerating the translation of fundamental science into meaningful health solutions.

Electrochemical Cell Development for Pyrrhotite Resource Recovery Project

This project addresses Canada’s urgent need for sustainable extraction of strategic materials, particularly nickel and cobalt from mining waste streams, essential for electric vehicles, batteries, and renewable energy technologies. This 18-week internship focuses on developing breakthrough electrochemical technology to recover critical minerals from pyrrhotite tailings while generating green hydrogen. The research intern will work on optimizing a novel membrane electrode assembly (MEA) cell that simultaneously oxidizes iron and produces hydrogen at lower voltages than conventional electrolyzers, contributing to both resource recovery and clean energy solutions.

Business Strategy Internship – sales focus

This project will support the development and growth of a customer retention and rewards program for Nature Bee, a Canadian sustainable home-goods company. The internship will focus on analyzing customer purchasing behaviour, identifying retention opportunities, and supporting the expansion of a loyalty and rewards strategy designed to increase repeat purchases and long-term customer value. The intern will help build and optimize rewards structures, customer segments, and engagement campaigns across e-commerce and email channels, while evaluating performance through data analysis and reporting. Outcomes of this project include improved customer retention, stronger brand loyalty, and scalable systems that support sustainable revenue growth, while strengthening Nature Bee’s ability to engage customers in its mission to reduce waste and promote low-impact living.

Defining the timing of the Ordovician sediment deposition in southern Quebec and Ontario (Canada) using K-bentonite tephrochronology

The St. Lawrence Platform in southern Quebec is a series of Cambrian-Ordovician (539-443Ma) sedimentary rocks containing K-bentonites, altered volcanic ash beds. These ashes have zircon and apatite, minerals that are difficult to alter, retain the original characteristics of the ashes and can provide distinct chemical fingerprints associated with separate eruptions. The presence of bentonites in the Montreal area rocks can cause complications during the construction of urban infrastructures considering their low cohesion and swelling properties. Furthermore, bentonites are excellent marker horizons in sedimentary strata. Their study aims to help reduce delays and additional costs caused by geotechnical difficulties for construction companies, such as those currently planning the new metro lines. The Ordovician (485.5-443.8Ma) is a geological period that saw a series of coupled changes in the Earth’s biosphere and palaeogeography. The rocks show the opening of a vast ocean followed by its closure during the Appalachian formation. This led to the formation of volcanic arcs, causing explosive eruptions and the ejection of large quantities of ash into the atmosphere. Defining the extent and the chemical properties of these ashes makes it possible to estimate the climatic and biological impacts of the eruptions and understand the complex evolution of the Platform.

Relative Attitude and Orbit Estimation of Passive Spacecraft

This study focuses on parameter estimation for passive and non-operational satellites. With the increase in space technologies, space-related activities have expanded and the number of satellites has grown accordingly; as a result, non-operational satellites and potentially hazardous space debris have emerged. Information about these space objects is mostly obtained through measurements conducted from ground-based platforms. This project aims to address this problem by using observations made from a working satellite in space. By studying how inactive satellites move and reflect light, the project seeks to improve our ability to monitor space objects, reduce collision risks, and support safer and more sustainable space operations for future exploration. The project will help the participating institutions build stronger expertise in space technologies, gain hands-on experience with space-based observation methods, and create a solid foundation for future collaborative space missions.

Framing Resilience through a multidisciplinary approach: reference, agency and metaphor in sustainability discourse

This project investigates how the concept of resilience is used and understood in Canadian sustainability discourse, especially in policy documents and public reports written in English and French. Resilience is a key term in climate and sustainability discussions, but its meaning often difficult to grasp; resilience can be used as a property of communities, governments, systems, or individuals and often remaining vague and abstract. Such indeterminacy can lead to confusion or miscommunication, especially when responsibility for resilience is unclear. This project will analyze how resilience is introduced, maintained, and framed by focusing on (i) reference, (ii) metaphoric and other non-literal imagery associated to resilience and (iii) explicit and implicit indicators of agency and responsibility. A bilingual corpus of Canadian and UN documents will be built and annotated using specialized tools to track how resilience is expressed and who is portrayed as responsible. The project will benefit participating institutions by roviding new insights into how sustainability messages are shaped through language, helping improve communication strategies and policy development. Ultimately, the findings will help clarify how resilience is framed in public discourse and support more inclusive and accountable approaches to sustainability and climate governance.

Advancing Responsible Clinical AI through Combined Metrics of Performance, Equity, and Sustainability in Canadian Health Systems

My project will develop and pilot a practical framework to evaluate one clinical AI tool across three areas at the same time: how well it works, whether it works equally well for different patient groups, and what its environmental impact is. I will use the University of Melbourne’s Validitron simulation facility to test the tool in realistic clinical workflows without affecting real patient care, then use the findings to create a draft one-page scorecard that helps health systems decide whether an AI tool is ready to adopt, how it should be monitored, and when it may need to be updated or retired. The University of Toronto benefits by strengthening its capacity to lead responsible, equity-centered AI adoption in cardiovascular digital health, while the University of Melbourne benefits by adding a new evaluation layer to its digital health testing work that includes equity and environmental impact alongside performance and workflow fit. Through the ICTDH partnership connecting Toronto, Manchester, and Melbourne, the project also creates shared methods and templates that can support future joint research and faster translation of digital health innovations across institutions.

Decision-grade, reproducible evidence for transportation policy and community health

Transportation policy is already a health policy because the air we breathe along roads is shaped by what we drive and how we move. In 2026, Canada and the US’s renewed push for electric vehicles (EVs), which can also become an immediate public health opportunity.

Yet health benefits are not automatic, because “zero tailpipe” from EVs does not mean “zero exposure.” As EV uptake rises, pollution composition shifts toward non-tailpipe sources such as tire and brake wear and resuspended road dust, and net impacts become sensitive to regional context, including fleet turnover, electricity generation, industrial background emissions, and ozone chemistry. The same EV target can therefore deliver strong early gains in some places while plateauing or producing localized harms in others, often in communities already overburdened.

At Harvard-UofT, I will build a transferable, neighborhood-scale model that links explicit policy levers to exposures and premature mortality burdens under uncertainty, and I will compare strategies that emphasize new sales against those that prioritize retiring the oldest, highest-emitting vehicles first. The outputs will help agencies identify which policies become dominant levers, and where safeguards are needed so health gains are shared.

ESROP Laser Plume Formation MPSD 2026

This research project explores a fundamental anomaly in fluid mechanics: the potential for simple liquids to exhibit solid-like elasticity under extreme conditions. Conventionally, Newtonian fluids are understood to lack elasticity because they dissipate deformation energy almost instantly through viscous flow. However, research demonstrated that liquid glycerol exhibits “rubber-like” elasticity when subjected to ultrafast, high-strain-rate laser pulses in a vacuum. The primary objective of this project is to determine if this phenomenon is unique to glycerol or if it is a fundamental property of other Newtonian fluids, particularly water. The intern will refine the experimental hardware and software to ensure high-fidelity data, modify the vacuum and optical systems to maintain stable conditions for water experiments, and measure elastic properties at strain rates and correlate macroscopic observations with theoretical models. Understanding the exact dynamics of fluid deformation under laser impact will support innovations in fields, such as biotechnology and material processing, and help improve current technologies. Furthermore, this collaboration between MPSD and the University of Toronto benefits the host institute by helping them refine their complex experimental hardware and software, while the University of Toronto gains a student trained in world-class laser science who can share this new expertise with peers.

BEES App transition

Labatt is transitioning customers from the current BEES ordering platform to the upgraded Canadian BEES App, which introduces new features and incentives, including improved navigation, personalized product suggestions, in-app promotions, BEES rewards, push notifications, and streamlined ordering workflows. While the enhanced app provides significant mutual benefits for both Labatt and its retail partners, customer adoption has varied across the province — particularly among retailers who are not as technologically confident and continue to place phone orders.
This project will support Labatt in improving BEES App adoption and maximizing usage of the platform’s sales-driving features. The intern will complete a strategic analysis of app usage patterns, identify barriers to adoption across different customer segments, and develop targeted education and engagement strategies to increase onboarding and recurring app use. This will include building customer-facing learning resources (e.g., walkthrough materials, short feature guides, tip sheets), recommending communication touchpoints to reinforce app usage, and proposing a results-driven outreach plan to transition phone-order customers to digital ordering.
The outcome of this project will be a measurable increase in BEES App adoption and feature utilization, enabling more efficient ordering for customers and greater ability for Labatt to leverage personalized promotions, push notifications, and loyalty incentives to drive sales

Understanding how trace element contamination affects sedimentary DNA signals for biodiversity reconstruction in lakes

This project aims to improve how scientists use sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) to study past biodiversity in lakes affected by metal contamination. Sedimentary DNA preserved in lake sediments offers a powerful way to reconstruct long-term ecological changes, but high concentrations of trace elements can interfere with DNA preservation and detection, making results difficult to interpret. Through a critical review of existing research and the analysis of sedimentary DNA data from metal-contaminated lakes in Quebec, this project will clarify how metal contamination influences sedimentary DNA signals and their ecological interpretation. The collaboration between the home institution and the host laboratory will strengthen expertise in sedimentary DNA applications, support the doctoral research of the intern, and contribute to the development of more reliable methods for studying and monitoring freshwater ecosystems affected by pollution.