Innovative Projects Realized

Accelerating Sustainable Product Development in the Plastics Industry: A Machine Learning Approach for Polymer-Additive Interactions

Oligomaster Inc. is developing a Sustainable Product Development Tool that leverages molecular simulation and machine learning to streamline the formulation process for plastic and chemical manufacturers. As industry moves towards sustainable alternatives and faces tighter regulations on certain chemicals, including harmful plasticizers, traditional trial-and-error methods of formulation are no longer efficient or economically viable. This tool will enable manufacturers to predict and analyze interactions between polymers and plasticizers at a molecular level, providing insight into how alternative materials perform without extensive laboratory testing. By incorporating machine learning, the tool can learn from each simulation, improving accuracy and speed over time. This eliminates the need for repetitive and time-consuming experimental studies, allowing product developers to move quickly from concept to market-ready solutions. Additionally, the tool supports manufacturers in selecting safer, environmentally friendly plasticizers, aligning with sustainability goals and new environmental standards. Ultimately, Oligomaster’s tool empowers the industry to innovate responsibly, reducing product development cycles and minimizing the environmental footprint of plastic products. With sustainable chemistry becoming critical in global markets, this technology will be indispensable for companies looking to lead in eco-friendly product development while maintaining efficiency and compliance.

Developing Strategic Approaches to Enhance PVC Recycling: Addressing Additive Complexity and Improving Plastic Waste Stream Management for a Circular Economy

Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), a widely used plastic, often includes a variety of additives like plasticizers and stabilizers to meet specific performance needs. However, these complex blends complicate recycling, limiting the ability to produce high-quality recycled PVC (rPVC) that meets current regulatory and environmental standards, and having manufacturers incorporate it into production. To address this, Oligomaster Inc. is developing a robust identification and quantification process to accurately assess contaminants and additives in recycled PVC waste streams. By enabling precise analysis of complex PVC formulations, this project provides manufacturers with a clear pathway to incorporate rPVC back into their products. Using advanced analytical tools, we aim to help recyclers and manufacturers identify unknown components, assess compatibility, and minimize harmful substances. This ensures that rPVC blends meet stringent quality and regulatory requirements, reducing contamination risks while enabling a broader range of applications for recycled material. With this process, manufacturers can confidently utilize recycled PVC, promoting compliance with tightening environmental regulations while reducing reliance on virgin materials. This innovative approach not only helps achieve sustainable production goals but also aligns with the industry’s growing emphasis on circularity, resource conservation, and environmental responsibility. Through this project, Oligomaster is setting a new standard in PVC recycling, empowering industries to make products that are both eco-friendly and regulatory-compliant.

Bereavement supports in inner-city communities

Grief supports are necessary to help children process death, without hindering their ability to engage with the world around them from a place of safety, purpose and worthiness. There are unique considerations in providing bereavement services to inner city youth who may be regularly exposed to drug use, while also experiencing higher rates of mortality related to injury, gun violence, intimate partner violence, suicide and poorly controlled non-communicable disease. Many newcomer or refugee families also find themselves in inner-city neighbourhoods due to housing availability and often carry with them unprocessed trauma from previous experiences of conflict or war.
Our project aims to provide grief resources and workshops that address barriers to accessing bereavement supports, such as the lack of culturally responsive services in racialized neighbourhoods; community distrust of historically oppressive institutions associated with recurrent experiences of being discriminated against; and the complexity of coping with substance use or homicide-related grief that carries with it blame, shame and explicit social stigma. Our goal is host workshops to explore creative modalities to process grief, catered to various developmental stages and communication skills; equip parents to navigate conversations with their children about serious illness or death, while managing their own feelings of grief and carrying other responsibilities; and raise awareness of the expressions of traumatic grief, along with the socio-cultural factors that affect how communities historically mistreated by the health care system cope with dying and death.

Optimizing Clinical Data Integration and Real-Time Analytics for Enhanced Quality of Care

The proposed project aims to enhance the ability of Freeport Hospital’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation to capture, integrate, and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) in real time by developing a comprehensive data analytics program. This will involve identifying gaps in data collection, mapping relevant data points across clinical systems, and creating a live dashboard to monitor clinical and operational metrics. Partnering with the National Institutes of Health Informatics (NIHI), the project will leverage advanced health informatics expertise to improve data governance, streamline clinical workflows, and introduce innovative technologies such as natural language processing (NLP) for extracting unstructured data. The expected benefit to Freeport Hospital includes more efficient, data-driven decision-making and continuous quality improvement, while NIHI will gain a scalable framework for replicating this solution across other healthcare organizations, addressing a common challenge in the healthcare sector nationwide.

Multifunctional self-healing bio-based emulgel wound dressing with cooling ability

This project focuses on developing an innovative wound dressing that helps cool burn injuries, reduce pain, and speed up healing. The dressing will be made from natural, sustainable materials and will incorporate special components to control temperature, preventing further tissue damage and offering pain relief. Partnering with Miha Biotech, a company dedicated to creating eco-friendly wound care solutions, the research will improve its prototype wound dressing, bringing it closer to market readiness. By providing a nature-based, cost-effective product, this project aims to benefit the Canadian healthcare system, offering a greener, high-performance wound dressing that improves patient recovery while reducing medical waste.

Effects of ocean warming and acidification on rhodolith growth across the Atlantic Ocean

My research project will be investigating the effects of climate change, through ocean acidification and warming, on the growth rate of a coralline algae species that is prevalent in arctic and subarctic oceans. Coralline algae take in calcium carbonate from seawater and form hard skeletons, similar to a coral reef. In doing so, they create complex living structures for many bottom-dwelling species which use them for protection and nursery habitat. Ocean warming may stimulate this species’ annual growth rate through a reduction in the amount of time it spends in dormancy due to near-freezing water temperatures. However, ocean acidification is likely to have the opposite effect, where it will degrade the skeletal material of this species to the point of significant damage. I will be examining how these two threats will act in tandem on my species of interest. This research has never been done on my species of interest, and thus provides a significant opportunity for expansion into climate-change based cold ocean research. Further, it marks the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between my home institution (Memorial University of Newfoundland) and Umeå University, with numerous opportunities for joint publications arising from my novel research project.

Dynamics and mixing of counter-flowing jet with different turbulence intensity

Exploring the structure and behavior of turbulent jets is a fundamental challenge in fluid mechanics. The application of turbulent jets in environmental and industrial contexts has led to a rise in both experimental and numerical research in this area. Nevertheless, the examination of counter-flowing jets released into a
turbulent background has received less attention in previous studies. One of the most important objectives of the ongoing experimental research is Exploring the dynamics and features of the velocity field in counter-flowing jets with different jet to counter-flow velocity ratios.
The researchers plan to publish joint publications as part of the collaboration, resulting in the potential for novel research in the field of turbulent/turbulent entrainment.

Riverine feature extraction from high-resolution imagery

Physical infrastructure designed and developed to enable this growth has been in place for 50 years or more, and an increasing proportion has reached the end of its design life. Taking dams for example, while the Canadian case is less well documented, 85% of U.S. dams will be >50 years old by 2020. In particular, decayed riverine infrastructure (e.g., dams, levees, bridge and pipeline crossings, etc.) has significant implications for public safety, economic and environmental health. However, identification, assessment and inventory of riverine infrastructure using traditional field surveys are often logistically difficult, expensive and slow to respond to emergency. This proposal is targeted to develop innovative image-processing algorithm that extracts riverine features (natural and infrastructure-related). The algorithm is science-based, accurate and can be rapidly deployed on a local or regional scale, which is urgently required by the partner company applying to projects and contracts with local and regional organizations.

Business Plan Update for b current performing arts

b current performing arts is a Toronto-based theatre company committed to developing new works by diverse artists, with a focus on amplifying the voices of the Black and Brown Diaspora. As part of its ongoing mission to grow sustainably and increase its impact, b current is seeking a MITACS intern to assist in developing a comprehensive business plan for the organization.

The intern will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of b current by conducting market research, analyzing industry trends, and identifying new opportunities for revenue generation and community engagement. This project will involve creating a strategic plan that aligns with the company’s artistic vision while ensuring financial stability. The intern will work closely with the leadership team to explore new funding avenues, including grants, partnerships, and sponsorships, and will develop a financial model to project future growth.

Through this project, the intern will gain valuable experience in nonprofit management, strategic planning, and business development, while contributing to the cultural landscape of Canadian theatre. Their work will provide b current with the tools to thrive in a competitive arts sector and continue elevating diverse voices in the community.

Place adaptation and urban retrofit ‘on the move’: Urban policy mobilities and transnational planning for the climate emergency

The aim of this project is to produce a new critical evidence base on the transferability of policies and practices geared towards place adaptation and urban retrofit. Urban retrofit is defined as repairing existing places by adapting urban form to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions,
protect the environment, and support sustainable lifestyles. The project will examine how and why place adaptation concepts and urban retrofit practices move between places, and whether policies that work in one place can be successfully transferred to another. This award will supplement research and travel costs for the PhD student intern provided by Dalhousie University (Global Research Seed fund) and ESRC (European Social Research Council). The PhD student intern will be an integral part of the wider URBAN RETROFIT UK research project, an international research collaboration that will create a series of global evidence exchange hubs where planning and development stakeholders can come together to share emerging practices for urban retrofitting.

Géologie et genèse des veines de minéralisations aurifères de la propriété Belleterre de Les Mines JAG Ltée, Abitibi Témiscamingue, Québec

Le présent projet de stage porte sur la propriété Belleterre de Les Mines JAG Ltée qui est située à environ 150km au sud de Rouyn Noranda et 70km à l’est de Ville-Marie, c’est un site aurifère en contexte volcano-sédimentaire, avec zones de déformation et mise en place de veines aurifères et de formation de fer au faciès oxydés. De nombreux intrusifs recoupent les roches volcaniques et certains sont spatialement associés à la minéralisation aurifère. De plus de nombreux indices de Zn sont présents ce qui pourrait suggérer la présence de minéralisations hydrothermales volcanogènes (VMS) en profondeur. Ce projet aidera la compagnie Les Mines JAG Ltée à mieux comprendre le contexte géologique du camp minier de Belleterre afin de développer de bons guides d’exploration des veines de quartz-carbonates et des formations de fer de ce secteur. La découverte éventuelle d’un gisement à Belleterre va certainement contribuer au développement économique du canada car les mines et leur rendement économique comptent pour 4% du produit intérieur brut canadien.

Machine Learning developer and technical business interns working within cross-functional teams to develop and commercialize AI-powered solutions in the Public Services sector (1)

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