Lucid dreams, urban heat islands and other intrigue from undergrads

Who isn’t fascinated by dreams where you can fly? Lucid dreaming is just one of many compelling research topics that inspired Concordia’s undergraduate students to dive into their own research.

On the afternoon of Friday, October 24, the atrium of the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV) building will host Concordia’s first-ever Undergraduate Research Showcase. Approximately 50 students from across all faculties will be on hand to display their findings and talk about their work.

This event is meant to highlight the winners of the 2014 Concordia University Student Researcher Awards (CUSRA) as well as recipients of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Award.

The goal of these awards is to bolster interest in research, participatory research and research-creation work while complementing the undergraduate coursework. The experience was designed to prepare students for graduate studies or research careers.

For Justin Powlowski, associate vice-president, strategy and operations, the event reflects Concordia’s growing undergraduate research profile. “I am very proud to see such interest at this level,” he says. “We were very pleased with the quantity and quality of applications for this year’s CUSRA awards as well as the support student researchers received from their academic supervisors.”

Michael Torjan, who is studying in the Department of Building, Civil and Environment Engineering, says that receiving the NSERC award opened his eyes to a future career in academic research. “I was interested in doing my master’s, but had never conducted research,” he explains. “It’s a lot of work and you have to be resourceful, but in the end it’s really engaging when you see research you’ve worked on being applied.”

Here is a preview of some of the work on display.

Exploring the structure and limitations of lucid dreaming

Alex Enescu
Liberal Arts College — Faculty of Arts and Science
Supervisor: Ariela Freedman 

Alex Enescu’s work explores the exciting world of lucid dreaming — the state in which a person is aware that one is in a dream. To understand this relatively new area of study, his research involved poring over much of the academic literature written on lucid dreaming over the last 30 years.

What interests Enescu is the structure and limitations to these dreams. “What I find fascinating is that in lucid dreaming we can will ourselves to do certain things that are impossible while awake, like flying,” he says. “Having said this, there are limits to what we can control and these seem to be linked to certain psychological barriers based on cultural tendencies and neurobiological processes that are still little understood.”

Enescu will look to build on his research at the graduate level, where he hopes to explore the connections between dreaming, consciousness and mental well-being.
 

Using historical and cultural icons to create fairy tale narratives

Naakita Feldman-Kiss
Intermedia/Cyberarts — Faculty of Fine Arts
Supervisor: Leila Sujir  

Over the last month and a half, Naakita Feldman-Kiss has been helping her supervisor prepare for an artist residency in Bath, United Kingdom and a presentation at the Illuminate Bath festival in January, 2015.

Feldman-Kiss is helping produce a 3D video project that explores the connections between the original roman baths found in that city and those that were rebuilt centuries later. Videos will use archival imagery or roman coins and architecture, as well as footage of peacocks that have been endowed to the estate where the baths are located.

“My research interests lie in storytelling and historical narrative,” explains Feldman-Kiss. “This project is a fascinating example of the bleeding of different histories.”
 

Analysing business students receptiveness to career advice

Sam Xie
Human Resource Management — John Molson School of Business 
Supervisor: Linda Dyer

Building on his supervisor’s research on senior employees’ motives of passing knowledge to the next generation of workers, Xuan Xie’s work looks into the receptiveness of business students to career advice.

After building the theoretical framework, Xie gathered data by interviewing twenty-eight John Molson School of Business students. His initial findings demonstrated that students were mainly motivated by the desire for excellence.    

“Some of my findings were somewhat surprising,” says Xie. “For example, more people ask the advice of non-professionals — parents, friends — than experts in the field. Also, people who want a clear idea of what they are going to do in the future are more open to advice as opposed to students who don’t plan their careers ahead.”

Predicting urban heat islands for greener planning

Michael Torjan and Dave Olsthoorn
Building, Civil and Environment Engineering — Faculty of Engineering and Computer Sciences
Supervisor: Fariborz Haghighat

Michael Torjan and Dave Olsthoorn are hoping to create a predictive tool that can help municipalities better strategize how to reduce urban heat islands which are responsible for excessive energy consumption. This summer, they used pre-existing data that measured the indoor temperature of 55 buildings in Montreal and created a model that would predict future temperatures in buildings based on surrounding neighborhood characteristics.

During an early September heat wave, they tested this model and were able to predict building temperatures within 1.5 degrees. They think this approach will help cities mitigate future heat islands and better understand the type of neighbourhoods that are more susceptible to this phenomenon.

“Until now, municipalities are measured as a whole when it comes to how much heat they give off,” explains Olsthoorn. “But as we know, neighbourhoods can be vastly different from one another. Things like green space, wind and proximity to water act as variables. That’s why it’s important to create tools that can gauge heat on a more local scale.”  

To discover more exciting research, don’t miss the Undergraduate Research Showcase, taking place from 2 to 4 p.m. in the atrium of the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV) on Sir George Williams campus.