Concordia’s Undergraduate Research Showcase celebrates 130 stand-out students
A career in research begins with a single question, and this summer a cohort of high-achieving Concordia students received funding to conduct research in search of an answer.
Together with faculty advisors, undergraduate students with a keen interest in research submitted their proposals to the Concordia Undergraduate Student Research Awards (CUSRA) Program and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Awards Program.
For the summer of 2021, 130 Concordia undergraduate students received funding to explore what a career in research could look like. Of those, 51 students claimed the NSERC award, with the remaining 79 taking up the CUSRA.
The Undergraduate Research Showcase
The summer’s projects were highlighted at the eighth annual Undergraduate Research Showcase, which took place virtually for the second year in a row due to pandemic restrictions. Twenty of this year’s winners created videos to present their research projects and experience highlights.
The questions they tackle cover timely topics:
- Micaël’s Prior History of Mental Health Symptoms Predicts Symptom Severity During the COVID-19 Pandemic asks if pandemic restrictions affected people with previous mental health struggles more acutely.
- David Rose’s Cocoon/ChrysalisALONE, research and creation explores nature’s creative gifts in an historical Indigenous Abenaki space.
- Gala Licheva’s Hybrid Electric Sizing Tool helps measure the efficiency of a propeller-driven aircraft to lower its carbon footprint. Learn more about Gala’s NSERC-funded summer research project.
- Carlie Lubotta’s Does Age Influence the Ability to Learn New Technology? challenges ageist stereotypes by testing the technological acumen of “Under 45s” and “Over 45s.”
About the funding
The two programs provide research funding to undergraduate students in a variety of disciplines. The CUSRA program is offered by Concordia’s Office of the Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies (OVPRGS) and supports projects in the fine arts, social sciences, humanities, engineering and computer science, business disciplines, and natural and health sciences. NSERC funds science and engineering projects.
“Investing in research at the undergraduate level benefits the Concordia community in multiple ways,” explains Paula Wood-Adams, interim vice-president of research and graduate studies.
“Students engage in experiential learning while broadening their understanding of what a research-based career and graduate degree may look like. They do this while furthering their supervisor’s work and directly making their mark on the next-generation research conducted at Concordia.”
Enjoy this video playlist of 20 research projects created by Concordia undergraduate students who received the Concordia Undergraduate Student Research Awards and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Awards this summer.
