Student Research Opportunities

Interdisciplinary Poster Session

Location: A.B.B. Moore Foyer

Posters will be presented by selected Vic students or any students enrolled in Victoria College programs who have been conducting research in any discipline.

POSTER PRIZES

Dean of Student’s Social Impact Award
Awarded to projects demonstrating potential for positive social impact.

E.J. Pratt Library Primary Sources Prize
Awarded to projects involving the study of “primary sources” as defined in the humanities and social sciences. Two E.J. Pratt Prizes will be awarded for 2024. One prize will be awarded to a project from the Social Sciences discipline, and the other from the Humanities discipline.

Science, Technology, and Society Program Prize
Awarded to projects involving some consideration of the relationship between Science, Technology, and Society. 

Principal’s Science Prize
Award to projects demonstrating excellence in any area of the sciences. 

Victoria College Student Choice Research Prize
Awarded to the project receiving the highest number of student votes.

VUSAC Student Experience and Wellbeing Prize
Awarded to projects that consider the university as an institution and the experience of students or student communities within it. Such topics might include, but are not limited to, student organizations and organizing, student success or wellbeing, the institution of the university on a national or international scale, or issues of equity and diversity as they relate to undergraduates. Research that aligns with the overarching themes of community, pedagogy, and student life is eligible to be considered for this prize.

Community Engaged Research Seminar

Location: VC102

Jonathan Hamilton-Diabo

Northrop Frye Centre Undergraduate Fellows Symposium

Location: VC102

Informal Settlements in Soacha, Colombia, and an Evaluation of the 2016 Peace Accords

Manuela Mora Castillo (History, Political Science, and Conflict Resolution)

For the past seven years, Colombia has grappled with the implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreements. Signed between the National Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the accords promised to facilitate the country’s transition to peace by focusing, among other issues, on land restoration. To this day, the nation’s armed conflict has led to increasingly high numbers of internal migration, fomenting the informal urbanization of city areas and exacerbating the disparities between central and peripheral neighborhoods. By examining the implementation of the Accords in Soacha, a municipality near the capital city, these communities are considered peace actors that are fundamental to achieving national conciliation, as the emerging tensions between resettlement and permanency complexify the government’s proposal. Ultimately, the National Government’s commitment to the Agreements—and its legal understanding of “victim”—have systematically reduced the agency of informal settlements, further alienating IDPs from Colombia’s peace-building processes. 

“Unsafe, Unwelcome, Unchecked”: A Sociological Study on Student Claims and Contestations to ‘Their’ Urban Campus

Samantha B.W. Corrente (Sociology, Qualitative Methodologies)

The University of Toronto St. George Campus is concurrently of and apart from the city as a space for students still physically open to the public. From ongoing voyeurism to graphic anti-abortion signage, St. George students are familiar with external “invasions” in the places they come to identify with learning and community. How do St. George students socially or symbolically mark space as a campus amidst the city? To what degree do students meaningfully and conflictingly maintain campus spaces amidst greater Toronto threats? This presentation will explore the diverse experiences of individuals who varyingly name, claim, and contest campus spaces as ‘theirs’ and ‘theirs’ alone, as well as the degrees to which claims and contestations that comprise ‘their’ urban campus matter for perceptions and processes of order and disorder. Samantha will uncover the different ways in which her peers come to feel unsafe, intruders unwelcome, and institutions unchecked.

What archives can tell us about transformative justice

Sara Hashemi (Transformative, healing justice, anti-colonial research methods, archival research)

This research project aims to better understand what transformative and healing justice have looked like in practice, and how communities in Toronto have advocated for transformative justice and care. To that end, Sara has looked at archival material from organizations doing transformative justice work in Toronto, drawing on material dating back to the 1970s, including pamphlets, artwork, posters, letters, and organizational material. In this talk, Sara will describe the process, challenges, and opportunities that came with organizing an unprocessed archive and making a finding aid. As well, Sara will shed light on the primary sources found in the archive, what they tell us about the history of transformative justice work and organizing in Toronto, and the present-day work that is being done to actualize a vision of transformative justice.    

Nervous Conditions: Coloniality and mental disturbances in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions and Marie-Elena John’s Unburnable

Joël Ndongmi (English literature, Postcolonial studies, and diaspora studies)

This research project investigates how diasporic living unsettles the personal identity for subjects of colonial and postcolonial contexts through a critical analysis of two fictional characters appearing in novels by diasporic women writers: Lillian (in Unburnable by Marie-Elena John, an Antiguan author) and Nyasha (in Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, a Zimbabwean author). Placing these two characters (and the books in which they appear) in conversation with Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, this talk is proposes an original commentary on what the two novels reveal—and obscure—about the ways that disturbances in the experience of “home”—as place and as socio-linguistic space—have resulted in a proliferating condition of “nervousness” for diasporic African people. This presentation tackles the following questions: How does the nervous condition manifest itself at the textual level? Moreover, what role does gender play in the realization of the nervous condition?

Seavey van Walsum

For information on this year's NFC Undergraduate Fellows, please follow this link.

Location: VC101

The Venus figurines: The Racist Sexualization of Upper Paleolithic Materials
Josefina Novoa Reategui

Soup for the Non-Human Soul: Religious Commensality in the Easter Mediterranean during the 2^nd Millennium BCE
Deena Shirkool

Sir Henry Pellatt’s Collection at Casa Loma: A Case Study of a Desk Lamp to Discover Prestige
Amy Rogers

“And let me whisper – no stockings”: Etiquette, Marriage, and Rules of Dress in the Ashbridge Archival Collection, 1900-1910
Tara Downie

Lost From “Oblivion”: The Heirlooms of Chinese Canadian Soldiers of the Second World War
Eunice Der

Collections, Recollections, and the Character of Curatorial Semiosis
Mark Bagnell

Politics and Portraits in the Victoria University Art Collection
Milena Pappalardo

Location: VC102

Joël Ndongmi & Seavey van Walsum give presentations as both NFC Undergraduate Fellows and participants of the Capstone Humanities Symposium. For their project information, please refer to the Northrop Frye Centre Undergraduate Fellows Symposium program (pg. 4).

Educators as Policy Actors: The Policy-Practice Divide In Michigan’s K-12 Schools
Zainab Azim

Graham Greene’s Colonial Tension
Samir Mechel

Spectral Sovereignty: Materializing Jinn Absences in Lahore’s Moti Masjid
Palvasha Khan

The Imagination in Exile: Laughter in Albert Cossery’s Egyptian Underground
Celine Hajj Sleiman

Research Day Keynote Speaker

Location: Alumni Hall

Using AI to See the News: Communications and Economic Behaviour

Psychologists and communication experts tell us that the impact of major economic announcements, such as those made by central banks about monetary policy, should depend a great deal on how the news is delivered. This talk will explain how new techniques in machine learning and AI can help economists analyze the way words, body language and other cues observed during monetary policy communications affect markets, coverage by the media, and ultimately household beliefs about the economy. It will also explore how central banks and others could use this research in the future.

Prof. Michelle Alexopoulos is a Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto with a cross-appointment to the Faculty of Information. She is currently the President of the Canadian Economics Association, a fellow of the Bank of Canada, a Canadian Productivity Partnership collaborator, and a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, the Data Sciences Institute, and the School of Cities at U of T. Alexopoulos is a macroeconomist whose research focuses on business cycles, monetary policy, technical change, economic uncertainty, labour markets and productivity. Her research, supported by numerous public and private grants, has been published in top-tier economics journals and has been presented at numerous central banks, international conferences, academic departments, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Awards Ceremony

Location: Alumni Hall

PRIZES:

Dean of Student’s Social Impact Award 
Awarded to projects demonstrating potential for positive social impact. 

E.J. Pratt Library Primary Sources Prize 
Awarded to projects involving the study of “primary sources” as defined in the humanities and social sciences. Two E.J. Pratt Prizes will be awarded for 2024. One prize will be awarded to a project from the Social Sciences discipline, and the other from the Humanities discipline. 

Principal’s Science Prize 
Awarded to projects demonstrating excellence in any area of the sciences. 

Science, Technology, and Society Program Prize 
Awarded to projects involving some consideration of the relationship between Science, Technology, and Society. 

Victoria College Student Choice Research Prize 
Awarded to the project receiving the highest number of student votes. 

VUSAC Student Experience & Wellbeing Award 
Awarded to projects that consider the university as an institution and the experience of students or student communities within it. Such topics might include, but are not limited to, student organizations and organizing, student success or wellbeing, the institution of the university on a national or international scale, or issues of equity and diversity as they relate to undergraduates. Research that aligns with the overarching themes of community, pedagogy, and student life is eligible to be considered for this prize.   

Navigating antidepressant use during pregnancy
Mia Feldman (they/them)

The decision to use an antidepressant during pregnancy is a difficult one. Women’s College Hospital developed a virtual patient decision aid (PDA) to ease the decision-making process. Control participants (N=232) were given logins to a basic information sheet, and intervention participants (N=231) to the PDA. Engagement with the tool was assessed based on patient demographic and clinical characteristics. Engagement with the PDA was consistently high across demographic differences, such as annual household income and sexuality. Patients with high decisional conflict and more severe depressive symptoms were less likely to engage with the tool. As virtual healthcare tools become increasingly prevalent, this study provides crucial insight into the strengths and limitations of using new technologies to ease patient decision-making processes.

Pride & Pressure: The Impact of EU Pressure on Serbian Pride Parades
Beth Gouda (she/her)

To accede to the European Union, states must decriminalize homosexuality and implement anti-discrimination legislation. Though holding a Pride parade is not included in official EU standards, Pride has become the ultimate litmus test for progress and adherence to ‘European’ values. The EU has a legalistic, top-down approach to rights promotion with harmful consequences in practice. This paper examines EU pressure to host Pride in Serbia. I find that EU pressure has shaped a) the occurrence of Pride in a given year, b) the execution of the event as overly internationalized and militarized, and c) the isolation of the LGBTQ+ community.

Customary to Commodity: Colonial Legacies in Myanmar's Land Governance
April Naing (she/her)

Myanmar has been largely uncharted territory to the West beyond the occasional news of coups and civil unrest. Since its independence in 1948, the government has struggled to maintain its sovereignty over the land. This project maps out how contemporary perspectives of land governance stem from colonial ideologies which have continued to be mirrored into the 21st century. Land laws have historically functioned to codify and legitimize environmental injustice against those who live on the land. Thus, laws and policies must be democratized in a way that will promote the welfare of not just the nation but its people.

AWARD FOR HUMANITIES:

Lost in "Oblivion"
Eunice Der (she/her)

This research project highlights the importance of family heirlooms in preserving personal accounts that impacted larger socio-historical issues. In the Second World War, thirteen Chinese Canadians were recruited for a secret mission, titled “Operation Oblivion.” Their original objective was to infiltrate parts of Japanese-occupied China. Their military service would revolutionize the way Chinese immigrants were perceived in Canada. Every Chinese Canadian now lives in the legacy of “Oblivion.” Through the use of primary sources, such as accounts from surviving family members, this project emphasizes how history itself exists within heirlooms, which are indicative of larger social issues such as racism.

AWARD FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES:

Antiwar Activism in South Vietnam 1964-1974
Chelsea Wang (she/her)

Since the 1960s, the United States has always been the center of attention in antiwar activism. However, many transnational movements have been overlooked during this time. Thus, this project aims to add to the complexities of the anti-war narrative during the Vietnam War, which had often been US-centric, and explore in what ways the South Vietnam antiwar movements impacted the Vietnam War towards its ending. This project also aims to show, in a broader sense, the nuances provided by these unheard histories, which showcase the agency of those not present in history.

Removing a piece of the genome to treat Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
Grace Nolasco (she/her)

"Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a rare neuromuscular disorder arising from mutations in the DMD gene, leading to the loss of dystrophin protein. Affected patients experience progressive degeneration of skeletal and cardiac muscle and a reduced life expectancy. Genetic editing approaches such as CRISPR-Cas9 present the potential to correct a variety of patient mutations. This system uses single guide RNAs that bind to specific regions of the DNA and induce double stranded breaks at that region. Through this system, we were able to design, evaluate and identify the most efficient single guide RNAs for generating and subsequently removing a duplication mutation seen in DMD patients."

Seeing Faces: Train your Facial Recognition Ability   
Nina Yue (she/her)

Aging causes natural declines in facial identification abilities, as older adults are less able to focus on horizontal cues (e.g., eyes and eyebrows) in faces. Past research has shown that better processing of horizontal features can lead to more accurate face identification. As such, we designed a training program to see if perceptual training can enhance older participants’ use of horizontal features, and their facial recognition ability. We evidenced that this training helped them identify faces better in general, not just the faces they trained on, making this study relevant in future clinical work for facial-recognition-deficit-related diseases.

The effects of Heavy-NP Shift on Tagalog Word Order Preferences
Karina Cheung (she/her)

Heavy-NP shift is a cognitive tendency to position shorter phrases before longer ones (e.g., English, German; Stallings and MacDonald, 2011). However, this preference is not universally observed across all languages (e.g., Japanese). The relationship between this cognitive tendency and grammatical constraints, especially in languages with flexible word order, remains unexplored. This study investigates this interaction in Tagalog, a verb-initial language with flexible word order, through a sentence production task. We found that grammatical rules in Tagalog sometimes conflict with the cognitive constraint of Heavy-NP shift, leading to varied patterns in the 'short-before-long' preference. These findings challenge the assumed universality of the Heavy-NP shift.

Mislabeling on the Shelf: A Silent Threat to Canadians’ Nutrient Intakes
Lamar Elfaki (she/her)

The Canadian Food Guide promotes the consumption of plant-based protein foods. Achieving this is difficult, though, for the majority of Canadian consumers who rely on food labels to identify “source of protein” foods. This is due to the strict protein content claim (PCC) regulatory framework in Canada that considers both protein quantity and quality when assessing whether a food item meets a PCC. This issue is not present in the European Union (EU) or Australia and New Zealand (AZ) where the PCC regulatory frameworks are more liberal. Therefore, this project aims to compare the protein quality and nutrient intakes of Canadians who consume plant-based protein foods that meet a PCC according to the regulatory frameworks in Canada, EU, and ANZ. Findings may bolster efforts of modernizing Canada’s PCC regulation. 

Location: Victoria College Alumni Hall/ Foyer

Program

9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. | Interdisciplinary Poster Presentations
Location: A.B.B. Moore Foyer
Selected Vic students or any students enrolled in Victoria College programs who have been conducting research in any discipline will present their research posters.

12:15 pm - 12:45 pm | Community Engaged Research Seminar
Location: VC102
Presenters: Elisabetta Canaletti, Jejjy Bajwa

1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. | NFC Undergraduate Fellows Symposium
Location: A.B.B. Moore Foyer
Presenters: Maneula More Castillo, Samantha B.W. Corrente, Sara Hashemi, Joël Ndongmi, Seavey van Walsum

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm | Material Culture and Semiotics Symposium
Location: VC101
Presenters: Josefina Novoa Reategui, Deena Skirkool, Amy Rogers, Tara Downie, Eunice Der, Mark Begnell, Milena Pappalardo

2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | Capstone Humanities Symposium
Location: VC102
Presenters: Zainab Azim, Samir Mechel, Palvasha Khan, Celine Hajj Sleiman

4 p.m. – 5 p.m. | Keynote Address
Location: Alumni Hall
Presenter: Prof. Michelle Alexopoulos

Using AI to See the News: Communications and Economic Behaviour

Psychologists and communication experts tell us that the impact of major economic announcements, such as those made by central banks about monetary policy, should depend a great deal on how the news is delivered. This talk will explain how new techniques in machine learning and AI can help economists analyze the way words, body language and other cues observed during monetary policy communications affect markets, coverage by the media, and ultimately household beliefs about the economy. It will also explore how central banks and others could use this research in the future.

Prof. Michelle Alexopoulos is a Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto with a cross-appointment to the Faculty of Information. She is currently the President of the Canadian Economics Association, a fellow of the Bank of Canada, a Canadian Productivity Partnership collaborator, and a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, the Data Sciences Institute, and the School of Cities at U of T. Alexopoulos is a macroeconomist whose research focuses on business cycles, monetary policy, technical change, economic uncertainty, labour markets and productivity. Her research, supported by numerous public and private grants, has been published in top-tier economics journals and has been presented at numerous central banks, international conferences, academic departments, and the National Academy of Sciences.

5 p.m. – 6 p.m. | Awards Ceremony
Location: Alumni Hall

Mar. 27, 202310:00a.m. - 4:00p.m.

Location: Victoria College Alumni Hall/ Foyer

Victoria College’s annual Research Day took place on March 27, 2023. Research Day brings together Vic students from all disciplines and provides an opportunity to share your work with fellow students, professors, and the Vic community. 

Program

2 p.m. – 3 p.m.| Northrop Frye Centre Undergraduate Fellows Symposium
Location: VC102
Presenters: Daria (Dasha) Diakova, Tara Downie, Khulan Enkhbold, Sam Martin, Madeleine Schmuckle

3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | Capstone Humanities Symposium
Location: VC102

9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. | Poster Presentations
Location: A.B.B. Moore Foyer
Selected Vic students or any students enrolled in Victoria College programs who have been conducting research in any discipline will present their research posters.

4 p.m. – 5 p.m. | Keynote Address: "How Talking Raccoons will Save the World: Animatronics, Education, and Community"
Location: Alumni Hall
Speaker: Professor Paul H. Dietz

Victoria College’s annual Research Day took place on March 28^th, 2022. Research Day brings together Vic students from all disciplines and provides an opportunity to share your work with fellow students, professors, and the Vic community. 

How Research Day will work: The event will take place remotely from 11:00am-4:00pm over ZOOM. Successful applicants will be given a 5-minute time slot to share their work using appropriate visual or video aids to explain their research. Presentations should be aimed at a general audience and must not exceed the 5-minute time limit.

Key Benefits to Students

• Win cash prizes in a range of categories across the sciences and humanities. (Awards include: Principal’s Science Award; Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Prize; E. J. Pratt Library Primary Source Research Prize; Student Choice Award) 
• Share your work with an interdisciplinary audience of Victoria College students and faculty. Each panel will be chaired by Victoria College faculty
• Include your presentation on your CV and grad school applications

Program

Full Research Day 2022 program

 Accessing Research Day 2022 Presentation Recordings

Join us

Full Research Day 2022 program

 Victoria College's Virtual Research Day 2021 - Tuesday, March 30, 2021.