Victoria College Research Day

At Davos earlier this year, Prime Minister Carney said: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” As the global order strains and humanity confronts climate change and the risks of AI, the path forward remains uncertain. But rather than throwing our hands up in despair, we should seek solutions. Historical examples illustrate how previous global and local crises were tackled by ideas generated through academic research. These examples suggest that a good place to start our quest is understanding the power of ideas in addressing complex, wicked problems and in creating governance structures that work on a planetary scale. If solutions to today’s challenges exist, they will likely emerge from universities. Therefore, the best course of action now is to carry on researching. 

Mariana Mota Prado is a Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and the William C. Graham Chair in International Law and Development. She currently serves as the Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost for International Student Experience. Her scholarship focuses on law and development, corruption, and administrative law. She has published widely in these fields, including several co-authored books with Michael J. Trebilcock, and her most recent book is the co-edited volume Comparative Administrative Law (Edward Elgar, 2026). A Brazilian national, she has taught at law schools across North and South America, as well as in London.

Location: Alumni Hall   

Prizes:

Awarded to projects demonstrating potential for positive social impact.  

Awarded for the exemplary demonstration of primary source literacy, or the “abilities needed by researchers to conceptualize, find, analyze, and use primary sources.” (Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy, 2018). Two E.J. Pratt Prizes will be awarded for 2025. One prize will be awarded to a project from the Social Sciences discipline, and the other to a project from the Humanities discipline.  

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

Awarded to a poster presentation that demonstrates a connection to the Material Culture and Semiotics program, such as an object-centered project or a project that employs semiotic theory, as well as scholarship related to the field, originality and creativity. 

This prize is awarded to the student whose creative research project demonstrates particular rigour, insight, and excellence of execution. 

Awarded to projects demonstrating excellence in any area of the sciences.   

Awarded to the project receiving the highest number of student votes. 

We undertake to thank all the sponsors of the 2026 prizes: the Dean’s Office; the EJ Pratt Library; the Science, Technology and Society Program; the Material Culture and Semiotics Program; the Creativity & Society Program; the Principal’s Office; and the Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (VUSAC).

Creativity Night Reception & Performances

Location: Victoria College Chapel and Foyer 

Join us for a catered reception to mark the end of Vic Research Day 2026, and the start of Creativity Night 2026 where we celebrate the work by students in the Creativity and Society Program.  

Keynote Address: Critically Making Impact 

There are many forms of making within the academy. Some are focused on supporting learning and reflection, deconstructing our social, technological, and political systems to better understand how they weave together social and material concerns. Others seek to intervene more directly in these systems, constructing new weaves to address local or global issues. In this talk I address the complexity of critical practices, using my own “making” projects from the last 20 years to frame the possibility - and the difficulties - of positive change as enacted through vectors that include creative, scholarly, and material work. My goal here is to highlight the diversity of forms of impact and the positive role played by the creative application of critical humanities knowledge. 

Matt Ratto is a Professor and Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto and the Bell University Labs Chair in Human Computer Interaction. He studies and practices ‘critical making’, work that combines humanities insights and engineering practices and has published extensively on this concept across a wide range of disciplines including the digital humanities, human-computer interaction, design, and Science and Technology Studies. Current projects include conceptual and technical explorations of ‘humanness’ within generative AI conversational agents and community-based research on energy transitions and vulnerable populations. Matt is always ready to speak with students interested in the intersection of Science and Technology Studies, Human-Computer Interaction, AI, and critical social perspectives. 

Keynote Address: 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.