Research in Practice Projects
Research in Practice offers undergraduate students the opportunity to engage in hands-on, interdisciplinary research under the supervision of a professor from the Faculty of Arts.
Fall Term 2026
Project Title: Generative AI tools and bilingual language learning: Student practices and pedagogical implications
Preferred session : Fall 2026
Professor: Reza Farzi
Capacity: 3 students
Language: English or FrenchExploring the future of language learning
Are AI tools improving your language skills, or just changing the way you think and write without you realizing it?
You will investigate how students at a bilingual university use generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot when working in English and French. The focus is on real academic tasks; writing, revising, translating and generating ideas across both languages, and how these tools affect clarity, grammar, vocabulary, and language development.
You will compare original drafts with AI-assisted revisions to identify patterns in revision, error correction and bilingual language use. Through this research, you will develop practical skills in research, data analysis and bilingual academic communication. You will also gain insight into the role of generative AI in language learning and university education.
Project title: Active learning to classify ICESat-2 seafloor photons
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Anders Knudby
Capacity: 2 students
Language: English, FrenchMapping the unseen: AI, NASA data, and ocean discovery
What if you could train AI to map parts of the ocean floor using lasers fired from space?
In this project, you will work with real ICESat-2 satellite data to detect underwater terrain that remains difficult to map using traditional methods. You will help teach AI systems how to distinguish actual seafloor signals from reflections, water-column interference and background noise by applying an active machine learning process used in geospatial research.
You will review and correct AI predictions using custom-built annotation software, retrain models to improve accuracy, and gain hands-on exposure to lidar remote sensing, Earth observation technology and machine learning fundamentals. The project also offers opportunities to explore coding, scientific visualization, and collaborative research connected to NASA and partner universities. This is applied AI with direct environmental impact, designed for students interested in technology, Earth science, data, and solving world problems.
Project title: AI literacy for FSL teachers: Research evidence and emerging practices
Preferred session : Fall 2026
Professor: Jérémie Séror
Capacity: 2 students
Language: English, FrenchAI in language education: Building the next generation of teacher training
What does it take to teach languages in a world where AI is already in the classroom?
In this project, you will contribute to a national SSHRC-funded study exploring how French-as-a-second language (FSL) teachers in Canada understand and use artificial intelligence. You will investigate real research evidence, compare leading AI literacy frameworks, and map existing tools, surveys and professional resources used and applied by FSL teachers in bilingual learning environments across Ontario and Quebec.
Working with current research, policy frameworks and professional resources, you will help map the emerging AI educational landscape while building practical skills in literature review, bilingual academic analysis, Zotero reference management and stakeholder research. Your work will contribute directly to the development of future AI literacy training modules for teachers and may be acknowledged in project publications and conference presentations.
Project title: Family Language Advice Service (FLAS)
Preferred session: Fall 2026, or Winter 2027
Professor: Nikolay Slavkov
Capacity: 1 student
Language: English or FrenchRaising bilingual or multilingual children: Family language policy in a Canadian context
Should parents speak more than one language at home? Does mixing languages confuse children — or help them? In this research project, you will explore the real experiences of bilingual and multilingual families in Canada while helping parents navigate questions about language, education, identity and culture.
By joining the Family Language Advice Service (FLAS), you will become part of a research initiative that combines community outreach with cutting-edge qualitative research. Working alongside a professor and graduate student mentors, you may conduct interviews, analyze real-world data, curate educational resources and help create research-based responses for families raising children in multiple languages. You will also examine broader social issues such as language myths, educational policies, cultural identity and linguistic equality in Canadian society.
Whether you are interested in (applied) linguistics, psychology, education, sociology, health sciences, communications, public policy or cultural studies, this project offers you valuable experience in data collection, analysis and community engagement in the social sciences and humanities.
Project Title: The Linguistic Risk-Taking Initiative (LingRisk)
Preferred session: Fall 2026, or Winter 2027
Professor: Nikolay Slavkov
Capacity: 1 student
Language: English or FrenchTake the risk: Language learning beyond the classroom
What if making mistakes was the key to becoming bilingual? In this innovative research project, you will explore “linguistic risk-taking” — the moments when language learners step outside their comfort zones to speak, interact and connect in a second or additional language. Through a unique passport booklet and mobile app designed at the University of Ottawa, you will help encourage students to use French or English in real-life situations across campus and beyond.
By working with researchers, you will investigate how confidence, anxiety, identity and communication shape second-language learning experiences. You may conduct interviews, analyze app data, use surveys, test digital tools and use qualitative or quantitative research methods to better understand bilingual learning in action.
Whether you are interested in (applied) linguistics, psychology, education, communications, computer science, data analysis or app design, this project offers you hands-on experience in data collection, analysis and community engagement in the social sciences and humanities.
Project title: Can community engagement transform your university experience?
Term: Fall 2026
Professor: Laura Ambrosio
Capacity: Two students
Language: FrenchChanging your community ... and measuring its impact
What if a university course could genuinely transform your personal life and career path? In this project, you will study the impact of a University of Ottawa course listed as an introduction to community engagement (AHL 2700 and AHL2300) using real data gathered from students who have participated in community service learning placements.
Working with researchers and the Community Engagement team, you will explore how these experiences influence the development of skills such as communication, self-reliance, leadership and teamwork. You will also learn how to transform survey results into practical recommendations that can improve the student experience and teaching practices.
Regardless of your field of interest—education, social sciences, psychology, languages, management, public policy or research—this project will provide you with practical experience in data analysis, applied research and community engagement.
Project Title: Data literacy and quantitative communication in Canadian news media
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Meridith Rocchi
Capacity: 5 students
Language: English, FrenchBeyond the headlines: How we understand data in the news
Why do some news stories make numbers instantly clear, while others leave you confused or misled?
In this project, you will explore how Canadian audiences interpret data in online news media and what makes quantitative information easy, or difficult, to understand. You will work across three phases: analyzing the types of topics and data in Canadian news, mapping how numerical and statistical content is presented, and testing how different formats (visual, narrative and numerical) affect audience comprehension.
You will engage in content analysis, literature review and experimental research using real news examples. The goal is to identify which combinations of data presentation improve understanding and to translate these insights into practical recommendations for the news industry. The project builds skills in data analysis, research design, visualization and science communication, with direct relevance for careers in journalism, media, public policy and communication research.
Project Title: Mapping and Showcasing Francophone Research in Information Science
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Inge Alberts
Capacity: 2 students
Language: English, FrenchCan we build the future of scientific discovery?
Every day, thousands of articles, theses and scientific reports are published online, but how do researchers actually find, organize and share this knowledge? In this project, you will help create an international collaborative platform to gather and highlight Francophone publications on information science from universities and research institutes in Canada, France, Switzerland, Morocco, and Senegal.
You will gain a behind-the-scenes look at information technology by working with metadata, APIs, databases and advanced research and data visualization tools. You will also help develop tools that improve how scientific research is discovered, tracked and disseminated between different countries and institutions.
Regardless of your field of interest—information science, computer science, data, digital humanities, library sciences or web development—this project can provide you with practical experience at the crossroads of research, technology and international collaboration.
Project title: Living archives: Creating digital materials to revitalize family and community stories
Term: Fall 2026
Professor: Pierrot Ross-Tremblay
Capacity: Two students
Language: FrenchCreate digital tools and materials from actual archives
How can we transform forgotten family and community archives into living accounts that current generations can access? In this project, you will take part in creating digital tools and materials that trace the history of a community based on an extensive archival corpus: recorded interviews, historical photographs, life stories, political documents, and cultural works.
You will explore how researchers make sense out of archives by building stories that blend memories, history and digital creation. You will help analyze audio, visual and textual documents, select missing extracts, and develop multimedia content intended for the community itself.
This experience will also bring you to reflect on the ethical issues involved in representing community voices, on the transmission of memories, and on the use of archives in modern digital environments.
Regardless of your field of interest—history, media, communication, digital humanities, sociology or document creation—this project will provide you with practical experience in digital production, narrative content and research.
Project Title: Picturing religion: The Philae Temple Graffiti Project
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Jitse Dijkstra, Sabrina Higgins, Nicholas Hedley
Capacity: 2 students
Language: EnglishPicturing religion: The Philae Temple Graffiti Project
What if ancient graffiti could be explored like a digital world you can walk through?
In this project, you will work with one of the largest collections of ancient graffiti from Egypt’s Philae Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site. These inscriptions and drawings, left by visitors over centuries, offer rare insight into everyday life and personal belief in the ancient world.
You will help process and analyze archaeological data using advanced digital tools including photogrammetry, 3D modelling and spatial visualization. Your work will support the creation of publication-quality materials, including digital wall plans, distribution maps and interactive 3D reconstructions.
You will also contribute to a workshop that introduces 3D visualization techniques to archaeology students. The project builds hands-on skills in digital archaeology, data management, visual design tools and spatial analysis, while connecting you directly to an internationally recognized research team preparing a major academic monograph.
Project Title: From veterans to soldiers: The Veterans’ Guard of Canada, 1940-1946
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Serge Durflinger
Capacity: 2 students
Language: EnglishOld soldiers, new war: Canada’s veterans return to service
In this research project, you will explore the remarkable story of the Veterans Guard of Canada, a little-known military force made up entirely of First World War veterans who reenlisted during the Second World War. How did military, political and civic authorities, as well as the press and public, perceive these old soldiers? What were the veterans’ views of identity, service and nation in peace and war?
You will work directly with original archival records at Library and Archives Canada, including military correspondence, photographs, recruiting posters and other historical documents. Through hands-on experience in historical investigation, archival research, and project management, you will contribute to original scholarship on Canada’s military and social history.
Whether you are interested in history or museum and archival work, this project offers you the opportunity to uncover the voices and experiences of Canada’s veteran-soldiers.
Project Title: How language shapes health care and health research: A collaborative project to better understand and address deficit-based discourse
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Maria Cherba
Capacity: 2 students
Language: EnglishRethinking Indigenous health discourse
How do words in research and health care shape the way Indigenous Peoples are understood and treated? In this placement, you will join a pan-Canadian team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, health-care providers, and community members working to transform how Indigenous health is represented in academic and clinical spaces. The focus is on identifying and challenging deficit-based narratives while bolstering strength-based approaches across disciplines.
You will contribute to a structured systematic literature review by developing search strategies with a research librarian, and synthesizing findings on discourse frameworks. You will also take part in team meetings across Canada and contribute to research outputs such as reports, abstracts, and potential publications.
Students who are interested in health communications, Indigenous health research, public health policy or clinical practice will find that this project builds direct skills in how to gather, interpret, and translate evidence into language that shapes real-world health systems and care outcomes.
Project title: Francophone editorial internship at Simone de Beauvoir Studies
Terms: Fall 2026 or Winter 2027
Professor: Claudia Bouliane
Capacity: One student
Language: FrenchWhat happens to an academic article before it is published?
In this project, you will dive into the editorial operations of an international academic journal and actively participate in its publication process. Working with the lead editor and the editorial team, you will contribute to manuscript handling, peer review preparation, bibliographical verification and preparation of the journal’s articles.
You will get a behind-the-scenes look at scholarly publication: how evaluators are selected, how articles are examined, how references are standardized and how manuscripts progress through the various stages in the editorial process. You will also gain practical experience in using digital platforms and the management tools used by modern university presses.
Thanks to a learning-by-doing approach, you will hone your skills in academic revision, document research and source validation, all while becoming more familiar with the ethical and professional standards that apply to scholarly communication.
Project Title: The Christmas City
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Kimberly Quiogue Andrews
Capacity: 1 student
Language: EnglishThe Christmas City : Art, archives, and the afterlife of industry
Can poetry tell the story of capitalism, labour, memory and a city in decline?
In this research-creation project, you will explore the history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania through archives, poetry, photography and experimental writing. Focusing on the rise and decline of the steel industry, the project examines how industrial change shapes communities, identities, labour and everyday life.
You will work with archival collections from institutions such as Penn State and Lehigh University, conduct research on poetry and place, and help trace connections between history, economics and creative expression. The project blends literary research with questions about labour, urban change and social memory.
You will gain hands-on experience in archival research, bibliography building, keyword search strategies and research organization, while also learning how academic research evolves into creative work and even university course design. This project is ideal for students interested in literature, history, culture and creative research methods.
Project Title: Creative Writing – Fiction
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Suyi Okungbowa
Capacity: 1 student
Language: EnglishThe real history behind a Gothic novel
What happens when historical research meets Gothic fiction? In this project, you will contribute to A Double Hunger, a Canada Council–funded novel set in a dark alternative 19th-century Atlantic world shaped by colonialism, industry and resistance. Inspired by the real history of the United African Company and the palm oil trade in West Africa, the novel explores the human — and monstrous — consequences of empire.
Through archival and library research, you will help build the historical foundations of this fictional world by investigating colonial corporations, trade networks, industrial extraction and everyday life in 19th-century West Africa. You will compile research dossiers, analyze historical sources, and contribute directly to the creative development of a major literary project.
Whether you are interested in history, English, African studies, political science, creative writing, cultural studies or archival research, this project offers hands-on experience in research, critical analysis and the intersection of storytelling and historical inquiry.
Project Title: Versioning, remix culture and chart success in the platform era
Preferred session: Fall 2026
Professor: Jada Watson
Capacity: 2 students
Language: EnglishThe remix effect: How versions shape music charts
Why do some songs stay on the charts for weeks or even months?
In this project, you will investigate how remixes, alternate versions and platform-specific releases shape chart success in today’s music industry. Focusing on Billboard’s post-2012 methodology changes, you will explore how streaming, sales and airplay combine to reward songs that circulate across multiple versions.You will trace the release history and chart trajectory of a song of your choice (even possibly your favourite pop song!), documenting how versioning strategies influence performance across Billboard’s charts. Working within a data-production studies approach, you will analyze how music circulates through platform economies and gain deeper insights into contemporary chart systems in the platform era.
Project title: A materialist history of philosophy in the 18th century
Term: Fall 2026
Professor: Mitia Rioux-Beaulne
Capacity: Two students
Language: FrenchSubversion, censorship and the birth of modern ideas
What did the philosophers of the Enlightenment truly think? And what did they need to hide? In this project, you will dive into the heart of Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie to discover how ideas on progress, truth, religion and modernity were built during the 18th century in an environment rife with censorship and political tensions.
By working with original 18th century texts, you will explore how philosophers wrote about the history of philosophy and how they sometimes used strategies to avoid detection and disseminate controversial ideas. You will take part in group discussions, individual research and activities that leverage the digital humanities and historical archives.
Regardless of your field of interest—philosophy, history, political science, literature, media, digital humanities or archives—you will gain practical experience in conducting research and critical analysis and in interpreting key ideas that shaped the modern world.
Project title: Performing war and migration: How theatre helps us understand a world in crisis
Preferred session: Fall 2026 or Winter 2027
Professor: Yana Meerzon
Capacity: 2 students
Language: EnglishHow theatre tells the stories history cannot
How do stories of war and migration change when they are performed on stage instead of written in history books? In this project, which contributes directly to the Performance and Migration international research network (IFTR), you will help document and analyze theatre that responds to war, conflict and forced displacement. Your work will support a live research platform that makes global performance archives more accessible and organized for scholars and the public.
You will identify relevant plays and performances, write clear annotations and contribute materials to an evolving digital database. Through this process, you will explore how artists represent crisis and movement across borders, and how performance becomes a form of witnessing and documentation.
You will develop skills in research, critical analysis, academic writing and digital humanities practice while contributing to an active international project that connects theatre studies to real-world global issues.
Winter Term 2027
Project title: Anticipating risks and promoting quality in AI for health: A participatory workshop
Term: Winter 2027
Professor: Sylvie Grosjean
Capacity: Two students
Languages: French and English (bilingual)Anticipating risks and guiding innovation when using AI for health
How can we ensure that artificial intelligence improves health care without introducing new risks? This participatory research project explores the ethical, social, clinical and organizational issues surrounding the use of AI in health care as part of the PD-TIPS.AI project, which is designing a chat-based system to provide helpful tips to people living with Parkinson’s disease.
You will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team and take part in designing and hosting a workshop that aims to identify risks and to generate thoughts on validation, quality control and governance mechanisms. The results will help design a structured framework for quality control and risk management.
The project combines a targeted review, critical analysis and co-design methods to transform discussions into concrete recommendations. Regardless of your field of interest — health, ethics, communications, social sciences, management, design or digital technologies—this project will provide you with hands-on experience in risk analysis and in collaborative applied research on AI in health care.
Project title: Training for critical AI use in health: Development of simulation-based and immersive learning tools
Term: Winter 2027
Professor: Sylvie Grosjean
Capacity: Two students
Language: FrenchUnderstanding and training differently for health care in the era of AI
How do we train health-care professionals to use AI in a critical manner in health-care settings? This project explores the use of AI-augmented telemedicine in primary care, notably for the early detection of Parkinson’s disease based on data taken from the eCONSULT+ project.
Working within an interdisciplinary team, you will analyse empirical evidence (results, observations and transcripts) and help design immersive training materials (interactive simulations, teaching scenarios) based on actual clinical experiences to shed light on clinical, relational and communications issues.
The project combines qualitative analysis, research creativity and pedagogical design to transform research results into experiential training tools adapted to primary care.
Regardless of your field of interest—health, communications, design, psychology, education, social sciences or digital technologies—this project will provide you with hands-on experience in applied research and innovation in digital health care.
Project title: AI or human? A linguistic investigation of generative AI writing
Term: Winter 2027
Professor: Anaïs Tatossian
Capacity : One student
Language: FrenchLanguage detectives: could you pick out a text written by AI?
ChatGPT and artificial intelligence tools are quickly transforming the way we write, but could you really pick out a text written with help from generative AI? In this project, you will become a real language detective who investigates the clues that artificial intelligence leaves behind in texts.
Based on written documents written with and without AI, you will analyze style, repetitions, sentence structure and clues that reveal the presence, or dampening, of the author’s voice. You will learn how to use methods stemming from applied linguistic and discourse analysis to better understand how AI transforms writing practices.
Regardless of your field of interest—languages, communications, education, media or digital technologies—this project will help you develop a critical perspective on writing in the era of artificial intelligence while gaining hands-on experience of research in the humanities.
Project title: Family Language Advice Service (FLAS)
Preferred session: Fall 2026, or Winter 2027
Professor: Nikolay Slavkov
Capacity: 1 student
Language: English or FrenchRaising bilingual or multilingual children: Family language policy in a Canadian context / Élever des enfants bilingues ou multilingues : la politique linguistique familiale dans le contexte canadien
Should parents speak more than one language at home? Does mixing languages confuse children — or help them? In this research project, you will explore the real experiences of bilingual and multilingual families in Canada while helping parents navigate questions about language, education, identity and culture.
By joining the Family Language Advice Service (FLAS), you will become part of a research initiative that combines community outreach with cutting-edge qualitative research. Working alongside a professor and graduate student mentors, you may conduct interviews, analyze real-world data, curate educational resources and help create research-based responses for families raising children in multiple languages. You will also examine broader social issues such as language myths, educational policies, cultural identity and linguistic equality in Canadian society.
Whether you are interested in (applied) linguistics, psychology, education, sociology, health sciences, communications, public policy or cultural studies, this project offers you valuable experience in data collection, analysis and community engagement in the social sciences and humanities.
Project Title: The Linguistic Risk-Taking Initiative (LingRisk)
Preferred session: Fall 2026, or Winter 2027
Professor: Nikolay Slavkov
Capacity: 1 student
Language: English or FrenchTake the risk: Language learning beyond the classroom / Prenez un risque linguistique: l'apprentissage des langues au-delà de la salle de classe
What if making mistakes was the key to becoming bilingual? In this innovative research project, you will explore “linguistic risk-taking” — the moments when language learners step outside their comfort zones to speak, interact and connect in a second or additional language. Through a unique passport booklet and mobile app designed at the University of Ottawa, you will help encourage students to use French or English in real-life situations across campus and beyond.
By working with researchers, you will investigate how confidence, anxiety, identity and communication shape second-language learning experiences. You may conduct interviews, analyze app data, use surveys, test digital tools and use qualitative or quantitative research methods to better understand bilingual learning in action.
Whether you are interested in (applied) linguistics, psychology, education, communications, computer science, data analysis or app design, this project offers you hands-on experience in data collection, analysis and community engagement in the social sciences and humanities.
Project Title: When words change meaning: Analyzing Justin Trudeau’s speeches (2015–2024)
Preferred session: Winter 2027
Professor: Kyle Conway
Capacity: 2 students
Language: English or FrenchWhat politicians really mean: Decoding political language
What if you could trace how political ideas change simply by tracking the words leaders use?
In this project, you will analyze 326 speeches by Justin Trudeau (2015–2024) to understand how Canadian identity and political meaning evolved through a decade of crisis, change and debate. Using text mining tools in R alongside interpretive analysis, you will examine how key words like “freedom,” “reconciliation” and “protest” shift in meaning over time and shape public discourse.
The project combines coding, political communication research, and hermeneutic analysis to study large-scale textual data and to connect data patterns with meaning.
You will get the opportunity to contribute to a collective academic book and co-author a chapter on the evolution of a key political concept, gaining rare exposure to both data science and publication-level scholarship in political communication.
Project Title: Intergenerational legacies at uOttawa – StoryMaps Project
Preferred session: Winter 2027
Professor: Daniel Rück
Capacity: 1 student
Language: English or FrenchHidden histories: Intergenerational legacies at uOttawa
What stories emerge when a university examines its own role in Canada’s residential school system? In this project, you will investigate the historical connections between the University of Ottawa, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and Indian Residential and Day School systems. Working within the SSHRC-funded Kichi Sibi Historical Research Project, you will contribute to a collaborative effort led by historians and Indigenous partners to document and share these histories with public audiences.
Using ArcGIS StoryMap, you will get the opportunity to transform this research into an interactive digital narrative that connects people, places and events across time. You will build your skills in historical research while gaining digital storytelling experience working with real scholarly and community-engaged research that contributes to understanding Canada’s colonial history.
Project title: Francophone editorial internship at Simone de Beauvoir Studies
Terms: Fall 2026 or Winter 2027
Professor: Claudia Bouliane
Capacity: One student
Language: FrenchWhat happens to an academic article before it is published?
In this project, you will dive into the editorial operations of an international academic journal and actively participate in its publication process. Working with the lead editor and the editorial team, you will contribute to manuscript handling, peer review preparation, bibliographical verification and preparation of the journal’s articles.
You will get a behind-the-scenes look at scholarly publication: how evaluators are selected, how articles are examined, how references are standardized and how manuscripts progress through the various stages in the editorial process. You will also gain practical experience in using digital platforms and the management tools used by modern university presses.
Thanks to a learning-by-doing approach, you will hone your skills in academic revision, document research and source validation, all while becoming more familiar with the ethical and professional standards that apply to scholarly communication.
Project title: Stylistics and feminism: Free indirect discourse in Bonheur d’occasion
Term: Winter 2027
Professor: Rainier Grutman
Capacity: Two students
Language: FrenchExplore the hidden voices in Bonheur d’occasion by Gabrielle Roy
What if a novel revealed more than its story? In this project, you will rediscover Bonheur d’occasion (1945) by Gabrielle Roy to reveal how writing shapes the voices, thoughts and social relationships at the heart of a Quebecois literary classic.
You will study the narrative techniques Gabrielle Roy uses, including free indirect discourse, a writing form that allows the reader to listen in on a character’s thoughts in a subtle, immersive way. Using a stylistic, narratological, and feminist approach, you will analyze how female and male characters occupy the novel’s narrative space in different ways.
This project will also allow you to explore how artificial intelligence can be used to support, or complicate, literary analysis. Regardless of your field of interest—literature, history, languages, women’s studies, communication or AI—you will gain practical experience in textual analysis, research and critical thinking.
Project title: From the House to the Home
Term: Winter 2027
Professor: Nelson Charest
Capacity: Two students
Language: FrenchExplore how literature interacts with the sciences and the world
What can the topic of “house” reveal about our way of living in the world? In this interdisciplinary project, you will explore how literature allows us to consider issues related to architecture, ecology, politics, medicine, memory, Indigenous studies, urbanism and many other fields of knowledge.
Based on a literary work that suits your interests, you will build your own research path by linking literature to two other disciplines of your choice. You will discover how literary texts can generate original knowledge and offer new ways of understanding the human experience.
By combining reading, bibliographical research, group discussions and the writing of an academic paper, you will hone your skills in literary analysis, interdisciplinary research and critical thinking. Regardless of the field you are passionate about—the humanities, the arts, the social sciences, the environment or philosophy—this project will allow you to create a unique research process that reflects your interests.
Project Title: Supporting the teaching of intensional and hyperintensional logic in philosophy
Preferred session: Winter 2027
Professor: Paul Rusnock
Capacity: 2 students
Language: EnglishThe practice of logic
How do we teach ideas in logic that current undergraduate teaching materials still struggle to fully capture?
Your work will directly support the development of new undergraduate teaching materials in advanced logic, with a focus on intensional and hyperintensional systems used in philosophy, linguistics, computer science, metaphysics and epistemology. These areas are central to contemporary research but remain difficult to access at the undergraduate level.
In this project, you will investigate how philosophy departments across universities teach these topics, collect syllabi and course descriptions, and survey existing textbooks and learning resources. You will then synthesize this material into a structured annotated inventory that maps current teaching practices and gaps.
You will develop skills in academic research, comparative analysis, and structured synthesis of complex material, while also strengthening your background in formal logic. The project is designed for students with prior training in logic and offers direct involvement in shaping future philosophy curriculum.
Project Title: Mapping Renaissance utopias: Italian visions of the ideal city and society
Preferred session: Winter 2027
Professor: Cristina Perissinotto
Capacity: 2 students
Language: English, FrenchHow the Renaissance imagined the perfect world
What does a perfect society look like, and why did Renaissance thinkers believe it could exist? This project explores Renaissance utopian thought in Italy, where writers, philosophers and architects imagined ideal cities and political systems long before modern ideas of utopia. You will contribute to a scholarly research project supporting a book on Italian utopian traditions, examining thinkers such as Campanella and Alberti and the worlds they envisioned.
You will identify and analyze key utopian texts, map connections between authors, cities and ideas, and help build a conceptual and visual representation of Renaissance political imagination. The project offers hands-on experience in intellectual history and digital humanities, making complex ideas visible, connected and meaningful.
Project title: Inside the editing of a sixteenth-century play
Term: Winter 2027
Professor: Louise Frappier
Capacity: Two students
Language: FrenchBringing back a forgotten Renaissance play
What is needed to bring a sixteenth-century play back to life? In this research project, you will participate in a critical editorial review of Holoferne (1580), a rare Renaissance tragedy written by Adrien d’Amboise and due to be published by Classiques Garnier, a prestigious publisher. Centred on the biblical figure of Judith, the play explores the topics of power, violence, religion and politics against the troubled backdrop of France’s religious wars.
By working from historical documents and rare texts, you will learn how researchers reconstruct and interpret works from the past. You will learn how to set up and annotate a text, compare different versions, study historical sources and read theatrical works written in Middle French. This will allow you to gain a better understanding of the birth of modern theatre and the cultural transformations that took place during the Renaissance.
Regardless of your field of interest—literature, history, theatre, languages, philosophy, religion or archives—you will gain practical experience in scholarly research, textual analysis and cultural history.
Project Title: Documenting contemporary Italian theatre and storytelling: The work of Marco Paolini (2009–Present)
Preferred session: Winter 2027
Professor: Cristina Perissinotto
Capacity: 2 students
Language: English, FrenchPerformance theater in the age of mechanical reproduction
How do you study a theatre performance when the moment of performance has already disappeared? In this project, you will investigate the work of Marco Paolini, a leading figure in contemporary Italian narrative theatre, whose performances blend storytelling, history and civic reflection. You will contribute to a scholarly monograph by building a structured archive of his work from 2009 onward.
You will collect and organize press reviews, interviews, festival programs, media coverage, and scholarly commentary to reconstruct performances that are otherwise ephemeral. Through this process, you will explore how theatre becomes cultural memory and public storytelling.
You will develop skills in archival research, source evaluation, annotation and research organization, while working with Italian-language materials (with guidance). The project offers hands-on experience in humanities research, showing how scholars rebuild performances through traces and how storytelling functions as both art and historical method.
Project title: Performing war and migration: How theatre helps us understand a world in crisis
Preferred session: Fall 2026 or Winter 2027
Professor: Yana Meerzon
Capacity: 2 students
Language: EnglishHow theatre tells the stories history cannot
How do stories of war and migration change when they are performed on stage instead of written in history books? In this project, which contributes directly to the Performance and Migration international research network (IFTR), you will help document and analyze theatre that responds to war, conflict and forced displacement. Your work will support a live research platform that makes global performance archives more accessible and organized for scholars and the public.
You will identify relevant plays and performances, write clear annotations and contribute materials to an evolving digital database. Through this process, you will explore how artists represent crisis and movement across borders, and how performance becomes a form of witnessing and documentation.
You will develop skills in research, critical analysis, academic writing and digital humanities practice while contributing to an active international project that connects theatre studies to real-world global issues.