crackmitacsAll disciplines

Development Studies

6 Mitacs Globalink (GRI) research projects for Summer 2027.

1. Climate Change, Livelihood Disruption, and Mental Health in Rural Ghana

This research project examines how climate change-related livelihood disruptions affect mental health in rural Ghana. Focusing on two rural districts, the study explores how challenges such as unpredictable rainfall, crop failure, declining incomes, environmental degradation, and illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) contribute to stress, anxiety, and psychological distress among community members. Using a mixed-methods approach, the project will combine quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews to understand both the extent of mental health impacts and people’s lived experiences and coping strategies. The study aims to generate community-informed evidence to support culturally relevant mental health interventions and climate adaptation policies in rural Ghana.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: My specialized research area focuses on the intersections of climate change, livelihood insecurity, mental health, and community resilience in rural and marginalized populations. My work examines how environmental disruptions, those linked to climate change, shape psychosocial well-being, social vulnerability, and everyday coping strategies. Using community-based and mixed-methods approaches, I investigate how structural conditions such as poverty, livelihood precarity, displacement, and environmental injustice affect mental health outcomes, especially in underserved communities. A key focus of my research is generating contextually grounded evidence that can inform equitable mental health interventions, climate adaptation policies, and community-centered support systems in the Global South.

Student roles:
The student will play an active role in supporting various stages of the research project. Responsibilities will include assisting with literature reviews, research design, and survey development.

Skills required:
The student should have a strong interest in climate change, mental health, community development, and social or environmental justice issues. A background in social work, public health, psychology, sociology, environmental studies, community development, or a related field would be highly beneficial. Experience or familiarity with qualitative and/or quantitative research methods, including interviewing, survey administration, and data analysis, is desirable. The student should also possess strong communication, organizational, and interpersonal skills.

2. Developing an environmental governance global learning network

There is a growing body of research, guidance and action to support better understanding of and improvements in environmental governance, including frameworks, methodologies and initiatives for assessment and responsive change. Yet many such efforts are fragmented / siloed and the reach of knowledge about and action from them is often limited. As such, inclusive and equitable opportunities to foster dialogue, enable interaction, share experiences, and inspire meaningful action are critical to improving environmental governance. Through such opportunities it may be possible to move towards more equitable and impactful spaces for addressing related socio-ecological issues, at and across multiple scales. This project will contribute to establishing guiding concepts and a structure for a collaborative environmental governance global network and tools to support the network (e.g. online learning portal) and that facilitates shared learning and action among actors in environmental governance, coordinated by organizations that themselves convene and support a broad spectrum of environmental governance actors and with consideration for equity and the need for multi-directional learning between actors. The key organizing principles for the network and tools include: ● Meaningfully connecting and building on existing networks and platforms ● Enabling power-sharing and equitable power relationships between network members ● Ensuring accessible, credible and inclusive information ● Recognizing and supporting diverse governance approaches and frameworks, including appropriate recognition and support for Indigenous peoples and local communities’ governance of territories of life ● Utilizing human-centred design ● Ensuring sustainability / continuity Generating new knowledge and building collaborative relationships can create space for participants involved in learning processes to develop shared understandings of systems or issues that the actors involved have interests in. The learning portal will offer the opportunity for actors to share information in a designated space and learn new information that is available for those who engage with these elements.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: My work focuses on environmental governance at the local and global scale. I have worked collaboratively with Indigenous communities in Canada and abroad on projects focusing on co-management of species and protected areas, shared forest tenure agreements, land use and occupancy mapping studies, food sovereignty, health promotion and wellbeing, and land-based learning and curriculum development. My work has also contributed to public discussion on what “reconciliation” means in Canada. I am also interested in how global policy frameworks affect community participation in the day-to-day management of the environment.

Student roles:
The student will assist Dr. Zurba and the research team in conducting research towards the development of the global environmental governance global network and tools to support the network. This will include literature review on suitable and effective structures that support diverse communities, with special considerations to culture, equity, ethical sharing, ownership and the democratization of information sharing. The student will play a significant role in developing a report on guiding principles and different options for tools to support the network, which will then be presented to the project partners who are from Indigenous and environmental organizations across the globe. The student will have an opportunity to learn from project partners by documenting their feedback on research products, including the report and will contribute to the drafting of a manuscript for submission to an international peer-reviewed journal (student will be a listed co-author).

Skills required:
The student will have an educational background in a field relevant to the research, such as human geography, natural resources management, environmental studies, political sciences, or another related field. The student will have experience conducting literature reviews and contributing to community-engaged social science research. Some knowledge of qualitative research methods (interviews, focus groups, participant observation) and analysis (use of coding software) are a required skills. The student must understand the importance of and be interested in advancing ethical protocols for working with project parters, and have a willingness to learn from their supervisor (Dr. Zurba) and community research partners.

3. Interviewing Children

This research project will focus on children's memory and honesty during forensic-based interviews. This project will involve a large-scale project to explore children's memory of events as well as their understanding of adult-child interactions. Working with a science summer camp, a research confederate will stage an event and, the following day, children will be interviewed about that event using common police-interviewing protocols. In particular, children will be assessed for: (1) their understanding of what is a typical adult-child interaction; (2) how well they remember the event details; and, (3) children's ability to remember the confederate they saw (eyewitness memory). This project will involve working with 400+ children between the ages of 6 and 15 years-old.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: I am an experimental forensic psychologist interested in applied research that links legal, cognitive, and developmental psychology. My research is largely motivated by addressing existing problems in the Canadian legal system—with a focus on children’s participation and experiences in the justice system. Using applied, experimental methods, my research systematically examines factors that facilitate the gathering of reliable evidence from child witnesses. The goal of my research is to develop evidence-based methods to facilitate legal practitioners (i.e., police, attorneys, judges) who work with child victims and witnesses.

Student roles:
The student(s) will work closely with Dr. Bruer and her graduate students throughout the entire summer. The selected student(s) will be a lead on this project and, as such, will be involved in all aspects of the research process (e.g., literature review, methodology design, material creation, participant testing, analyses, and writing). The students' primary role will be to co-lead an undergraduate research team in a dynamic and exciting environment. The student(s) may be asked to train other research assistants on the developed experiments. During data collection, the student(s) will be responsible for either the role of the confederate or interviewing children. The student(s) will also play a key role in data organization, data analysis, and data transcription. Depending on the expertise of the student(s), there may be an opportunity to conduct machine learning analyses and/or development of recognition memory models.

Skills required:
Students will be conducting interviews with children and, as such, will need strong interpersonal and language (i.e., English) skills.
Students should be trained in basic psychology research methods, statistical analyses, and theories of child development.
Students should have experience in, or be interested in learning about, forensic and applied research with children. This will require a student who is highly adaptable and has strong problem-solving skills.
The ability to work in Open Sesame, Python, and R is an asset.
Knowledge of Canadian/US legal systems is an asset.

4. Mitigation of Urban Heat Islands using Computational Fluid Dynamics for Climate Resilient Building Design

This research project investigates the microclimatic performance and aerodynamic optimization of urban contexts to mitigate the impacts of Urban Heat Islands. The aim is to analyze diverse urban typologies using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and machine learning algorithms to define how varying land cover, green spaces, and urban geometries influence local wind patterns and thermal distribution. The nature of analysis will involve parameters relevant to urban density, air quality index, surface energy balance, and public health metrics. The essence is to produce a comprehensively integrated multi-scale simulation framework that attains thermal comfort and environmental optimality under complex meteorological and urban constraints. The work will also involve sensitivity analysis regarding the interaction among variables like population density, wind speed, and humidity by employing advanced computational methods in order to provide a predictive benchmark for climate-resilient urban design. Engineering students can be great contributors for this research with their background in fluid mechanics, thermal-fluids modeling, and data-driven environmental analysis.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: My research involves building science & technology, decarbonization & net-zero solutions, UAV infrastructure audits, non-destructive testing, image processing, and hyperspectral data interpretation. The scope includes areas such as enclosure systems, materials behavior, thermal and energy modeling, building audits, and machine learning applications.

Student roles:
The duties can include:
• Gather information from articles and published work to gain knowledge for performing research in urban microclimates, urban heat islands, and computational fluid dynamics.
• Generate reports that summarize the outcomes and prepare presentations on data analysis.
• Meet for discussion pertaining to research work and progress.
• Work on collaborative tasks that require teamwork.
• Setup fluid dynamics models and design algorithms through computer programming and scripting, including data visualizations of thermal and airflow profiles.

Skills required:
• Capable of research, learning, and mastering new techniques in urban microclimate modeling and simulation.
• Effective communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Ability to work effectively both with supervision and independently.
• For Engineering students, background in fluid mechanics and programming or coding in Python, MATLAB, or CFD software.
• For Urban Planning or Architecture students, expertise in GIS software, Rhino, and parametric urban modeling is required.

5. Negotiating Belonging and Mental Health: Cultural Adaptation among Migrant Skilled Trades Workers in Quebec

It examines how workplace culture, belonging, and everyday working conditions shape the mental health and psychosocial well-being of migrant skilled trades workers in Quebec after entering employment. It explores how language expectations, workplace norms, supervision, peer relations, and access to support influence stress, inclusion, and emotional well-being. The study addresses a major gap in research, which has focused more on labour market entry than post-hiring experiences. Guided by the Social Identity approach to health and well-being, it recognizes that workplace inclusion, recognition, and belonging are critical to coping, integration, and mental health, while exclusion and discrimination may contribute to distress.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: My specialized research area focuses on the intersections of migration, labour, mental health, and social justice, with particular attention to immigrant and racialized populations in Canada. My work examines how structural inequalities, workplace conditions, social policy, and environmental change shape well-being, inclusion, and resilience among marginalized communities. I have a strong focus on migrant workers, labour market integration, environmental and climate justice, and community-based responses to social inequities. Using primarily qualitative and mixed-methods approaches, my research aims to inform socially just policies and practice interventions that promote equity, mental health, and sustainable community development.

Student roles:
The student will support various aspects of the research project, including literature reviews, data collection, participant recruitment, interview transcription and coding, data analysis, and knowledge mobilization activities. The student may assist with conducting qualitative interviews, organizing research materials, preparing summaries and reports, and contributing to academic outputs such as conference presentations, manuscripts, and policy briefs. The role also involves participating in team meetings, supporting community engagement activities, and assisting with administrative and coordination tasks related to the project. The student will gain hands-on research experience in community-based and social justice-oriented research.

Skills required:
The student should have a strong interest in migration, labour, mental health, social justice, and community-based research. A background in social work, sociology, public health, psychology, migration studies, community development, or related social sciences would be highly beneficial. Experience with qualitative research methods, including interviewing, thematic analysis, and community engagement, is desirable, while familiarity with quantitative or mixed-methods research would be an asset. Strong writing, critical thinking, communication, and organizational skills are important. The student should also demonstrate sensitivity to issues of equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-oppressive practice, particularly when working with immigrant and marginalized populations.

6. Neural Network-Aided Thermal Modeling and Control of High Performance Building Façades

This research project investigates performance optimization of high-performance building façades to reduce building heating demand in cold climates. The aim is to analyze façade thermal behavior using artificial neural networks (ANN) and mathematical modeling to define temperature variations and heat loss profiles. The analysis involves parameters relevant to convective airflow, solar radiation, outdoor climate conditions, and energy balance. The essence is to produce a validated simulation framework that minimizes building energy consumption under dynamic meteorological constraints. The work also involves sensitivity analysis of critical variables using computational methods to provide a benchmark for energy-efficient building design. Engineering students with a background in building energy simulation, thermal-fluids, and machine learning are ideal contributors.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: My research involves building science & technology, decarbonization & net-zero solutions, UAV infrastructure audits, non-destructive testing, image processing, and hyperspectral data interpretation. The scope includes areas such as enclosure systems, materials behavior, thermal and energy modeling, building audits, and machine learning applications.

Student roles:
The duties can include:
• Gather literature on high-performance building façades, thermal insulation, and predictive machine learning models.
• Generate performance summary reports and prepare data analysis presentations.
• Meet regularly to discuss research progress, neural network training, and model validation.
• Participate in collaborative teamwork tasks.
• Setup thermal models and train neural network algorithms using programming scripting to visualize façade heat transfer profiles.

Skills required:
• Strong foundation in building energy performance, thermal modeling, and simulation tools (e.g., ANSYS, Abaqus).
• Effective communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Ability to work effectively both with supervision and independently.
• Programming, scripting and coding in Matlab and similar software.