From searching for dark matter to improving medical robotics and studying Renaissance art in Belgium, Queen’s undergraduate students spent the summer contributing to research with impact. Working alongside faculty mentors at Queen’s and abroad, they gained first-hand experience tackling complex questions while exploring where their own interests could take them next.

The Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellowships (USSRF) and Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA), both supported through the Vice-Principal Research (VPR) portfolio, give undergraduate students paid, hands-on research experience under the guidance of a faculty supervisor. USSRF places students in 16-week, full-time research roles funded by the VPR and their supervisors. USRA, funded mainly through federal granting agencies, supports students working toward research careers across health, natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, and humanities fields.

"We are very proud to have had more than 150 undergraduate students contributing to research projects across campus and at field research sites in Canada and internationally this summer," says Nancy Ross, Vice-Principal Research. "These fellowships are a great opportunity for students to work with field-leading experts, help advance research, and to contribute their ideas and a fresh perspective to our research community, for which we are very grateful."

Principal Patrick Deane and Vice-Principal (Research) Nancy Ross recently hosted an event celebrating participants in both programs and their faculty supervisors. The Queen’s Gazette spoke with four students about their projects and what they learned from their summer research experiences.

Research shaped by community

Seher Mukadam, a USSRF recipient in Health Sciences, spent the summer working with Patty Douglas (Education) on the Telling Our Stories project, which examines how autism is understood and supported among Indigenous and Northern youth.

"I'm interested in understanding where existing systems fail people and how research can help build more inclusive alternatives," she says. "One of the most rewarding parts of this experience has been seeing how much stronger research becomes when community voices and lived experience are treated as important forms of knowledge, rather than simply as something researchers study."

The experience has pointed Mukadam toward a career combining medicine and research, with a focus on improving care for underserved communities.

Finding history in the details

Lucian Mussells, a USSRF recipient in the Department of Art History and Art Conservation, spent his fellowship at the BRON research centre in Bruges, Belgium. There, he contributed to Musea Brugge's 2029 exhibition on Renaissance painter Jan Provoost.

Working with Ron Spronk (Art History and Art Conservation) and curator Anna Koopstra, Mussells also developed his own research on the Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims, a confraternity Provoost himself once led.

"What drew me to this project was the opportunity to see history being reconstructed through both art-historical and technical research," he says, adding that the summer gave him "an enormous head start" toward a career in technical art history.

"The most rewarding part of my research experience has been connecting with experts in my field from around the world," he says.

Bringing dark matter into focus

Julia Brachman, a USRA recipient in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy, worked with Michela Lai (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy) to build a model of background radiation for a Geant4 computer simulation of a liquid argon particle detector used in the search for dark matter.

"I loved exploring an experimental physics problem from a computational approach, bringing a detector to life through code," she says. "It was exciting to watch abstract ideas, like simulated particles, become predictions for what a real detector might see. I am only more eager to pursue physics research, with the goal of understanding the world around us to the fullest, even down to individual particles."

Designing with patients in mind

Temitayo (Temi) Toogun, a USRA recipient in Mechanical and Materials Engineering, worked with Claire Davies (Mechanical and Materials Engineering) to design a more intuitive robotic control interface for a medical colonoscope built with patient comfort in mind. A former mobility-device technician, Toogun saw the project as building on his earlier experience.

"Getting to build hardware for a real medical tool felt like a natural extension of that," he says. "I like working at the intersection of hardware, software, and healthcare, and this project showed me what that actually looks like day to day. It confirmed that I want to build a career in medical devices and surgical robotics."

This year’s USSRF and USRA participants have also had their research abstracts published in the Inquiry@Queen’s Journal, creating a record of the work they contributed to and the questions they pursued. For many participants, the experience also offered an early glimpse of the research paths they may follow in the years ahead.

To learn more about participating in USSRF, USRA, Inquiry@Queen’s, and other undergraduate research opportunities, visit the Vice-Principal Research portfolio website.