In 2022, 38 students from different departments and programs received Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Research Internship Awards.
ARIA Summer Projects
Anthropology
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Jihan Dahanayaka : 'Life project' agendas of Indigenous community partners of the Centre for Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives (CICADA) Jihan Dahanayaka is a second-year student from Vermont, USA. He is currently pursuing a degree in International Development Studies with Honours and a major in Economics. Jihan’s academic interests include development anthropology and environmental resource management. On campus, he is a staff writer at The McGill International Review and enjoys skiing and trail running in his free time. Prof. Colin Scott, Anthropology |
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Art History
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Catherine Plawutsky : Student Organizing for Change on Social Media Catherine Plawutsky is a U2 Honours Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice Studies student minoring in Philosophy. She is interested in law, communications, and political science, particularly in enacting feminist policies and politics. This includes activism surrounding, reproductive rights, sex work, domestic violence, disability justice, and radicalization online. She is currently a Senior Editor at McGill’s Undergraduate Journal of Feminist Studies and has contributed to publications such as McGill’s Pre-Law Student Society’s Undergraduate Journal. Prof. Carrie Rentschler, Art History and Communication Studies |
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Biology
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Lucca Mole : Is thermal tolerance greater in imperilled than non-imperilled fishes in the Old Ausable Channel? Lucca Mole (she/they) is an undergraduate student at McGill University in their 3rd year in the Arts/Sci faculty Environment program. They were born in Sydney, Australia, of English, French and New Zealand descent but grew up in London, UK. They are extremely passionate about biodiversity and conservation, an interest that has been further developed at McGill and through working with inspiring professors like Lauren Chapman and they hope to pursue this area of interest post-undergrad. Prof. Lauren Chapman, Biology |
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Educational and Counselling Psychology
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Jia Zheng : Assessing multisensory integration of audio-visual information across different periods of development Jia Zheng (she/her) is a second year Honours Psychology student studying at McGill University. She is passionate about social psychology and cognitive psychology & plans to pursue further education in these domains. She currently volunteers in Dr. Nancy Heath’s DAIR research team & is also supervised by Dr. Armando Bertone for her honours thesis on multisensory integration. In her free time, she likes to practice photography and try new recipes. Prof. Armando Bertone, Educational and Counselling Psychology |
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English
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Hwaan Han : English -language drama in Quebec, 1980-2015 Hwaan is a U2 student majoring in Drama and Theatre and minoring in Art History. An avid lover of theatre in practice as much as in theory, she is active in McGill’s theatre scene and has been involved in student-produced shows in Players Theatre as a director and actor. She has been working as Professor Erin Hurley’s research assistant since last December and is extremely grateful to have the opportunity to continue working with her over the summer. Prof. Erin Hurley, English |
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Savannah Sguigna : Menus: what they are, what do they contain and do? Savannah is a third year Honours student at McGill in the English Cultural Studies program, whose lifelong love of libraries has led her to research under the guidance of Professor Cooke this summer. She is looking forward to delving into the history of international and imagined menus, and is grateful for the opportunity to enrich her understanding of academic research, publishing, and media history. Prof. Nathalie Cooke, English |
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Geography
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Cat Carkner : Korea as model, too: The international circulation of ‘Korean-style’ new towns Cat Carkner (she/her) is a third year Urban Studies and Social Entrepreneurship student. She currently lives in Montreal but calls Ottawa home. At McGill, she has become interested in health and social policy, as well as city planning. To celebrate growing interest in the field, she helped establish Pulse: The McGill Urban Studies Journal. In her free time, Cat loves to rock climb, walk around, and screen print. . Prof. Sarah Moser, Geography |
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Yanbing Chen : Representing the Mobility of Historical Agents through Digitization and Topographic Path Finding : the Diary of Shi Rao Yanbing Chen is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in Economics and Geography. After two years of concurrent studies in Economics, Finance, and Geography, she discovered her passion for GIS and decided to pursue a career in Geoscience. She is obsessed with the way GIS can assist in visualizing the undiscovered secret hidden behind everyday scenes. Meanwhile, she is constantly on the lookout for socioeconomic aspects of various regions and diverse cultural geographic processes using GIS.. Prof. Raja Sengupta, Geography |
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Stefan Krysa : Resilience to flooding at different scales: how individual- and community-level processes shape the impact of place attachment on disaster recovery. Stefan’s work focuses on place attachment and how individuals’ and communities’ relationship to their environment shape resilience to natural disasters. This is part of a larger project to inform the Réseau Inondation InsterSectorial du Québec network on the impacts of flooding on housing conditions, mental health, and wellbeing. Stefan is excited to develop his scientific writing and research proposal skills. Stefan is from Vancouver, BC, in his 4th year of study at McGill. Prof. Mylene Riva, Geography |
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History
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Flavie Dupont-Fournier : Atikamekw History as viewed by the youth of Manwan and Wemotaci Flavie Dupont-Fournier is an undergraduate student in Economics (Major), Sociologie (Major), and First People’s Studies (Minor) at McGill University. Born in Québec City, she is of mixed Quebecois settler and Atikamekw ancestry. She is passionate about the innovative fields Indigenous Economics, Sociology of Economics, Economic History and Trade Economics. This project will give Flavie the opportunity to reconnect and reform ancestral bonds with her family’s nation, which were unfortunately separated by Canada’s violent colonial legacy. Prof. Daviken Studniki-Gizbert, History and Classical Studies |
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Agathe Nolla : The contours of Counterfeit in early modern French North America: Machine-reading Eighteenth-century court cases Agathe Nolla is a second-year history student, with a minor in Hispanic studies. She enjoys writing and editing for various journals on campus, as well as practicing and learning languages. She is planning on pursuing a Master’s degree in European early modern history. This internship will allow her to discover and train in 18th-century paleography and the use of archive digitalization software, such as Transkribus. Prof. Catherine Desbarats, History and Classical Studies |
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LinguisticsBrandon Chaperon : Sentence-final particles in Igala Brandon is a third-year undergraduate student in Linguistics and Computer Science. This summer, he will be completing a research internship in the McGill Department of Linguistics. He will be exploring a particular class of syntactic elements in Igala, a minority language spoken primarily in Nigeria – so-called sentence-final particles. Brandon will help develop elicitation materials and work with speakers to collect the data. This project will constitute an important contribution to the description of this understudied language. Prof. Martina Martinović, Linguistics |
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Yingrui He : Large-scale cross linguistic phonetic analysis. Yingrui is an Honors Linguistics student at McGill with double minors in Math and Classics. She is interested in semantics, computational linguistics, speech perception, and music cognition. She likes linguistics and Latin memes. In her spare time, she enjoys playing guitar. Prof. Morgan Sonderegger, Linguistics |
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Yingxuan Wang : Modelling Mandarin Intonational Tunes With Computational Techniques Yingxuan is a U2 student majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Computer Science. This summer, they will be investigating the patterns of intonational tunes of Mandarin Chinese and working to build an online repository of mini-corpora which helps establish the inventory of intonational tunes of Mandarin Chinese and other languages. With this research experience, Yingxuan is looking forward to nurturing their passion for research and hopes to further their future academic goals in the field of Linguistics. Prof. Michael Wagner, Linguistics |
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Han Yao : Optional complements in Mandarin Chinese Han Yao (he/him/his) is a U2 Cognitive Science student with a minor in Political Science. This summer, he will be studying the complement structure of Mandarin Chinese, collecting data from Mandarin Chinese and develop methods of formal treatment to it with Professor Brendan Gillon. With first language knowledge of Mandarin Chinese and training of formal logic and semantics, he is eager to apply his skills to contribute to academic research Prof. Brendan Gillon, Linguistics |
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Philosophy
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Charlotte Goldberger : Mandatory Diversity Quotas on Jury Panels Charlotte Goldberger is a junior at McGill majoring in Philosophy and minoring in Sociology and Psychology. Her philosophical interests lie at the intersection of ethics and law, with a focus on contemporary issues. She is particularly interested in questions concerning juvenile and criminal justice. Charlotte aims to graduate from McGill in 2023 after which she wishes to complete a graduate program in criminology or a related field and pursue a legal career representing juvenile defendants. |
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Julien da Silva : Artificial Intelligence & Unclear Moral Agency: Why Regulating Intelligent Machines Requires a New Approach Julien da Silva is a U3 Honours Philosophy Student interested in the ethics of technology, artificial intelligence, and data. Specifically, his research focuses on the ethical and social implications of emergent technology, as well as strategies to both regulate and live alongside it. This summer, he will be working under the supervision of Professor Jocelyn Maclure, the Jarislowsky Chair in Technology and Human Nature in the Department of Philosophy. Prof. Jocelyn Maclure, Philosophy |
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Cindy He : The development of the dot notation in 20th century logic Cindy is pursuing her Bachelor of Arts&Science degree in math and philosophy. She is interested in interdisciplinary fields of humanities and sciences, like philosophy of mathematics. By constructing and fusing theoretical elements with practical ones, she enjoys discovering the universal underlying principles hidden in areas that are seemingly far to connect. Always enjoying dealing with uncertainty, she is curious to see what is out there. Prof. Dirk Schlimm, Philosophy
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Gabriel Rodrigues : The philosophical implications of a dual systems model of Theory of Mind Gabriel Rodrigues is in his third year at McGill University, pursuing a Joint Honours degree in Philosophy and Psychology. He is currently working at the Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab and the Neurophilosophy Lab to complete his Psychology and Philosophy undergraduate theses, respectively. This summer, he will be working with prof. Ian Gold on a research project entitled ‘The Philosophical Implications of a Dual Systems Model of Theory of Mind’. Prof. Ian Gold, Philosophy |
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Political Science
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Alex Byrne : Moral and Political Progress Alex Byrne is a third-year student in Political Science with minors in Communications Studies and Social Entrepreneurship. She has the pleasure of completing research for Professor Jacob Levy as part of his book project Justice in Babylon. This research bridges disparate literature concerning the idea of moral and political progress throughout history. In doing so, it seeks to establish how deeply embedded in Western political thought the idea of inevitable progress is. Prof Jacob Levy, Political Science |
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Rory Daly : Global Comparative Approaches to Journalism Policy Rory is a U3 student double majoring in Political Science & International Development Studies who is actively involved at student publications on campus, including McGill International Review and Flux: International Relations Review. Their chief interests are international relations & comparative politics, as well as post-Enlightenment political theory. They undertook ARIA under Professor Owen this year in order to better understand the complex relations between media and government policy globally, as well as to gain practical research experience. Prof. Taylor Owen, Political Science |
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Kareem Faraj: Localization in World Politics Kareem Faraj is a third-year student pursuing an Honours major in Political Science and a minor in History. This summer, he will be interning as a research assistant with Professor Jennifer Welsh. In this role, he will provide research assistance for the “Localization in World Politics” project. This project seeks to analyse localization across the areas of forced migration, protection of civilians, humanitarianism, and transitional justice. Kareem will help review literature for the project’s Special Issue and support the in-person workshop in Montreal. Prof. Jennifer Welsh, Political Science |
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Aviel Fradkine : The Idea of Religious Authority Aviel is a U3 student in Joints Honours Political Science and Economics who has a strong interest in political theory. This summer, he will be assisting Professor Victor Muñiz-Fraticelli with his research on the nature of religious authority and the relation between religious authority and other kinds of authority. Through this project, he hopes to develop a better sense of the ways in which religious traditions can be studied within political theory. Prof. Victor Muñiz-Fraticelli, Political Science |
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Elisa Gilliet : The International Organization for Migration: Evolution and Scope of a Rising Global Governance Actor Elisa is a curious and outgoing second-year French student at McGill University. Majoring in Political Science and minoring in both History and International Development, she strongly believes that one needs to understand the world and its past to make sustainable changes. Elisa was captivated by Professor Bradley’s research, and her acceptance into the program was a dream come true. With her contagious enthusiasm, Elisa is looking forward to a summer of meaningful research. Prof. Megan Bradley, Political Science |
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Boubacar Ouane : Fédéralisme et conflits politiques territoriaux: une perspective comparative Boubacar Ouane is a third-year political science major with a minor in international development at McGill. Originally from Mali and was born in Canada he has an extremely international background which he developed by living in 9 countries throughout his life. Boubacar is passionate in International Relations, Economic Development, African Politics and the prominence and danger of social media within our political institutions. He’s obtained a global view of the world and an appreciation for cultural diversity through his immersion within various cultures around the world. Prof. Daniel Béland, Political Science |
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Jeanne Chicote-Navas : Support for Democratic Transgressions in 17 European Countries Jeanne is a U3 Political Science major, minoring in Mathematics and Computer Science. This summer, she will be working as a Research Assistant with Professor Stolle for her studies on democratic resilience. She will be assisting in data analysis, literary research, and in the development of a new research project. Passionate about politics and programming, Jeanne is eager to learn more about the manipulation of data in the broader context of research centered on political issues. Prof. Dietlind Stolle, Political Science |
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Maria Laura Chobadindegui : Challenges of Transnational Solidarity Maria Laura is a third-year student pursuing an Honours degree in Political Science and a double minor in German and Philosophy. This summer, she will assist Professor Catherine Lu in her research on the political theory of solidarity as it relates to the realm of transnational relations. She is beyond excited to expand her knowledge on the intersection between political theory and international relations, and to learn about the academic publication process. Prof. Catherine Lu, Political Science
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Psychology
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Adèle Hotte-Meunier : Biology, Behaviour and Binge Eating in Women Adèle Hotte-Meunier is a third-year Psychology student at McGill University. Adèle has a compassionate nature and a drive to improve the quality of life for individuals with mental illness. Adèle is eager to pursue my interests with practical research experience and hopes that this internship will help to build a strong and in-depth theoretical background to support Adèle's aspiration of treating eating disorders in-clinic. Prof. Sarah Racine, Clinical Psychology |
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Nguyet Ngo : Familiarizing with autobiographical memory: an fMRI investigation into the role of familiarity in autobiographical remembering Nguyet Ngo is a fourth-year Psychology student with a minor in Sociology. Her undergraduate research project in autobiographical memory and retrieval mode has motivated her to continue investigating the questions surrounding how people remember their personal events. She would like to thank her supervisors – Dr. Signy Sheldon and Lauri Gurguryan, the donors, and the Arts Internship Office, for giving her the opportunity to contribute to memory research and develop skills involved in neuroimaging studies. Prof. Signy Sheldon, Psychology |
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Sociology
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Taarini Andlay: Women’s employment and ideas about the family in Nepal Taarini Andlay is a second-year students majoring in International Development and minoring in Art History. She will be working with Professor Brauner-Otto to investigate the relationship between female labour force participation in Nepal and shifts in family related norms and attitudes. Curious about social dynamics operating in South Asia and the gendered dimensions of development, this opportunity will help Taarini advance her academic and professional knowledge and skills in the field of development. Prof. Sarah Brauner-Otto, Sociology
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Leonardo Cai : The Impact of Work-Family Conflict on the Mental Health of Children and Parents Following the COVID-19 Pandemic Leonardo Cai is a fourth-year student pursuing a double major in Sociology and Mathematics. He is interested in applying quantitative skills to analyze health problems and policies. This summer, Leonardo would be joining Professor Amélie Quesnel-Vallée’s research team to work on a project focusing on the mental health of children and parents during the Covid-19 pandemic. He looks forward to contributing to the study and better understanding such a relevant issue of the times. Prof. Amélie Quesnel-Vallée’s, Sociology
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Henry Fletcher : Overcoming Insider-Outsider Divides in Social Movements: The 1970s Strike Wave in the United States and Canada Henry is a third year Faculty of Arts student doing a Joint Honours is Sociology and Environment. He spent the first 16 years of his life in Zurich, Switzerland, after which he moved to London, UK, and finally made his way to McGill in the summer of 2020. Henry holds three citizenships (German, Swiss, and Canadian) and feels very comfortable in McGill’s international student body. He looks forward to conducting research this summer under the supervision of Prof. Barry Eidlin. Prof. Barry Eidlin, Sociology |
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Selena Martineau : The Interaction Between Childcare Responsibilities and Stave-Level Policies on Rural Employment rates Selena is a U2 student majoring in Economics and minoring in Sociology and Psychology. She will be working as a research assistant this summer to study the gender effects of COVID on childcare in urban and rural areas. Selena is passionate about studying development inequalities, and views this research position as an opportunity to develop her interests as it pertains to the world’s current state of affairs. Prof. Shelley Clark, Sociology |
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Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies
Mathematics and Statistics
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Othmane Oukrid: Ring puzzles and Moebius—Kantor complexes Othmane will be working this summer under the supervision of Prof. Pichot to hopefully make progress on the classification of ring puzzles associated with Moebius—Kantor Complexes. These arise naturally in geometric group theory, a field of mathematics which typically studies algebraic objects through geometric objects associated with them. Through this project, Othmane hopes to deepen his understanding of the topic and get a sense of what research in mathematics entails. Prof. Mikael Pichot, Mathematics and Statistics |
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Visual Art Collection, Library and Archives
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Alexis Janssen : Diversity of Expression in Femina at the Musée du Québec. Alexis (he/him) is a fourth-year honours student in art history. Born in Montreal, he studied anthropology and later international politics before turning to art history. He is mainly interested in bringing new approaches to the study of post-war Quebec art (post-colonial, critical race, and feminist theories). He is hoping to undertake an M.A. in art history after finishing his undergraduate degree. His ARIA will allow him to work with the McGill VAC during the summer. Gwendolyn Owens , Visual Art Collection, Library and Archives |
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