UT–St George
UTSG 01 | Hülya Arik | Mapping Creative Geographies of Islam in Toronto’s Visual Art Scene
This project examines the politics of Islamic art and Muslim creativity in Toronto, the largest hub of Muslim life in North America. Student RAs will collect and organize publicly available data on art events, exhibitions, and institutions that have featured Muslim artists or Islamic themes since 2001. Using a defined set of keywords, they will search gallery and museum websites, compile metadata (artists, titles, venues, dates, curators, themes), and write brief descriptive summaries. While most research will be conducted online, occasional field trips to galleries or museums may be organized, depending on availability. The collected data will be used to produce an interactive map tracing Muslim and Islam-affiliated creative practices in Toronto over time.
UTSG 02 | Nadia Caidi & Simon Coleman | Securitizing the Sacred: Mapping Pilgrimage Mobilities, Data Justice, and Transnational Governance
We examine issues of data justice—how the production of digital data renders certain groups visible—and mobility that underpin socio-technical infrastructures of religious journeying. We will create the first map of data governance strategies at major pilgrimage sites around the world. Student RAs will be trained in digital mapping (ARCGiS) and will gather data policies connected with different pilgrimage sites from various religious traditions. The research team will use collaborative mapping to analyze data governance across pilgrimage settings, and draft recommendations for various stakeholders. No previous expertise is required for this project, which moves across information science, geography, anthropology, sociology, law, religious studies, and data librarianship.
UTSG 03 | Ronald Deibert & Emile Dirks | Biometric and Digital IDs in the Global South
Governments and private companies around the world are implementing new biometric and digital identification programs, with troubling implications for human rights. While many ID tools are designed in the Global North, those most impacted are often people from the Global South. To explore the rights impacts of these ID programs, student RAs will explore fascinating case studies about particular identification tools used in key Global South countries. This research will inform future public facing Citizen Lab outputs, including research reports and submissions to government and UN offices. Students interested in technology and human rights are encouraged to apply.
UTSG 04 | Michael Donnelly | Following the Money: Mapping Networks of Influence in Government Contracting
Who are the people and companies behind billions in government contracts, and how are they connected to our political life? This project maps how money and influence flow through Canadian government contracting awards. Students will build a biographical network linking public contract records to the companies that win them—their directors, owners, and connections to government officials—by examining contract filings, lobbying reports, and donation records. They will receive training with introductory, pre-built Python/R workflows, while acquiring skills used by investigative journalists. This dataset will serve as a public resource for researchers investigating government accountability, with student contributors acknowledged on the project’s website.
UTSG 05 | Ewan Dunbar & Naomi Nagy | Building an Audio Corpus of Franco-Provençal
This project contributes to a larger effort to make Franco-Provençal—an endangered Romance language—more accessible for research and community use. We combine linguistics and computational tools: student RAs will help harmonize and annotate audio recordings from several dialects of Franco-Provençal, develop a phonetically based transcription system, and optionally assist in building an automatic speech recognition tool. Tasks include reviewing metadata, organizing recordings, and applying transcription conventions. Training will be provided for technical aspects, but a background in linguistics is important. Familiarity with French or Italian is desirable; Python or R skills are a bonus. Students gain experience in language documentation and speech technology.
UTSG 06 | Angela Esterhammer | John Galt’s Short Stories: Scotland and Beyond
Student RAs will be involved in a large international project to publish a critical edition of the works of John Galt, a popular and prolific fiction writer of the Romantic period. We will focus on editing Galt’s short stories, which span themes of travel, gothic, humour, political satire, and history, in settings from Galt’s native Scotland to Asia and Greenland. By researching annotations, fact-checking, proofreading, and working with Galt’s manuscripts and first editions, students will gain experience in scholarly editing and publishing. Background in nineteenth-century literature is useful; history, anthropology, and psychology are relevant; essential qualifications are accuracy and enthusiasm.
UTSG 07 | Beyhan Farhadi | Mapping the Policy Landscape of EdTech Surveillance in Canadian Schools
Student RAs will analyze a wide range of educational technologies to explore how ideas about safety, risk, and behaviour are shaped by power, inequality, and institutional authority. These narratives may further normalize harm, exclusion, or control in schools. Working collaboratively, students will identify patterns across provinces and trace how surveillance practices can reproduce or challenge oppression and inequity in public education. No prior research experience is required—training will be provided. Students with interests in education, technology, policy, equity, media, and social justice are especially encouraged to apply. Students may have an opportunity to contribute to knowledge mobilization, working with a community partner to translate research findings into accessible public-facing resources.
UTSG 08 | Georges Farhat | Reconstructing Drawing Practices in 16th-Century Architectural & Topographical Views
This project should appeal to students of all fields concerned with spatial representations. It involves the reconstruction and performance of historical drawing techniques employed in the architectural and topographical views created by the architect Du Cerceau (1511–85). Student RAs will probe and reenact the practice of perspective in these views. They should have some prior knowledge of perspective. They will work in a physical setting and with instruments approaching historical conditions of image making that contrast with our digital means and space. Along the way, RAs will document this research process in written notes, photographs, videos, and slideshows.
UTSG 09 | Julie Garlen | Born to be Viral: Constructing Childhood in the Age of “Sharenting”
The meteoric rise of social media has normalized “Sharenting,” the widespread sharing of children’s intimate lives online. This project will use social media analysis to explore how “momfluencers” are representing childhood in North American contexts. Each student RA will select two popular Instagram influencers and analyze the content of their most liked reels. Researchers will learn how to transcribe social media data, use thematic analysis to generate codes and themes, and work collaboratively to identify common themes. Applicants should be active social media users and have an interest in childhood, children’s rights, mothering, education, family studies, and/or a related area.
UTSG 10 | Adam Cohen & Jessica Mace | Canada’s Synagogues: An Architectural Survey
This project is dedicated to documenting, researching, and disseminating information about synagogue architecture across Canada. Students will learn to undertake archival research (Ontario Jewish Archives, City of Toronto Archives, etc.); assist with digitizing and organizing information for a public database; compile secondary-source research; conduct site visits to complete photo-documentation; and engage with community stakeholders. Training will be provided. Student RAs will develop academic and professional skills, and deepen their understanding of the built environment of the country. Students interested in any of the following are encouraged to apply: art history, architecture, Canadian history, urban studies, Jewish studies, or digital humanities.
UTSG 11 | Amira Mittermaier | Lived Theologies during the Gaza Genocide
This project focuses on lived Islamic theologies in Gaza post-October 7. It seeks to examine how Gazan Muslims have been thinking about God and practicing Islam at a time of unfathomable destruction and loss. The project is supervised by an anthropologist with extensive research experience in Egypt and assisted by two research assistants who have been conducting interviews with Gazan refugees in Cairo and Toronto. The SiR team will contribute to the project by analyzing Gazan theological reflections in social media sources since October 2023. Some familiarity with anthropology, religious studies, and/or Islamic Studies is welcome but not required. Proficiency in Arabic will be a key asset.
UTSG 12 | Jennifer Mori | Data Visualizations of Subjectivity in Eighteenth Century English Songbooks
This project investigates expressions of selfhood and feeling in the lyrics of eighteenth-century English popular songs by utilizing the tools of Gale Cengage's Digital Scholar Lab. Pop songs then, as now, shed important light upon a society's morals and concerns, particularly on the subjects of family, sex, leisure, ethnicity, class, gender and political identity. Comparatively little is known about how these were perceived by ordinary people, as opposed to the wealthy and educated. Students with backgrounds in music, drama, poetry, and/or history are encouraged to apply; knowledge of Python is also desirable. Additional training in data visualization, archival, and historical research will be provided.
UTSG 13 | Siobhan O’Flynn | Red Teaming GenAI Chatbots
This project examines the unregulated industry of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbots. Students will use the adversarial testing method, “red teaming,” to probe large language models (LLMs) for what a recent lawsuit has termed “high risk anthropomorphic design,” referencing product liability. We will conduct open-ended testing with commercial online chatbots within designed parameters to identify the existence or not of guardrails, biases, and problematic content in specific scenarios. Key to this project will be documentation of the GenAI output and research activities will build on our findings. Current regulatory frameworks in Canada, the EU, and the US will provide context to vet the ethics and risks of AI products. No specific prior experience or research background is required. Familiarity with fan fiction will be most welcome.
UTSG 14 | Cillian O’Hogan | Manuscript Traces: Tracking a Latin Author across the Middle Ages
This project invites student RAs to work with medieval manuscripts and early printed books. RAs will collaborate to identify and describe digitized manuscripts of the Latin poet Prudentius, compile bibliographical data, and search manuscript catalogues for previously unrecorded copies. Rotating mini projects will explore topics such as provenance, medieval biography, illumination, vernacular annotations, and early printing. Latin is desirable but not required; training will be provided in manuscript research and working with special collections (including those at UofT). Knowledge of one or more of French, Italian, German, or Spanish is an asset.
UTSG 15 | Katharine Rankin | “Settings” of Corruption: Situating Logics of Ethical Judgment in Nepal
[Description pending]
UTSG 16 | Nidhi Subramanyam | Livelihoods and Justice in Indian Water and Waste Social Enterprises
This project examines how Indian social enterprises in the water and waste sector frame “livelihood development” and address caste- and gender-based inequalities, identifying exemplary models for just livelihoods. Student RAs will map the sector by building a database of enterprises, collecting and reviewing public documents, and extracting key fields and livelihood goals into spreadsheets. They will also support key informant interviews, code livelihood and inclusion narratives in NVivo, and prepare summaries of exemplary archetypes. Strong reading, writing, and communication competencies, attention to detail, and file/spreadsheet management skills are essential and interest in debates at the nexus of equity, growth, and development is desirable. Qualitative data analysis experience is helpful but not required (training will be provided).
UTSG 17 | Luis van Isschot | Displaced Truths: Colombian-Canadian Exile Experiences of Transitional Justice
While much has been written about the impacts of truth and reconciliation commissions, we know little about the experiences of truth-telling on the part of people living in exile. This public history project uses community-based archival and oral history methods to look into the Canadian-based work of the Colombian Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition, or CEV. Colombians represent the second largest group of Latin American immigrants to Canada, and the largest number of refugees from the region. Knowledge of Latin American and Canadian history, experience conducting oral interviews, and proficiency in Spanish would be welcome assets.
UTSG 18 | Luca Zamparini | Mapping TIFF’s Programming History and Global Film Circulation
This project examines how the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has shaped the circulation and visibility of global cinema in Canada and North America. Working with original archival materials at the TIFF Film Reference Library, student RAs will analyze festival catalogues, press files, and programming records to examine how filmmakers, genres, and national cinemas were disseminated, canonized, or marginalized within festival culture. Student RAs will receive training in archival research, film festival studies, and digital humanities. They will collaborate to create interactive maps and datasets that visualize TIFF’s programming history and international film flows over time.
UT–Mississauga
UTM 01 | Heather Miller | Investigating Ancient Technologies of Record-keeping and Writing
This research project on how people recorded information and the materials they used is outlined here. Our focus is archaeological, but other disciplines (history, art history, conservation, etc.) are highly relevant. The project consists of four “aspects”, with current research focused on information collection and creation of a well-documented database with thoughtful annotations by project members of academic texts, popular texts, and relevant websites and videos. This database will allow project members to search for information across genres, time periods, and world areas. Additionally, in May 2026 we will conduct hands-on experimental studies using replica Roman wax tablets.
UTM 02 | Samuel Pizelo | The Genealogy of Game Design Grammars
For this project, you will play different video games from the 1970s-1990s to trace the development of modeling techniques in the games themselves and how these relate to computer simulations in the sciences and in the military. The Syd Bolton collection at UTM contains over 100 different games that are interesting for understanding how games and these other kinds of simulation coevolved. In addition to analyzing these games and related documents, student RAs will employ a tagging schema to help categorize different “grammars” present in the games and simulations.
UTM 03 | Jeffrey Steele | Cognitive Individual Differences in the Second Language Acquisition of French
Second-language acquisition is characterized by a high degree of interlearner variation. This project seeks to determine how cognitive individual differences, including aptitude, metalinguistic awareness, and working memory, as well as grammatical and vocabulary knowledge, explain differences in the acquisition of French among adult learners. Based on individual skill sets including existing abilities in quantitative and/or qualitative analysis, and personal interests, student RAs will work on the preparation and analysis of L2 grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and/or writing data. Intermediate or higher French proficiency is required. Training in linguistics, statistics, and/or computer programming applied to language analysis is a plus.
UTM 04 | Jonathan Vroom | Exploring what ChatGPT Summarizes from the Sources it Cites
This project will explore what ChatGPT (basic, plus, and pro) tends to summarize from the sources it cites, particularly sources that follow the Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion (IMRD) format. This will involve: 1) using AI to generate sample literature reviews on topics related to the student RA’s disciplines; and 2) looking up every cited IMRD source and determining what ChatGPT is summarizing from them (e.g., a source’s main findings, method, purpose statement, etc.). Student researchers will therefore need to have skills related to finding and reading IMRD-style research sources. Experience with and knowledge of ChatGPT will also be an asset.
UTM 05 | Kathi Wilson | Long COVID Impacts Among Racialized Communities and Community-level Responses in Peel Region
This community-based project generates knowledge on the unequal impacts of long COVID among racialized immigrants and racialized non-immigrants in the Peel Region, while examining how community organizations and governments can develop inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist interventions. Student RAs will receive training in social research methods and gain hands-on experience supporting deliberative dialogues and in-depth interviews with people who have lived experience of long COVID. Additional responsibilities include recruitment, transcription, and qualitative data coding. Beyond the formal SiR timeline, students will be supported to present findings at local conferences and contribute as co-authors to publications arising from the research.
UT–Scarborough
UTSC 01 | Christopher Cochrane | The Digitization of Canada’s Founding Debates (1867–1871)
This project uses new technology to extend the digital record of parliamentary debates back into the earliest years of Confederation. It is easy to romanticize the past as a time of gentle, consensus-driven politics, contrasting it with the polarized present. However, pre-Confederation politics were frequently vicious; only after Confederation did parliamentary debate begin to stabilize and adopt a more disciplined tone. By recovering the founding debates from 1867 to 1871 in a usable form, students and scholars can test that story: they will see how casually power once spoke about domination, how what we now call “technocratic” issues (e.g., federalism, immigration) were framed through assumptions about civilization, moral authority, and how norms of civility and partisanship were negotiated and contested. Student RAs will learn and apply methods from the fields of digital humanities and natural language processing.
UTSC 02 | Jeri English | The Intersectional Monstrous-Feminine: Gender and Monstrosity Across Film Cultures
This SiR project will examine the figure of the monstrous-feminine in film. We will explore how cinema imagines women and gender-nonconforming bodies as sites of danger, excess, abjection, or transformative power. Student RAs will source, index and analyze several films (or selected scenes), creating analytical entries; contribute to the shared data tagging schema; conduct literature reviews on relevant concepts (e.g., abjection, embodiment, monstrous motherhood, gynaehorror); and participate in group discussions on the intersections of gender with other positionalities – nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, dis/ability – in the creation of the monstrous-feminine across different cinemas. Students from all Humanities or Social Sciences disciplines are encouraged to apply; students must bring headphones and a laptop.
UTSC 03 | Patricia Landolt | Suburban Monumentalism: Hidden Histories in Scarborough’s Landscape
This project examines how everyday suburban spaces shape public memory and power. In Scarborough, over fifty small historical plaques repeat stories of “ordinary settlers” transforming wilderness into community. Though modest and dispersed, these signs perform powerful memory work by normalizing settler conquest and obscuring Indigenous sovereignty. Student RAs will conduct site visits to photograph and transcribe plaques, record locations and metadata, and build a shared database. Students will analyze plaque texts alongside local history books, Crown patent records, treaty transcripts, code recurring narratives, and contribute to GIS or StoryMap visualizations.
UTSC 04 | Alison Mountz | Border Stories: Researching Asylum Seeking along the 49th Parallel
Scholars will collect and analyze qualitative data from people who recently entered Canada to assemble border stories based on oral histories that explain border-crossings for a general audience. Students will learn to conduct oral histories to gather stories, working alongside community partners and refugee lawyers collaborating with the PI and Haven Lab. They will collaborate to share these stories through public-facing platforms designed for storytelling, such as podcasts, data drops, and blogs. Scholars will join a global network working along the Canada-US border to bring lived experiences into conversations about public policies governing human migration, with an emphasis on asylum-seeking.
UTSC 05 | Guldana Salimjan | Digitizing Settler Colonial Histories in China’s Northwestern Frontier
Student RAs will work on a digital humanities project that documents the history of paramilitary garrison towns in China’s northwestern frontier through state-produced gazetteers. RAs will digitize, index, translate tables of contents, and tag Chinese-language sources; build searchable metadata; and contribute to an interactive map and timeline. Students will practice source criticism and discourse analysis to examine how colonial governance, security, and land reclamation are represented in state texts. Fluency in reading Mandarin Chinese and academic English is required. Experience with digital humanities tools, data management, or archival work is highly desirable.