NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards 2025 Recipients

About the Award

The Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA) are meant to stimulate a student’s interest in research in the natural sciences and engineering. Students work closely together with eligible FASS faculty that can supervise their research. The awards are also meant to encourage students to undertake graduate studies and pursue a research career in these fields.

2025 Recipients

Leah Marshall
Supervisor: Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre (Department of Cognitive Science, Psychology)

In this summer project, I will investigate how preschool-aged children understand number and quantity. I started this project as part of my honours thesis work and I’m excited to continue building on this research. Over the summer, I will visit local early learning centres to collect additional data, deepening and expanding the scope of my study.

About Leah’s Project:
Cardinality is the understanding of the purpose of counting. To assess this conceptual knowledge, however, we need to have children show us what they know. Leah will assist in developing and testing measures of cardinality with preschool children.  Leah will also explore rational number arithmetic among adults to better understand how rational numbers (like fractions and percentages) are used in everyday situations.

Bella Mouchet

Supervisor: Dr. Derek Mueller (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies)

Being a student in environmental science and growing up in Whitehorse, Yukon, I am particularly interested in studying Northern Canada and the Arctic. I am looking forward to being part of an ongoing long-term investigation of ice-ocean-atmosphere processes on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience conducting research in the Arctic and hope to learn lots!

From Dr. Derek Mueller

Bella is looking at one of Canada’s most northerly glaciers to see how glacier ice is being impacted by relatively warm meltwater flowing under the ice and out to the ocean.  She wants to see where and how this meltwater is carving its way into the ice using Ice Penetrating Radar (IPR).  We hope this technology will reveal the shape of channels at the bed of the glacier which we have inferred are present from our observations of rising plumes of freshwater in the fjord where the glacier starts to float off its bed.  This research will reveal how warming air temperatures affect the base of polar marine terminating glaciers and will help us better understand processes related to sea level rise in our rapidly-changing world.

Remote sensing is an important part of Geomatics, and one that I have very much enjoyed exploring in my studies. I had a great experience as a co-op student in Dr. Millard’s lab last summer, so I’m very glad to have the opportunity to continue there. I look forward to learning about salt marshes and getting hands-on experience with remote sensing techniques and machine learning.

About Vincent’s Project:

By combining drone surveys, satellite imagery, and advanced machine learning, the project will generate detailed maps to monitor wetland extent and condition over time. Through cutting-edge remote sensing and field data collection, this research will develop scalable tools that can be used to explore wetland carbon dynamics and support conservation efforts.

Samantha Gouthro
Supervisor: Dr. Kasia Muldner (Department of Cognitive Science)