The Carleton community came together on April 9 to celebrate student research and collaborative teaching projects at the 2025 I-CUREUS and SaPP Showcase.
The annual event provides an opportunity for students who participated in the Internship-Carleton University Research Experience for Undergraduate Students (I-CUREUS) and Students as Partners Program (SaPP) to share their work and celebrate their achievements.
This year, 144 undergraduate students participated in these two experiential learning programs, building their communication, teamwork and research skills, and applying their disciplinary knowledge in an impactful way.
I-CUREUS
Students in I-CUREUS conduct research in their program or an area of interest. In the process, they build connections and gain exposure to research techniques. This year’s participants worked on a range of projects, including exploring outdoor learning in Canadian schools and using yeast to investigate the genetics of a rare childhood disease.
Engingeering student Talha Nawaz presenting his poster at the 2025 I-CUREUS and SaPP Showcase.
Talha Nawaz, a fourth-year student in aerospace engineering, worked with Prof. Jeremy Laliberté to analyze data and develop a simulation model that can predict the fuel weight onboard an aircraft, providing insight into flight efficiency.
He says the showcase has provided a great opportunity for him to practice conveying the details of his project to people who don’t necessarily have engineering backgrounds, and highlighting the human impact of his work.
After participating in I-CUREUS, Nawaz says he’s now considering a master’s program to pursue more research, adding that he appreciates the connections he’s been able to build through the program.
“It started off with sitting in my supervisor’s research meetings and I was just listening, trying to absorb what was going on and thinking about what I can do,” he says. “Then slowly, bit by bit, I met all these different people. Now I’m talking to a bunch of people that are working at places where I want to work.”
Tracy Li presenting her project at the 2025 I-CUREUS and SaPP Showcase.
Tracy Li, a third-year industrial design student, worked with Prof. Steven Pong to explore the potential of using data to generate patterns and drive design, rather than traditional cultural or aesthetic influences. As part of a case study, they used a bar graph as the basis to design a coffee table that was inspired by a summer cottage experience by the lake.
“Design is such a personal, subjective sector,” she says. “This is really such a different way of thinking to try to make design systematic. That in itself seems like such an oxymoron and that’s a really neat exploration.”
Li says she’s had some experience with more traditional research, such as systematic reviews, but really wanted a tangible end product, and in her initial discussions with Prof. Pong, she found he was on board.
“I-CUREUS gave me the opportunity to complete a different type of research that I didn’t know was possible, but it became a lot more meaningful that way,” she says. “This was the best-case scenario for me – having a supervisor that’s so supportive and really aligned with the things that I wanted and having an opportunity to present my work afterwards is really meaningful.”
SaPP
Students in SaPP gain hands-on work experience by collaborating with instructors, librarians and teaching support staff on course design. This year’s participants worked on projects that included developing a handbook to support first-year students in navigating the academic publishing process, creating a database of templates for teaching assistants to draw from when running tutorials, and redesigning assessments to optimize learning.
Matteo Montgomery, a third-year student in neuroscience and mental health, partnered with Prof. Ashley Thompson on a Brightspace module designed to teach undergraduate students in STEM courses about stress, coping and academic resilience.
“A lot of people come at stress as just this negative thing you have to power through. The big idea is reframing what stress is and letting them understand what is actually going on in their bodies and in their brains when they’re stressed,” he says. “With all that knowledge they can just be more aware of their own responses and different responses that they could make.”
Third-year student Matteo Montgomery presenting at the 2025 I-CUREUS and SaPP Showcase.
Montgomery says his experience in SaPP gave him the chance to explore his strong interests in both pedagogy and research, adding that he was able to develop different skills simultaneously, from leadership and time management to data analysis and public speaking.
“I think it was gaining so many different, almost unrelated skills, all in one project that I’m very grateful for,” he says.
Browse through the showcase program to learn more about the projects presented at this year’s event.
