Undergraduate Summer Research Awards

Are you interested in participating in leading edge research and gaining research experience during the summer?
The Faculty of Engineering is currently accepting applications for 2025 Undergraduate Summer Research Awards!

Undergraduate summer research provide opportunities for undergraduate student to obtain research experience during the summer months (May-August), and stimulates research interests in the natural sciences and engineering fields. They also motivate and encourage students to pursue graduate studies in these fields.

These summer research awards provide financial support for students to gain research experience by conducting research work at the university under the supervision of a faculty member.

Western and the Faculty of Engineering are committed to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization. As part of this commitment, we will consider diversity of the awardees to provide opportunities for Black, Indigenous, students of colour, students that identify as LGTBQ2S+, women, visible minorities, and students with disabilities.

Award Duration: 16 consecutive weeks (May-August) on a full-time basis.

Award Value: $7,500 minimum (amount varies by type of award)

Application Deadline: Monday, January 27th, 2025. Recipients of these awards are expected to be selected and notified by early March, 2025.

What you need to apply:

A Supervisor. This person must be a faculty member in the Faculty of Engineering with active research in an area you are interested in. Not sure who to contact or where to start looking? Please review our list of available opportunities, or reach out to faculty members whose research interests you! You must have the agreement of a faculty supervisor before submitting an application.

An Application. Students wishing to participate in any Summer Research opportunity in Engineering must complete a single application to be considered for all opportunities. All applicants will be considered for all Undergraduate Summer Research Awards, provided you satisfy all eligibility requirements for each award opportunity.

APPLY HERE!

The deadline for your undergraduate summer research application is Monday, January 27^th, 2025.
Late applications cannot be considered.

Undergraduate Student Research Awards

NSERC USRA

To be eligible to apply for an award, you must:

be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada as of the deadline date for applications at the institution;
be registered, as of the deadline date for applications at the institution, in a bachelor's degree program at an eligible institution;
have obtained, over the current and previous year of study, a cumulative average of a B+ (78%).

In addition:

If you already hold a bachelor's degree and are studying toward a second bachelor's degree, you may still apply for this award.
You may hold only one USRA per fiscal year.
You may hold a maximum of three USRAs throughout your undergraduate university career.

To hold an award, you must:

have completed all the course requirements of at least the first year of university study (or two academic terms) of your bachelor's degree;
have been registered in at least one of the two terms immediately before holding the award in a bachelor's degree program at an eligible institution;
not have started a program of graduate studies in the natural sciences or engineering at any time;
be engaged on a full-time basis in research and development activities in the natural sciences or engineering during the tenure of the award;
NSERC will no longer require professors to hold an active grant when applying to
supervise a USRA student. NSERC considers anyone who is authorized by their
university to independently supervise students to be an eligible supervisor.

Value: The minimum value of the award is $8,680 (NSERC Award $6,000 + Supervisor's contribution (min. $2,680). Students often receive more than the minimum award.

Part-time hours and vacation leave will not be approved.

Western Undergraduate Summer Research Internship

Description:

A student award provided by Western Research
Same value as NSERC USRA (minimum $8,680)
Program is similar to NSERC USRA, enhanced by additional professional development opportunities hosted by Student Experience and Western Libraries

Eligibility:

Canadian Citizens/ Permanent Residents, and International students are considered
Registered full-time student in the term immediately before the award
Do not hold higher degrees in natural science or engineering
Have obtained, over the current and previous year of study, a cumulative average of a B- (70%).
Have not begun a graduate program prior to tenure of award
Not enrolled in an undergrad professional degree (M.D., D.D.S., B.Sc.N.

For more information on USRI programming, please visit: USRI - Research Western - Western University (uwo.ca).

Dean's Award

Same requirements as NSERC USRA, but

Open to both Domestic and International Students
Have obtained, over the current and previous year of study, a cumulative average of a B- (70%).

Value: The minimum value of the award is $7,500 (Faculty Award $3,650 + Supervisor's contribution (min. $3,650). Students often receive more than the minimum award.

Student Research Awards (SRA)

Same requirements and value as NSERC USRA, but

Open to both Domestic and International Students we-researchandgrad@uwo.ca.
No minimum average

Value: The minimum value of the award is $7,500, which is contributed by the supervisor. Students often receive more than the minimum award.

Bill & Barbara Etherington Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Awarded to the top 4 undergraduate summer research applicants in ECE with a minimum average of 80% in their last academic year.

Value: $10,000

Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory (CSSL) Internships

The Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory (CSSL) Internship Program offers a unique opportunity for students passionate about atmospheric science, severe weather, GIS, engineering, computer science, and field research. Our program is designed to provide hands-on experience and research skills through three specialized internships, each focusing on different aspects of severe weather in Canada. The internships are ideal for students looking to gain practical field experience or delve into research on severe weather phenomena like tornadoes and hail.

Value: $10,000 CAD

Eligibility:
• Canadian citizen, international student, or permanent resident
• Registered student at a university, college, or high school (and will still be enrolled in an academic program in September 2025).
• Be available from May 5 – August 29, 2025 (university, college), or from July 7 – August 29, 2025 (high school).
• Able to attend one of the two mandatory information sessions.

Dates and times for these information sessions are:

• January 8th, 2025 – 12:30-1:30PM (EST) – Zoom
Registration: https://westernuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqd-CsqjouEtDFoaZeq9QJB2BD2upvs--u
Passcode: CSSL2025

• January 23rd, 2025 – 7:00PM-8:00PM (EST) – Zoom
Registration: https://westernuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwqf-GqqDwrEtwRyhU8iOuWZOlsOkddAIH_
Passcode: CSSL2025

Please visit https://uwo.ca/cssl/internships/index.html for more information about the internships.

Frugal Biomedical Summer Research Internships

Description: Students will apply the principles of frugal innovation to design, prototype, and test biomedical technologies intended for use in low-resource settings in Northern Canadian communities and/or sub-Saharan Africa. Frugal innovation is an emerging paradigm in engineering that emphasizes equity and sustainability in technology development. For biomedical applications, frugal innovation leads to devices that can be used effectively in regions with shortages of specialist personnel, maintained with limited access to replacement components, and function reliably in the absence of reliable power or other infrastructure.

• Program includes a weekly Summer Student Seminar Series hosted by Robarts Research Institute, which covers a mixture of scientific and professional development topics, and a monthly Frugal Biomedical Innovations Seminar Series on Zoom that facilitates interaction external collaborators.

Eligibility: $9,632 (Summer 2025). Open to Canadian Citizens, Permanent Residents, and International Students. Have obtained, over the current and previous year of study, a cumulative average of B- (70%).

Descriptions of eligible projects will be available by the end of 2024. You may apply to multiple projects with a single application submission.

More information about the work being done in Frugal Biomedical Innovations at Western can be found here.

Resources:

Notes:

An external applicant (from another University) can apply for an USRA at Western University. The applicant applies through Western, needs to meet the USRA criteria, as well as any Engineering specific criteria. The applicant must upload an official transcript and university legend with their application. Please note that NSERC has discontinued any travel allowances they used to provide.

Below you will find a listing of available projects for Undergraduate Summer Research in 2025. This page is updated regularly as project information is received by the Graduate Office. This is not a comprehensive list of all opportunities, so please feel free to reach out to other faculty members on your own to explore your options!

Department	Faculty Member	Email Address	Project Summary
CBE	Jose Herrera	jherrer3@uwo.ca	Optimization of catalytic technology to produce renewable transportation fuels. The student will be part of a team developing reaction engineering strategies to produce chemical platform molecules using renewable feedstocks (bio-syngas, bio-methanol, bio-ethanol). Specifically designing, characterizing, and testing selected catalytic formulations based on metal oxides.
CBE	Dominic Pjontek	dpjontek@uwo.ca	Integrated Carbon Dioxide Capture and Conversion to Methanol: This research topic aims to develop a novel, integrated process for capturing carbon dioxide and converting it into methanol, a valuable chemical commodity. By utilizing the heat released during the reaction and combining the capture solvent with the reactor, we can significantly reduce energy consumption and costs compared to traditional carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. You will have the opportunity to synthesize and evaluate various catalyst-solvent combinations in a high-pressure reactor system to optimize performance and efficiency.
CBE	Lauren Flynn	lauren.flynn@uwo.ca	Design of cell-based therapies harnessing cell-instructive biomaterials derived from the extracellular matrix to guide vascular regeneration and wound healing.
CEE	Bing Li	bing.li@uwo.ca	Statistical and machine learning analysis of earthquakes induced by geologic carbon storage
CEE	Bing Li	bing.li@uwo.ca	Numerical modelling of rock fall hazards
CEE	Bing Li	bing.li@uwo.ca	Data collection and statistical/machine learning analysis of climate change data for rock slope stability analysis
CEE	Bing Li	bing.li@uwo.ca	Permafrost experiments for foundations of small modular nuclear reactors
CEE	Jin Wang	jwan2225@uwo.ca	Title: Risk Assessment of Structures subjected to Tornadoes Description: The wood-framed low-rise buildings are vulnerable in extreme wind events, such as tornadoes. This project will develop a framework to conduct the risk assessment of these structures under tornadoes. The wind tunnel testing and statistical analysis will be included in the project.
ECE	Elvis Chen	chene@robarts.ca	Image-guided intervention for minimally invasive surgeries relies on real-time medical imaging, such as interventional ultrasound, as a surrogate for human vision to visualize and localize surgical targets (e.g., tumours) and monitor the advancement of surgical instruments (i.e., the insertion of needles into deep tissues). However, the quality of the acquired images, and hence their usefulness to the interventionalist, heavily depends on the operator's competency and skill. This is particularly problematic for remote areas, such as rural Canada or space stations, where skilled operators are not readily available. In this project, the student will work with a state-of-the-art 7-Degrees-of-Freedom robot with torque sensors to implement an autonomous medical robotic system for 3D ultrasound capability to assist interventionalists in their delivery of ultrasound-guided surgical interventions. If successful, this project will have significant clinical applications. The selected student will have the opportunity to work directly with clinicians. Only top students with background in robotic manipulators and machine learning will be considered.
ECE	Katarina Grolinger	kgroling@uwo.ca	Multiple positions are available in machine learning for IoT and sensing systems: Personalized federated learning: Addressing challenges of heterogeneity across clients while maintaining privacy. Adversarial attacks on federated learning: examining behaviour of federated learning under malicious attempts to compromise the integrity, privacy, or performance of federated learning systems. Machine learning for Knee Osteoarthritis: examining the relationship between the gait cycle and the perceived pain levels through machine learning.
ECE	Michael Naish	mnaish@uwo.ca	Functional tremor management app for the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of patients with functional tremor. The app will integrate with an IMU worn on the patient's hand and feature real-time tremor frequency visualization and biofeedback mechanisms, to help patients reduce tremor frequency through auditory (metronome) and visual (frequency plot) cues. Development will be in collaboration with a movement disorders specialist.
ECE	Joshua Pearce	joshua.pearce@uwo.ca	Multiple positions for the Free Appropriate Sustainability Technology (FAST) Research Group - top performing students (average >80%) in mechatronics and associated technical skills with interest in: • developing solar photovoltaic technology and open source robotics/AI/ML to automate tasks in the world's first Agrivoltaic Agrotunnel ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5p9svHHdc) to grow food and medicinal plants • developing open source distributed additive manufacturing systems including smart 3D printers, cable robots and recyclebots to recycle waste into high value 3D printed products • developing open source bioreactors for distributed manufacturing of low-cost medications (e.g. insulin) and resilient food production
MME	Hamidreza Abdolvand	hamid.abdolvand@uwo.ca	High temperature deformation and fracture of nickel superalloys for small modular nuclear reactors.
MME	Hamidreza Abdolvand	hamid.abdolvand@uwo.ca	Deformation and fracture of zirconium and hydrides for CANDU nuclear reactors.
MME	Hamidreza Abdolvand	hamid.abdolvand@uwo.ca	Mechanics of advanced nuclear fuels.
MME	Hamidreza Abdolvand	hamid.abdolvand@uwo.ca	The application of machine learning algorithms for determining fundamental materials properties.
MME	Louis Ferreira	lferreir@uwo.ca	Full-field strain characterization of 3D-printed bone with high-resolution micro-CT scanning and digital volume correlation
MME	Louis Ferreira	lferreir@uwo.ca	Robotic control of an in-vitro human joint loading system for micro-CT imaging with strain field measurement
MME	Louis Ferreira	lferreir@uwo.ca	Robotic bone machining for craniofacial reconstruction
MME	Elli Gkouti	egkouti@uwo.ca	Design and build a clinostat equipment with an embedded extrusion tool. Simulate the extrusion process in a microgravity/zero-gravity environment.
MME	Elli Gkouti	egkouti@uwo.ca	3D printed magnetic shape shifters. Printed composite structures with embedded magnets that can change their shape with the wave of a magnet.
MME	Elli Gkouti	egkouti@uwo.ca	Developing magneto-active material-based nano-sensors using electrospinning technique.
MME	Elli Gkouti	egkouti@uwo.ca	Developing microstructure image datasets using optical imaging and performing advanced preprocessing to train deep learning convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for smart defect detection in magnetoactive composites.
MME	Kamran Siddiqui	ksiddiq@uwo.ca	Thermal energy storage: A steadily increasing energy demand and a continued reliance on fossil fuels in the foreseeable future make it now more important than ever to take action to prevent further climate change. A thermal energy storage is a promising approach to increase energy conservation and increase reliance of renewable solar energy. Despite its promising nature, there are practical challenges that still prevents their widespread use. This project is focused on experimental investigations to study the performance of a thermal energy storage and its potential application in a practical system.
MME	Kamran Siddiqui	ksiddiq@uwo.ca	Building energy modelling: Buildings are one of the largest energy consumers and a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Improved understanding of building energy processes is crucial to develop approaches to reduce their energy footprint. This project is focused on modelling building energy consumption using a software to investigate building energy performance under specific conditions and identify key parameters that could reduce building energy footprint.
MME	Remus Tutunea-Fatan	otutune2@uwo.ca	Fabrication of microstructures for enhanced surface functionality: aero/hydro-dynamic, fouling resistant, iceophobic, etc. These surfaces have numerous applications in automotive, aerospace and many other industries since they enable the attainment of a superior performance compared to their unstructured (often smooth) counterparts. While structured surfaces are commonly found in nature (fish scales, shark skin, butterfly wings, etc.), fabrication of their man-made replicas remains a challenging task. Furthermore, the aero, hydro, or fouling performance of the micromachined structures has to be assessed before their implementation in end products and this constitutes the main objective of the projects belonging to this research direction.
MME	Remus Tutunea-Fatan	otutune2@uwo.ca	The use of machine learning and artificial intelligence towards the automatic control and monitoring of computer numerically controlled (CNC)-driven micromanufacturing processes such as single point diamond cutting and laser polishing that are used to produce structured surfaces. The projects belonging to this research direction aim to develop and implement AI-based technologies for real-time tuning of the process parameters used to control the performance of the two aforementioned micromanufacturing processes.
MME	Min Xia	min.xia@uwo.ca	Title: AI – Enabled Wild Fire Management Description: project on wild fire detection and monitoring through AI and UAV. Requirement: Top performing students (average >80%) in ECE or Mechatronics with technical skills and strong interests in machine learning, image processing, UAV control.
TCELI	Joshua Pearce	joshua.pearce@uwo.ca	Multiple positions for the Free Appropriate Sustainability Technology (FAST) Research Group - top performing students (average >80%) in mechatronics and associated technical skills with interest in: • developing solar photovoltaic technology and open source robotics/AI/ML to automate tasks in the world's first Agrivoltaic Agrotunnel ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5p9svHHdc) to grow food and medicinal plants • developing open source distributed additive manufacturing systems including smart 3D printers, cable robots and recyclebots to recycle waste into high value 3D printed products • developing open source bioreactors for distributed manufacturing of low-cost medications (e.g. insulin) and resilient food production
TCELI	Jacob Reeves	jreeves5@uwo.ca	Open-Source Uniaxial Tester & Controls System We are seeking a student to build upon an initial CAD model of a uniaxial testing frame to finalize the physical design enroute to developing a commercial open-source system for private and public labs/industries. The student will be responsible for developing a data capture and controls system for the device. Applicants should be confident in their ability to develop this system with minimal oversight. An open-source DAQ will be the primary data transfer mechanism for the device and is run on the Arduino (or equivalent) platform. The final system should include a software package capable of: (i) recording the uniaxial tester’s force and displacement data, (ii) driving the actuation of the device to perform static and piecewise-dynamic tests under force- or displacement-control, and (iii) integrating preconfigured safety locks to safeguard users.