Christophe Guy is vice-president of Research and Graduate Studies at Concordia. He says that affording undergraduate students the chance to train with faculty researchers in their labs sets them up to become better professionals.
“Universities are where we train people. Even if our students don’t become researchers themselves, they are still gaining valuable skills that they can use to tackle problems and contribute to society years down the road,” Guy says.
“The Undergraduate Research Showcase is an opportunity for them to show off the results of their work and communicate them in an accessible way to the wider community.”
A more connected learning experience
Sebastian Alvarez is an undergraduate majoring in design and computation arts with a minor in computer science. Under the supervision of Najmeh Khalili-Mahani, a member of both the PERFORM Centre and the Concordia Centre for Technoculture, Art and Games, Alvarez worked on a project called “Play the Pain.”
It’s a gamified version of a pain diary that allows users to record and manage their chronic conditions through personalized games and relaxation applications.
Alvarez says that Play the Pain is the product of extensive research in a diversity of fields, including design for mobile health applications and pain tracking techniques, as well as user experience and interface design. Showcase visitors can expect to see the app’s prototype design and promo animation video.
Alvarez says that the experience he gained through his research project is invaluable, given the fact that he worked well outside of his comfort zone as a designer.
“Aside from the software and technical skills I picked up during the making of this prototype, I learned to step outside the aesthetic and user-interaction fields that are more familiar to me, and moved more into research and conceptual aspects of project development,” he says.
“It was challenging to dive into science-oriented research, looking into peer-reviewed journals and going through large amounts of literature, and using this research for creative purposes.”