Research Opportunities

 

Gain Research Experience

Participating in research during your undergraduate studies can help you improve your chances of landing a job or being accepted into graduate school by giving you:

  • Real-world experience and research skills 
  • A stronger resume and application package 
  • References from supervisors and colleagues
  • A deeper understanding of your field of study

You will also experience the day-to-day work of researchers in your field, helping you decide if it's an area you want to explore after graduation. 

Types of Research Opportunities

There are several types of research opportunities available to Arts & Science students. You can earn course credit by joining a faculty supervisor’s research project on campus or abroad, or by creating your own opportunity.

 

Research Opportunities Program

The Research Opportunities Program (ROP) offers course credit to second- and third-year students for participating in a professor's research project.

Learn more about ROP

Student holding a lizard on her palm

Research Excursions Program

The Research Excursions Program (REP) allows third-year students to travel off campus — most often to an international location — as part of an instructor’s research project, while earning course credit. Students only pay course tuition fees; all travel and accommodation costs are free.

Learn more about REP

Arts & Science students presenting their research at the biannual Undergraduate Research Poster Fair.

Research Opportunities Program Poster Fair

Students who have already completed or are about to complete ROP courses can present their research during the Research Opportunities Program Poster Fair, held twice a year in fall and winter. The presenters share insights with students about their experience and how they secured their research projects.

ROP/REP program staff will also be onsite to answer any questions about how to apply for an ROP/REP course. The Research Opportunities Program Poster Fair is open to all U of T students, faculty and staff.

  • March 14, 2024
  • 10:30 am - 2 pm
  • Hart House, Great Hall

Register here

Schedule

  1. Effect of Grade, Gender and Language Status on the Phonological Processing Skills of French Immersion Students
    • Dr. Becky Xi Chen
    • Yu Shan Wei, Avril Brigden
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  2. How Do Sociocultural Factors Contribute to Mental Health Issues of South Asian Immigrant Communities in North America?
    • Dr. Esther Geva
    • Reese Kurian, Fabiha Saddat
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  3. Comparing Web Search and LLM-based Tutor for Solving Assignment Problems: A Mixed Methods Study
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams
    • Cynthia Sa, Jeb Thomas-Mitchell
    • Computer Science
  4. Neural Control of Reward-related Learning
    • Dr. Laura Corbit
    • Ellie Yao, Shivahn Garvie
    • Psychology
  5. A New Way to Measure Cognitive Decline: Tracking Blink-Related Oscillations Using EEG
    • Dr. Allison Sekuler
    • Ariane Prescott, Janet Pham, YiFei Wang
    • Psychology
  6. The Effect of Horizontal Bias Training on Facial Identification
    • Dr. Allison Sekuler
    • Nina Yue, Selen Bayram
    • Psychology
  7. Exploring Personality in COBWEB
    • Dr. Brad Bass
    • Kavvya Agarwal, Aaliya Bhamla, Ziyi Huang, Mingyang Caitlin Zhang, Tianye Dou, Hiren Shah
    • School of the Environment
  8. N/A
  9. Improving Patient Education at the Good Hope Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Clinic
    • Dr. Hance Clarke
    • Tina Do
    • Temerty Faculty of Medicine
  10. The Effects of Language Barriers on Health Care Access and Service Experiences among South Asian Immigrants in North America
    • Dr. Esther Geva
    • Maiesha Kamieze
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  11. Impact of Human-Artificial Intelligence interactions on Human Cognition
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams
    • John Vincentius
    • Computer Science
  12. Political Persuasion
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams
    • Kevin Shen
    • Computer Science
  13. Student-Generated Questions and Goal Orientation in Literacy Assessment
    • Dr. Eunice Eunhee Jang
    • Emily Shin
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  14. Home Multilingual Experience and L2 Students’ Writing Performance
    • Dr. Eunice Eunhee Jang
    • July Hu
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  15. Daniel Wilson & Walter Kenyon: Legacies of Canadian Anthropology
    • Dr. Pamela Klassen, Dr. Krista Barclay
    • Jesse Cheung, Lydia Dillenbeck
    • Department for the Study of Religion
  16. Microplastics in Air and Water
    • Dr. Miriam Diamond
    • Andrea Morelos Andrade, Grace Miao
    • Earth Sciences
  17. Investigating the Association Between Diabetes and Chronic Post-Surgical Pain
    • Dr. Hance Clarke
    • Erin Zheng
    • Temerty Faculty of Medicine
  18. Association of Preoperative Hydromorphone and Oxycodone on Post Surgical Chronic Pain
    • Dr. Hance Clarke
    • Ethan Chen
    • Temerty Faculty of Medicine
  19. Non-Stationary Bandit Algorithm
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams
    • Isabelle Huang
    • Computer Science
  20. Conceptual Influences on Multimodal Event Descriptions in Turkish and English
    • Dr. Myrto Grigoroglou
    • Mishaal Kandapath
    • Linguistics
  21. Recellularization of Partially Decellularized Tracheal Graft Using a Biomimetic Bioreactor
    • Dr. Golnaz Karoubi
    • Eve Wan
    • Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology
  22. Investigating the Effect of Substrate Geometry on the Differentiation of hiPSC-derived Alveolar Organoids
    • Dr. Golnaz Karoubi
    • Cindy Lei
    • Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology
  23. Harm/Perception
    • Dr. Jessica Sommerville
    • Wen-yu Lu
    • Psychology
  24. Gender Differences in Children’s Reaction to Inaccurate Teaching
    • Dr. Jessica Sommerville
    • Renee Wang
    • Psychology
  25. Evaluating Assistive Editing Technology for Grammar
    • Dr. Todd Cunningham
    • Charlotte Choy
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  26. Evaluating Assistive Editing Technology for Spelling
    • Dr. Todd Cunningham
    • Jessica Sah
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  27. Does PDSS2 Deficiency Triggers Primordial Oocyte Loss through DNA Damage Induced TAp63α Cell Death Pathway?
    • Dr. Andrea Jurisicova
    • Alex Wu
    • Physiology
  28. Investigating the Rates of Psychiatric Disorders in Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD) Patients
    • Dr. Hance Clarke
    • Hyeri Jeong
    • Temerty Faculty of Medicine
  29. Reducing Offline Evaluation Bias for Multi-armed Bandit Algorithms Using a Simulation-based Approach
    • Dr. Matthew Buechler
    • Yein Chung
    • Immunology
  30. The Speciation Clock in Caenorhabditis Nematodes
    • Dr. Asher Cutter
    • Neha Gupta
    • Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
  31. Investigating Functional Differences of Rhodopsin Variants Associated with RP
    • Dr. Belinda Chang
    • Mac Goldman
    • Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
  32. Neurobiology of Motivation in Mice
    • Dr. Derek van der Kooy
    • Taha Malik
    • Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
  33. Elucidating Mechanisms behind Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number Control
    • Dr. Thomas Hurd
    • Jade Juba
    • Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
  34. Making the Invisible Visible: Exploring the Relationship Between Identity Affirmation and Feelings of Invisibility for Queer People of Colour
    • Dr. Rebecca Neel
    • Marina Papachristos
    • Psychology
  35. Gender and Sexual Demographics of National Mental Health Surveys Around the World
    • Dr. Rebecca Neel
    • Zini He
    • Psychology
  36. Investigating the Role of a Rhythmic miRNA in the Regulation of CLOCK and C/EBPα in Murine Hypothalamic Neurons
    • Dr. Denise Belsham
    • Rita Li
    • Physiology
  37. Exploring the Functional Connectivity of C. elegans Pharyngeal Neurons
    • Dr. Hongruo Zhang
    • Xindi Tao
    • Physiology
  38. Exploring the Effects of Co-culture between Trophoblast Cells and Decidual Natural Killer Cells
    • Dr. Brian Cox
    • Kate Patton
    • Physiology
  39. Developing an Educational Intervention for Healthy Cognitive Aging
    • Dr. Morgan Barense
    • Ever Hughes
    • Psychology
  40. N/A
  41. Mechanisms of LDL Transcytosis Across the Coronary Artery Endothelium
    • Dr. Warren L. Lee
    • Chris Situ
    • Biochemistry
  42. Developing a Laboratory to Study Gene Expression Patterns in Drosophila Embryos
    • Dr. Ritu Sarpal
    • Fayeza Tabassum Azad
    • Cell & Systems Biology
  43. Evidence Accumulation Models of Analogy Learning in 6-7 Year Olds
    • Dr. Meg Schlichting
    • Siena von Rosen
    • Psychology
  44. The Food Security and Insecurity Landscape of University of Toronto Students
    • Dr. Leanne De Souza-Kenney
    • Sam Soriano
    • Human Biology
  45. Children’s Perception of Trait Evolution
    • Dr. Christina Starmans
    • Zoyeb Ehsan
    • Psychology
  46. Investigating the Effects of Goal-Direct Locomotion and Real-World Objects on Memory
    • Dr. Katherine Duncan
    • Sanjivan Loganathan
    • Psychology
  47. Vignettes in Wellbeing Research
    • Dr. Felix Cheung
    • Ella Farlinger
    • Psychology
  48. Genetic Analysis of Synaptic Transmission in C. elegans
    • Dr. Shuzo Sugita
    • Gravity Guignard
    • Physiology
  49. How Does Children’s Previous Cognitive Understanding of Moral Principles Influence Their Likelihood of Cheating?
    • Dr. Kang Lee
    • Ke Liang
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  50. Impact of Interrupted Schooling on the Development of Neural Systems for Reading in Resettled Refugee Children
    • Dr. Kaja Jasinska
    • Sara Qadoumi
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  51. How Do Goal Orientations of Young Students and Their Parents Affect Students Reading/writing Scores?
    • Dr. Eunice Jang
    • Sophie Rohrer
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  52. A Soilless Future? How Hydroponics Extend the Growing Season and Overcome the Challenges of Traditional Farming
    • Dr. Michael Classens
    • Fizza Qasim
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  53. Pollinator Restoration through Urban Gardening
    • Dr. Nicole Spiegelaar
    • Gabrielle Diez
    • Trinity College
  54. Optimization of Immunofluorescent Techniques for Digital Microfluidics
    • Dr. Aaron Wheeler
    • Jason Okpere
    • Chemistry
  55. Cultural Specificity: Its Effect on English Language Assessment
    • Dr. Eunice Jang
    • Annika Nilsson
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  1. Towards Improving Efficiency of Water Electrolysis for Hydrogen Production
    • Dr. Al-Amin Dhirani
    • Yaolin Wang, Advay Rao, Florence Ho
    • Physics
  2. Concordia Models
    • Dr. William Cunningham
    • Sarah Xu
    • Psychology
  3. Stereotypic Vision
    • Dr. William Cunningham
    • Varun Sahni, Sungjin Hong
    • Psychology
  4. Exploratory Synthesis of Oxide Superconductors
    • Dr. John Wei
    • Olivia Leng, Karan Gill
    • Physics
  5. The Impact of Domain-Specific Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Victimization
    • Dr. Julia Martini, Dr. Jennifer Jenkins
    • Daniela Pucci, Grace Deol
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  6. Sleep Impacts Autobiographical Memory Vividness, Perspective, and Perceived Recency
    • Dr. Morgan Barense
    • Jeya Scott, Astrid Amador
    • Psychology
  7. Land Use Economics and Sustainable Urban Planning
    • Dr. Brad Bass
    • Anna Mezhlauk, Preksha Khemka, Willow Teter, Jake Knight, Dai Matsuzaka
    • School of the Environment
  8. Exploring Population Dynamics: An Agent-Based Modelling Approach
    • Dr. Brad Bass
    • Javier Mencia Ledo, Wai Yu Amanda Ng, Nathaniel Zongaro, Ruoyang Li, Tabris Cao, Gabriel van Driesum
    • School of the Environment
  9. Investigating Quiescent and Proliferative States of Retinal Stem Cells
    • Dr. Derek van der Kooy
    • Caroline Andersen
    • Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
  10. Learning and Memory Generics of C. elegans
    • Dr. Derek van der Kooy
    • Jasmine Chow
    • Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
  11. Just My Type: Exploring Positive Activity Fit as a Moderator for Baseline and Change in Mood
    • Dr. Felix Cheung
    • Rachel Yen
    • Psychology
  12. Time Flies: Considering Time Investiture as a Success Indicator in Positive Activity Interventions
    • Dr. Felix Cheung
    • Anne Hu
    • Psychology
  13. Thinking about You Thinking of Me: An Exploration of the Impact of Intergroup Contact on Meta-perceptions among Political Partisans
    • Dr. Spike W. S. Lee
    • Nicole Velev
    • Psychology
  14. Investigating the Effect of Age Identity on Autobiographical Recall
    • Dr. Morgan Barense
    • Alice Du
    • Psychology
  15. Automated Rabbit Lung Segmentation on Micro-computed Tomography Image: A Comparative Study
    • Dr. Haibo Zhang
    • Jana Mahmoud
    • Physiology
  16. Internet Connectivity in Remote Communities
    • Dr. Brad Bass
    • Sophie Xu, Liz Lo, Jacob Marr
    • School of the Environment
  17. Young at Heart: Assessing the Effect of Subjective and Chronological Age Discrepancy on Age-Related Stigma Endorsement
    • Dr. Alison Chasteen, Dr. Amy Gourley
    • Maria Romero Ochoa
    • Psychology
  18. Physiological Arousal and Event Cognition
    • Dr. Alexander Barnett
    • Catherine Wu
    • Psychology
  19. Older Adults’ Experiences of Ageism
    • Dr. Alison Chasteen
    • Tien Yang
    • Psychology
  20. Understanding Children’s Aversion to Conflict: Moral versus Non-Moral Dilemmas
    • Dr. Christinas Starmans
    • James Wang
    • Psychology
  21. Actual and Perceived Protective Behavioural Strategies for Cannabis
    • Dr. Suzanne Wood
    • Talia Frockt
    • Psychology
  22. The Difference in Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the Attitude towards Non-medical Pharmaceutical Cognitive Enhancement (PCE) Use among UofT Students
    • Dr. Suzanne Wood
    • Jen Oh
    • Psychology
  23. Protein Profile Analysis in SARS-CoV-2 Infection Treated with Bioengineered Human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Overexpressing Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2
    • Dr. Haibo Zhang
    • Yanbing Shi
    • Physiology
  24. Investigating Mechanisms of dNK-mediated Trophoblast Development with Human Trophoblast Organoid Models
    • Dr. Brian Cox
    • Natalie Lo
    • Physiology
  25. Navigating Success and Setbacks: The Role of Self-Efficacy in Adaptive Goal Pursuit
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams
    • Zihui Lin
    • Psychology
  26. SPARK
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams
    • Pranav Rao
    • Psychology
  27. Goal Setting Intervention
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams
    • Yuming Huang, Jessica Li
    • Statistics
  28. How Does the Age of Memories Affect Their Resistance to Memory Updating in the Presence of Prediction Error?
    • Dr. Katherine Duncan, Dr. Catalina Yang
    • Lily Jiang
    • Psychology
  29. Reducing Offline Evaluation Bias for Multi-armed Bandit Algorithms Using a Simulation-based Approach
    • Dr. Joseph Jay Williams, Dr. Tong Li
    • YingKe He
    • Computer Science
  30. Role of Skeletal Muscle Nod1 in Fat-Induced Insulin Resistance
    • Dr. Adria Giacca
    • Kira Sun
    • Physiology
  31. Delineating Compound-X’s Signal Transduction Pathway.
    • Dr. Denise Belsham
    • Larry Afun
    • Physiology
  32. Heart Transplant and LVAD Patient Tissue Sample Analysis to Gain Better Understanding of Clinical Picture of HF Patients
    • Dr. Filio Billia
    • Shreya Gramolini
    • Physiology
  33. Exploring the Synaptic Functions and Interactions of CPX-1 and SNT-1 Proteins
    • Dr. Shuzo Sugita
    • Devon Sneyd
    • Physiology
  34. Effects of Maternal Pdss2 Deficiency on Macroautophagy and Transcript Degradation in MZT-ZGA.
    • Dr. Andrea Jurisicova
    • Francesca Medina
    • Physiology
  35. Morphological Analysis of Neurons in C. Elegans Dauers
    • Dr. Mei Zhen
    • Yuna Lee
    • Physiology
  36. Infant Moral Cognition: How Children Perceive Fairness Norms as Agents of Third-party Punishment
    • Dr. Jessica Sommerville
    • Riya Mehul Dama
    • Psychology
  37. Gendered Expectations for Children’s Emotional, Cognitive, and Physical Helping
    • Dr. Jessica Sommerville
    • Emma Soler
    • Psychology
  38. The Influence of Biculturalism on Individuals’ Openness to Experience
    • Dr. Odilia Yim
    • Jocelyn Peng, Jing Woo
    • Psychology
  39. A Qualitative Exploration of the Meaning and Emotional Benefits of Representation
    • Dr. Rebecca Neel
    • Krisha Khanna
    • Psychology
  40. ABscribe
    • Dr. Mohi Reza
    • Sergio Perez Torres
    • Computer Science
  41. Community History in Context: Comparing Community-Created and Settler-Extracted Indigenous Oral Histories
    • Dr. Pamela Klassen
    • Bryanna Van Leeuwen, Anaum Sajanlal, Ryn Van Leeuwen
    • Religion
  42. Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Patient Engagement at the Transitional Pain Service
    • Dr. Hance Clarke
    • Thea Dora Wang
    • Temerty Faculty of Medicine
  43. Quantifying Soil Health using the LC-MS/MS and Cationic Exchange Methods
    • Dr. Jessica D’eon
    • Christina Xie
    • Chemistry
  44. Implications of Spent Coffee Grounds in Vermicompost Via Analysis of “Worm Tea” Fertilizer
    • Dr. Jessica D’eon
    • Tavie Johnson
    • Chemistry
  45. An Exploratory Scoping Review on the Barriers to Help-Seeking Behavior for Self-Harm and Suicidal Tendencies Among Immigrants in North America and Europe
    • Dr. Esther Geva
    • Santhija Jegatheeswaran
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  46. The Effects of Education Privatisation
    • Dr. Esther Geva
    • Sijil Jindani
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  47. Cookie Monster Kids 3 Project: Investigation of Trait Inferences in Childhood
    • Dr. Jessica Sommerville
    • Allison Pham
    • Psychology
  48. Developmental Changes in Infants’ Rational Deployment of Effort
    • Dr. Jessica Sommerville
    • Youness Robert-Tahiri
    • Psychology
  49. Let’s Talk: A Study on Chinese International Student’s Experiences
    • Dr. Odilia Yim
    • Stella Dos Santos, Mitchell Mak
    • Psychology
  50. Plant Hormone Receptor Condensates Are Lethal to Yeast
    • Dr. Shelley Lumba
    • Kaitlin Wilson
    • Cell & Systems Biology
  51. Dynamics of Major Sperm Protein (MSP) Gene Family Evolution among 50 Caenorhabditis Nematode Genomes
    • Dr. Asher Cutter
    • Julia Gilley
    • Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
  52. Scoping Review: Exploring the Challenges in Accessing Healthcare - The Impact of Cultural-Based Values on Health-Seeking Behaviours among Chinese Immigrants in Canada
    • Dr. Minhui Yang
    • Juliana Zhao
    • Dalla Lana School of Public Health
  53. Phenotypic Characterization of Humanized infantile TSD (Tay Sachs Disease) Mice
    • Dr. Zhenya Ivakine
    • Josephine Gene
    • Physiology
  54. The Edible City: Integration of Food Sovereignty Frameworks within Urban Foodscapes
    • Dr. Michael Kessler, Dr. Jayeeta Sharma
    • Yang Jing Zheng
    • School of the Environment
  55. Evaluating Assistive Editing Technology: Threshold Capacity
    • Dr. Todd Cunningham
    • Eliana Barbuzzi
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  56. Metaphor Comprehension in Preschool Age Children
    • Dr. Myrto Grigoroglou
    • Sophia Joulaei
    • Linguistics
  57. Effects of Biophysical Cues on Airway Epithelium
    • Dr. Golnaz Karoubi
    • Armaan Gandhi
    • Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology
  58. Understanding the Conceptualization and Operationalization of the Differential Parenting Construct: A Scoping Review
    • Dr. Jennifer Jenkins
    • Justin Jeong
    • Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  59. Dimensional Ultrasounds
    • Dr. Pascal Tyrell
    • Rishit Dagli
    • Statistical Sciences
  60. Analyzing Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) Outcomes for Patients in the GoodHope Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) Clinic
    • Dr. Hance Clarke
    • Wesley Chen
    • Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Other Opportunities

  • You can find research-based courses within most Arts & Science programs. Check the Arts & Science Calendar for options. 
  • You may be able to undertake a summer research program through your academic unit. Connect with them directly to inquire about opportunities.
  • If you are interested in pursuing your own research project with the support of a faculty member, your academic unit might offer independent study courses for upper-year students. Check your department for details and information.
  • If you are seeking research opportunities that relate to health care, you may be able to secure a summer research opportunity with a U of T-affiliated teaching hospital. Check the hospital websites for details.
  • Or create your own research opportunity. The Undergraduate Research Fund provides students with funding to develop their own research project.

The Research Opportunities Program is a good introduction to the field of undergraduate research. It was my first lab experience, so it was valuable for learning lab techniques and showing me how to conduct myself in a lab setting with graduate students.

— Katie, ecology specialist, genetics major and computer science minor

Students testing the water in Etobicoke Creek