Undergrad Research Expo : celebrating the 2025 Awardees!

August 26, 2025

On August 14, the Douglas held its annual Undergraduate Research Exhibition, where students are invited to showcase their ongoing research projects.

We are pleased to announce the winners of this 2025 edition!

Oral Presentations

  • First Place: Cathy Fang (team of Katie Lavigne) – Functional (Dys)connectivity Correlates of Cognition in Early Psychosis: A Whole-Brain Analysis

Poster Presentations

  • First Place: Matt Dal Bianco (team of Srividya Iyer) – Sexual Diverse and Gender-Expansive Youth in Access Open Minds: Demographics and Severity at Presentation to Diverse Youth Mental Health Services
  • Second Place: Rukun Dou (team of Lena Palaniyappan) – MEG in Psychosis: Individual Differences in Neuronal Oscillations Underlying Language Disorganization and Impoverishment
  • Third Place: Harleen Toor (team of Majid Mohajerani)) – Automated Detection of Rearing Behaviour in Mice Homecage Videos
Cathy Fang – Matt Dal Bianco – Rukun Dou – Harleen Toor

Congratulations to all those who participated, and thanks to the Douglas Student Committee for Academic Life (DAL) and Dr. Nicolas Cermakian for organizing this event!

Open science in undergraduate research

Sixteen of the trainees presenting posters and talks at the Undergrad Research Expo (August 14th, 2025) were awarded badges for adopting open science practices in their research projects. This initiative was led by the Douglas Open Science Trainee Committee, who screened submissions and interviewed presenters to identify open science activities.

Open data reuse was the most frequent practice (9 projects), followed by open code and co-design with people with lived experience (4 projects each). Other identified practices were pre-prints, pre-registration, open data sharing, and open access publishing.

Congratulations to the badge awardees:

  • Aryamman Aiyaar (Dr. David Benrimoh and Dr. Lena Palaniyappan)
  • Alyaa Al Nehlawi (Dr. David Benrimoh)
  • Sarah Ben-Nouna (Dr. Srividya Iyer)
  • Domenico Bonilla Marcello (Dr. Katie Lavigne)
  • Rukun Dou (Dr. Lena Palaniyappan)
  • Cathy Fang (Dr. Katie Lavigne)
  • Zihao (Gavin) Geng (Dr. Maxime Montembeault)
  • Dylan Hamitouche (Dr. David Benrimoh)
  • Juliette Huot (Dr. Maxime Montembeault)
  • Philomène Labilloy (Dr. David Benrimoh)
  • An Leng (Dr. Martin Lepage)
  • Chloé Pressoir (Dr. Srividya Iyer)
  • Alyssa Rock (Dr. Srividya Iyer), Mira Saad (Dr. Massimiliano Orri),
  • Chanelle Vandeville (Dr. David Benrimoh)
  • Ashley Vu (Dr. Massimiliano Orri)

Thank you for supporting open science at the Douglas!