Mount Royal University’s focus on student-involved, community-based research growing

Article content

Research at Mount Royal University continues to grow, and the University’s undergraduate focus only adds to opportunities for researchers and for students.

Mount Royal is celebrating Research and Scholarship Days, focusing on cutting-edge, student-involved inquiry and the role of a knowledge-seeking community in promoting community-engaged research.

“Research is our faculty and students embracing and advancing the most current thinking and practice in their fields. It not only informs teaching, undergraduate research is a true expression of Mount Royal’s commitment to the undergraduate student experience,” says Dr. Connie Van der Byl, PhD, associate vice-president, research, scholarship and community engagement at Mount Royal.

“Research is an essential element of making the world a better place. Faculty and students work together to create and disseminate knowledge at MRU and we are showing that this work can be done successfully at an undergraduate university.”

Advancing Indigenous worldviews

As Canada grapples with the challenges of truth and reconciliation, Dr. Gabrielle Lindstrom, PhD, is conducting interdisciplinary research into health, social work and education, but it is her experience in the classroom that “shapes my research and my research shapes my teaching.”

As an assistant professor at MRU in Indigenous Studies and a member of the Kainai Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Lindstrom received Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funding to investigate Indigenous/Blackfoot resilience and its connection to transformative pedagogy and transformative learning. Her main goal is building respectful, ethical intercultural relationships and focusing on reframing definitions that have been applied to or imposed on Indigenous Peoples.

“I want to ensure that Indigenous perspectives and worldviews are advanced in a way that they are seen as accessible and not wildly different or irrelevant,” Lindstrom says.

Currently, Lindstrom is working to complete the final analysis and write up on that work and continues to engage in Indigenous community research projects aimed at elevating Indigenous knowledge.

The study of work

MRU research takes many paths, but one of the most interesting in this time of workplace change comes out of Mount Royal’s Bissett School of Business.

While his PhD is in “organizational psychology,” Dr. Matthew McLarnon, PhD, associate professor of general management and human resources, thinks of his research in more work-a-day terms.

 “It’s an unfortunate term for what I think is a really cool area of study: how people do their work, what the experience of employees is all about,” says McLarnon of his wide-ranging research portfolio that focuses on workplace teams, employee well-being and statistical models.

McLarnon says he always had an interest in psychology, but what really grabbed his attention was psychology in the workplace.

“It’s applying what we know about psychology, what we know about humans, in the context of work. I just became fascinated to think about all the different issues that can be at stake in terms of how to lead, how to manage employees, how to enhance motivation — fundamental issues in the context of work.”

The changing landscape of cloud computing

Cloud-computing resources and overall internet usage have been growing rapidly around the world in recent years. More and more individuals and businesses are relying on the Internet to store and access data, applications and services from anywhere and at any time.

Research around the design and performance evaluation of these networked and distributed systems is of interest to Dr. Maryam Elahi, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of mathematics and computing. She looks at the growing need for reliable and efficient resource-allocation algorithms to manage this increase in demand and ensure a balance between cloud-based service performance, energy efficiency and user experience.

The environmental impact of the information and communications technology sector is of utmost concern, she emphasizes.

“It is projected that the global electricity consumption of the (sector) will reach 25 per cent in 2025, and we need to make our systems as efficient as possible to minimize the carbon footprint.”

Early academic opportunities

One of strengths of research at Mount Royal is the increased opportunities for students to take part in this work at the undergraduate level. Students Ethan Ward and Haider Amin exhibit that great research doesn’t have to wait until grad school.

As opportunities for recreation decreased during the pandemic, visits to parks shot up. That proved positive, but also presented challenges. Ward, an MRU journalism and digital media student, researched the impacts of the pandemic on parks on behalf of the Canadian Parks Council (CPC), which represents the interests of 14 governments over 2,700 parks and a shared mandate to enhance the environmental, social and economic values of national, provincial and territorial parks throughout Canada.

Amin, meanwhile, tackled a research project analyzing the requirements and challenges of building virtual reality (VR) training modules from the perspective of the software-engineering process. In his final year of the bachelor of computer information systems program, he researched the implementation of VR technology to give employees the chance to gain on-the-job experience in a risk-free environment. He created complex and realistic 3D models, developed VR-friendly user interfaces and implemented interactive environments, and continued the work as part of a senior project this year.

New spaces provide room for discovery

Research takes funding and facilities. Two new labs in the faculty of science and technology at MRU are enabling cutting-edge research in areas making a real difference in the lives of Albertans: environmental forensics and foot and ankle injuries.

Funding for the labs included a combination of Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI JELF) funds and matching grants. The Government of Alberta provided 40 per cent of the funding through the Ministry of Alberta Jobs, Economy and Northern Development and its Research Capacity Program.

“As part of the growth and evolution of research at MRU, we are proud to open these labs, which will serve as transformational spaces for discovery and collaboration,” says Dr. Jonathan Withey, DPhil, dean of the faculty of science and technology.

“The work undertaken in these labs will strengthen relationships with industry and government partners as we mobilize knowledge, solve problems and improve lives. At the same time, these spaces will create bold learning, engagement and training opportunities for our students, which is very much a signature of the MRU experience.”

This story was provided by Mount Royal University for commercial purposes.