Student stories

Faculty of Education and Faculty of Arts

PURE Award recipient 2022

"During PURE, I brought together my favourite parts of my degrees and made connections between academics and practice that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Along the way, I’ve had to trust the research process. The PURE project I proposed wasn’t what I ended up doing. There was an unexpected hiccup early on and I was at a crossroads – I could quit or I could explore the possibilities. This made me realize that my research identity needs to be flexible. I won’t always know where I am at, and though the unexpected may happen, there are still ways to honour the ideas and values I entered the research with. The more I trusted in the research process and my supervisor’s mentorship, the more I realized that flexibility in research often means pivoting to the better option for the researcher and for the project. Even my research findings reflect this idea, that when forced into a new environment (like the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic), it is not only possible but imperative to remain flexible and create a path forward that is better than the one we started with."

Faculty of Science and Faculty of Arts, PURE Award recipient 2022

Bonnie Piercey’s interests are an unusual combination of her programs of study in archaeology (BSc) and visual studies (BFA). On a 2019 study trip to Pompeii, she fell in love with the site which led her to take a class with UCalgary professor Dr Lisa Hughes. “She had built a virtual 3D model of the House of the Golden Cupids – a fascinating ancient Pompeiian house which has an elevated theatrical stage at one end of its garden, and an intriguing sculptural collection.” Bonnie and Lisa collaborated in the Program for Undergraduate Research Experience (PURE) in the summer of 2022 to digitally recreate the decorations of the house including sculptures and paintings – a formidable task! As Bonnie struggled with translating texts to fill in missing information, something Lisa said to her resonated: “those ‘gaps’ and ‘walls’ that a researcher encounters, are not stopping places – they’re starting places. They are questions that no one has asked yet, so maybe I can be the one to ask them.”

Bachelor of Kinesiology, PURE 2022

Kinesiology student Bilal Rizvi was inspired to learn about research as a first-year student when a professor described it as “finding answers to questions no one has asked yet.” In the summer of 2022, Bilal collaborated on a research project with Dr. Serena Orr, assistant professor at the Cumming School of Medicine, on the relationship between mental health and migraines in children and adolescents. “A pivotal point for me was realizing that I had to learn how to be ‘productively stupid’. In all my scientific learning to date, whenever there was a question, I expected myself to have the answer. If I knew it, I felt good about myself. If not, I felt bad. Doing PURE, I learned that research is about not knowing the answer and being comfortable in not knowing.” Now, Bilal says that learning has helped him professionally, personally and academically and inspires him to do future experiments.