Members of McMaster’s research community gathered this week to explore a stunning collection of research-related images submitted as part of the Art of Research competition.  

Over 100 guests stopped by the Hub for the gallery and reception, where more than 65 images taken by faculty, staff, students and alumni were on display – capturing moments of discovery, findings in the field and unique perspectives on the world through the lens of scholarship. 

Hosted by the Office of the Vice-President, Research, the competition was designed to provide a creative and accessible method of sharing and celebrating cutting-edge research taking place at McMaster. 

Images were submitted in five categories based on the five priority areas in McMaster’s Strategic Research Plan – Transforming our Region, Impacting our World.  

Submissions were evaluated by a panel of judges, with prizes going to the winners and runners-up in each category.  

Attendees at the reception also had the chance to vote for their favourite entry, based on the image itself and its creative description.   

Andy Knights, McMaster’s Vice-President, Research (Acting), says the images remind us that research is not only data-driven and analytical – it’s also imaginative, emotional and deeply human.  

“A huge shout out to all our contributors for allowing us a glimpse in your work. Thank you for sharing what motivates you and the way in which you come to understand our world. Your creativity helps expand how we think about research and its profound impact on society,” he said.  

Here are the winning entries.  

Advanced technology 

Winner: Tamara Koletic, Student
“Galactic Inferno” 

A plot of the side profile of a computer-simulated spiral galaxy at an age of 210 million years. The inferno colourmap colours represent gas density, where yellow indicates denser gas concentrated in the galactic plane at the center of the plot. Supernova explosions from dying stars push the gas out of the galaxy, causing eruptions above and below the galactic plane. The thin, wispy lines represent the orientation of the magnetic field. This snapshot from a state-of-the-art simulation, made using the advanced cosmological code RAMSES, is designed to mimic the real-life Phantom Galaxy to better understand its formation and evolution. 

Runner-up: Kyle Stegman, Student
“Optically Inscribed Polymer Films: A New Way to Encode Information” 

Through advanced inscribing techniques, photoresponsive polymers are optically activated to encode information using arrays of microscopic light guiding channels known as waveguides. These waveguides are oriented in patterns based off any initial masks one chooses. These techniques are used to create films that now have information permanently inscribed for later recovery using light projection. Here we see three films with “McMaster Chemistry” inscribed along with the faces of the two researchers responsible for the work Kyle Stegman and Dusan Srdic. Using these techniques a new class of data encoding materials is born combining polymer chemistry with advanced optical techniques. 

Building an equitable world 

Winner: Melike Yilmaz, Staff
“What the Water Remembers” 

This photo was taken in 2016 at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, one of the major departure points for enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. The view through the doorway faces the ocean, where ships once waited. To build an equitable world, we must walk through the same door, not to forget — but to face what the water still remembers. 

Runner-up: Dev Pandya, Student
“The Housing Crisis That Never Left (The Clichettes’ “Up Against the Wallpaper”)” 

For ARTSSCI 1B03, first-year students researched how art can be a vehicle for social justice at the McMaster Museum of Art. The installation “Up Against the Wallpaper” from the exhibit “The Clichettes: Lips, Wigs, and Politics” depicts Toronto’s housing crisis in 1988. The 1980s feminist performance art group, the Clichettes, act as furniture such as vacuum cleaners and beanbags, discussing the absurdity of the housing market and financial barriers targeting disadvantaged homebuyers, particularly, youth and women. The Clichettes’ commentary serves as stark reminder of the lasting housing crisis in Toronto and its impact on marginalized communities, including us students today. 

Connecting communities 

Winner: Emily Wood, Student
“Honouring Indigenous Story Through Art and Science” 

This image features Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, led by McMaster Chancellor Santee Smith, in the LIVELab performing Continuance—a powerful work of Indigenous resilience and cultural revitalization, commemorating the re-opening of the former Mohawk Institute Residential School. Dancers wore head-mounted motion capture markers, used both to create artistic animations (visible in the constellations behind them) and answer scientific questions, like how coordination evolves across rehearsals and in different group configurations. Audience members also wore eye-tracking and physiological sensors, enabling us to study their responses to the performance. This collaboration shows art and science bringing communities together through shared creation and reflection. 

Runner-up: Andrew Roddick, Associate Professor
“Unflattening Late Formative Tiwanaku” 

Tiwanaku was an early South American city in the highlands of Bolivia, with significant influence across the Andes in the 8th-10th centuries AD. We know less about earlier occupations. This image shows the result of detailed analysis by Anthropology professor Dr. Andrew Roddick to “unflatten” the 6th and 7th century occupations at the site. Working with science illustrator Kathryn Killackey, Dr. Roddick is combining archival photos, early excavation findings and new photogrammetry results from the site, and evidence from excavations from other pre-Tiwanaku communities. Killackey’s illustrations are producing significant reinterpretations and new conversations between researchers and Indigenous communities. 

Planetary health and sustainability 

Winner: Julianna Colafranceschi, Student
“From First Breath: A Life Polluted” 

Three starling nestlings, less than a day old, huddle together while waiting for what may be their first ever meal. Although new to the world, these birds already carry the weight of humanity and the pollution we produce. Location doesn’t matter – from landfills to farm towns, manmade pollutants called PFAS are already within their tiny bodies before they leave the nest. Myself and a team of researchers are working to monitor PFAS levels in starling eggs, as well as insects that comprise nestling diet, to understand the prevalence of PFAS in our ecosystems, and to protect human and wildlife health. 

Runner-up: Milena Esser, Staff
“Microbiomes in the Moonlight” 

Under a sky full of stars in northern Ontario, we wade through the water, headlamps lighting the way, to collect insects and spiders and explore how everyday pollutants affect the hidden world inside them, their microbiomes. As part of a unique whole-lake experiment at the Experimental Lakes Area, we are studying how quaternary ammonium compounds, common disinfectants in household and industrial products, impact not only these creatures’ microbiomes but the whole ecosystem. From microbes to insects and predators that feed on them, we are uncovering how these chemicals disrupt natural processes and ripple through the food chain. 

Promoting a healthy society 

Winner: Leila Somani-Davis, Student
“Love is in the Air(way)” 

A cross-section of a lung of a mouse infected with H1N1 flu. Histological sections, which are crucial for showing pathology in our model, can sometimes resemble something quite beautiful. In this case, the highlighted airway looks like a heart. This work is being done to elucidate the role of a lesser-known cytokine, Oncostatin M, in flu infection. A greater understanding of Oncostatin M and its role in infection may pave the way for the development of novel therapeutics both against flu and other bacterial and viral infections. 

Runner-up: Melike Yilmaz, Staff
“Collective Memory” 

This photo was taken in 2017 at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum Memorial Park in Accra, Ghana. The terracotta head sculptures, created by artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, commemorate victims of the transatlantic slave trade. They remind us that health is not only individual — it is also collective, and shaped by how societies confront and heal from historical violence. 

People’s Choice
Winner: Batoul Hashemi, Student
“Boosting Light: Amplification in a Hybrid Erbium-Silicon Waveguide” 

Imagine a computer that talks using light instead of electricity. That’s the magic of integrated photonics—speeding up data transmission and communication all across the globe. This image shows a tiny but mighty spiral waveguide amplifier, built on a chip smaller than a coin. It boosts light signals for things like internet traffic and advanced sensors. The glowing green? That’s called upconversion—a cool quantum trick where invisible infrared light gets transformed into visible light. Even though silicon can’t normally “show” light like this, clever layering with special materials makes the invisible… glow.