BLUE Resident Fellows are funded scholars who pursue their idea within our space and broader community in a semester-long research residency.

Our mission has always been to support scholars in pursuing bold and original ideas. We believe there are vast amounts of knowledge that rest beyond what is conventionally recognized. We want to facilitate scholars of all levels and disciplines to discover that knowledge with the support they need.

In doing so, we build a multidisciplinary cohort of 10 - 20 scholars through the BLUE Resident Fellow program. They work alongside each other, receiving space, community, and mentorship through BLUE while pursuing their projects in parallel.

Here are some projects we loved. Projects can be entirely domain-specific, or an interdisciplinary mix.

• Su Yu Ding (2018): Recalculating the Cosmological Constant

• Ève-Marie Marceau & Antoine Pouline (2023): Detecting the sublime in poetry using mathematics

• Alireza Morsali (2019): Designing a social network that addresses security, control over content, and freedom of speech

• Mathilde Papillon (2019): Understanding the Double Rigid Pendulum with Laban’s Dance Theory

• Alex Nicholas Chen (2023): Can there be a slow social media?

• Bior Ajak (2020): Refugees of the Future

• Alyssa Coghlin (2020): Creating workshops to ground social work language in embodied practices

• Claudia Reihert (2020): Designing experiments to understand feature hierarchies in Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Adam Ghadi-Delgado (2020): Crafting a manifesto for sustainable architecture: material cycles and material salvaging
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• Minju You (2021): Investigating memories and dreams through indigenous narratives, films, and discussions
  

• Léo Goutte (2022): What are the limits of the analogies between quantum and classical worlds
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• Émile Chamberland (2022): Exploring fungi intelligence through parallels with human and natural systems

• Asya Ciftci (2024): A redefinition of freedom through the lens of self-organization and bridging diverse disciplines
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• Cal Smith (2024): Investigating ethical implications of archival research on a historic Spanish manuscript

• Mohamed Debbagh (2024): Simulating digital plant growth using generative models

• Valérie Bourassa & Hannah Derue (2023): Translating chronic pain experiences into immersive VR

We are open to all imaginings from different backgrounds and areas of expertise.

Based on our philosophy, we are looking for individuals with technical proficiency and/or creative power to contribute to the BLUE Resident Fellowship. We are dedicated to build an interdisciplinary cohort that might uncover new perspectives, methodologies, and paradigms.

Position type
‍Fellowship

Cohort size
‍15-20 fellows

Period
‍12 weeks

Duration
January 2025 - April 2025

Amount
‍$3,000

This is not for credit.

Function

‍Develop one’s personal, original, creative, and rigorous academic project in order to acquire the knowledge and skills to think beyond the acknowledged, the recognized, and the comfortable.

‍Presence‍

Fellows will be required to work out of—and be physically present at—Building 21 for a minimum of 15 hours per week over the course of the Fellowship. In-person presence at B21 leads to essential interdisciplinary connections and conversations.

Responsibility

• Develop and present your project with the community

• Participate in one Lightning session per week

• Schedule regular project check-ins (twice per month) with Anita Parmar or Ollivier Dyens

• Attend regularly scheduled talks and discussions

• Talk to other scholars about your projects

• Share ideas and feedback to a group of interdisciplinary scholars

• As an aspect of the fellowship, students will also be asked to help organize or host B21 events and take on some administrative tasks.

Communication Workshop

As part of BLUE, fellows will be required to make availability for a 3-day intensive communication training, led by former Director of Engagement & Partnerships and Director of Media Relations at McGill, Carole Graveline. This will be held early February based on the cohort's schedule.

‍Showcase‍

Fellows will be asked to present their work to the community at the end of the Fellowship in a project showcase.

Eligibility and Requirements

Community Guidelines

Applicants will be asked to ‘wow’ the selection committee in the manner they prefer. This means choosing whatever platform they feel will best highlight both their ideas and personal strengths (video, text, music, filmed performance, unusual and original research work, etc.).

The application should show the originality and boldness of the idea submitted and the technical capacity of the applicant to make progress. We are looking for students who are passionate, engaged, autonomous, and are obsessed with knowledge, learning, and discovery. Think about the question or the unknown that you are trying to get at, and articulate it in your application.

Important: articulate the unknown that you're trying to uncover as clearly as you can!

Due to the expected large volume of applications, please aim for maximum impact and clarity as opposed to detail. We strongly recommend keeping videos and similar applications to be viewed within 3-5 minutes.

If you are shortlisted, we may call you for an interview where you are expected to explain your rationale for applying, and your overall goals.

Anita Parmar
‍Co-director, Building 21

Book a meeting

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Ollivier Dyens
‍‍Co-director, Building 21

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