Oladapo Oyebode secured Mitacs Accelerate, Mitacs Globalink, and NRC IRAP funding

Oladapo Oyebode was awarded an NRC IRAP grant of $5,000 (spanning May 2025 to July 2025) for a research project on AI chatbots for mental health and motivation with the aim of synthesizing evidence on efficacy, engagement strategies and clinical considerations that could translate to post-surgical pain support.

He was also awarded a Mitacs Accelerate grant of $30,000 as Principal Investigator, running from November 2025 to October 2026, for the project Towards an AI-Driven and Intuitive Chat Interface for Generating Visualizations, an industry-partnered collaboration with Engage Nova Scotia on developing natural-language interfaces for data visualization. The non-profit runs the Nova Scotia Quality of Life Survey, whose 2019 edition drew nearly 13,000 responses to 230 questions – the largest single wellbeing dataset of its kind in the world and its 2026 survey went to every household in the province.

He was also awarded a Mitacs Globalink Research Internship award as Host Principal Investigator, which fully funds international research placements during summer. This year’s interns – Khouloud Brahem and Muhammad Junaid Zia from Tunisia and Pakistan, respectively – will deliver research projects covering multimodal, trustworthy, and adaptive AI systems for physical and mental well-being within 12 weeks (July 6 to September 27, 2026).