Theses

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/6

The theses in UWSpace are publicly accessible unless restricted due to publication or patent pending.

This collection includes a subset of theses submitted by graduates of the University of Waterloo as a partial requirement of a degree program at the Master's or PhD level. It includes all electronically submitted theses. (Electronic submission was optional from 1996 through 2006. Electronic submission became the default submission format in October 2006.)

This collection also includes a subset of UW theses that were scanned through the Theses Canada program. (The subset includes UW PhD theses from 1998 - 2002.)

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The System is Broken
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-03) Jeethan, Breanne
The System is Broken is an exhibition that is a visual reflection of my experiences as a healthcare worker in an emergency department. The works represent abstract scenes of the clinical workspace. They are comprised of monoprints, digital prints, UV ink paintings, sculptural etched glass, and lightboxes. With the use of internal angiogram brain scans and collected dressing materials from the clinical setting, it is a response to the fast-paced, stressful environment of the hospital that is rife with trauma, high emotions, and anguish. Working between the emergency room and the studio, I balance my life between the two workplaces as a fuel to create work. The series speaks both to my continuous navigating of in-betweenness, but also to the overarching hierarchical nature of the medical system. By manipulating and distorting found imagery created by various medical technologies, abnormalities in the imagery are created to signal the bureaucratic structures and power imbalance of the healthcare system.
Characterizing cofree representations of SLn x SLm
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-03) Kitt, Nicole
The study, and in particular classification, of cofree representations has been an interest of research for over 70 years. The Chevalley-Shepard-Todd Theorem provides a beautiful intrinsic characterization for cofree representations of finite groups. Specifically, this theorem says that a representation V of a finite group G is cofree if and only if G is generated by pseudoreflections. Up until the late 1900s, with the exception of finite groups, all of the existing classifications of cofree representations of a particular group consist of an explicit list, as opposed to an intrinsic group-theoretic characterization. However, in 2019, Edidin, Satriano, and Whitehead formulated a conjecture which intrinsically characterizes stable irreducible cofree representations of connected reductive groups and verified their conjecture for simple Lie groups. The conjecture states that for a stable irreducible representation V of a connected reductive group G, V is cofree if and only if V is pure. In comparison to the classifications comprised of a list of cofree representations, this conjecture can be viewed as an analogue of the Chevalley–Shepard–Todd Theorem for actions of connected reductive groups. The aim of this thesis is to further expand upon the techniques formulated by Edidin, Satriano, and Whitehead as a means to work towards the verification of the conjecture for all connected semisimple Lie groups. The main result of this thesis is the verification of the conjecture for stable irreducible representations V\otimes W of SLn x SLm satisfying dim V >= n^2 and dim W >= m^2. As the main group under study in this thesis is SLn x SLm, in Chapter 2 we provide a thorough analysis of the structure of irreducible representations of SLn from the view point of them being in one-to-one correspondence with irreducible representations of the Lie algebra Lie(SLn). The last section of Chapter 2 describes the general theory of irreducible representations of complex semisimple Lie algebras, with SLn as a toy example. In Chapter 3, we provide a brief introduction to Geometric Invariant Theory (GIT) and present the main results of the theory. We then discuss the history of GIT and the known characterization results for properties of representations that arise from GIT. In particular, we introduce cofree representations and the current classification results for cofree representations of certain classes of groups. We finish Chapter 3 by introducing pure representations and the conjecture formulated by Edidin, Satriano, and Whitehead. In Chapter 4, we verify that for all stable irreducible representations V\otimes W of SLn x SLm satisfying dim V >= n^2 and dim W >= m^2, V\otimes W is cofree if and only if V\otimes W if pure. This involves proving an upper bound on the dimension of pure representations of G_1 x G_2, with G_i connected reductive Lie groups. We also introduce two methods that can be used to show that a given representation is not pure. The last section in Chapter 4 discusses the difficulties and obstacles when trying to verify the conjecture for the remaining cases, namely when dim V < n^2 or dim W < m^2.
The failure of Gladue: A critical examination of Indigenous Peoples Courts in Ontario
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-03) Jones, Ellora
In 2001 the first Gladue court opened as an intensive effort to implement the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1999 Gladue decision. This decision calls for a substantive equality approach to sentencing Indigenous people that considers the role of colonialism in their overrepresentation in the legal system. However, despite Gladue and the introduction of these Indigenous Peoples’ Courts, the overincarceration of Indigenous people has continued to steadily increase over the last 25 years. Notably, these rising incarceration rates have a gendered dimension as the incarceration of Indigenous women is growing at triple that of Indigenous men. Indigenous women now account for over half of admissions to federal women’s correctional facilities. While Gladue courts have existed for more than two decades, research on how they operate remains limited with no studies examining the role of gender within them. This dissertation addresses this gap through a critical, intersectional feminist examination of how Gladue courts operate and are understood by their court teams. The analysis draws on courtroom observation, 20 semi-structured interviews with individuals who work in the Gladue courts, and six qualitative surveys completed by judges. The data demonstrates that the criminal legal system cannot mitigate the harm of colonialism despite its efforts. Three main findings emerge within this research. Firstly, Gladue courts have been unsuccessful at reducing the overrepresentation of Indigenous women in the Canadian criminal legal system due to their failure to consider the multiple ways in which intersecting structural oppressions render women uniquely vulnerable to criminalization. Secondly, Gladue courts fail to achieve a restorative and decolonial approach because they remain embedded in the broader criminal legal system, which is rooted in colonial logics. The transformative potential of the courts is in constant tension with the broader goals and logics of punishment, marginalization, and social control. Finally, individual discretion and close working relationships among court team members are central to achieving Gladue courts’ substantive equality objectives; this often takes place informally and off-the-record through actions such as withdrawing charges. While the courts are unable to accomplish their mandate due to the inherent limitations of the criminal legal system, this failure is aggravated by the inclusion of court team members who oppose the substantive equality logics of the court and its abandonment of the foundational features of specialized courts, such as assigned court teams. This dissertation highlights several considerations for developing a decolonial approach to addressing the overincarceration of Indigenous people, including community-based Indigenous-led responses. This work contributes to ongoing sociolegal conversations about the ability of— as well as the contradictions associated with— using the criminal legal system and courts to mitigate social injustices and oppression in society.  Furthermore, it contributes to broader theoretical debates on the effects of problem-solving courts on the lives of criminalized individuals located at the intersections of multiple forms of structural oppression.
High-Performance Coordination with Weaker Protocols: From Shared Registers to Data Feed Processing in Blockchains
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-03) Tan, Hao
Blockchains are decentralized ledger technologies that provide secure, transparent, and tamper-resistant transaction records. Permissioned blockchains restrict participation to authorized entities and employ Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) protocols for consensus. As blockchain systems evolve, the need for exchanging data and assets across heterogeneous networks has grown. To support such functionality, platforms increasingly integrate with external systems, enabling information flow between decentralized and conventional infrastructures. Blockchain oracles serve a key role in this integration by injecting real-world data—such as asset prices or event outcomes—into smart contracts through structured oracle data feeds. Conventional blockchain systems typically employ BFT consensus for oracle data integration, which introduces substantial latency and computational overhead. Although consensus protocols offer robust consistency guarantees, they also incur significant computational and communication overhead, thereby constraining system responsiveness and scalability in blockchain environments. To address these challenges, this thesis investigates weaker coordination protocols as lightweight alternatives that relax strict consistency requirements while preserving sufficient reliability for practical deployment. This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of these protocols in enhancing the performance of read-write operations—a common access pattern in oracle data feed processing—across three distinct projects. First, this thesis assesses the overhead of consensus in key-value processing by comparing consensus protocols with shared register protocols. The comparison reveals two previously overlooked limitations that arise under workload-driven access patterns. Second, it introduces a shared register protocol tailored for wide-area networks, which employs loosely synchronized clocks and asymmetric quorum techniques to reduce coordination latency across heterogeneous client loads. Third, it applies weaker coordination techniques to oracle data feed processing—a fundamental component of many smart contract applications. By decoupling data feed processing from BFT consensus using a probabilistic quorum protocol and a censorship-resistant broadcast primitive, the proposed design improves both throughput and data freshness for on-chain transactions dependent on timely off-chain inputs. Collectively, these contributions demonstrate how workload-specific weaker protocols can enable more efficient distributed systems. By reducing coordination overhead without sacrificing practical correctness, the proposed approaches support the development of scalable, responsive, and application-aware decentralized infrastructures.
Using a Capability Sensitive Design Approach to Support Newcomers Well-being
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-03) Bin Hannan, Nabil
Newcomers transitioning to a new country face many challenges, and their well-being is impacted due to unfamiliarity with self-navigating in a new environment. This thesis explores how Capability Sensitive Design (CSD) can be operationalized to guide the end-to-end design and evaluation of technologies that support the well-being of newcomers during life transitions. While the CSD framework has recently been investigated in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) for its ethical focus on supporting what individuals have reason to value, there remains a gap in how it can be translated into concrete, scalable technology design processes. To address this, we present a multi-stage methodology that includes formative interviews, co-design sessions, prototype development, and a longitudinal field study to evaluate the application prototype. We begin by mapping the lived experiences of newcomers using a capability-oriented interview protocol and with the use of a capability board to surface valued goals and challenges. This informed a co-design process using modified capability cards, where both newcomers and organizational stakeholders ideated design features aligned with the ten central capabilities. Drawing on these insights, we developed the Newcomer App—a multilingual mobile platform offering four core features: goal-oriented planning, capability-aligned suggestions, resource search and browsing, and reflective tracking. We evaluated this platform in an eight-week field study that included in-app activity logging and post study interviews. Our findings show that newcomers were able to identify capability-aligned goals which they found helpful, translate them into intentional plans, and reflect on both their achievements and the conversion factors that influenced outcomes. Importantly, we observed how CSD-informed features constructed self-discovery, increased agency, and facilitated social contribution, particularly in the capabilities of social connection, emotional well-being, and community participation. The study also highlighted the importance of contextual and social barriers in determining whether users could turn suggestions into meaningful actions. This thesis contributes an operational model for applying CSD across the full design lifecycle, offering insights for researchers and practitioners. By translating ethical commitments into deployable technologies, our work extends prior research in HCI and design social justice, demonstrating how technologies can support equitable pathways toward wellbeing for marginalized groups, such as newcomers in navigating complex transitions.
Analytic Property Testing: Directed Isoperimetry and Monotonicity
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-03) Ferreira Pinto Junior, Renato
Property testing is a computational paradigm that aims to design algorithms for extremely fast decision-making about massive inputs. Property testing has been studied for nearly three decades, primarily with a focus on testing properties about discrete objects such as Boolean functions and graphs. In this thesis, we study property testing for inherently continuous objects, namely functions with real-valued domain and range---which we call the analytic setting. We study the central problem of monotonicity testing in this setting, where the input is a continuous function f : [0,1]^d → R and the algorithm must decide whether f is monotone with respect to its input coordinates, or far from monotone in the appropriate sense (namely with respect to the L^p distance). The central theme of this thesis is a connection between monotonicity testing and directed isoperimetric inequalities, which are analogues of classical isoperimetric inequalities that have been shown to be intimately related to monotonicity testing in discrete settings. Indeed, many algorithmic advances in monotonicity testing over the last decade have been obtained via new directed isoperimetric inequalities. We show that the connection between directed isoperimetry and monotonicity also holds in the analytic setting, and indeed reveals new relationships between property testing and areas of mathematics such as partial differential equations and optimal transport theory. The main results in this thesis are the directed Poincaré inequality dist^mono_2(f)^2 ≲ E[|∇^- f|^2} for Lipschitz functions f : [0,1]^d → R defined over the solid unit cube, where dist^mono_2(f) denotes the L^2 distance to monotonicity of f and the "directed gradient" operator ∇^- f measures the local violations of monotonicity of f; and a monotonicity tester for this setting with query complexity \widetilde O(\sqrt{d}). We obtain the directed Poincaré inequality by studying a new partial differential equation called the directed heat equation. In our study of monotonicity testing and its connection to directed isoperimetry, we also systematize classical and directed isoperimetric inequalities in continuous and discrete settings; obtain a variety of upper and lower bounds for monotonicity testing of Lipschitz functions in other settings of interest such as the one-dimensional line and the hypergrid; and develop directed Poincaré inequalities for directed graphs by studying a dynamical process called the directed heat flow via directed analogues of classical spectral theory.
Studying Immersive Deception: Manifestations and User Perceptions of Deceptive Design in Commercial Virtual Reality
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-03) Hadan, Hilda
Deceptive Design (formerly “dark patterns”) refers to design practices that distort or impair users’ ability to make informed decisions, regardless of intent. As immersive technolo- gies, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), transform people’s daily experiences, their immersive virtual environments unleash a highly engaging experience while enabling new opportunities for deceptive design strategies that users cannot easily recognize or resist. Consequently, ethical and privacy concerns are expanding into these environments. While previous research has examined deceptive design issues in websites, mobile apps, games, and gamification, the extent of these problems in immersive environ- ments remains largely unexplored. This thesis investigates deceptive design in immersive environments with a specific attention to VR. It identifies deceptive design that presents in VR and emerges from VR technology’s unique properties, and examines their impacts from users’ perspective. We first conducted a systematic literature review to synthesize the state-of-the-art research on deceptive design. This review revealed potential deceptive strategies that can be employed in immersive environments, and those that can be enabled by the large amount of user data collected by these technologies. However, most of the existing literature focused on hypothetical scenarios rather than examining deceptive design as it appears in commercially available applications. Informed by the findings from this review, we surveyed experienced users about their awareness of data practices in immersive technologies, examined deceptive design in commercially available VR applications, and compared these findings with those from traditional computer platforms. To ensure consistent and comparable deceptive design analyses across these platforms, we developed a Deceptive Design Assessment Guide grounded in foundational deceptive design literature. This Assessment Guide was applied and validated in two studies that examined how deceptive practices manifest and influence user experience in exemplary computer and VR applications. Our findings show that the deceptive design in VR applications relies heavily on 2D interfaces, such as dialogue windows and checkboxes, rather than fully integrating VR-specific properties. Hypothesized scenarios from the literature, such as perception-hacking and emotional-based manipulation, were not observed in our selected VR applications. Certain VR properties (e.g., realistic simulation, virtual-physical barrier) amplified the impacts of deceptive design in users’ decision-making process but did not directly enable it. While users cannot point out specific design elements that used deceptive practices, they still expressed a general discomfort and feeling of manipulation. Nevertheless, many users felt powerless in protecting themselves or asserting their autonomy, and perceived deceptive design as a standardized industry practice with no possible escapes. Our research has implications for future research, and immersive technology design, development, and regulation for building better industry design standards and stronger user protections. For future researchers, the findings provide guidance on fostering user awareness through effective educational strategies, expanding theoretical approaches for understanding deceptive design in immersive environments, and refining user-centered empirical approaches for identifying and evaluating deceptive practices. For designers and developers, this thesis offers a structured Assessment Guide and actionable recommendations for supporting the creation of ethical and user-centered immersive applications that respect privacy and autonomy. For immersive technology regulation, this thesis identifies the limitations of current regulations and provides practical advice for expanding and strengthening regulatory frameworks, enforcing transparent privacy communication and ethical industry design standards tailored to immersive technologies. In conclusion, this thesis advances the understanding of deceptive design in commercially available VR applications, delivers actionable strategies for identifying and mitigating deceptive practices, and establishes a foundation for cross-disciplinary collaborations to protect user well-being in immersive environments.
Gas hydrate formation and dissociation: predictive, thermodynamic, and dynamic models
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-27) Hosseini, Mostafa
Gas hydrates are a type of crystalline compound consisting of water and small gas molecules. A wide range of applications of gas hydrates in storing natural gas in the form of artificially created solid hydrates, known as solidified natural gas technology, gas separation processes, and seawater desalination technology, has attracted great interest in scientific and practical studies. Gas hydrate formation may also cause deleterious effects, such as blockage of gas pipelines. Therefore, accurate prediction of equilibrium conditions for gas hydrates is of great interest. In this regard, machine learning-based models were proposed to predict methane-hydrate formation temperature for a wide range of brines. A comprehensive database including 987 data samples covering 15 different brines was gathered from the literature. After data cleaning and preparation, three different models, namely multilayer perceptron (MLP), decision tree (DT), and extremely randomized trees (ET), were trained and tested. The ET model achieved the best performance with a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 0.6248 K for the testing dataset. Moreover, in an additional independent testing with MgBr2 samples, ET achieved an RMSE of 0.3520 K, confirming its strong generalization ability. The order of model accuracy was ET greater than MLP greater than DT. Compared to previous studies, the developed models achieved similar or better accuracy while covering a wider range of brine types. The findings of this study can be used as a reliable tool to predict methane-hydrate formation PT curves for pure water, single-salt brines, and multi-salt brines. The research further focuses on improving the prediction of equilibrium conditions in methane hydrate systems by incorporating diverse water-soluble hydrate formers and applying advanced machine learning techniques. Methane hydrates, which naturally form under high pressure and low temperature, can be more efficiently formed or dissociated by altering thermodynamic conditions using these hydrate formers. Accurate prediction of these conditions is crucial for optimizing gas storage and energy applications. Molecular descriptors and operational parameters, such as mole fraction and pressure, were used as input variables to predict equilibrium temperature. Machine learning methods, including Decision Trees (DT), Random Forests (RF), Support Vector Machines (SVM), and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), were employed, using a novel former-based data-splitting approach rather than traditional sample-based methods. The RF model achieved the best results, with R2 = 0.930, RMSE = 1.71, and AARD = 0.48%. Feature selection, preprocessing, and Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) provided valuable insights into variable importance. Additional findings from the reduced model revealed that even less influential features significantly impacted distance-based models such as SVM and MLP. Interaction analysis through SHAP dependency plots highlighted the critical interplay between polar surface area and rotatable bonds in hydrate formation conditions. This work advances methane hydrate research by offering a more accurate and interpretable framework for predicting hydrate equilibrium, addressing key gaps in previous studies, and extending its applicability to a broader range of systems. Moreover, the introduction of a former-based data-splitting method improves generalization across different hydrate formers, while the use of SHAP values for model interpretability offers deeper insights into the relationships between molecular descriptors and hydrate equilibrium conditions. This study paves the way for improved selection of hydrate formers in hydrate systems. In addition to the phase equilibrium studies, this research also addresses the behavior of gas hydrates under confinement, focusing on hydrate dissociation in porous media. Understanding the dissociation behavior of gas hydrates in confined porous media is crucial for evaluating their stability and potential applications in energy storage, carbon capture, and climate modeling. Two distinct approaches were developed, namely a thermodynamic activity model and machine learning (ML) models, to predict equilibrium dissociation temperatures of gas hydrates in porous media of varying pore sizes. The activity model accounted for capillary effects and surface interactions and was validated against an unfiltered experimental dataset. For CH4 hydrates, the model achieved an AAD% of 0.17%, and for C3H8 hydrates, an AAD% of 0.62%. Complementary machine learning models (DT, RF, SVM, MLP) were trained using pore diameter, pressure, and gas critical properties as features. Group-based data splitting, with propane data reserved for testing, ensured robust evaluation. Among ML models, the SVM achieved the best predictive performance with an AAD% of 0.52%. SHAP analysis revealed that critical temperature, system pressure, and pore size were dominant predictors. The study also noted that experimental scatter was linked to pore structure variability and procedural differences, with larger pores showing convergence to bulk hydrate behavior. The combined modeling framework effectively captures hydrate behavior across a wide range of confined conditions, offering valuable predictive capability for both industrial and geological hydrate systems. In conclusion, the integration of physics-based and data-driven modeling enables accurate prediction of hydrate dissociation temperatures across a range of porous media. These findings support the development of predictive tools for hydrate systems in both geological and industrial applications. Finally, to complement the thermodynamic and equilibrium predictions, the dynamic transport behavior of hydrate particles in pipelines was investigated through CFD–DEM simulations. The dynamic behavior of hydrate particles suspended in water-dominated horizontal pipe flow using a two-way coupled CFD–DEM framework based on OpenFOAM and LIGGGHTS via CFDEM® coupling was explored. Multiphase flow simulations were conducted across inlet velocities of 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8 m/s and hydrate volume fractions of 2%, 5%, 8%, 15%, and 20%. Pressure drop behavior was quantified by extracting pressure gradients between two axial positions (z = 0.10 m and z = 0.49 m) early in the simulation. Results indicated that pressure drop increases with hydrate volume fraction at all flow velocities, with clustering phenomena becoming more prominent at higher solid loadings. Cross-sectional velocity profiles visualized the early evolution of particle clustering, wall interactions, and domain depletion. Increased flow velocity enhanced particle suspension but reduced domain uniformity over time. Time-resolved analyses of pressure drop, drag force, particle velocity, interparticle forces, and radial migration were conducted to explore flow regime transitions and mechanical resistance. Early clustering near the pipe walls was observed under dense flow conditions, driven by cohesive and frictional forces, leading to partial stratification and localized energy dissipation. The study highlights the importance of considering early-time flow dynamics, where suspension quality and transport resistance are most sensitive to hydrate loading. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of hydrate slurry transport in multiphase pipeline systems and offer practical guidance for improving flow assurance models and mitigation strategies in subsea energy operations.
Contextual and Individual Factors Associated with the Interpretation and Usage of Prosocial Lies
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-26) Ong, Shirley
Lying is a complex and multifaceted aspect of human communication, often viewed as a moral or social transgression. Growing up, children are instilled with the message that it is important to be honest. However, not all lies are told for malicious purposes, and there are situations where telling a lie may be socially appropriate and provide beneficial for the recipient. Prosocial lying is defined as a type of lie that is socially beneficial and enhances the quality of social interactions by minimizing harm to others. Within everyday exchanges both children and adults use prosocial lies on a frequent basis. While there may be social benefits to using prosocial lies, overuse or inappropriate use has negative outcomes. Thus, it is important for children to know how and when prosocial lying is more/less appropriate. My doctoral dissertation examines how contextual and individual factors relate to children’s reasoning about prosocial lies. I examined this for both children’s perceptions of lies, namely, how children felt the emotions of both the lie-teller and the lie-listener may be affected by the lie, as well as children’s endorsement of lies (versus truth), that is, how likely they themselves would be to use lies in varying contexts. There were two contextual factors manipulated with my work. First, I examined the listener’s knowledge of the situation, thereby allowing my work to build upon the rich body of work that has examined children’s sensitivity to and use of others’ knowledge to guide their communication. Second, I explored the role of statement content (i.e., whether there was a reference to an opinion or to reality), building on past work that has shown children’s sensitivity to the moral weight of lies based on content. With respect to individual differences, I focused on the role of empathy in relation to perceptions/endorsement of prosocial lies, exploring whether increased sensitivity to others’ emotional states (i.e., empathy) was associated with children’s perception/endorsement of prosocial lying within certain contexts. My central focus was on the performance of school-aged children, a developmental stage chosen as children in this age range would both understand the function of prosocial lies generally and show sensitivity to the content of lies. However, to assist with understanding developmental shifts in performance, I also assessed how adults would respond on similar tasks. Two studies were conducted with different groups of children and adults. Study 1 focused on children’s (8–11 years, N=80) and adults’ (N=192) perceptions of the emotional impact of prosocial lies (and truths) for both lie-tellers (i.e. speakers) and listeners. Participants read/heard a series of eight vignettes describing a negative event wherein a speaker says either a truth/lie (referring to their opinion or reality) to a listener who was/was not aware of the negative event. Before and after the statement was uttered, participants rated the emotions of both characters. Results demonstrated that the statement content did not affect children’s or adults’ perceptions of listener/speaker emotions. Both children and adults perceived that listeners would feel better after hearing a prosocial lie regardless of their knowledge state, suggesting that there may be a social benefit even when a prosocial lie is unlikely to deceive. However, following a lie, when listeners were unaware of the negative event (versus aware), their emotions were rated as more positive, suggesting that participants were tracking the listener’s knowledge state and using this to gauge emotional outcomes. Children with higher empathy showed better accuracy in detecting lies (when told to ignorant listeners) and adults with better empathy perceived knowledgeable listeners as feeling worse following a prosocial lie. Study 2 focused on children’s (8–11 years, N=81) and adults’ (N=218 endorsement of prosocial lies. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in scenarios involving a negative event that another person either knew or did not know about. They then rated how likely they would be to use the truth/lie statements which varied in content (referring to opinion or reality). Results demonstrated that while children endorsed statements similarly for ignorant/knowledgeable listeners, adults endorsed a greater likelihood of using a prosocial lie when the listener was ignorant of the negative event. Both age-groups indicated higher likelihood of telling a prosocial lie about an opinion versus reality. Empathy was not associated with children’s responses but was associated with adults’ communicative choices. Across the two studies, findings provide insight into how children (and adults) incorporate information about listener knowledge and statement content into their appreciation of prosocial lies. Findings also highlight the differing role of empathy throughout development within the context of these studies. My results have theoretical implications for children’s communicative development and practical considerations for prosocial lying in general.
Mathematical modeling of whole-body electrolyte homeostasis
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-24) Stadt, Melissa
Electrolyte balance is crucial for many physiological processes, including cellular signaling, muscle contractions, membrane potentials, hormonal secretion, and bone structure. Disruptions to electrolyte balance, arising from disease, diet, or drugs can have severe health consequences, such as muscle weakness, bone fragility, and life-threatening cardiac arrythmias. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of these regulatory systems and how they may be disrupted is important for developing effective preventative and therapeutic strategies. Mathematical modeling provides a powerful tool for investigating these systems through simulations and analysis. In this thesis, we present the development and analysis of mathematical models focused on the regulation of key electrolytes, potassium and calcium. For potassium homeostasis, we first developed a detailed, whole-body model incorporating known regulatory mechanisms. We conducted model simulations to quantify the individual contributions of these regulatory mechanisms on long-term potassium balance and responses to a meal. Additionally, we conducted sensitivity analyses to understand how parameter variations impact potassium levels in the extracellular and intracellular fluid. Furthermore, we integrated recent experimental data on renal adaptations to high potassium intake to analyze these findings from a whole-body perspective. For calcium homeostasis, we developed mathematical models representing a male, female, late pregnant, and lactating rat to quantify sex-specific differences and maternal adaptations in calcium regulation. These models synthesized literature data to identify key mechanisms that enable females to meet the high calcium demands of pregnancy and lactation. Finally, we developed an integrated model that represents the renin-angiotensin system, calcium regulation, and bone remodeling to investigate the impact of estrogen deficiency in post-menopausal women and common antihypertensive treatments on bone density and calcium regulation. The research provided in this thesis contributes frameworks for understanding electrolyte homeostasis and predicting the impacts of physiological changes and pharmacological interventions on electrolyte and bone homeostasis.
Role of Social Capital and Relational Well-being in Shaping the Community Level Responses to Tropical Cyclones among the Small-Scale Fisheries Communities in Chilika Lagoon, India
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-24) PRAKASH SHERLY, GREESHMA
Small scale fisheries (SSFs) are more vulnerable to calamities brought on by natural hazards, changing climatic conditions, and climate change due to their proximity to the seashore. Dealing with these challenges is an added burden to already existing vulnerabilities, injustice and marginalization faced by them. The Indian subcontinent with a vast coastline extending up to 7516 kms (about 4670.23 mi), is vulnerable to world’s 10% tropical cyclones, especially in the places adjacent to Bay of Bengal (BoB). Asia’s largest and world’s second largest brackish water lagoon, adjacent to BoB - Chilika lagoon, situated in Odisha state of India is extremely prone to catastrophic events, causing around 5-6 cyclones hitting the coast annually. SSFs who depend on the lagoon for their livelihood are on the forefront suffering from the repercussions of cyclonic activities. While resilience against events like cyclones is usually analyzed in terms of economic and infrastructure aspects, there is a lack of focus on the intrinsic material aspects contributing to community resilience in the face of climate related disasters. This research fills this gap by analyzing the community resilience of SSF’s in Chilika Lagoon through the lens of social capital and relational well-being. Social capital measures the different links or connections a community has within and outside of their network that helps them build effective response strategies through collective action at the time of crisis. Communities with high social capital can bring community members together for better preparedness, emergency support, response, and recovery efforts. Nevertheless, it is not the existence of all these linkages that matters, but the quality and balance of all these ties are imperative. For instance, the effectiveness of these could be hindered in a community level resilience if it lacks the ability to address the power imbalance, social inequality, and trust. Thus, relational well-being measures the quality of various networks through characteristics such as trust, reciprocity, support, and network dynamics which create a sense of motivation to work collectively. The study employs a qualitative case study approach and multiple data collection tools such as semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, and focus group discussions. The key findings present the various challenges faced by the communities in various systems like social, economic, environmental and physical and their interconnectedness, role of social capital and relational well-being in the various community level response to deal with the crises, the lack thereof due to power imbalance, social inequality, caste system and political power and finally providing recommendations to ensure tailored context specific approaches to enhance the community resilience against disasters like tropical cyclone in the future.
Teenage Feminists: High School Students and the Women's Movement in Ontario, 1968-1980
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-24) Blair, Megan
This thesis examines the involvement of teenage girls in the upsurge of feminist activism between 1968 and 1980. Young women across Ontario engaged in feminism in a variety of ways; some joined high school women’s liberation groups in their communities or started their own feminist groups in their schools, while others reflected a more intimate and subtle feminism, challenging gender discrimination in their everyday lives. Using an age-focused analysis, this thesis argues that teenage girls partook in everyday feminism. Everyday feminism entails the recognition of discrimination and inequalities in intimate, everyday spaces, and the words, actions, and thoughts that challenged these inequalities. By broadening the definition of feminism beyond adult-oriented women’s groups and issues, this thesis captures the feminist actions of young women. Spaces and issues that mattered to young women such as school, sports, sex education, and fashion were all ways that teenage girls negotiated with discrimination and feminism. While young women sometimes collaborated with adults, at other times their efforts were more individualized, spontaneous, or collaborative with their peers. This thesis contributes to a more complex and varied history of feminism in Canada by taking seriously the issues that mattered to young women and recognizing the reality of their involvement in feminist action.
Developing an Agent-Based Model (ABM) to Explore the Geographic Redistribution of Snowmobilers During a Record Warm Winter
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) Rubiano, Mave
Canada's snowmobile industry is the second largest market in the world, with Ontario generating over $3 billion in economic activity and supporting over 10,000 full time jobs. Inter-annual climate variability and record warm winters have underscored the vulnerability of the industry, which is predicated on natural snowfall and low temperatures to support over 100,000 riders across the 33,000 kilometers network of trails. However, critical regional and methodological gaps limit our understanding of the vulnerability of snowmobiling to both current conditions and projected climate change, with no available research that empirically explores the dynamic relationship between supply- and demand-side responses to marginal climatic conditions. The presented research develops an agent-based model (ABM) to simulate how trail availability influences the spatial redistribution of snowmobilers across Ontario. Using the record warm 2023/2024 winter season as a climate analogue, the ABM was informed by a geospatial analysis of trail network availability (i.e., supply-side vulnerability) and the results from an online survey of snowmobilers' (n=161) (i.e., demand-side vulnerability). Results from the geospatial analysis revealed significant trail closures across the province, with 14 districts having ≤5% trail availability in December followed by an early end to the season (≤1% of trails available in March). Survey findings revealed that 90.4% reducing riding frequency in response to trail closures, but strong willingness to travel (e.g., 61.5% travelled to alternative trails outside their preferred district due to closures, averaging 239.8km for day trips and 861.1km for overnight trips). The ABM simulated the movement of 1,000 snowmobiler agents across the 16 districts, resulting in significant redistribution patterns that underscore differential climate risks, such that some districts gained market share (e.g., Districts 1 and 3) while others incurred substantial losses (e.g., Districts 11 and 6). Collectively, the results suggest the future of snowmobiling in Ontario may involve substantial geographical shifts rather than outright market collapse, with important implications for tourism planning and rural economic development in a warming world.
Simulated spin qubits in silicon quantum dots and enhancement of InGaAs photodetectors
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) Merino, Zach
Semiconductor quantum dot spin qubits are a leading candidate for scalable, fault- tolerant quantum computing. Their advantages include nanoscopic device size, compat- ibility with foundry fabrication processes, and long coherence times relative to gate du- rations. The fabrication and control of a quantum processing unit composed of tens of thousands to millions of physical qubits pose many engineering challenges. These chal- lenges fall broadly into two categories: device design, such as optimizing the geometry for high-quality qubit formation, and qubit control, which involves the precise manipulation of spin or charge states in qubits that are capacitively coupled to numerous neighboring electrodes. In this thesis, we develop a simulation tool that accelerates device design iter- ation prior to fabrication by providing a priori knowledge of the quantum dot electrostatic potential landscape as a function of external electrode voltages. This enables effective spin and Hubbard Hamiltonian parameters to be computed before experimental charac- terization, facilitating early-stage control method development and device performance prediction. The tool, implemented as the Python-based QuDiPy package, integrates three- dimensional finite-element Poisson solutions with modules for electrostatic reconstruction, Hamiltonian parameter extraction, and control pulse optimization. Unlike previous dis- jointed toolchains, QuDiPy offers a unified workflow for full-stack qubit control simulations, including automated voltage-to-Hamiltonian mapping for exploring high-dimensional gate voltage spaces and mitigating crosstalk in dense qubit arrays. The simulator is designed to be memory- and CPU-efficient to enable computationally efficient simulation of linear quantum dot arrays consisting of several qubits. Simulation of small quantum dot arrays serves as a design tool for control protocols within multi-node quantum processors. Sim- ulation of spin qubit dynamics in many-qubit nodes connected in a network enables the study of required voltage ranges for maintaining stable charge configurations in the device. It also supports the design of experimental input pulses to generate maximally entangled Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) states between nodes, a key step for implementing surface code error correction protocols. Spin qubit control requires a precise understanding of the impact of experimental con- trols, such as electrode voltages or radio-frequency magnetic field amplitude and phase, on effective parameters such as electronic g-factor, exchange energy, chemical potential, etc. A mapping between experimental and effective parameters is created by performing effective parameter calculations on two-dimensional cross-sections of the electrostatic po- tential landscape obtained from a 3-dimensional Poisson solver nextnano++, a commercially available, 3D Poisson solver chosen for its robustness, flexibility in defining quantum device geometries, and proven accuracy in modeling semiconductor heterostructures at cryogenic temperatures. First, a 2D cross-section of the electrostatic potential landscape is taken along the growth direction of the quantum dot device, near the heterojunction where qubit formation occurs. This region is selected because it captures the horizontal confinement profile most relevant to charge localization and wavefunction shape. The cross-section is extracted for all simulated voltage configurations applied to the gate electrodes. Second, the single-particle ground state or first excited state wavefunctions are determined using a non-uniform grid Schrödinger solver for all voltage configurations and for each isolated quantum dot or nearest-neighbor quantum dot pair. The non-uniform grid provides higher spatial resolution near confinement potential minima, enabling more accurate modeling of localized wavefunctions where precision is most critical. The mapping between input voltage and single-particle wavefunctions is leveraged, along with numerical integration routines, to calculate the desired effective parameters as a function of voltage. The chemi- cal potential, tunnel coupling, and onsite and interdot Coulomb parameters are computed for each voltage configuration. This enables exact diagonalization of the Hubbard Hamil- tonian at every point in voltage space and identifies the regions of charge stability for a multiqubit quantum dot device. This step is essential for establishing control over the quantum processor. The second part of this thesis investigates optoelectronic device enhancement using localized surface plasmons in nanocrystals. Fast and accurate detection of light in the near-infrared (NIR) spectral range plays a crucial role in alleviating speed and capacity bottlenecks in optical communications and in enhancing the control and safety of au- tonomous vehicles through NIR imaging systems. Several technological platforms are cur- rently under investigation to improve NIR photodetection, aiming to surpass the perfor- mance of established III–V semiconductor p-i-n (PIN) junction technology. These plat- forms include in situ-grown inorganic nanocrystals (NCs) and nanowire arrays, as well as hybrid organic–inorganic materials such as graphene-perovskite heterostructures. How- ever, challenges remain in NC and nanowire growth, large-area fabrication of high-quality 2D materials, and the fabrication of devices for practical applications. Here, we ex- plore the potential for tailored semiconductor NCs to enhance the responsivity of planar metal–semiconductor–metal (MSM) photodetectors. MSM technology offers ease of fabri- cation and fast response times compared to PIN detectors. We observe enhancement of the optical-to-electric conversion efficiency by up to a factor of ∼2.5 through the application of plasmonically-active semiconductor nanorods and NCs. We present a protocol for syn- thesizing and rapidly testing the performance of non-stoichiometric tungsten oxide (WO) nanorods and cesium-doped tungsten oxide (CsyWO) hexagonal nanoprisms prepared in colloidal suspensions and drop-cast onto photodetector surfaces. The results demonstrate the potential for a cost-effective and scalable method exploiting tailored NCs to improve the performance of NIR optoelectronic devices.
The development of the sunk cost bias
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) Sehl, Claudia G.
The sunk cost bias is when people overvalue objects or projects because they have already invested time, money, or effort into them. Most sunk cost research over the past 50 years investigated the bias in adults, exploring the conditions in which people expect themselves and others to be biased by sunk costs. However, very little work has examined the developmental origins of the bias, despite much evidence that young children reason about costs for a host of predictions and inferences about others. Across three papers, this dissertation examines children’s (N = 990) and adults’ (N = 934) sunk cost predictions. Chapter Two first explored whether children predict others’ actions are biased by sunk costs. After seeing agents collect two identical objects but being able to keep only one, adults expected agents will be biased by sunk costs and choose high-cost objects. However, 5- to 6-year-olds chose between high- and low-cost objects equally. Across four experiments, children consistently failed to anticipate that sunk costs biased others’ choices, their own hypothetical choices, or their choices in interpersonal contexts where costs are sunk by others. Children were not insensitive to costs, though, as children predicted agents would collect low-cost objects in the future. Together, the findings from this chapter show that children do not anticipate sunk cost bias across various scenarios. Chapter 3 tested between two accounts for why children overlook sunk costs when predicting actions. On one account, children do not see sunk costs as causing future outcomes, while on another, they can recognize this causal link but do not see actions as avoiding losses. In three experiments, 5-7-year-olds again did not expect sunk costs to bias others’ actions, as they responded at chance when predicting which objects agents would keep. However, children reasoned about sunk costs to predict emotion, anticipating that agents would feel sadder about high-cost objects. Together, the findings of this chapter support the view that children see sunk costs as causally relevant but do not expect actions to compensate for losses. Chapter Four examined whether children can be prompted to anticipate the sunk cost bias. Before predicting which objects agents would keep, children were asked about effort, waste, or negative emotion. In three experiments, children around age 6 predicted the sunk cost bias when prompted with effort and around age 7 when prompted with waste. Prompting children with waste did not always lead to sunk cost predictions, though, and children only showed some sensitivity to predicting the bias with negative emotion. Overall, this dissertation shows that children do not spontaneously predict the sunk cost bias. Yet, children are not entirely unable to reason about sunk costs, as they can recognize how sunk costs relate to waste, effort, and negative emotion, and predict the bias when prompted. This work deepens our understanding of children’s cost-based reasoning and the developmental trajectory of the sunk cost bias. This work also contributes to theories of the bias and raises questions about the role of experience and theory of mind in the emergence of sunk cost predictions.
Protecting Environmental and Cultural Water Through Collaborative Goverrnance and Impact Assessment: International, Canadian, and Saskatchewan Examples
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) Bergbusch, Nathanael
Human activities and climate change threaten freshwater resources and Indigenous rights. Developments (e.g., irrigation, dams, mines) cumulatively pollute and alter the hydrology of fresh water, affecting ecosystems (environmental flow/water) and Treaty and Inherent Rights (cultural flow/water). However, development assessment and management may not guarantee the protection or connectivity of water downstream. Regional sustainability-based guidance is needed through collaboration between Crown and Indigenous governments. Through interviews, workshops, ecohydrology, and policy analysis, this dissertation investigates strategies for collaborative governance and impact assessment to protect water for the environment, human uses, and Indigenous rights at three scales: globally, nationally (Canada), and regionally (Saskatchewan’s Treaty Four). Treaty Four studies were co-created with File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council’s Lands, Resources, Environment, and Stewardship Department (Ch. 2) and informed the design of global and Canadian studies. I systematically reviewed international English-language papers on the collaborative governance of environmental and cultural water to inform practice in Canada (Ch. 3). In Chapter 4, I investigated the uptake of environmental and cultural flows in Canadian legislation and assessment and suggested steps for their protection. Moving to Treaty Four, I examined barriers to water regulation (Ch. 5), developed flow-based sustainability criteria for the Qu’Appelle and South Saskatchewan sub-basins (Ch. 6), tested these criteria (Ch. 7), and proposed regional response options (Ch. 8) for the Lake Diefenbaker Irrigation Expansion and Agricultural Water Stewardship Policy (that promotes continued wetland drainage). Overall, dissertation findings established that, worldwide, communities need to have a greater role in environmental and cultural water policy, planning, and impact assessment (Ch. 3). In Canada, experts detailed a need for water councils to set needs-based rules for environmental and cultural flows maintenance ahead of development (Ch. 4). In Saskatchewan, water protection is challenged because of abstraction and drainage not triggering assessments, impact and project splitting, a lack of regulation, weak effort to meet the duty to consult, and the absence of regional approaches for identifying and managing cumulative effects of abstraction and drainage initiatives (Ch. 5). Collaborative regional governance (Ch. 8) was identified as needed to support progress towards sustainability through restoration of water and land, equity, respect for Treaties, transparency, climate uncertainty, and procedural justice (Ch. 6, Ch. 7). Together, these studies demonstrate the opportunity for more collaborative regional governance and impact assessment of environmental and cultural water in Canada and inform recommendations for future management and study, provided in Chapter 9.
Multi-scale Modelling of Neurosteroid-mediated Seizure Trajectories in Childhood Absence Epilepsy
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) Ahmed, Maliha
Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) is a pediatric generalized epilepsy disorder characterized by brief episodes of impaired consciousness and distinctive 2.5--5 Hz spike-wave discharges (SWDs) on electroencephalography. With a well-established genetic aetiology, this condition tends to resolve spontaneously during adolescence in most cases. While several mechanisms have been proposed for remission, understanding remains insufficient to guide early intervention practices. In this thesis, we first utilize a conductance-based thalamocortical network model that exhibits characteristic SWDs, to demonstrate that allopregnanolone---a progesterone metabolite known to enhance GABAa receptor-mediated inhibition---has an ameliorating effect on SWDs. To investigate the divergence between this finding and clinical observations, we developed an enhanced thalamocortical model that incorporates a layered cortical structure to explore regional cortical heterogeneity and frontocortical connectivity as potential resistance factors to ALLO-mediated recovery. Our results suggest that non-resolving CAE may be due not only to increased frontocortical connectivity but also to the composition of cell types within the network. Specifically, a higher proportion of bursting-type cells may prevent the therapeutic effects of allopregnanolone. We extended our investigation to examine whether these findings apply to CAE caused by different genetic mechanisms, particularly mutations in sodium channel genes by modelling their effects at the individual neuron level. Furthermore, we examined the degree to which these alterations lead to network-level pathological activity, as well as the influence of ALLO on these genetically distinct networks. Our results demonstrate that ALLO facilitates recovery from SWDs regardless of the underlying mutation type. However, enhanced frontocortical connectivity prevents recovery in some mutation types, particularly when mutation effects are severe. Altogether, the multi-scale computational framework developed in this thesis demonstrates that CAE remission is determined by complex interactions between hormonal influences, genetic factors, and network connectivity patterns. The results suggest that certain genetic mutations may predispose individuals toward either remission or non-remission, which can be further modulated by connectivity profiles. In particular, enhanced frontocortical connectivity appears to be a significant factor in resistance to hormone-mediated remission. Additionally, this thesis develops techniques for analyzing transitions between distinct dynamical states in neural systems, incorporates genetic and hormonal factors into conductance-based models, and provides a computational framework to identify key parameters governing epileptic activity. These approaches not only advance our understanding of CAE specifically, but offer generalizable insights into the mathematical modelling of neurological conditions characterized by spontaneous shifts in brain dynamics.
Phase Model Analysis of the Effect of Acetylcholine on the Neural Synchrony in Hippocampal Networks
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) Manoj, Megha
Neural assemblies—transiently coordinated groups of neurons—are observed in the hippocampus and are thought to underlie the encoding and consolidation of episodic memories. Acetylcholine (ACh), a key neuromodulator, plays a critical role in learning and memory and has been implicated in neurodegenerative disorders involving hippocampal dysfunction. A well-supported hypothesis suggests that high levels of ACh during active exploration and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep promote memory encoding, while low levels during quiet waking and slow-wave sleep (SWS) support memory consolidation. In this study, we examine the bidirectional role of ACh in modulating neural assembly formation through its effect on neural synchrony in the CA3 region of the hippocampus. We construct a computational model of a network of excitatory pyramidal neurons, each equipped with a slow, voltage-dependent, non-inactivating potassium current (M-current), which is downregulated in the presence of ACh. Neural assemblies are modelled mathematically as cluster solutions—special types of phase-locked states. Using a phase model reduction of a pair of weakly coupled neurons, we analyze the existence and stability of cluster solutions that may emerge in larger networks equipped with all-to-all globally homogeneous, symmetric distance-dependent and nearest-neighbours coupling architectures. Our results suggest that ACh shapes assembly formation by modulating network dynamics in CA3. Under low ACh conditions, the network tends to fully synchronize, whereas high ACh levels enable the emergence of multiple stable cluster states, allowing for distinct patterns of activity associated with memory encoding. These findings propose a mechanism by which ACh regulates transitions in hippocampal network states, supporting distinct stages of memory formation.
Evaluation of Information Access Systems in the Generative Era
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) arabzadehghahyazi, negar
The rapid advancement of information access technologies, including neural retrieval models and generative information-seeking systems, has outpaced traditional evaluation methodologies, exposing fundamental gaps in assessing their effectiveness. Existing evaluation frameworks struggle to adapt, particularly in the presence of sparse relevance labels, limiting their ability to fairly and comprehensively compare retrieval and generation-based systems. The emergence of large language models (LLMs) further complicates evaluation, as they challenge conventional assessment paradigms while offering new opportunities for automated evaluation. To address these issues, it is crucial to first identify flaws in current evaluation methodologies and then develop more robust, efficient, and adaptable assessment strategies. This thesis begins by demonstrating that evaluation based on sparse labeling introduces substantial biases and inconsistencies in system rankings, often failing to recognize genuine improvements in retrieval effectiveness. We show that in traditional IR benchmarks,stronger models may retrieve highly relevant but unjudged documents, leading to underestimation of their performance. To mitigate this, we propose an alternative evaluation approach based on distribution of retrieved results and labeled data using Fréchet Distance. This method not only improves robustness in the presence of sparse labels but also facilitates direct comparison between retrieval-based and generative models on a common evaluation scale. We then investigate how LLMs can be leveraged to evaluate IR systems, distinguishing between their use for evaluating retrieval-based methods and generative IR systems. A key focus of this work is the role of LLMs in automated relevance judgments. We systematically compare different LLM-based relevance assessment methodologies, highlighting the lack of standardization in evaluating these approaches. To address this gap, we propose a structured framework that evaluates relevance judgment methods based on their alignment with human labels and their impact on system rankings. Furthermore, we examine the effect of prompt formulation on LLM-based evaluation, demonstrating how prompt variations can significantly influence the consistency and reliability of assessment outcomes. Finally, we extend our study beyond retrieval-based evaluation to assessing generated content across multiple applications. We explore retrieval-assisted methods for evaluating generative textual content, IR-inspired approaches for assessing text-to-image generation models, and a broader framework for evaluating LLM-powered applications. These contributions lay the foundation for a new generation of evaluation methodologies that keep pace with evolving information access technologies, ensuring that improvements in retrieval and generative AI systems can be accurately and meaningfully assessed.
Transitioning from Vulnerability to Viability: Fisher community responses to illegal gold mining impacts on small-scale fisheries along the Ankobra river, Ghana
(University of Waterloo, 2025-06-20) Agyapong, Prince
Small-scale fisheries in Ghana’s Ankobra River basin are increasingly threatened by the expansion of illegal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), resulting in environmental degradation, declining fish stocks, and reduced livelihood resilience. This thesis investigates the socio-ecological impacts of ASGM on fishing communities in Ajomoro Eshiem, Eziome, and Sanwoma, using a convergent mixed-methods approach grounded in the Social-Ecological Systems (SES) frameworks. The research aims to (a) Explore the nature of ASGM activities and the key characteristics of the small-scale fishery industry in the Ankobra basin, (b) Assess the socio-economic and ecological well-being of small-scale fisheries due to the impact of ASGM on livelihoods, (c) Investigate the adaptive strategies adopted by fishing communities in response to ASGM-related disruptions. Quantitative survey data, along with qualitative interviews and focus groups, were integrated to provide a comprehensive understanding of household expenditures, changes in fish catch, access to support services, compensation mechanisms, and the inclusion of women and marginalized groups in decision-making. Findings reveal that ASGM has led to substantial declines in fish catch, increased household expenditures to mitigate health and environmental impacts, and widespread dissatisfaction with compensation and support services. Women and marginalized groups remain largely excluded from local governance processes, further weakening community resilience. While some fishers employ livelihood diversification and collective action to cope, these strategies are constrained by limited institutional support and infrastructural deficits. This research highlights the urgent need for inclusive governance, targeted capacity building, and sustainable alternative livelihood programs to enhance resilience and ensure the long-term viability of fisheries-dependent communities. It contributes to the understanding of how mixed-methods and socio-ecological systems based analysis can inform policy and practice in mining-impacted regions. Further studies can support viable transition pathways for affected communities. Keywords: small-scale fisheries, illegal gold mining, livelihood resilience, social-ecological systems, adaptive capacity

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