Transdisciplinary research approaches to climate change mitigation are being used more often given their strengths in collaboration, knowledge integration and collective decision making. Such approaches warrant more attention to understand how diverse teams produce knowledge and practice problem-solving. My thesis research explores the strengths and challenges of transdisciplinary research to offer future avenues for team collaboration and policy decision–making processes.

The study analyzes 5,000 immigrant-owned export firms and shows that 1.5-generation immigrants outperform other groups financially, regardless of export destination. Greater institutional distance between Canada and their origin countries further strengthens this advantage, likely due to bilingual, bicultural, and adaptive skills. The findings highlight overlooked export potential for policy and economic development.

This study examines how acculturation and enculturation relate to first-language loss among bilingual young adults. Higher acculturation predicts weaker first-language skills but stronger English proficiency, while enculturation predicts better retention of the first language. Multigenerational households did not significantly prevent language loss, underscoring the delicate balance between adaptation and heritage preservation.