Dana is an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Toronto. We talk about what drove her interest in electrical engineering, navigating uncertainty in electrical and computer engineering (ECE), her current work at Honeywell, her online Etsy shop Daydreamy Design and how she integrates creative thinking as an engineer in training. During our lightning round, she shares her top resource recommendations, what makes her hopeful for the future, and her final advice for students.

Kathy is a final-year undergraduate Engineering Science student at the University of Toronto in the Machine Intelligence major. We discuss her summer research experiences at UC Irvine and U of T, internships at Huawei as a Machine Learning Research Engineer, how to prepare for a software engineering interview, and involvement with technical clubs like U of T's UTRA (University of Toronto Robotics Association).

Yilin is an engineering graduate from the University of Toronto's Materials Science Engineering program, currently completing a Master's degree in Science, Technology & Policy and is interested in AI governance and Effective Altruism principles. We discuss the role of engineering in policy, AI governance, effective altruism, self-teaching mechanical engineering to work at a drone company, great resources students can access outside of the U of T ecosystem, and how she built credibility as a young professional.

Ben Sprenger is currently pursuing an MSc at ETH Zurich in Robotics, Systems and Control, and is a mechanical engineering graduate from the University of Toronto (U of T). We talk about his multiple global professional and research experiences through PEY, the Munk School, filmmaking, and U of T's Formula Racing Team. We discuss his technical interests that led to his leadership within the University of Toronto Formula Racing Team, his artistic mindset as a filmmaker, and developing the ability to learn anything.

We talked to Professor Elham Marzi from the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice. Elham has a strong passion for teaching and is bringing her specialization in organizational behaviour and human resource management to engineering education at the University of Toronto. Elham explains organizational behaviour (OB) in engineering and the value of integrating business with engineering. We discussed examples of OB in the context of educational institutions and resources for learning more about OB described below. Further in the conversation, Elham shared her insights on her expanded work of creating a global classroom and the impact of remote learning on higher education. We also talk about why libraries are underrated, resources every student should take advantage of, and her rewarding experiences as a professor.

Cori is the Associate Faculty Registrar & Director, Student Affairs at the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. We talk about her experience leading student experience initiatives at U of T Engineering, how she suggests students navigate undergraduate research at U of T, exploring mental health supports available at the university, her PhD work, and what an equitable engineering profession could look like.

Dr Chris Yip is the current Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (FASE) at U of T. We talk to him about his path to becoming the Dean of FASE, his experience leading during the COVID-19 pandemic, and reflect on what he sees as the next steps for FASE. He shares how his current work helps address a gap in student experience with academic leadership, how he makes decisions, leading during the COVID-19 pandemic, why he loves to run, and what he believes are the most important takeaways of engineering education at U of T. In our lightning round, Dean Yip shares the top resource students should take advantage of, his favourite trait about himself, and reassures students striving for success.

We talked to Minha Ha, a PhD candidate at IDEA-Lab at York University and instructor of the course TEP447, "The Art of Ethical & Equitable Decision Making in Engineering", at the University of Toronto's Troost ILead Institute (Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering). Minha has dedicated her career to improving higher education and particularly engineering education. In this episode, Minha shared stories of essential mentors, advocates, and sponsors who contributed to her work in engineering education. We also discussed the insights from Minha's research on the value creation process, engineering ethics, and what a holistic education looks like in engineering.

Dear Frosh is an advice letter-writing campaign involving senior students and alumni from the University of Toronto engineering community writing letters to their first-year selves. 1% Inspiration will share these letters in print and digitally with incoming first-year students (or Frosh) in September 2022 during F!rosh Week.

In this conversation, we talked to Dr. Phil De Luna about his continuous journey working on climate change issues as a PhD student, Federal Member of Parliament Candidate, Director of the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, mentor at the University of Toronto Creative Destruction Lab, and Adjunct Professor at U of T. We explored perspectives on addressing climate change issues, including technology readiness, Phil's 5 Point Plan on addressing climate change, and scaling climate solutions with three levers (tech, policy, and finance). Dr. Phil De Luna advises young professionals who want to work in climate change space today: "Find out what piece of the climate pie you are most interested in and apply your skills." Phil shares the career maturity level framework for young professionals to follow and his experience running for office as the Green Party Federal Member of Parliament Candidate for Toronto-St. Paul's.

We met Peter Serles, a PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering, when he 3D printed the CNano Tower, Canada’s Smallest Freestanding Structure and shared a photo of it with the University of Toronto's Research Revealed gallery. During this episode, we talk about translating scientific ideas into useful applications or policy, the importance of a growth mindset, the tech stack of a researcher, the strange quantum behaviour of nanoscale materials, the similarities between varsity sports and the scientific profession, and why working in university governance makes life easier as a student.

Mickael Dang (Current PhD Candidate in Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto) set an expansive tone for the conversation when he told us "I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I tried everything." We talk about his transition from medical school to research and biomedical sciences, trying out law school, eventually stumbling upon biomedical and bioengineering at Harvard Medical School with Prof. Jeff Karp, which led him to completing his PhD here in Toronto under Prof. Molly Shoichet, and building his own PCR testing startup. We also talk about the challenges of being an international student (also, some cultural differences/shocks), why completing a PhD is a lot like being an entrepreneur, work-life balance, and how he has explored making difficult tradeoffs between personal interests and job/financial security at pivotal points of his career.

Welcome to 1% Inspiration, a University of Toronto Engineering based podcast about how to make the most of your STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and learning community right from the source. Come join conversations uncovering the stories behind the milestones and successes of our guests - students, professors, and community members of U of T and beyond to demystify how they became technologists, researchers, advocates and builders moving our world forward today. We share these stories of excellence so you can explore how you might follow in their footsteps, and humanize what success looks like for you. Under the show notes of each episode, you can find resources that we talk about that have helped our guests make the most of their learning community Grab your favourite warm drink, and let's share an honest conversation. Subscribe now for updates.

Today’s guest is David (Duh-veed) Boroto an Engineering Science Infrastructure 2018 + PEY graduate from the University of Toronto. As he describes himself on his Medium blog, (in the show notes), he's an infrastructure nerd, global development nut and social impact practitioner. In our conversation, we talked about challenges with global development, reflecting on personal failure, and shared resources on how to get involved with global development in undergraduate and after.

As a graduate student in Industrial Engineering, Bella’s conducted research at the Interactive Media Lab at University of Toronto, building skills in quality improvement, user experience in healthcare, and product management. In this episode, Bella talks about her philosophy of work, managing a team, and product design. By viewing her life as a continuous process and always being open to growth (and giving us constant book and podcast recommendations), Bella showed us what a true life long learner is.

During our talk, Hamza said “research is one of his favorite things to talk about.” He shared his interest in energy system design and optimism for sustainable technology in the future. We took a deep dive in Hamza’s experience through summer research at the Ready Lab at the University of Toronto, leading engineering design teams, and his Professional Experience Year Co-op (PEY) at Hanon Systems to learn more about Hamza’s journey.

Ben's biggest rule for education has been to “hack your degree” - taking the time to think thoughtfully and systematically about how he spent his years of undergraduate education. This began from when he chose his undergraduate program in life sciences at Victoria College, to his consistent involvement with the Hart House Debate Team, which he connects deeply to data science as both mediums of persuasion. TEDxUofT is a big part of our talk - and he had many TED talk recommendations for us. When Ben experienced a turning point learning data science and statistics through computational application at Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, he positioned himself for a career in data science while using his existing humanities, social sciences, and sciences background as a strength. We speak about his continued self-initiating tendencies while at Harvard, publishing articles, and engaging in scientific communication independently.

At 15, when she won a youth science competition Netra said “It's my life-long goal to be a cancer researcher.” Our conversation helped uncover a bit of what led to this self-empowerment in her career and life. We began with her experience conducting genomics research in high school, leading her to the Engineering Science program at U of T, leading the enormous growth of the Club for Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering (CUBE) and conducting research across borders. Knowing her enabling goal was always to be on the pathway of earning a PhD, we also realize the importance of asking insightful questions (and how this is often half the job) in graduate school, and how differences in agency have changed her perspective of graduate school versus undergrad. Newly introduced in this episode is a lightning ground of questions where we explore Netra’s alternate profession, her biggest mistake, what drives her, and the small pleasures in life she appreciates.

We have a great conversation about Laura Berneaga’s entry to Engineering from a high school co-op experience at St. Michael’s Hospital, her biomedical engineering research origin story, and how her role as President of EngSoc came to be. We reminisce over her numerous leadership experiences (notably the Undergraduate Engineering Research Day), and talk about her time re-teaching herself how to code in grad school - and why life is a lot like debugging code.

In this epic 3 hour long conversation, Dr. Burke (or Mikhail) talks about his entire school and professional life from high school graduation to where he is now , the co-instructor of the Engineering & Social Justice Course and Dean’s Advisor on Black Inclusivity Initiatives at U of T FASE. We talk about his familial roots at U of T, feeling out of place at Skule before forging a community - NSBE, importance of the lab culture in a research experience, how he chose grad school, and his PhD experience of working at a satellite U of T hospital. Through this conversion, we discussed the idea of privilege and how it can affect one's pathways, the importance of building a learning experience focusing on objectives not grades, and how we can make research more accessible to the underrepresented communities. A theme we loved during this conversation was Mikhail’s propensity to question the status quo - beyond research. After earning a PhD at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at U of T, he combined his academic training with his long-term interests of empowering learning and creating pathways by continuing in his current work in inclusive pedagogy and higher education.