I am an adaptable multidisciplinary Mechatronic Systems Engineering / Ivey HBA1 student with experience in business, technology, design thinking, sociology, and Indigenous volunteer work. I take a sustainability-centric approach to my work whenever possible and am passionate about finding out of the box solutions to challenging problems. I hope to combine my business skills with my tech background to help make sustainable practices the new norm for companies. Our generation is seeing first-hand the damage that climate change has on the world, and it is on us to try and make changes.

What is your personal definition of sustainability?

To me, sustainability is holistic, and revolves around the idea of balance between the natural world and ourselves. Following the Iroquois teaching of always looking 7 generations ahead, sustainability is a conscious mindset that focuses on maintaining that balance for our future. A major component, derived from an Indigenous viewpoint, is to minimize waste and minimize the unnatural impact of our actions on the environment. As the population continues to grow, further development is inevitable, but it is our duty to manage that development through approaches such as: clean energy, low-waste manufacturing, transportation electrification, low-impact mining, and full lifecycle accounting.

What role do you see sustainability playing in your professional career?

I see sustainability playing a large role across multiple facets of my career. Regardless of the role I end up in, sustainability is embedded in the actions I take across my projects, meaning that I will advocate for environmentally conscious workflows and outcomes. At a larger scale, however, I am interested in sustainable innovation and would love to work in a unit dedicated to the intersection of tech and sustainability. This could include sustainability consulting; developing solutions to businesses sustainability needs and working with companies to improve their carbon footprint and manufacturing procedures. I am particularly interested in clean energy and clean manufacturing, two areas which combine well with my mechatronics background. I would also hope to be able to work with Indigenous communities to bring another perspective to problem solving and sustainability not traditionally understood by the western business world. In my eyes, sustainable business practices should not be made exclusive to companies with capital to burn, and I hope that in my role I am able to work towards making environmentally conscious business practices accessible to everyone for a reasonable price.

What sustainability projects have you been engaged in?

I have been involved in several sustainability related projects. During high school, I was co-president of the school’s First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) club, as well as a member of the regional FNMI student leadership council. I worked alongside Indigenous peers to educate students, teachers, as well as ourselves on Indigenous sustainability related issues such as water equity and clean energy. Moving into university, I was the Environmental Projects Coordinator for the Indigenous Student Association (ISA) during second year, where I worked with peers to help ensure that the ISA was environmentally conscious and ran events that educated students on Indigenous sustainability practices. Professionally, I worked with an Ontario Regional Cancer Center to introduce an Indigenous cultural safety audit to their institution, which both looked to improve Indigenous-hospital relations as well as implement Indigenous centric policies relating to the importance of sustainability and clean energy. As a member of the RBC Design Thinking Program, I worked in a team to prototype Footprint, a browser extension that incentivized and helped customers to reduce their carbon footprints while online shopping. The project included research into carbon-tracking API’s and interviews with Pollution Probe, and was ultimately pitched to RBC executives.