About the event
Are you looking for ways to enhance your undergrad and your future career, and to gain new experiences? Are you unsure of the various study/work abroad opportunities and resources that lie within the University of Waterloo? With the world opening again, it’s the perfect time to explore different travelling opportunities that can benefit you and your future career.
Join us in our live virtual panel featuring Waterloo Arts alumni! This event aims to connect Arts alumni who have experience living and working abroad, with current Arts students who are interested in studying/working overseas during their academic and/or professional careers. The objective of this event is to connect students with alumni who can share their advice and mentorship on how to successfully gain the best outcome of living overseas, and to educate current students about the opportunities and experiences available to them.
Meet the participating Alumni guests!
Alumni Guests
Adam Fless (BA '89, Economics)
Adam is currently a Managing Director at AlixPartners, living in Vancouver, BC but working broadly across North America and Europe. Adam is an innovative value creation leader who has over two decades of experience as a private equity operations executive and as a trusted results-oriented consulting partner. Adam has both studied and worked abroad through his whole career from undergraduate as part of the International Trade Specialization, to his MBA at the London Business School to multiple interim and leadership roles on the ground in Europe, the US and elsewhere. Adam believes Canadian University graduates are unique in their experience to work across global cultures globally due to their awareness of multicultural norms and practices and humility and openness in dealing with different points of view. This, however needs to be put into practice earlier in their careers.
Sai Kalvapalle (BA '15, Psychology)
Sai is currently a 5th year PhD Candidate at the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on cognition and communication in organizations, and relational dynamics in contexts such as high-reliability organizing and entrepreneurship. After getting her BA (Hons) in Psychology at UW in 2015, Sai completed her MSc in Organizational and Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), in London, UK. Sai also teaches and supervises many courses at the masters and bachelor’s level. A fun fact about Sai is that she has completed each level of schooling in a different country.
Taylor Imrie (BA '16, English Language & Literature)
Taylor is currently working as a Master Programme Coordinator at Luiss Business School in Rome, Italy. Working as a Programme coordinator includes planning and coordinating programmes and their activities, monitoring implementation of programme policies and practices, ensuring programmes stay on schedule and on budget, supporting programme growth and development, as well as student recruitment and planning of student events and activities. Taylor completed her B.A. online while living and working abroad in Italy, which gave her the opportunity to travel to other European cities. She firmly believes that travelling broadens horizons and would highly recommend all university students to do an experience abroad.
Denise St. Marie (MA '17, Studio and Fine Arts)
Denise is a practicing Artist and is currently co-teaching Topics in Studio Practice at the University of Waterloo this spring term, and has been instructing at Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts since 2018. She has shown in various galleries and outdoor exhibitions including: CAFKA, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Toronto, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Art Mûr, Art Souterrain (in Montreal), Markham Museum, the Art Gallery of Windsor, Thames Art Gallery, Malaspina Printmakers (in Vancouver), SNAP Gallery (in Alberta) and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in BC. Denise's collaborative work was invited to join an international research project on New Genre Public Art at the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK in 2018 relating to past public installations in Japan, China, parts of North America including including Las Vegas, Chicago, Detroit, Victoria BC, the Canadian Prairies, the Niagara Region, Windsor, London and Montreal. Denise has spoken about her research at the Temporal Belongings Conference at the University of Edinburgh, Free-Exchange Interdisciplinary Conference at the University of Calgary and Empathic Landscapes Conference at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. During her MFA, Denise worked in New York via the Keith & Win Shantz International Research Fellowship, and received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada in support of her MFA. In 2018, Denise was awarded The Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal via the University of Waterloo for her contribution to the Academy.
Amy Zhou (BA '17, English & Economics)
Amy is currently an Urban Planner and Researcher in San Francisco, CA, with specific focus on Chinatowns, housing, anti-gentrification, and economic development, and broader interests in surveillance + smart cities, labour, and Asian American/Canadian identity. Amy received her Master of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of California after getting her BA in English and Economics at UWaterloo in 2017.