News

Congratulations to Trevor Van Den Heuvel, a third-year student in the Department of Chemical Engineering, along with his teammates Jeff Qiao Wang (Math) and Denis Goubkine (Math), who achieved first place and a $500 prize in the 2025 Wharton Undergraduate Consulting Club Case Competition.

This competition took place virtually and challenged undergraduate student teams to provide strategic advisory for a legacy department store experiencing challenges with customer loyalty, inflation, and margin pressures.

Van Den Heuvel and his team developed a strategy to increase the revenue and profitability of the department store by leveraging AI price matching and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) tactics to appeal to a younger generation that is sensitive to prices.

Their innovative solution took first place. By participating in the contest, they gained valuable insights into deal execution, stakeholder management, and data analysis.

These are uncertain times for industry, as it navigates survival with geopolitical changes looming, inflation, and supply chain issues.

Chemical Engineering researchers are developing innovative methods to harness machine learning (ML) for industrial applications, helping industries plan production more effectively in the face of unpredictable conditions.

A research group led by Professor Luis Ricardez-Sandoval is using ML methods to train “smart agents” to make production scheduling decisions in chemical and manufacturing systems where there is uncertainty.

The agents are trained through simulations of plant processes that include unexpected events, for example, equipment failure or a sudden change in production demands.

Mohammad Farkhondeh, a University of Waterloo alumnus, embarked on a career journey dedicated to advancing electrification and sustainability.  Farkhondeh began his PhD in the Department of Chemical Engineering in 2011 and successfully completed it in 2016.

Inspired by the mentorship and academic excellence of his undergraduate professors in Iran, many of whom were alumni of the University of Waterloo, Farkhondeh was driven to pursue graduate studies here.

“I did my undergrad project on fuel cells under the supervision of Professor Khodadadi at the University of Tehran, who himself is a graduate of Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo. Although too brief, this was enough of an experience to spark my interest in electrochemical engineering and transport phenomena in porous media. This led to my PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo,” says Farkhondeh.

Nanotechnology Engineering alumna CT Murphy (BASc ’23) created CELLECT, a new start-up which aims to improve access to cervical cancer and HPV screening. CELLECT's technology uses nanomaterials in menstrual products to diagnose HPV and cervical cancer using menstrual blood, potentially eliminating the need for Pap smears.

Murphy’s fourth-year design project served as inspiration for their Masters thesis under the supervision of Chemical Engineering professor Marc Aucoin. Murphy was awarded the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN)-Velocity scholarship for the project. They also received funding from Velocity’s Up Start Program and Cornerstone Program.