Small tech, big impacts: Researching with nanotechnology to make the world a better place
Shawn Benedict (he/him) is a fourth-year Nanotechnology Engineering student who worked in a wide range of industries. He speaks about how co-op helped him solidify his career goals.
Shawn’s co-op journey:
Work term one: Shawn’s first co-op was as a research assistant in Doctor Michael Tam's lab at the University of Waterloo. He worked on projects focused on utilizing sustainable nanoparticles to make soap more sustainable and make polymers with desirable properties.
Work term two: He completed another research assistant position during his second co-op in Doctor Dayan Ban’s lab at the University of Waterloo. He made a photoacoustic glucose sensor which uses lasers to excite the glucose in blood. The excited glucose molecules make noise that can be picked up with special microphones and allow researchers to predict glucose levels.
He also completed a project with piezoelectric nanogenerators, which includes batteries powered by movement.
Work term three and four: Shawn then had a role with the start-up Pontosense as a project engineer. Pontosense creates sensors that can detect when someone (e.g., a baby) is left in a car, what times people enter and exit a car and the driver’s vitals. Shawn’s role consisted of project management and creation of internal tools in various programming languages.
Work term five: For his fifth co-op term, Shawn worked as a software developer at SINTEF in Oslo, Norway. His project entailed working on an algorithm that runs on top of a machine learning model and monitors artificial intelligence (AI) to predict when it will produce incorrect information.
Work term six: Shawn’s most recent role was with ICSPI as a microsystems application engineer. He helped to troubleshoot hardware and program the software of a benchtop atomic force microscope. The probe of the microscope moves along surfaces and captures the topography of the object by recording the height as it taps a sample.
Q&A with Shawn:
Can you talk about your experience in research-focused co-op roles?
Would you recommend research roles to other students?
“It is very exciting to feel like you are contributing to the advancement of science! It can be tricky for some people to determine the amount of academia vs. industry they want to end up in. It is important to look for projects that interest you and teams that help you grow as a researcher.”
“Don’t be afraid to reach out to a lab that is doing work of interest to you. I would always connect with the professor and their grad students to learn more about their projects and work culture.”
“If you don’t know if research is for you, some even offer volunteer opportunities so you can trial a lab environment before committing to a work term.”
“I also recommend trying different fields and labs in the beginning to help you learn what you like. This helped me to narrow down what sort of dynamics I like and what interests me the most. Finally, I recommend asking around for scholarships/grants because there are always more than you would expect.”
How was the adjustment to living in Norway?
“Before my Norway co-op, I had never been to Europe, so of course, it took me time to get used to the new culture. I really enjoyed learning about the customs, language and food from my friends and coworkers.”
“My list of places I want to visit has increased exponentially because of the vast number of people I want to visit, new places I want to see, foods I want to try and languages I want to learn.”
“The first challenge was finding housing and meeting people.”
“My biggest advice for meeting others is to contact the nearest university, whether you're working at a university or not, and ask them what is around. For example, I asked for the nearby rock-climbing groups and ultimate frisbee teams. I also talked to other people that had moved to Norway from Canada.”
“I ended up absolutely loving it!"
Which project did you find most interesting?
“The AI research project I worked on during my work term at SINTEF.”
“Watching all the media surrounding AI, you get the impression that a lot of people are trying to deploy things before they are ready.”
“For example, everybody wants autopilot in cars right now, but the AI technology just isn’t ready yet.”
“It can be a little frightening for the public to want.”
So, being able to work on something that makes AI easier to trust, feels incredibly important.
"Imagine what could go wrong if AI makes an error in the car example. Imagine it mistaking a tree for a street, if there’s no program to catch that error then the car could seriously harm or kill its passengers."
Did you find that there were different company cultures at each of your co-ops?
“In terms of work culture, there will definitely be differences in culture between different fields, company sizes and different continents. For example, some people prefer flexible hours and individual work, while others prefer more rigid schedules where coworkers are available to brainstorm solutions more readily."
"I'm glad I got to work in different cultures to help me determine where I thrive as it will help you to determine the work-life balance that best suits me.”
Did your classroom learning prepare you for your co-ops or did you do more learning on the job?
“It’s tough to be fully prepared when I have tried out so many different fields.”
“I went from working with chemicals in a lab, to working with lasers and then to applied software and graduate level statistics.”
“There's something to be said about the class experience of learning how to learn, getting used to reading academic papers and knowing how to collaborate with peers. Overall, though, it would be impossible to learn everything you need to know for every job in the classroom."
“Once I was in the role, the learning offered was dependent on the company. Some companies started with onboarding through a presentation on their technology and how to troubleshoot it."
“Others gave me just enough information to start and then I relied on the documentation provided if there were problems."
"Both situations can be great depending on the team, their preferences and how they compare to your own preferences.”
"The best thing you can do is talk to your peers. Don't spend hours not knowing what to do or looking in a million different places for things.”
“Don’t be afraid to ask if you still need guidance after you’ve made an attempt.”
“Also, ask coworkers what needs to be done in the workplace. If you don’t ask for exciting projects, you might not receive them. For example, I represented my company at a conference in Las Vegas and helped some coworkers in Norway with their projects by offering my support. I asked for it and was able to participate in amazing opportunities.”
Did your co-ops change how you approach choosing your career?
“It definitely helped me make decisions.”
“You may notice by how many different co-ops I completed that I wanted to try a diverse set of jobs. I have various passions so it's hard for me to close doors, but so far it seems that I thrive in environments with software or hardware-based research.”
“In my first co-op, my favourite parts were working on the software and in my second co-op I found I really enjoyed working with firmware. Finding what I enjoy and where I would like to improve has been very helpful.”
What's next for you?
“I have lots of contacts now from all the co-ops I've done, some of them are in universities and some of them are in other organizations. I'm going to start reaching out to connections, figure out what excites me the most and start there.”
“Some countries really value a graduate degree whether you plan to go into academia or industry, so a master’s degree is definitely a possibility.”
“I'm still deciding as I still have some more time.”