Each year, master’s and PhD students from across all faculties take part in the University of Waterloo’s GRADflix competition. In just 60 seconds, they create videos that explain their research, highlight their big ideas, and showcase the creativity and ambition of our graduate community.
Past GRADflix finalists have shared their experience so that you can get an insider perspective on the competition and what it's like to summarize your research in 60 seconds.
Ananya Muralidharan
Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
GRADflix video: Charged for the Future - The Quest for Longer-Lasting Lithium Ion Batteries
Ananya's research centers on lithium-ion batteries, where she is developing a pre-lithiation technique to improve battery operation. Her goal is to make complex energy-storage research easier to understand and more widely accessible.
In her interview, Ananya shares how her love of stop-motion shaped her GRADflix video, what she learned from creating a polished visual explanation of her work, and why she values communicating science in fun, approachable ways. She also reflects on the joy of sharing her video with friends and family and encourages others to try GRADflix for the creativity it inspires.
Alessandro Adorante
Kiensiology and Health Sciences, Faculty of Health
GRADflix video: HEAR ME OUT
Allesandro’s research explores auditory conditions, focusing on hyperacusis and the electrophysiological signals that may one day support diagnostic tools or treatments. His goal is to better understand how people with this condition experience the world and to highlight the gap in available care.
In his interview, Allesandro discusses the importance of storytelling in neuroscience, how GRADflix helped him clarify the big-picture purpose of his thesis, and why knowledge translation matters. He also reflects on the creative challenges of filmmaking and the value of connecting research to the human experiences behind it.
Liam Bursey
Architecture, Faculty of Engineering
GRADflix video: Vessel: stories from the edge of the world
Liam's research focuses on the traditional craft of wooden boat building in Newfoundland. His goal was to uncover the stories of the place and the identity of boat builders themselves.
In his interview, Liam discusses how architecture is an act of storytelling, why he chose to participate in GRADflix, and why he decided to integrate the art of filmmaking into his thesis work.
Adebusola Adekoya
School of Public Health Sciences, Faculty of Health
GRADflix video: Alert systems for missing persons with dementia
Adebusola's research investigates the use of technology and alert systems to reduce the risk of missing persons with dementia. It is Adebusola's goal to raise awareness of the risks associated with people living with dementia.
In her interview, Adebusola discusses the importance of knowledge communication, her creative process while creating her video, and the importance of researching dementia.
Christopher Pollack
Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics
GRADflix video title: Symmetries in physics and quantum gravity
Christopher's research examines how symmetry-based approaches can solve quantum gravity questions. His goal is to "uncover gravity's quantum behaviour by studying symmetries of gravitational systems".
In his interview, Christopher discusses the challenges he encountered when creating his GRADflix submission, how important it is to find real world connections to abstract concepts like theoretical physics and why it is so important to share your research.
Anna Good
History, Faculty of Arts
GRADflix video title: Forgotten voices of the World Wars: Examining attempted solider suicides through Canadian army court martial documents
Anna’s research examines documents of four soldiers who attempted suicide during the world wars. Her goal is to “help give back the agency that has been unintentionally stripped from soldiers”.
In her interview, she discusses what inspired her to research this topic, why it is important for students in history to share their research, and why she decided to use stop motion animation. Regarding next year’s competition, Anna says “don’t hesitate and sign up. Signing up can be the toughest part, but […] after doing so you’ll notice that your mind just starts to think about different ideas and different ways you could convert your research into a video.”
Marina Ansanelli
Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science
GRADflix video title: Understanding Causality
Marina’s research is centered around understanding more about the deepest underpinnings of nature, by means of investigating the foundations of Quantum Mechanics.
In her interview, she describes the thought processes that went into condensing a complex abstract topic into a 60 second video, where to start, and how the GRADflix experience changed how she explains her research to friends, family, and others outside of her field. Thinking about advice for future competitors on knowing what to focus on, Marina said “try to think why your work is interesting for you”.
Karen Hock
School of Public Health Sciences, Faculty of Health
GRADflix video title: Mission: PhD
Karen Hock’s research focuses on promoting healthier beverage consumption. Karen hopes her research will help inform policies around the world aimed at improving diet quality and preventing obesity.
Karen has been a participant in three GRADflix competitions to date. In her interview, she shares her motivation for participating year after year, her appreciation for this creative outlet for her research, and her hope for others seeing the work she is doing. Karen says “I’ve been able to improve my science communication skills and share my research in new and exciting ways. I’ve also learned video and editing skills, which I probably would not have learned otherwise.”
Andrew Stella
Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
GRADflix video title: Robust, wearable sensors for firefighters made using conductive polymers
Andrew Stella is a Master of Science student in the Department of Chemical Engineering. His research focuses on synthesizing polymers that can be used to detect the presence of toxic gases. With modern printing technologies, Andrew hopes that the sensors he is working to develop can be woven directly into the material of firefighters’ coats, warning them of colourless and odorless hazards in the air surrounding the site of a fire. With a background working with companies like ExxonMobil, Formlabs, and DuPont, Andrew certainly has the industry experience to help make these practical applications for his research a reality.
With his research video, Andrew won both the First Place and People’s Choice awards in the 2023 GRADflix competition, making him the first ever competitor to do so. In this interview, he shares his motivation for participating in GRADflix, his thoughts on the importance of research communication, and how he used simple props and techniques to create an amazing stop-motion video that captured the attention of both our judges and the wider audience.
Caitlin Laidlaw
Geography and Environmental Management, Faculty of Environment
GRADflix video title: Local attitudes towards snow leopards in western Nepal
Caitlin Laidlaw is an MES student in the department of Geography and Environmental Management. In 2022, while conducting research abroad in a remote region of Western Nepal, she gathered footage of her work and the people and places she connected with. Upon returning to Canada, Caitlin collected and edited her footage into a 60-second video to use for her GRADflix submission, going on to win second place in the 2023 GRADflix competition.
Caitlin has been studying human-snow leopard conflict in Nepal, a complex situation often oversimplified by North American audiences focused more on the charismatic megafauna than the human impacts. In her GRADflix video Local attitudes towards snow leopards in western Nepal, Caitlin shone a light on how local communities often face the hardship or burdens of large carnivore conservation, exploring their perspectives and pathways towards coexistence with snow leopards.
In her interview, Caitlin shares her experiences of filming the raw footage for her GRADflix video during her weeks of research in Nepal. She discusses why she chose to participate in the 2023 GRADflix competition, how she addressed the challenges of capturing footage in the field, and what advice she has for any students considering participating in the next competition.
Yuzhe You
Cheriton School of Computer Science, Faculty of Mathematics
GRADflix video title: InfoVis for AI explainability
Yuzhe You is an incoming PhD student in Computer Science at Waterloo, and was a Master of Mathematics student at the time of participating in the 2023 GRADflix competition, where she was chosen as a finalist. She is a member of both the WatVis (Waterloo Visualization) research group directed by Prof. Jian Zhao, and the iTSS Lab directed by Prof. Liping Fu. Her research involves information visualization (InfoVis) for artificial intelligence systems, with a focus on visualizing Adversarial Machine Learning (AML) and Traffic Analysis. Specifically, she develops interactive visualization tools that enhance AI interpretability and help improve the “adversarial robustness” of machine learning models.
Yuzhe’s playful and creative GRADflix video evokes the nostalgic 8-bit pixel style of classic video games to create a fun and visually appealing presentation. Yuzhe explains that she “hoped to create a video that was both informative and approachable, and to convey the idea that computer science research can also be fun, exciting, and creative.” In keeping with that theme, creating the video was a combination of art and programming. Yuzhe drew all of the pixel art for the video using an iPad, then programmed the animations using a game engine to bring their artwork to life. From there, she set the game to autoplay and screencast it. So while the final video might appear as an animation mimicking the style of a videogame, in actuality it is a real, playable videogame that Yuzhe created and filmed!