Announcing the 2025 GRADflix finalists

Adebusola (Busola) is a registered nurse and PhD Candidate in the School of Public Health Sciences. She is passionate about the rights of older adults to receive quality care and maintain optimal quality of life. Busola’s PhD thesis examines the process of policy development and implementation of community alert systems for locating missing persons with dementia at local, municipal, and provincial or national levels in Canada, Scotland, and the United States.

Adebusola's GRADflix submission, Alert Systems for People at Risk of Going Missing, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase.

Adwoa is a PhD candidate in Sustainability Management in the School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development (SEED). She holds an MBA (UGBS) in Finance, an MSc in Environmental Change and Management (Oxford), and a BSc in Land Economy (KNUST). Her research interests are in sustainability management with an emphasis on sustainable banking, sustainable finance, and sustainability governance. 

Adwoa's GRADflix submission, Does Doing Good and Doing Well go Hand in Hand?, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase.

Aelita works with clustered longitudinal data as a PhD student in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences, supervised by Dr. Richard Cook. Aelita's research is in the area of biostatistics, a field that develops and applies innovative methods to use data for answering important questions in areas like clinical trials, population health, and biological science.

Aelita’s GRADflix submission, Balancing Precision and Cost: Optimizing Tracked and Non-Tracked Data in Public Health Studies, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Alessandro previously received a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from Waterloo and is now pursuing a Master of Science in Kinesiology and Health Sciences with a research focus in neuroscience, researching sensorimotor integration and neuroplasticity. His research uses electrophysiological markers to study how the auditory system processes sound levels and perceived loudness in everyday contexts. 

Alessandro’s GRADflix submission, HEAR ME OUT, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Amira is a master’s student in Chemistry, working as a research assistant in the Liu Lab. She previously graduated from Pharmacy school and decided to shift her career when she moved to Canada in 2022 with her family. She is excited to work in research and learn about aptamers.

Amira’s GRADflix submission, Virtual Lab, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Ananya is a first-year master's student in Chemical Engineering. Her research focuses on the cathode side of lithium-ion batteries and the ways in which we can modify the chemical composition of electrodes to improve battery performance.

Ananya’s GRADflix submission, Charged for the Future - The Quest for Longer-Lasting Lithium Ion Batteries, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Andrea is a second-year master’s student in Systems Design Engineering in the Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Lab and previously completed her undergraduate degree in Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Her research examines how personality can be embedded into social robots to increase interest and engagement by humans. 

Andrea’s GRADflix submission, Getting Excited about Using Social Robots, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Bhargav is in the final year of completing the Master of Environmental Studies program, specializing in Sustainability Management. Bhargav previously completed a law degree, and has successfully launched and managed a startup in India before working as a Senior Application Specialist at S&P Global.

Bhargav’s GRADflix submission, Building Circular Resilience for Small Island Developing Nations, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Brian is a second-year master's student in Psychology working in the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. Brian's research focuses on emotional memory in bilinguals, and he enjoys trying to answer psychology questions by using computational and AI tools in his research.

Brian's GRADflix submission, Lost in Translation: Exploring Emotional Differences and Memory in Bilinguals and Monolinguals, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Christopher is completing a PhD in Applied Mathematics supervised by Dr. Florian Girelli, with research focusing on theoretical physics and solving problems in the field of quantum gravity using symmetry-based approaches. Previously, Christopher completed a BSc in Mathematical Physics at the University of Waterloo, an MSc in Mathematics at the University of Toronto, and an MMATH in Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge.

Christopher’s GRADflix submission, Symmetries: The Universal Foundation of Physics, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Gerard is pursuing a Master of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering. His research examines clean energy technologies with a focus on advancing electrochemical devices such as batteries and fuel cells through computational modeling and simulations.

Gerard’s GRADflix submission, An Exciting Future for Zero-emissions Vehicles, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Huda is a PhD student in the Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI) research group in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is currently developing an efficient automated image captioning framework based on cutting-edge deep learning/attention models, which can support the development of text analysis, sentiment analysis, and information aggregation in real-world applications, such as autonomous vehicles and assistive technology to help blind or visually impaired individuals.

Huda’s GRADflix submission, AI-Visual-Captioning: Towards Boosting the Performance of Automated Image Captioning Models for Intelligent Assistive Technology and Border Real-World Impact!, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Jake is a second-year MASc student in Mechanical Engineering and previously completed his BASc in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Jake works in the Turbulent Combustion Modeling Lab under the supervision of Prof. Cecile Devaud, where the group develops combustion models for simulating various flames. 

Jake's GRADflix submission, Machine Learning for Combustion Chemistry, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Jake (he/him) is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Environmental Management and an MSc graduate from the Computational Multiphysics group. His research examines satellite-based methods for monitoring freshwater ice resources in remote, cold regions. Jake develops free, open-source simulations for learning the physics of climate monitoring satellites, which can be found on his website.

Jake’s GRADflix submission, Polarimetric and Interferometric RADAR Investigations of Lake Ice, or: Irradiating Earth, Just a Little Bit, as a Treat, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Karen is a PhD student in the School of Public Health Sciences, and she previously completed a coursework MSc in Human Health & Nutritional Sciences at the University of Guelph. Her research examines the role of food policies on dietary intake patterns.

Karen’s GRADflix submission, Always Coca-Cola?, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Kate is in the second year of her graduate studies in Geography and Environmental Management and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo in Environment and Business. Her research focuses on sustainable development and tourism in mountain regions. Kate's current research project is based on sustainable development, tourism, and energy resource management in Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal.

Kate's GRADflix submission, Tourism and Change in Sagarmantha National Park, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Madi Donohoe is a third-year PhD candidate in Chemistry where she conducts research in Dr. Holger Kleinke’s group. Her work centers on advancing low-temperature thermoelectric materials for use in thermoelectric generators. She earned her undergraduate degree in Honours Cooperative Chemistry from the University of Waterloo.

Madi's GRADflix submission, Optimizing Low-Temperature Thermoelectric Materials for Enhanced Generator Applications, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Sarah is a MASc student in Chemical Engineering, specializing in nanotechnology. Sarah previously earned her BSc in Metallurgy and Materials Engineering from the University of Tehran. Her research focuses on sustainable nanotechnology, particularly the recovery of nanomaterials from composites using cleavable polymers.

Sarah's GRADflix submission, Sustainable Nanocomposites: Engineering Cleavable Thermosets for Circular Materials Economy, will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Vladyslav (he/him) is pursuing a Master of Health Informatics in the School of Public Health under the mentorship of Professor Abel Torres Espin. His thesis focuses on precision health, exploring multidomain recovery trajectories in traumatic brain injury using advanced data analytics. His goal is to bridge data science and healthcare innovation, particularly in predictive modeling for public health. Vladyslav holds a Bachelor of Education and a Master of Computer Science from Drahomanov Ukrainian State University.

Vladyslav's GRADflix submission, Multi-outcome Trajectories of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), will premiere at the GRADflix showcase. 

Youssra Rahham is a PhD candidate in Chemical Engineering. Her research seeks to gain a fundamental understanding of nanoparticle transport behaviors in porous media for applications in groundwater remediation. After completing her undergraduate studies in Engineering and Management Science at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, Youssra ventured to the United States to further her education where she obtained an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Wyoming.

Youssra's GRADflix submission, Nano-plastics, Macro-challenges..., will premiere at the GRADflix showcase.