Three students at Waterloo Engineering were recently recognized for finding and analyzing important problems affecting their employers during co-op work terms.
Charvi Choudhary, Samuel Muller and Sharan Dev Shankar were among five campus-wide 2019 Co-op Problem Award recipients honoured by The Problem Lab, a program that fosters disruptive innovation.
Choudhary (systems design engineering) completed a detailed analysis of the problem of legacy systems in financial institutions. She explored the financial services industry through analyst and data-related roles at Fidelity Investments and the Royal Bank of Canada.
During her time at Fidelity Investments, she also helped research and develop new tools and technologies to deliver better client experiences, reduce costs and aid digital transformation.
Returning for a third term
Muller (geological engineering) was recognized for his work as a rock mechanics and data science student at Velvet Energy Ltd., where he will be completing a third work term this summer.
He conducted an analysis of why there is restricted egress of Albertan oil to global markets, and developed a statistical model using machine learning algorithms on oil production and hydraulic fracturing datasets to determine optimal completion strategies.
Sankar (computer engineering) worked as a software engineer at Abnormal, where he improved a machine learning model to detect sophisticated email attacks, and is an author with over 50 citations.
He also identified gaps in cybersecurity insurance premium pricing that had negatively impacted premium profitability. Finally, Sankar competed in the Winter 2020 Quantum Valley Investments Problem Pitch finals.