Grad students impress at GRADflix with top prize win

Seven Waterloo Engineering graduate students made their mark at this year’s GRADflix competition with creative videos showcasing their research, including a top-prize-winning entry from a chemical engineering student.

Out of 110 entrants, chemical engineering graduate students Ananya Muralidharan, Gerard Agravante, Sarah Rezaei, and Youssra Rahham, electrical and computer engineering student Huda Diab Abdulgalil, mechanical and mechatronics student Jake Chateauneauf, and systems design engineering student Andrea Chakma secured spots in the top 20, with Muralidharan claiming the top prize.

GRADflix is an annual contest that challenges graduate students to present their complex research in a way that resonates with a broader audience. Participants use a mix of live footage, slideshows, and animation to bring their work to life. A panel of University of Waterloo judges from diverse fields selects the top four videos, awarding cash prizes. The competition also includes a Finalist’s Choice Award, determined by peer voting.

Launched in 2018 by the University of Waterloo’s Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA), GRADflix is supported by graduate students through the Graduate Studies Endowment Fund.

Check out the Faculty of Engineering’s finalist videos:

• Ananya Muralidharan: Charged for the future – the quest for longer-lasting lithium ion batteries (1^st-place)
• Gerard Agravante: An exciting future for zero-emissions vehicles
• Sarah Rezaei: Sustainable nanocomposites: engineering cleavable thermosets for circular materials
• Youssra Rahham: Nano-plastics, macro-challenges
• Huda Diab Abdulgalil: AI-Visual-Captioning: Toward boosting the performance of automated image captioning models for intelligent assistive technology and border real-world impact
• Jake Chateauneauf: Machine learning for combustion chemistry
• Andrea Chakma: Getting excited about using social robots.

Find out more about the graduate programs, degrees and research opportunities offered by the Faculty of Engineering.