Justin Marchioni is a winner of the Destination Physics Scholarship, which recognizes the top undergraduate in Physics and Astronomy. Justin feels incredibly fortunate and thankful that the scholarship will ease his financial burden and allow him one less thing to worry about as he pursues his degree.
Hailing from Toronto, Justin was drawn to the University of Waterloo for its solid reputation and academic offerings in Physics and Astronomy. He has aspirations to pursue a PhD in exoplanets or galaxies and hopes his move from the regular to co-op stream will provide him with more exposure to this exciting field. Currently, Justin is working at Harvard University as part of the Capasso Group, designing and fabricating a broadband, high-efficiency metalens capable of diffraction-limited focusing across the visible spectrum. Every day he develops codes for designing the devices, running simulations of the generated designs, and lab measurements of fabricated samples.
“There are definitely transferable skills that I’m learning – how to conduct research, properly writing reports and user guides, using some specialized programs and learning some different coding languages, using equipment and designing setups for taking optical measurements", said Marchioni.
These are highly applicable to other industries and just the experience itself is what I had hoped for.”
So far, Justin has enjoyed the exposure to the astronomy courses, his favourite class to date is PHYS 270: Astronomical Observations, Instrumentation and Data Analysis. Using the telescope on top of the physics building to make observations of Jupiter and Saturn was notably exciting for him.
While he loves physics at Waterloo, Justin freely admits that it is a tough program with a demanding workload that requires a lot of discipline and time management skills. He singles out the teaching skills and availability of professors and teaching assistants who help students succeed with any topic they may be confused about as a fundamental reason to study at Waterloo. Justin is also a big fan of the campus recreational facilities and intramural sports as a way to take a break from the assignments and lab reports and de-stress.
“… once you figure it out and truly understand the material, that’s the best feeling in the world.
It’s so rewarding. And I think this perfectly sums up physics at Waterloo. It’s a challenge but a worthwhile one at that.”
said Marchioni, “I’ve definitely become a better communicator, problem solver, and thinker from my time here.”
Destination Physics Scholarship
Waterloo students belong to the fastest-growing Physics & Astronomy department in Canada. Under the guidance of our award-winning faculty, future physicists are blazing trails in fields as diverse as quantum computing and quantum matter, optics and photonics, astrophysics, and quantum materials.
This annual scholarship was established to enable our remarkable students to focus on learning and the pursuit of discovery, and is awarded on the basis of academic excellence. In turn, they set the bar high for their peers while achieving ambitious goals that propel our understanding of the universe.
Donations to scholarships at Waterloo directly supports the next generation of research scientists and high-tech entrepreneurs. By providing students with the resources they need, together we will create the conditions our students need to lead our world into a very exciting future.
