Connecting Science to Society

Where did you grow up and what were your main interests?

I grew up in Toronto, Ontario. My mother has her own public relations form that focuses on crisis management; my father (who is an accountant) evaluates the financial strengths of businesses. At the age of thirteen as a page in the Ontario legislature, I became fascinated by politics. And as an alumna of the Shad program, I was exposed to interdisciplinary thinking early on. I was the first female student to graduate from the engineering stream of my high school.

KI encourages students to apply their knowledge to solve real-world problems. Can you provide some examples?

 My commitment to politics actually began before I started in KI. In 2021, I was selected as one of the youngest representatives in Canada to serve as a Daughter of the Vote and attend a one-week national summit in Canada's parliament on the future of women in Canadian politics. Additionally, I spent six years as an active member of my Constituency Youth Council where I worked alongside council members, staff and Members of Parliament to identify and examine trends impacting youth in the riding. Further, I was appointed by my Member of Parliament as the only youth on the Selection Committee for the Canada 150 Exemplary Canadian Award. Finally, as a Plan International Canada Speaker's Bureau member, I spent two years training as an advocate and spokesperson for issues impacting women and children in Canada and internationally. One day, I hope to design better policies for girls at every level of government.

How did you decide to join KI when you entered the university?

In 2019, I attended Shad – a STEM and entrepreneurship enrichment program for high school students from across Canada. Here, through real-world design challenges, biology labs, meetings with venture capital and community leaders, my approach to science radically shifted. While I had previously believed each academic discipline to be its own silo, Shad showed me the overlap between my appreciation of biology and my passion for social justice. Additionally, it taught me to approach my peers as partners as opposed to adversaries and reignited a deep curiosity.

Knowledge Integration was created in response to the Shad program and adopted much of its pedagogy. Having had such a positive Shad experience, I was eager to continue this form of education. And I was excited by the prospect of a modern degree geared towards fixing real-world problems, which simultaneously allowed me to pursue my wide array of interests.

Which class have you found most valuable so far? Why?

Making Collaboration Work, taught by Dr. Katie Plaisance, has been one of the most influential courses in my degree to date.

In a new age of complex "wicked problems" that resist easy solutions, the bulk of modern work is team-based. In this course, I learned that the best teams are not composed of the best individual performers but rather of the best collaborators.

In my coursework, I focused on ways to approach conflict as a collaborator (as opposed to an adversary) and how to replace blame with curiosity. I learnt to ask for feedback on delivery and methods to measure the effectiveness of communication. To test my abilities, at the end of the course, I was strategically placed on a team with classmates with vastly different values, interests, and conflict styles from myself.

Dr. Plaisance's openly admitted our team was engineered to crash and burn, yet we thrived. Our differences could have been the perfect breeding ground for animosity and fear, but we chose to instead leverage them to build resilience, identify novel information and perspectives, and skyrocket our creativity.

Have you been able to apply your skills as a collaborator to other projects?

Yes. Last summer, I was responsible for leading an intensive, four-week-long design project with diverse students from across Canada. Using the skills I gained from Making Collaboration Work, I guided the group through building a team charter, utilizing various brainstorming techniques, and finding working and conflict styles — all while ensuring they maintained psychological safety. The project was wildly successful and highly regarded by a panel of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

I am confident that the skills I acquired from this course will continue to serve me well as I pursue higher-level education and enter the workforce.

There seems to be a strong sense of community within KI. Can you describe some of the activities that help to build this?

Community building begins within each classroom. Most of the program's core courses are discussion and/or project-based; therefore, a significant amount of time is dedicated to conversing, debating, and working with classmates. Additionally, social events, weekly seminars, and the KI student society deliberately bring together students from all four years of the program to develop relationships across cohorts and foster an intentional community. 

Finally, after finishing the second year, each cohort takes a trip to Europe to study museum design in preparation for the following year's courses. Students stay in shared accommodations with their classmates and have the opportunity to get to know their peers and professors outside of an academic setting while undergoing many new and exciting experiences abroad. As one might expect, a common sentiment is that KI students leave on a trip as classmates but return to the classroom as friends.

What advice might you give to students entering or considering KI?

KI presents a wonderful opportunity to explore vast arrays of interests. However, broadly curious students, can easily become overwhelmed by choices and neglect building substantive expertise in any one domain.

Therefore, I would encourage students entering KI to develop a personal academic mission statement before or within the first year of their degree. This mission statement might be as specific as identifying a discipline that they are drawn to and working to attain a major/minor/specialization in that area or as broad as articulating a wicked problem they would like to take part in solving or a theme they are interested in studying. While this mission statement should be updated throughout the degree, it can be a beneficial resource in helping to balance the need for disciplinary depth with the excitement of disciplinary breadth.

This interview is part of a project conducted by Dr. Mary Stewart during her two-month fellowship at the University of Waterloo in the fall of 2022. Thank you to Dr. Stewart for her work in highlighting the transdisciplinary nature of the KI program and its community members, and to Fulbright Canada for making this opportunity possible.