Madelaine Liddy’s ties to the University of Waterloo run deep. Her father and uncle graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering and her great uncle, Cornelius Siegfried one of the three founders of UW and served as president of St. Jerome’s College. Liddy, following in her family’s footsteps, has carved out a place for herself at the University of Waterloo as she graduates in 2022 earning a Ph.D. in Engineering.
Impact of the Nanotechnology Engineering Program
Liddy originally wanted to pursue a career as a doctor. While pondering her options she had the opportunity to speak with the chief of medicine at Mackenzie Health who encouraged her to become an engineer as he felt that engineers make good doctors. That conversation changed the trajectory of Madelaine’s life. She chose the Nanotechnology Engineering Program because it seemed biofocused. Liddy reflects on her experience in the program,
The Nanotechnology Engineering Program had a profound impact on my life. Originally seeking biology-focused courses, my thoughts changed when I experienced the quantum mechanics course, that’s when I got hooked!
Liddy enjoyed other aspects of the Nanotechnology Engineering Program as well,
The people in my 2014 nanotechnology engineering class were special. We are very close-knit and I would not have completed the degree without them.
Leading-edge research
Liddy’s passion for quantum mechanics led her to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering. Her dissertation research focused on nitrogen-vacancy(NV) centers in diamond. This center is sensitive to magnetic fields and combined with being able to be used at room temperature make them excellent candidates to develop portable biomedical devices. Her research allows control of tens of thousands of NV centers in all four available orientations within the diamond lattice, expanding the applications of this quantum center in portable sensing and biomedical devices.
Future plans
Liddy’s next plans will be developing quantum sensing devices at a startup called Sandbox AQ based in Palo Alto, California.