News

The Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) Program is proud to celebrate that, for the second consecutive year, an NE student has been named to The Logic’s ‘Canada’s Leading Innovators’ list. The Logic is a Canadian news outlet that is one of the leading sources of technology and business news.

Helen Engelhardt (BASc 2024) was named as one of Canada’s leading innovators from the class of 2024. Engelhardt is a Clarendon scholar for a PhD in Materials at Oxford. She began her PhD in the fall of 2024, studying earth abundant catalysts for green hydrogen production.

Shawn Benedict (BASc 2025) was named as one of Canada’s leading innovators from the class of 2025. Benedict won 13 awards during his undergraduate degree in Nanotechnology Engineering and recently won an NSERC award for his PhD which he is pursuing in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Nanotechnology engineering (NE) alumnus Holden Beggs was named to the 2024 Forbes 30 under 30 list for his start-up Zero Experience.

This start-up was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beggs and business partner Jackson Mills saw a troubling trend,many students were losing their co-op jobs and having difficulty getting post-graduation employment during the pandemic.

Without access to jobs, students found themselves stuck in a cycle—unable to gain experience, but unable to get a job without it. Yet at the University of Waterloo there is a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem.

During his Capstone experience, Beggs realized entrepreneurship would be a good substitute for getting industry experience.

The infrastructure to create a new start-up was there for the students, however many of them did not know how to start an entrepreneurial journey.

Darshan Parmar, Class of 2019, works as a Pixel Development Engineer at Apple. He develops innovative new camera technologies that are used by millions of people around the world. He credits a large part of his success to experiences and the connections he made in the Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) Program at U Waterloo. It was another UWaterloo alumnus who referred him to his current job.

The co-op jobs Parmar enjoyed during his undergrad degree were foundational to his career journey. He had an exciting co-op position in Singapore at the National University of Singapore as a research assistant. He worked in optical system development at Lumentum in Ottawa and as an optics specialist at P & P Optica.

The connections between in-classroom, extracurriculars and co-op are building a truly well-rounded engineering foundation.

It wasn’t a question of whether Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) student Michael would end up at Waterloo Engineering, only which program within the faculty he would be in.

Michael had been sold on engineering as his career path from his childhood days of playing Lego, to the point where he said he wanted to be an engineer during a career presentation in elementary school. After learning about NE and the broad range of applications offered for his future, he was sold on the program.

“I definitely say coming to Waterloo Engineering was the best choice I could have made in terms of propelling my career forward,” says Michael. “It is invaluable to graduate with two years of work experience and co-op is formed in a way which helps you discover who you are in terms of in engineering and being an engineer.”

Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) alumni Helen Engelhardt (BASc ’24) has been named as a “Top Prospect” by The Logic.

During her studies in Nanotechnology Engineering, Engelhardt worked on reducing emissions, energy storage, scaling cutting-edge technology, and promoting recycling for a circular economy. Her impactful research has been published in multiple scientific journals, and she has also made proprietary technological advancements in mRNA vaccine manufacturing and battery recycling.

Engelhardt enjoyed a variety of co-op positions during her undergraduate degree which included SiTration a recycling start-up based at MIT and the National Research Council of Canada, Nanotechnology Research Centre as a research and development intern.

Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) alumnus Thomas Storwick (Class of 2019) has made Forbes prestigious 30 under 30 list. Storwick co-founded Coastal Carbon with University of Waterloo alumna Kelly Zheng.