Jocelyne Murphy, recipient of the 2025 Pearl Sullivan Emerging Global Leaders Award, is helping students around the world connect, create and lead with purpose
Jocelyne Murphy (BASc '25, systems design engineering) came to Waterloo with a vision that extended beyond her own academic journey.
What began as a focus on creating supportive spaces for curious, collaborative students — often overlooked in traditional tech settings — quickly evolved into building the tools, communities and systems that could support student-led change at scale. It was a natural extension of the grassroots organizing and network-building work she began in high school.
Murphy’s extraordinary leadership and lasting impact in building inclusive communities for the next generation of builders has earned her the Pearl Sullivan Emerging Global Leaders Award, one of the Faculty of Engineering’s highest student honours.
Scaling impact
Through student-led ventures, Murphy has helped shape a thriving, inclusive ecosystem for builders and collaborators on campus and beyond.
During her time at Waterloo, Murphy has played a key role in the expansion of Socratica, a student-led mentorship community that has since grown into a global network. With over 100 trained hosts leading weekly sessions, Socratica now connects more than 3,000 students across 30 cities, offering a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration, peer support and early-stage project development. As part of that ecosystem, she co-founded UW Startups, a student-run initiative that helps Waterloo and Canadian students launch their big ideas.
In 2023, she also co-founded Wygo, a startup designed to support the next generation of community builders. Initially backed by Waterloo’s Enterprise Co-op program, Wygo is now gaining momentum as it prepares to make its first hires and welcome a new cohort of hosts this summer.
Building belonging
“Loneliness shouldn’t be the reason great people don’t do great things,” Murphy says. “We start every Socratica session with a pledge: if someone’s standing alone in the corner, we’ll go be their friend.”
Socratica’s low-barrier approach, with no applications or fees, has become a model of peer-led innovation and inclusive leadership. For three years, Murphy and long-time student collaborator Anson Yu (BASc ’25, systems design engineering) have been focused on sustainable growth and highlighting voices often left out of traditional engineering narratives, like beginners, artists, women, BIPOC students and others following non-linear paths.
Murphy credits Waterloo’s culture of collaboration, mentorship and experimentation for much of her success. She feels early believers not only made unconventional career paths possible, but instilled confidence and conviction that they’re worth pursuing in the first place.
“Waterloo Engineering demands hard work, but no one does it alone,” she says. “The support I’ve received from professors, alumni and my peers has kick-started my ability to build the things I want to see in the world.”
Members of Socratica celebrate on stage at their annual symposium.
A catalyst for change
Murphy’s voice has also shaped the broader tech landscape. At the 2024 BetaKit Town Hall, she called on Canadian companies to better support emerging talent. Her remarks prompted Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke to commit to hiring 1,000 interns in 2025 and have since led to increased sponsorship and support for student initiatives like Socratica.
“Jocelyne redefined what it means to support and uplift engineering students,” says Jesse Rodgers, founder and CEO of Waterloo’s Builders Club. “Her work inspired even seasoned alumni to re-engage with the community in meaningful ways.”
Murphy is joined by Wygo co-founder Christopher Oka (BASc ’25, systems design engineering) as she takes this work to the next level. “I want to support community builders right here in Canada,” she says, “so our smartest, kindest and most ambitious people can pursue greatness together.”
Explore the full list of 2025 finalists for the Pearl Sullivan Emerging Global Leaders Award.
