Six more students comprise the #2019SLSquad! 

Joining the SFU Squad is science student Erin Flood. A graduate of Burnaby Central Secondary School in Burnaby, BC, Erin co-founded Beyond STEM in 2017 to educate students about the STEM sector. As Director of Logistics, she coordinated presentations, mentored members, and managed event details and conflicts. They have reached over 1,000 students through their library conferences, STEM career fair with both professionals and educational institutions, and STEMinar. This year’s engineering winner at SFU is Philip Stachura from St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby, BC. During 3 summers, he worked for the Go99 development team as a junior developer. He accomplished many tasks including the development of test cases for the persistence layer using RXJava reactive programming, proof-of-concept for an SNS push notification system, and a complex transaction service for the No-SQL database.

York also adds two new Squad members this year, the first being Rebecca Werner from Bnei Akiva Schools Ulpanat Orot in Toronto, ON. Rebecca is the winner of 2019 National Weizmann Canada Physics Tournament. The Weizmann Institute of Science conducts an international competition where students compete in teams to build a sophisticated safe using physics principles. Pursuing engineering at York this year is Kathryn Chin. A graduate of Bishop Allen Academy in Toronto, ON, she was selected to be a research assistant at Lassonde School of Engineering at York University during summer 2018. She worked closely with fire engineer Dr. John Gales on a research project regarding the safety of mass ingress and egress in large stadiums for which she was published in the paper.

Memorials’ new Squad members are also impressive. Science recipient Kendra Burden, a graduate of Bayside Academy in Port Hope Simpson, NL, is the first nominee from her school. Kendra maintained a 90+ average throughout high school, all while still being an active part of school sports team and volunteering/being involved in her community. Shiloh Burton is this year’s science winner at Memorial. Nominated by Indian River High School in Springdale, NL, he designed, constructed and wired his own cabin during summer 2015. This included building a 12 ft by 16 ft cabin complete with custom built swinging double doors and wiring the lights and the electrical input/output. This project helped cement his interest in engineering.

These six outstanding students will surely have a great impact within the SL Network. Welcome to the #2019SLSquad!