MindFuel CEO Cassy Weber talks to Schulich scholar Alina Arvisais
MindFuel CEO Cassy Weber talks to Schulich scholar and recent U Waterloo graduate, Alina Arvisais about a few of the defining moments in her trajectory toward a career in STEM. Graduated in 2017 from Our Lady of the Snows Catholic High School in Canmore Alberta, Arvisais has a strong background and interest in the sciences, especially Synthetic Biology, or SynBio –what she calls “rebranded Genetic Engineering.” To Arvisais, SynBio is “using biology as a tool” to accomplish things, rather than just studying it.
In her high school years, she worked on different extracurricular iGEM challenges. One project was a device meant to break down keratin (from things like hair and feathers) that can cause significant problems to civic infrastructure when it finds its way into waterworks.
Weber and Arvisais talk about the collaborative nature of scientific progress, and how success is iterative. That is, it only comes after cycles of failure. Arvisais believes that these failures are an important part of scientific discovery. But this is, of course, anathema to the standard, strictly curricular Canadian student’s experience.
Arvisais then talks about the differences she notes between iGEM work at the high school level, and that done in post-secondary projects. She was able to apply more course work learnings, and skills picked up during co-op work terms. She feels that at the post-secondary level, iGEM was less about learning, and more about applying the learning.
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