Scholarship Recipients
Congratulations to the 2022 WTS Toronto Area Chapter Scholarship Recipients!
Mavjot Kaur – Graduate Scholarship
Mavjot is a first year MASc student and a part of iTSS research group at University of Waterloo. Her research areas are Road Safety and Sustainability in transportation. Before starting her education in Canada, she worked along with National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and Government of Punjab in reducing the road crashes in Rupnagar district. By receiving the WTS Scholarship, she received much needed financial stability and confidence to continue her path.
She is excited to be part of this amazing community of women who has inspired and motivated her. She aspires to contribute in upliftment of the next generation of young women to in the profession of transportation and reach greater heights.
Paloma Manterola – Undergraduate Scholarship
Paloma is a third year Mechanical Engineering Student at the University of Toronto. She is determined to catalyze positive impact in the transportation industry through ethical automotive design and innovation. She currently strives to achieve this goal as an executive member at Blue Sky Solar Racing, a university team that designs and builds a fully solar-powered car that will compete at a 3000km endurance race across Australia.
Paloma aims to recognize fellow women engineers in her design teams and collaborate with other women engineers in other university groups in order to overcome hurdles women face in this industry. She hopes to continue inspiring others by hosting Women in Motorsports Panels alongside the University of Toronto Formula Racing Team. She is excited about her future contributions in the transportation industry by having such a strong community of female leaders by her side. In her free time, she enjoys 3D printing models and tools, baking and bouldering.
Benie Matoka Mabondo – Undergraduate Scholarship
Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Benie was interested in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) since high school. Growing up in an environment where electricity and clean water were not accessible to everyone, she wanted to help her community by becoming a part of the solution.
With her life motto "Strength has no gender, Genius has no race" (from the movie Hidden Figures), she dared to undertake studies in Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. It is with courage and determination that she took this path to fulfill her dream and be an inspiration to other women who have similar ambitions. It is an honor for her to be a recipient of the prestigious WTS Toronto Area Chapter 2022 Scholarship - Memorial Award.
Beyond meeting certain financial needs, this award is an opportunity to learn more about the transportation industry and to gain valuable experience from the industry through the Mentorship Program.
Elahe Sherafat – Focussed Scholarship, Artificial Intelligence
Ella is a first-year Ph.D. student at Toronto Metropolitan University and a researcher with the Laboratory of Innovations in Transportation at TMU under the supervision of Prof. Bilal Farooq. Her field of research is the application of Artificial Intelligence and Neural networks in Transportation problems. Since January 2022, she has been focusing on the “Smart City and Digital Twin” project at LiTrans in collaboration with FuseForward. She investigates the interaction of Autonomous Delivery Robots (ADR) with humans in constrained environments. She became interested in this project since she believes the extensive deployment of these robots in the near future is inevitable due to being a solution for the growth in e-commerce and also environmentally friendly. However, her goal is to make their navigation between pedestrians, especially those with disabilities and visual impairment, safer and socially aware.
She also published five papers and contributed to writing a book on the transportation area. She is an Iranian mother and believes nothing can hinder the path of a woman toward her goals. She wants the women, especially women of her country, to know they are capable of achieving anything. She believes the world needs women’s genius, consistency, and perspective in academics, industry, and society.
Maria Vetrici – Underraduate Scholarship
When I was a kid, my dad shared his love of biking with me. I learned to ride in the suburbs of Olympia, WA, a place where transportation was almost entirely based on cars. Throughout my life, my love of cycling has grown, especially strengthened by the incredible bike paths in Vancouver, BC.
As I learned more about cities and transportation while growing up in Vancouver, I realized how important it was for thoughtful and intentional decisions to be behind our infrastructure. However, since I wanted to explore fields outside of engineering, I applied to the University of Toronto math program. I was also curious about Toronto and life there, having lived by the coast all my life. After a year at UofT, I am now an executive member of Women in Science and Engineering, I have discovered what bike trails Toronto has to offer (and the gaps), and most importantly, I have enriched my understand of urban geography after spending the past summer doing research into the city’s incorporation and its ties to the CPR.
I ultimately realized that the pull towards engineering was still there and applied to transfer. I am now in Civil Engineering, working as a don and immersing myself in the biking community. Although I am still exploring my career interests, I know Toronto has long-term plans in place to create a more sustainable and accessible city and I hope to be at the forefront of this project. I see Toronto as a city with potential for growth, particularly in transit access, and I am excited to work alongside the growing number of other women and non-binary engineers entering the transportation sector.