First, an important fact: Our students at McMaster are, bar none, the very best.
This year, they’ve supported their peers’ mental health, created hygiene kits for community members in need, taken time out from exams to build a canoe launch so our community can enjoy the outdoors… the list goes on. There is no way to list all the ways and times our students made a difference in 2025.
Here are 10 of the best-read stories about our incredible students from this year.
Erika Javornik, club president and fourth-year civil engineering student, carries a canoe up the new launch. (Caelan Beard, McMaster University)
What’s up, dock?
The McMaster Outdoor Club built a canoe launch on the edge of the university’s lower campus, giving paddlers on campus and in the community access to Cootes Paradise, as well as chance to take a break from school, make friends, and get closer to nature.
Student volunteers worked on the site for months, first clearing it of invasive plants, then building the launch in the spring — a very muddy undertaking.
But it was a really fun project, says club president Erika Javornik. “I think a lot of people enjoyed the building of it… and being part of something that will hopefully continue for years and years, and benefit so many people.”
The launch is beginner friendly and paddlers head down a small creek, surrounded by trees. Boats are protected from the wind, so people can practise paddling before they reach the open water of Cootes: 320 hectares of marshland and a Nationally Important Bird Area where you can spot thriving populations of Trumpeter swans, great blue herons, double-crested cormorants and more.
“It’s paradise,” said Javornik.
Slater holds the Joyce Wignall Award, which recognized the women’s rugby team for their extensive community involvement and civic leadership.
Leadership on and off the field
Rugby powerhouse Samantha Slater created the March for Women campaign and fundraiser, an initiative to raise awareness of how eating disorders, domestic violence, mental health challenges and breast cancer affect female athletes.
Slater, who had an eating disorder as a teen, created the campaign to end stigma around mental health issues that take women out of sport, and to educate men on how to better support women in sport.
March for Women ran a karaoke night, a running initiative, and a weekly booth where people could get necklaces, blind dates with a book, raffle tickets and more.
Slater also took part in a panel event as part of the Marauders’ Mental Health Week, speaking about women’s health in sports and eating disorders. Both the women’s and men’s rugby teams showed up in numbers to support her.
Talking about these topics and her experiences makes her emotional, but it doesn’t trigger her, Slater said. “I’d rather talk about it, so other people know that they’re not alone.”
McMaster undergraduate student Myra Godara and medical student Ryan Ho teamed up to secure funding, rally volunteers, and assemble 200 kits of high-demand hygiene products for people in need across Hamilton, Niagara, and Waterloo.
Students team up to deliver dignity through hygiene kits
McMaster students Myra Godara and Ryan Ho secured funding, rallied volunteers, and assembled 200 kits of high-demand hygiene products for people in need.
Godara was a harm reduction worker at the YWCA Hamilton’s safer use space when she noticed a growing need for basic hygiene items and thought of creating ready-to-use kits. Her supervisor connected her with Ho, a medical student at Students for Harm Reduction and Community Outreach.
The project quickly grew beyond Hamilton. Medical students at McMaster’s Niagara and Waterloo campuses joined in, assembling and distributing kits to their local YWCA branches. Godara coordinated the logistics, often driving between cities to ensure smooth delivery.
For the student organizers, the project was about more than hygiene supplies: It was about connection, learning and building bridges between students and the communities they hope to serve.
Biomedical engineering PhD student Manak Bajaj was named the 2025 winner of a $10,000 grand prize for his pitch focused on an innovative way of detecting and predicting Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs).
Student develops AI sensor that detects UTIs
Engineering grad and PhD student Manak Bajaj invented Wonder Guard, technology that allows timely detection and treatement of urinary tract infections (UTIs).
A student entrepreneur, Bajaj won first place at the annual Startup Survivor Pitch Competition for the AI-powered catheter bag powered by artificial intelligence that rapidly detects the presence of bacteria that cause UTIs.
Wonder Guard is equipped with DNA biosensors that detect the bacteria in minutes, rather than days, enabling proactive infection treatment or even prevention.
The spark for Wonder Guard came from a “deeply personal place” when his mother was hospitalized for weeks over what should have been a routine procedure, Bajaj said.
“Watching her suffer, not from her illness, but from an infection that never should have happened, made me realize how urgently we need to change urinary health care.”
For her research on surrogateTRISO particles, Santos used the McMaster Nuclear Reactor and the Centre for Advanced Nuclear Systems (CANS), where she got to work with radioactive materials remotely using the hot cells. (Georgia Kirkos, McMaster University)
Arianna Santos is breaking new ground in sustainable power
Arianna Santos’ research has the potential to change energy use in Canada.
The fourth-year Materials Engineering & Society student’s work is the first of its kind in nuclear research in Canada: She’s studying surrogate TRISO particles, a type of fuel used in some Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
In the summer, Santos tested the irradiation and characterization of capsules that mimic the behaviour of TRISO fuel in a reactor.
While research on how TRISO particles behave in a reactor has been done in other countries, it’s never been done in Canada — until now.
Santos, who has created foundational knowledge on this topic, hopes further research will build on her work.
“If we can get it to work, produce it at a reasonable scale, then that just makes SMRs and microreactors more of a reality,” Santos said. “Not only is that a scientific innovation – that’s really good for communities that are out of reach of coal, diesel, oil, further reducing Canada’s carbon emissions and giving access to clean energy and helping energy scarcity.”
In June, a group from the DeGroote Pride Association marched in the Toronto Pride Parade.
Inspiring and supporting a new generation of queer business leaders
The DeGroote Pride Association offers students support, networking opportunities and professional advice, as well as a sense of community and allyship training.
In its first year, the club is helping 2SLGBTQIA+ business students prepare for the professional workspace, which can be very male- and hetero-dominated.
But being queer is not something you have to hide in the workplace, co-founder Matt Retera-Robinson points out.
The club provides a safe and educational space for 2SLGBTQIA+ students as well as allies. In its first year, the club has hosted a variety of events, including a charity drag show, a speed networking event in collaboration with DeGroote Women in Business, and a conference called “Beyond” that included a panel conversation and networking opportunities.
Bradley Squarek is working on a faster, less invasive and more cost-effective way to detect Blanding’s turtle occupancy of wetland areas, with potential benefits for conservation.
Saving the cutest turtle in the land
Graduate student Bradley Squarek is using a fast, less invasive and cost-effective way to locate the endangered Blanding’s turtle and support conservation efforts.
The charismatic, shy turtle has a bright yellow throat and a mouth shaped like a smile.
“It’s probably the cutest turtle in Ontario,” Squarek said.
Unfortunately, it’s also a threatened species in Ontario and endangered in Canada.
One of the first steps for conservation work is determining where the turtles are located. That can inform actions to protect land and habitat, raise awareness and educate local communities.
Currently, researchers must either wade in to wetlands and scan the area with binoculars, or set up traps and check on them periodically. Neither method is ideal.
Squarek’s project is introducing a relatively new technique, tracking environmental DNA: Sampling water samples from wetlands for cellular residue that indicates whether the species is or was recently present.
So far, the eDNA method has proved just as effective as traditional methods at detecting the Blanding’s turtle in wetlands.
Going into the summer, Margaret Qin had already organized several art markets, aimed at reducing barriers for student creatives. In August, she created a downtown festival for the broader Hamilton community. (Georgia Kirkos, McMaster University)
Margaret Qin creates and shares a strong sense of community
Going into the summer, Margaret Qin had already organized several art markets, aimed at reducing barriers for student creatives. In August, she created a downtown festival for the broader Hamilton community.
If you’ve been to a market at the Grind on campus, you’ve probably met Qin. A jewelry maker herself, she created the Grind Market events for McMaster students to sell their work — whether it’s handmade, curated or collected — with minimal barriers to entry and and opportunity to connect with artistic peers and create a community space.
Qin remembers the feeling of elation when the manager of the Grind signed off on the first market: “He trusted the idea. I trusted the idea. Now I just needed to trust myself that I could pull it off.”
That was in January. After organizing a few Grind Markets, she wrote a winning City of Hamilton proposal for a downtown festival. King William West Fest, timed to coincide with McMaster’s Welcome Week in the final week of August, offered new and returning students a sense of the vibrant arts scene and sense of community in Hamilton.
Kendal Garlow supports sustainable agriculture
Researcher and entrepreneur Kendal Garlow knows that locally grown food can — and does — change lives.
A student in the inaugural cohort of the Master of Indigenous Studies, Garlow studied Indigenous food systems and supporting food sovereignty.
She and her husband, Thomas Sweeney, are starting a business to support Indigenous communities in increasing access to fresh produce.
They’re building a self-watering greenhouse to offer affordable, freshly grown food to the Six Nations community. They’re also hoping to sell the technology, allowing a variety of customers access to the type of tech that’s usually only available to large-scale operations.
“How can our tech really benefit the community in the best way?” Garlow said. “How can we get the most food in the smallest space?”
Right now, she and Sweeney want to stay within Six Nations as they figure out the product – but their dream is to help a broad range of communities that don’t have food access.
“We have a lot of dreams for where this could go of how many communities we might be able to help, how many people we might be able to feed.”
The heritage placement gets students out of the classroom, working with heritage partner institutions across the Hamilton region. (Georgia Kirkos, McMaster University).
Hands-on history class
From the first Tim Hortons to a pickle-processing plant, students in 4HP3 are working on projects with heritage partner institutions.
Arslan Tariq and Olivia Walker spent their last semester of school digging through primary sources, walking Ottawa Street North and learning more about the history of Hamilton.
Their work is part of the hands-on Heritage Placement history course. Unlike a typical fourth-year seminar course, the heritage placement gets students out of the classroom, working with heritage partner institutions across the region on a project that typically results in lasting, public-facing output.
Tariq and Walker’s placement involved working with the City of Hamilton’s Heritage Trust Division, investigating whether a section of Ottawa Street North could be a candidate for heritage district status. They presented their findings to the city’s Municipal Heritage Committee.
Other projects included creating an exhibit on the history of the Dunnville Bick’s pickle plant with the Cayuga Library and Heritage Centre; contributing to research on Irish immigrant workers at Hamilton Waterworks with Hamilton Civic Museums; curating a textile history exhibit on the outfits of the Brant Inn, a renowned nightlife institution during the 1930s-60s; and assisting with educational programming and artefact research for an exhibit at the McMaster Museum of Art.