Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE) – University of Toronto Chapter

Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference (CCEC) - Each year, our chapter provides our students with the opportunity to attend the annual Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference. This past year, the University of Toronto was represented by 27 student delegates who attended the conference in Toronto from October 6-9th, 2024. Our delegates participated in and excelled at the student competitions, with two of our students, Sebastian Dot and Anna Popovic, placing 1st and 2nd in the Robert G. Auld Student Paper Competition. We had a large showing at these events, as our delegates attended to support the student presenters. With CCEC hosted in Toronto, we organized a lab tour at the University of Toronto Chemical Engineering facilities, featuring six research labs. Attendance was 50% higher than expected, with more than 50 conference attendees from six universities: McGill, University of Calgary, Queen’s, University of Alberta, McMaster, and University of Ottawa. We also hosted the PreNup Mixer, a social event that brought together over 100 undergraduate students. The event provided a relaxed and engaging space for chemical engineering students to network, share experiences, and build connections during the conference. Beyond the student competitions, our delegates showed great participation in workshops and used the conference as a great opportunity to engage and network with other engineering students from across Canada and industry professionals from diverse backgrounds.

Research Days - Research Day is another annual event that has had one of the highest turnouts over the past year, as over 90 students attended our event. The purpose of Research Days is to connect students interested in completing summer research or thesis with professors who are actively hiring students. Six professors opted in to present their available research projects, two of which sent their graduate students to directly communicate with their potential summer student candidates. Additionally, we created an in-depth guide to emailing professors for research positions that students could use as a resource. Due to our efforts, each of the professors in attendance were able to hire enthusiastic chemical engineering research students for the Summer 2025 term. This event was held January 28th, 2025.

Plant Tour - Provided an exclusive tour for 23 students, including CSChE members, to explore a 550 MW natural gas power plant in Toronto (Portlands Energy Centre). They learned about energy production, chemical engineering processes, and the latest technologies used in power generation. The plant tour was held on March 25th, 2025, with transportation provided to the site. Feedback was extremely positive for this event given that it was the first time many of the attendees were able to see how a plant is run, and how they apply chemical engineering principles to energy production. The company was also interested in future collaboration with the club to recruit more chemical engineers from UofT.