Co-op students making a difference at SickKids
Co-op students from Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering have been making important contributions to healthcare innovation at SickKids.
Wayne Lee (BASc ’04), a Systems Design Engineering graduate, highlights the skills and enthusiasm Waterloo co-op students bring to projects. He recalls working with a student who developed a human-assisted algorithm for segmenting organs in MRI images, which advanced AI applications in medical diagnostics. This work laid the foundation for a tool that improves kidney function assessments, showcasing the meaningful impact of co-op terms.
“What I really appreciate about Waterloo co-op students is that they are prepared and ready for work. Each work term, we get students who are highly committed, engaged and able to jump right into complex projects and make meaningful progress in just 16 weeks,” Lee says.
Ella Walsh (BASc ’24), a Biomedical Engineering graduate, led two significant projects during her co-op terms: developing a pressure sensor for clubfoot braces and designing a 3D DaVinci robot simulator for fetal surgery. Her work not only advanced clinical care but also led to the creation of a company, OrthoFlexion, which spun out of SickKids.
“It was an amazing opportunity to lead both of these projects during my eight-month work terms in 2023, collaborating with fellow students, engineers in other research groups, surgeons and other clinical stakeholders,” Walsh shares.
Both Lee and Walsh exemplify the entrepreneurial spirit and problem-solving skills cultivated through Waterloo Engineering’s co-op program, driving innovation in healthcare.
Go to Co-op students accelerate boundary-breaking research at SickKids for the full story.
