After working on my solar cell over the summer, I resumed work on my bioplastic over the past few months where I have been experimenting in Dr. Avis' lab at Carleton University. I collected a good five kilos of duckweed in September - big thank you to Mariposa Farms for letting me harvest from your ponds! I also resumed my calls with my mentor, Martin, from Pond Biomaterials. I could not be more grateful for all the support I have been receiving throughout this project.

The first step to creating a bioplastic is producing as much glucose as possible (converted from starch) and although I did get glucose last year my lactic acid was of incredibly low yield because of the low amounts of glucose. This time around, every single one of my digestions contained high yields of glucose for the first time ever, and I realized my problem: my duckweed from last year was partially dead because I had gotten into the lab a month after I had collected the material, so I was working with non-optimal biomass. We also tried a buffering technique that improved our yields further. This high glucose result is incredibly exciting and it's funny that after one year of failure, the root cause was just the biomass being utilized 😅

Over the past few months I have been in contact with Maclean's Magazine as I am super honoured to have a profile featured in their January issue! Along with a few interviews, I got to do my first ever professional photoshoot which was a lot of fun. A big thank you to John Kealey for taking time to do the shoot :)

I am super grateful to have been named a finalist for this year's Nature Inspiration Awards, which recognize individuals and organizations whose specific projects encourage Canadians to create links with nature and contribute to its preservation. I am super excited for the awards gala in a few weeks hosted by the Canadian Museum of Nature. You can find out more about the finalists in the Financial Post here.

Something else I've been working on has been the marketing for my latest book, "Chronicles of Illusions: Bound by Dreams". I am excited to share that the duology is now available in-store across Indigo nationally. It sold out online and in the Gloucester location, and the first book is being sold across Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, Kingston, Calgary, and Edmonton in-store, which you can check out here.

Over the past few months I've gotten the opportunity to do several interviews. On The Agenda with TVO I discussed my thoughts on my opinion about if Gen Z feels let down by previous generations for inaction on climate change, and with Canada Talks on Sirius XM's Good Mornings I discussed my innovation research. I was also interviewed by The Logic where I talked about my involvement in the Masason Foundation.

Over the past few months I haven't been able to work on my solar cell (due to the lab being in Toronto) but I've still been doing some research for when I hopefully work on my solar cell over the Christmas break at TMU. I am hoping to work specifically on the flexibility of my cell as I mainly worked on the conducting electrodes over the summer and have been looking into ways to increase the strength of my willow glass and thus my solar cells which I am excited to try out in December.

Kristina and I released four episodes over September and October with some incredibly inspirational guests! The first was with Jacinto Sa, the founder of Peafowl Solar; the second was with Garry Golden, the founder of Into the Future; the third was with Amir Feizpour, the founder of Aggregate Intellect; and the most recent episode was with Matthew Espinoza, the founder of Agora Labs. These episodes all share the common theme of entrepreneurship, where we discuss topics like raising capital, building a team, and creating an MVP.