Over the Christmas break I've started working on my solar cell again at the Toronto Metropolitan University, specifically doing experimentation with flexible substrates. I have been working with willow glass as well as a new substrate and successfullly produced very conductive electrodes with conductivity comparable to that of FTO glass and ITO! After this I deposited hole transport layers on my electrodes and in March during my break will move onto synthesizing the perovskites again with a focus on transparency. I also learned how to use an electrospinner where we drew fluids into nanofibres (like in the photo below). Big thank you to Judy for all your help as well as Dr. Koivisto :)

I am honoured to have been named this year's winner of the Nature Award in the youth category for my solar energy research. Thank you to the Canadian Museum of Nature for the awards gala, and big thanks also to Martin Lipman, Alejandro Adem, Danika Goosney, and to everyone else who made this possible. You can find the official press release here: https://nature.ca/en/about-the...

After starting The Curiosity Podcast with Kristina a year and a half ago, we have now grown the podcast significantly! To mark the end of 2022 we received several statistics from Spotify. Here were a few:

- We are in the top 13% most followed podcasts.

- We have been heard in 46 countries, the top 5 being Canada, the US, Argentina, Serbia, and India.

- Our podcast was in the top 10% most shared globally.

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported our podcast!!

After working on converting my duckweed starch to glucose, over the past few months the lab has been working on optimizing glucose yields as well as doing fermentation protocols with our bacterium. We are still waiting on specific concentration results but our latest experimental batch provided high yields of lactic acid so in the new year I'll be working on lactic acid separation and finally moving into polymerization!

Last year I had the honour of receiving an award for Canada's Top 100 Women and in November was invited to an in person gala. It was incredible meeting so many amazing women and listening to such inspiring speeches. Thank you to the WXN for this event!