OSPE - The Voice - May 2019 - 38

STUDENTS

OSPE STUDENT MEMBER PROFILE:

TIFFANY JOSEPH FROM
YORK UNIVERSITY
Written by: Huijie Xu, OSPE Intern and student at McMaster's Master of
Engineering and Public Policy program
WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND?

I am an international student from Trinidad and Tobago in
the Caribbean. I came to Canada to pursue a degree in space
engineering, and I am about to graduate from York University's
Space Engineering program. I have a passion for leadership and
advocacy, and have been involved in the Lassonde Engineering
Society, various clubs and committees at my school, and
served as Vice-President, Services on the Engineering Student
Societies' Council of Ontario (ESSCO). I'm very passionate
about supporting and running strong teams that make an
impact on the student experience, and I've cultivated a love
for project management in my academic environment, as well.
(York University combines non-engineering to engineering
to develop a unique engineering program in Ontario. It
supports students engaging in leadership academically and out
of the classroom. Its engineering society also runs one of the
larger engineering competitions for students in the country.)
WHAT WORK HAVE YOU DONE IN TERMS OF ENGINEERING?

I spent two summers doing engineering research in attitude
control for satellites at the Lassonde undergraduate research
program. Attitude control is the pointing and orientation of
spacecraft, and I focused on a class of satellites called CubeSats
- small, cubic, modular satellites that have impacted our field in
the last decade. I won the Best Poster Presentation for my work
last summer, and this year I am working on the orientation for
this year's researchers.
My design projects have focused mostly on space
applications, including payload instrument design, space
mission design, and my final year capstone project, where my
team designed an autonomous underwater vehicle.
WHAT WORK HAVE YOU DONE IN TERMS OF ADVOCACY?

I've been involved with my student engineering society since
2015 and served as the President of the Lassonde Engineering
Society from 2016-2017. My team and I ran events and provided
support and representation for our student community,
working with our administration and other teams at Lassonde
to create new events, make our traditional events bigger and
better, and find new ways to engage the community.
The following year, I joined ESSCO where I was responsible
for provincial events like our first ever blood drive across
Ontario's ESSCO schools and our Math and Physics Day
volunteering at Canada's Wonderland. I also supported
38

THE VOICE

Summer 2019

our planning committees as they prepared our four yearly
conferences. In my role, I have also provided equity training
for students, and ran the first equity training for delegates at
the First-Year Integration Conference in Thunder Bay last year.
WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE AS AN
ENGINEERING STUDENT?

For now, I am heading into industry to work but I do want to go
back to university for my Master's degree and maybe eventually
a PhD. I really want to contribute to space missions, such as
the Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway Mission, a project being
run by an international collaboration of space agencies. I would
like to head into the space industry long term, while working
on improving diversity and equity education for STEM fields
and helping to improve access to the space field. For now, I am
focusing on developing as many skills as possible and taking
advantage of opportunities to develop my leadership.
I hope to see students engaging in more leadership
opportunities as I believe leadership shapes our future
engineers into socially-conscious members of society. Work
from organizations like the Engineering Change Lab is
pointing towards a future in which engineers are no longer
just technical experts, but interdisciplinary experts who craft
technical solutions rooted in an understanding of the society
in which they serve.
WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN YOU AND OSPE?

I've been an OSPE student member for some time now. Having
been an executive on the ESSCO team, I worked closely with
OSPE to see several initiatives through and received support
from OSPE's team for our organization. Now, I am a member of
the OSPE Women in Engineering Advocacy Champions Task
Force (WE ACT), which advocates for and explores the role of
women in engineering.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OSPE?

I think OSPE does a great job of supporting ESSCO and
engineering students, and the role it plays in advocacy
for equity and diversity is particularly important to me. I
think there is a lot of room for OSPE to engage more with
engineering students, and I am excited to see OSPE deepen its
relationship with engineering students in the future for further
engagement.
OSPE - The Voice - May 2019

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