Chemical Engineering PhD candidate wins Ryerson GRADFlix competition

Reza Eslami, a Chemical Engineering PhD candidate, was named the first-place winner at the 2022 Ryerson GRADFlix digital narrative competition. Eslami, a health tech entrepreneur, is developing wearable health monitoring devices that are battery-free and non-invasive, under the supervision of Dr. Hadis Zarrin and Dr. Mehrab Mehrvar. In his video, he explains his innovative wristband that uses sweat to measure biomarkers non-invasively for monitoring diabetes patients’ blood glucose.

“At first, making a video to explain my four-year PhD project in two minutes was a big challenge for me, let alone describing it in an easy-to-understand way,” said Eslami. “To me, GRADFlix was an ample opportunity to explain the complexities of my research in a well-paced and visual format, while introducing audiences to a novel technology for diabetes self-care. It helped me elevate my understanding of pitching an idea and communicating with non-specialist audiences.”

Eslami received $1,000 for the win, with $750 second-place and $500 third-place prizes awarded to Swidda Rassy, a Journalism master’s student, and Mitchell Lee, a Biomedical Engineering MASc student, respectively. The $250 People’s Choice Award went to Kritika Vashishtha, an Aerospace Engineering PhD student.

GRADFlix is a digital narrative competition inviting master’s and doctoral students across disciplines to showcase their research to non-specialist audiences in a two-minute video. The competition is inspired by the University of Waterloo’s annual GRADflix competition.