Zenith Fellow Intern, Class of 2023
Ontario Tech University, Bachelor of Software Engineering
Host Organization: Magnestar Inc
Mentor: Christine Tovee

Emily Lai is a student at Ontario Tech University, currently pursuing her undergraduate degree in Software Engineering.

From a young age, she was interested in math and numbers, an interest which sparked a curiosity about the greatest limits possible—and there is no greater limit than space!

Her interest in math easily translated to an interest in data science and machine learning. In the past year, she had a wonderful experience as a Data Science/Machine Learning intern with Axcessiom Technologies Inc. There, Emily pioneered the transformation of a core computer vision product to hybridize with voice recognition AI. She also completed a Production Engineering Fellowship with Major League Hacking and Meta for the summer of 2022, where she created an open-source portfolio website deployed with DevOps principles.

A constant passion to learn led to her pursuing various opportunities. Emily completed the University of Toronto Artificial Intelligence’s LearnAI program and was a Canada Learning Code Teen Ambassador from 2020-2021. She was selected as a Google Computer Science Summer Institute Scholar for the summer of 2021. She also self-studied to gain two cloud computing certifications in 2022; as a Google Cloud Digital Leader, and a Google Cloud Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer.

Outside of academia, Emily is also involved in her university and community as the President of the Women in Engineering Society, the Vice President of Finance and Administration of the Engineering Students’ Society, and a mentor for Canada Learning Code.

Through her interests in data science and machine learning, and her studies in Software Engineering, Emily is excited to build the future of space and Earth satellite communication as a Zenith Fellow and a Space Software Engineering Intern with Magnestar Inc.