Light My Fire

What can you study as an engineer? Essentially, whatever you want. For me, that became fire with a side of space. I discuss what it means to be a combustion scientist. And I will also describe my experience with being put through the paces as one of the final candidates for the Canadian Space Agency's 2016/17 Astronaut Recruitment Campaign.

While we have just begun to scratch the surface of what we don't know about the universe, I believe one of the main frontiers of science is politics and policy. We face many challenges as a species and for many of them, only the science and engineering sectors will be able to respond. Yet, at this crucial period, we struggle to have our common voices heard by the highest levels in the land. This talk is aimed at sharing ideas and hopes to raise a discussion with the public.

The immediate environment of many observed black holes is extremely bright due to energy released from infalling matter. I shall discuss how and why this happens, how we observe them and how the energy released in the case of supermassive black holes can affect the host galaxy