Growing up, Armita Khashayardoost did not lack for engineering role models - in fact she almost had too many.
"Both my parents are engineers, and so are many other members of my family," says Khashayardoost, who is graduating from the University of Toronto this month with a degree in engineering science.
Born in Tehran, she moved to Toronto with her family when she was seven years old.
"As I got into high school, I even found that most of my teachers in STEM were women, which is not a common experience for many young girls."
With engineers all around her, Khashayardoost says her first instinct was to rebel - she briefly considered a career in law. But her love of math and the versatility of an engineering degree eventually won out.
"I figured that even if I ended up not wanting to be an engineer, it's still a good background to have for any postgraduate program, including medicine or law," she says.
"But once I started doing engineering science, I found I just really loved the problem-solving aspect of it, and I decided that I wanted to continue."
Khashayardoost is one of more than 1,000 U of T students who will receive their degrees from U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering on June 17. About three-quarters of them are graduating with practical job experience through the Professional Experience Year Co-op Program .
In Khashayardoost's case, she spent 12 months working at Alphawave Semi, a Toronto-based tech company that designs and manufactures custom computer chips and other hardware.
It was around this time that she had an epiphany.
"I had always been passionate about dealing with climate change and I realized that our grid has become dependent on a distributed network of computing devices such as smart thermostats," she says. "The fact that we now have this network opens up a lot of opportunities to enhance our energy efficiency. But at the same time, it also leaves us vulnerable, because those devices can be hacked."
That insight led her to the lab of Professor Deepa Kundur, chair of the Edward S. Rogers. Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering, who became her undergraduate thesis supervisor. There, Khashayardoost worked with postdoctoral researcher Ahmad Mohammad Saber.
She says the researchers' expertise in grid resilience and cybersecurity was a major influence, setting her up to land a job with Netherlands-based Northpool B.V., a European energy trader.
"I'll be taking a year to get trained up, and then after that, I'll be moving to Vancouver to work at their Canadian office."
Khashayardoost adds that she's excited about the role that energy trading can play in building a greener economy by matching supply and demand in a system fed by "non-dispatchable" power sources such as wind and solar, which can't be turned on or off.
Outside the classroom, Khashayardoost made a point of giving back to the community. She started a local chapter of Stars for Scholarly Youth (SSY), a charity that provides tutoring, mentorship and English literacy support to newcomers to Canada - especially youth from grades 1 to 12.
"Haris Ahmad is the person who originally founded SSY in Alberta. He reached out to me and shared stories about how his group's mentorship helped students gain confidence, make friends, and feel like they belonged in school," says Khashayardoost.
"That really resonated with me - when I moved to Canada at age seven, I struggled with many of the same things. Having a mentor to look up to back then would've made a huge difference in helping me feel less alone and more hopeful about my future."
Last year, SSY created about 100 pairings between students and U of T undergraduates who could serve as tutors and mentors, Khashayardoost says.
She also joined Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) in her second year and served as co-president in 2023-2024 alongside fellow U of T engineering graduate Sophie Sun.
"I knew off the bat I wanted to be part of the club, as I had heard so much about it from my mom's work, and I really wanted to make sure that other women got the same opportunities that I did," Khashayardoost says.
"What kept me going back was just seeing how much impact we were having. I think a lot of women have the talent, but might lack the confidence to go into engineering. I felt it myself in first year: you get that impostor syndrome, where you feel like you don't belong.
"But after five years, I have truly seen that I do belong here, that I am just as capable and can accomplish just as much. I want to help instill that confidence in others."
