What is ESEC?
The Engineering Science Education Conference (ESEC) is an EngSci student-run, EngSci-exclusive annual conference held every January, mandatory for Year 1 and 2 EngSci students and optional for Years 3 and 4. The goal of ESEC is for you to expand your horizons to the many opportunities open to you with an EngSci degree. You’ll hear firsthand from professionals from a very wide range of career paths broadly related to the EngSci majors who will share insights about their professional and personal lives post-graduation.
Details for ESEC 2026 will be posted in the Fall. You can view all the details of ESEC 2025 here.
Past Speakers
In the past, we have had highly accomplished speakers like Dr. Robert Thirsk (Canadian astronaut), Donna Strickland (recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics), Anna Goldenberg (AI Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Chair and Senior Scientist in the Genetics and Genome Biology program at SickKids Research Institute), Geoffrey Hinton (Vector Institute, U of T and recipient of 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics), and Raffaello D’Andrea (EngSci ECE 9T1, co-founder of Amazon Robotics and founder of Verity, as well as a professor at ETH Zurich).
Fireside Chats and Lunch & Learn
On top of attending remarkable talks, EngSci students are given the unique opportunity to chat with the speakers and ask them personalized questions in informal settings. The first of these opportunities is fireside chats, which happen the night before the conference. The second opportunity, Lunch & Learn, occurs in the middle of conference day.
ILead ESEC Prep Workshop
If you have never attended a professional conference before or need some guidance on interacting with senior professionals, you can register for the ESEC Prep Workshop organized by ILead, specifically for Year 1 and 2 EngSci students. By attending the workshop, you can learn:
- Strategies for networking in a professional setting (with speakers, faculty, and fellow classmates)
- Networking skills, approaches, & mindsets
- How to prepare for a networking situation
- The art of asking good professional questions
Keep an eye out for registration information on ESEC’s website and Instagram page (@esecuoft) once details for ESEC 2026 are posted this fall.
ESEC Student Executive Team
ESEC is run in part by upper-year EngScis, for younger EngScis! This student executive team works hard to find speakers for the conference and bring students’ perspectives to ESEC’s planning. Your ESEC 2026 student executive team is:
Joaquin Arcilla, Co-Chair | EngSci 2T6 ECE
Amyna Ismail, Co-Chair | EngSci 2T7 MSF
Moervica Prashant, Operations Director | EngSci 2T8
Sara Parvaresh Rizi, Communications Director | EngSci 2T8
