Student of the Year Award: Jennifer Nguyen (Integrated Sciences)
March 24, 2025
Jennifer Nguyen is a multidisciplinary Integrated Sciences student specializing in Computer Science, Public Health and Sustainability. Passionate about leveraging technology to solve real-world problems, she has gained 16 months of valuable Co-op experience, combining hands-on learning with impactful contributions.
Most recently, Jennifer worked as a Software Engineer Co-op at Tegus (now AlphaSense), where she helped enhance Financial Metrics & Dashboard features to improve content accessibility and data presentation. Her work helped drive a 75% increase in user content adoption. Beyond her technical contributions, Jennifer mentored junior interns, fostered a collaborative team culture and helped her team win the "Best 10x Tool" award at a company-wide Hackathon for automating analyst workflows. Through Co-op, she has grown from a student with foundational knowledge to a confident engineer ready to tackle industry challenges.
Outside of work, Jennifer is deeply committed to community building, mentorship and creating safe spaces for all in STEM. As Social Working Group Co-Chair for the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS), she led a team of 12 in organizing events for the UBC Science community. She has also served as an Integrated Sciences Peer Mentor, Computer Science Teaching Assistant and was a member of the inaugural EDI committee at nwPlus, one of UBC’s largest clubs.
In January 2025, Jennifer led one of the most successful iterations of nwHacks, Western Canada’s largest 24-hour hackathon, celebrating its 10-year anniversary. As nwHacks Director, she managed an event that brought together 734 hackers and 100+ top tech leaders, mentors, volunteers and sponsor representatives from across North America.
Under her leadership, nwHacks fostered an inclusive and impactful space, earning a CBC News feature and strengthening Vancouver's tech community. Having attended nwHacks 2023 as her first-ever hackathon, she came full circle by spearheading this milestone event, demonstrating her ability to drive large-scale initiatives and create lasting impact. (recap video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtYBTPVJCwo website: https://nwhacks.io/).