Student experience
Out of this world co-op experience helps chart space dream to the stars
As a youngster, Tianna Sequeira dreamed of the stars and space exploration. Now, she is working on a project that will send humans deeper into space thanks to the Simon Fraser University Co-op program.
Sequeira is currently in Montreal making her dreams a reality after having landed a role with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) through the program.
“Pursuing a job in the aerospace industry was a dream of mine ever since I was little,” says Sequeira, an SFU student in the School of Sustainable Energy Engineering (SEE), who is working in systems engineering on the Canadian contribution to the NASA-led Lunar Gateway program.
“When I was younger, I always really liked space. I wanted to do something in space exploration, or I told my parents I want to be an astrophysicist, but it was something that I never really thought was feasible.”
Sequeira first joined SFU’s School for International Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She pursued a major with an environmental and economic concentration.
Three years into her degree, Sequeira felt the urge to try something a little more technical. She took a semester off and then did a summer exchange at UC Berkeley, where she took her first engineering courses.
“I wanted to take a risk and jump into engineering to see if that was a better route,” Sequeira says. “I decided to switch to sustainable energy engineering, which was a program that was not available when I first started at SFU, and I realized that this was the place for me.”
The SEE program, which started in 2019, includes the study in core engineering disciplines, real-world projects, and industrial internship work experience. Accredited by Engineers Canada, the program prepares graduates as professional engineers who can meet help meet the growing global demand for sustainable energy.
Throughout her SFU journey, Sequeira has been involved with the SFU Co-op program, which helps students try out a potential career path while helping finance their education. It is available to all undergraduates interested in developing skills and gaining work experience, no matter the field of study. In 2023, the program facilitated 8,800 job-experience placements.
“It's been one of the best decisions I've ever made in terms of post-secondary,” says Sequeira of her participation in SFU Co-op. “It has allowed me to kind of explore my interest outside of my major, take a whole bunch of electives, go on co-ops, exchanges, join a bunch of clubs and design teams.
“It really just made me realize what kind of things I wanted to pursue afterwards and definitely helped me in the workplace afterwards.”
Her first placement was working in project management for the Media and Communications Department at the Aga Khan University in Kenya. The position was remote due to the pandemic.
In her first year in the SEE program, she applied for a co-op placement in Green Operations and Sustainability at the CSA. Her position, which combined her engineering knowledge and policy background, seemed tailormade.
She landed the position and then spent the next 12 months working in data analysis, compiling the CSA’s annual greenhouse gas emissions report. She also worked with her supervisors to help finds ways to improve the agency’s environmental footprint.
'When they finally get like lift off and I see the Lunar Gateway orbit the moon for the first time, I'll be able to look at it and say, "I was part of that big project." And maybe I'll still be working on it.'
Tianna Sequeira, SFU School of Sustainable Engineering student doing a co-op placement at the Canadian Space Agency
Now beginning her second co-op placement with CSA, Sequeira is part of the team that works on the Canadarm3 project, working with engineers and contractors to make sure all the components and systems fit together as well as to identify and troubleshoot any issues.
The NASA-led Lunar Gateway space station will orbit the moon and serve as a mission control centre to operations on the moon and eventually as a stepping stone for voyages to Mars. The Canadian contribution to the Lunar Gateway is the Canadarm3, an artificial intelligence-based robotic system that will tend to the space station when no humans are on board.
“This is such a major space mission,” Sequeira says. “This is such a big project at the international level. I feel like a small fish in a big pond kind where I don't really feel the impact of my work just yet. ... But I think at the end of the 2020s, I think when they finally get like lift off and I see the Lunar Gateway orbit the moon for the first time, I'll be able to look at it and say, ‘I was part of that big project.’ And maybe I'll still be working on it.”