The interdisciplinary program
ran for four years, during which
time the eight students spent a lot
of time together, both formally and
informally. By the middle of their
senior year, the team members had
written and defended a joint 230-
page honors thesis, which ultimately
won a prize in that year’s Gemstone
program. During the course of their
research, they applied and were
accepted to present their work at the
IDEA Campus Energy Conference in
Miami. “That was pretty cool, to be
able to say that as an undergraduate,
you had presented a paper in front
of a distinguished group of energy
professionals,” says Parks.
In addition to the four-year hon-
ors project, the University of Maryland
offered other opportunities that fur-
thered her interest in energy policy.
“Going through college, I took classes
on environmental policy at the interna-
tional level, which I really enjoyed, and
it all clicked together with this research
I was doing outside of classes. It
became pretty clear that I would pursue
a career in the energy sector.”
“People need to understand
what their energy consumption
means and the implications of
their actions.”
– Michelle Parks
During the final term of her senior
year, Parks applied to – and was accept-
ed by – the University of Cambridge for
its program in international relations,
with a focus on energy policy. But before
she formally accepted, she received a job
offer from IDEA that changed her plans.
“Doing the CHP project, and then net-
working at the Miami conference, I had
some great chances to connect with IDEA
and its members. So it turned into a job
unexpectedly.”
Parks graduated in May 2011 with
a bachelor of arts in government and
politics and a bachelor of arts in English
language and literature. She officially
joined the IDEA staff Sept. 1 as an
industry and policy analyst, working
closely with Rob Thornton on federal
energy and environmental policy issues.
David Rulff
Growing up in his native Toronto,
David Rulff was always fascinated by how
things worked. However, his interests
extended beyond traditional engineering,
so when it came time to apply to college,
he looked for a university offering a more
interdisciplinary approach. He ultimately
chose Ontario’s University of Waterloo
and entered its systems design engineer-
ing program…and soon found himself
having to explain to friends exactly what
that meant.
“Most people assume it’s computer-
related, but more often it’s a high-level
design process integrating multiple
disciplines into engineering projects,”
he says. “I was interested in energy, but
also in architecture, urban planning and
creating livable urban environments. As
I later discovered, these areas all come
together naturally in district energy.”
What really got Rulff engaged in
the energy field was the co-op program
offered through the university. Canadian
co-ops are essentially paid internship
programs that allow undergraduate
students to experience a real-life working
environment during the course of their
academic studies. The university acts
as facilitator, and the company pays
the interns. Says Rulff: “The concept is
that you have a regular cycle of school-
work-school-work. During the five-year
undergraduate program, you would
have six four-month terms of co-op
placements.”
During his co-ops, Rulff’s did data-
base work for Logitech, a manufacturer of
computer peripherals; studied mechanical
design at a Unilever soup packaging plant;
worked with the Toronto school board
as they were upgrading HVAC systems in
600 buildings; and completed two co-ops
at Enwave Energy Corp. His final co-op
was with a design-build company that
immersed him in the building design
process.
“After being exposed to all of
these areas, I knew that my interest was
not just in designing HVAC and boiler
systems; it was in the interrelationship
between buildings, how energy is
consumed and how you would design
buildings to accommodate that kind
of connection. Buildings in an urban
setting are not completely independent
of one another. There’s an exchange
of solar radiation, and they all use
water and energy from a common
source. There is a lot of potential for
examining those relationships and
finding new ways to save energy. This
drew me further toward district energy
and the relationships between energy
infrastructure and building science.”
After graduating in 2009 with a
bachelor of applied science in systems
design engineering, Rulff entered gradu-
ate school in the civil engineering depart-
ment at the University of Toronto. He
worked under the supervision of profes-
sor Chris Kennedy in the Sustainable
Infrastructure Group, which linked his
interests in sustainability, energy sav-
ings, efficiency and infrastructure. “It
was exactly what I wanted to do,” he
says. “Other students were working on
building efficiency but not district ener-
gy.” In August, he completed his studies
and received his master of applied sci-
ence degree in civil engineering.
Looking back on his recent
experiences, Rulff attributes much of
his success to the co-op programs and,
in particular, his work with Enwave.
While he performed the usual co-op
duties like meter reading and data
consolidation, Enwave also assigned
him to work on a more substantial
project analyzing internal plant steam
usage. “Enwave really knows how to
involve co-op students effectively,” says
Rulff. “Graham Harding and Joyce Lee
were great mentors. They also helped
me apply for the scholarship from
the National Sciences and Engineering
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