Virtual Coffee Break Series on Diversity and Inclusion, featuring Negar Aghigh

Beyond Experts and CVs: Transforming Lived Experience into Collective Insight

Education is traditionally organized around vertical knowledge transfer: from professor to student, from expert to novice, from institution to individual. While this model is highly effective for technical instruction, it leaves little space for the circulation of lived experience – the informal, tacit knowledge that supports people in navigating careers, identity, and life events within technical environments. This talk presents RISE^U, a student-led initiative founded at Polytechnique Montréal, aimed at developing horizontal knowledge sharing in engineering education and beyond. RISE^U was established to provide spaces where students, researchers, and professionals learn with and from one another, transforming personal experience into shared resources and diverse life paths into sources of collective insight.

Moving beyond traditional “top-down” mentorship, the presentation explores how narrative-driven spaces can transform individual struggles into shared resources. Through three compelling case studies—ranging from the unwritten “survival guides” for early-career parents to the impact of mentorship during periods of crisis—we will demonstrate how storytelling serves as a vital engineering tool. Participants will see how RISE^U utilizes participatory formats and social media to collect knowledge from underestimated resources, filling the gaps left by traditional curricula.

By reframing diversity from a demographic metric into a dynamic learning asset, this talk illustrates that inclusive educational cultures require more than technical training; they require infrastructures for shared experience. We will discover how co-created knowledge and horizontal leadership can build community resilience, ensuring that the next generation of engineers is prepared not just to solve equations, but to navigate and lead within complex human systems.

Biography: Negar Aghigh is a PhD candidate at Polytechnique Montréal, specializing in multimaterial additive manufacturing under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Therriault. In collaboration with North Carolina State University, her research focuses on 3D-printing self-healing, multifunctional thermoplastic composites and smart materials. A recipient of multiple academic recognitions, Negar won the 2025 SAMPE Europe Young Engineers Challenge and the 2026 3-Minute Thesis competition at Polytechnique, and held a prestigious PBEEE scholarship from the Fonds de recherche du Québec.

Beyond her technical research, Negar is a board member of the student association (AÉCSP) and a co-founder of RISE, Powered by You, a student-led initiative for horizontal knowledge sharing. In this role, she organizes events and manages social media to gather insights from underestimated resources, aiming to fill gaps in traditional education. By animating workshops on storytelling and soft skills, she advocates for a learning culture that looks beyond technical skills to value diverse life paths as vital sources of shared knowledge.