Isaac will be part of the CANSTOREnergy project, which works to integrate policy and community engagement in the early stages of design and execution of energy systems
As an undergraduate, Connor Isaac (MechE 2T5 + PEY, MIE PhD student) brought his engineering expertise back to his home community on Walpole Island First Nation — now as a graduate student, he’s exploring how to conduct similar work with First Nations across Ontario.
Isaac, who is Chippewa (Ojibwe) and Potawatomi, graduated in June and then became a direct-entry PhD student under the supervision of Professor David Sinton (MIE). He’ll be working on a project known as CANSTOREnergy, which brings together researchers from 11 Canadian universities, along with community, utility and industry partners.
Together, the team plans to re-envision energy systems and storage technologies to address the diverse needs and perspectives of urban and rural communities in Canada.
“I’ve always been interested in new forms of energy; before I went into engineering, I even considered theoretical physics so that I could work on nuclear fusion,” says Isaac.
“But it was during an NSERC-funded summer research placement in Professor Sinton’s lab, just after my third year, where I really got to dive into the details of energy research.”
In that placement, Isaac helped design a machine that focused on repeatability and small-scale fabrication of the catalyst layer for an electrolyzer, a device that uses electricity to drive forward a chemical reaction that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
By converting electricity — including that generated from solar or wind installations — into chemical fuels, electrolyzers can provide new ways to store energy for months or years at a time.
“In industry, electrolyzers are used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and you can later react the hydrogen in a chemical fuel cell to get the electricity back,” says Isaac.
“Professor Sinton and his team use electrolyzers to convert captured carbon into carbon-based fuels such as ethanol. You can react those chemical fuels in a fuel cell as well, but you can also feed them directly into existing devices. For example, if you make ethanol and mix it with gasoline, you can run it in a regular internal combustion engine.”
“Either way, generating your own chemical fuel that you can store in huge tanks opens up new possibilities beyond what you could get with batteries.”
Isaac’s role in the CANSTOREnergy program will attempt to address the gaps associated with talking to members of the communities about their energy needs and how these emerging technologies might apply to them. The project is placing a strong emphasis on engaging in these conversations early on, in ways that can help inform the development of the technology itself.
In his new position, Isaac will be drawing on the experience of his PEY Co-op internship. He spent 12 months working for the Walpole Island First Nation Government on a range of engineering-related issues — everything from landfill improvements to new housing builds to estimating land area required for a solar installation.
“Until now, this has been a big gap that affects a lot of engineering projects relating to First Nations,” says Isaac.
“It’s been hard to find people who understand the technical side of things, but who are also able to relate to the chiefs and councils. You can send in an engineer, but they may not really understand the local issues, or how they play out in the community. There’s been a disconnect, and so I’m hoping to kind of become that bridge.”
Isaac’s PhD will be supported by the Indigenous and Black Engineering and Technology (IBET) Momentum Fellowship, which aims to foster equitable and inclusive research environments to increase the presence of Indigenous and Black academics in STEM.
As an IBET Momentum Fellow, Isaac will receive financial support, mentorship, training and networking opportunities throughout his graduate program.
“I needed a lot of help to pay for my undergraduate degree, and while I did get funding from the government for tuition, living expenses in a costly city like Toronto was something that wasn’t really on the table,” says Isaac.
“The IBET scholarship allows me to focus more on school, as opposed to having to work part-time just to meet my daily needs.”
Isaac sees getting a PhD in engineering as one of the most powerful things he can do to strengthen communities like the one he comes from.
“I want to help as many First Nation communities as I can,” he says.
“And that’s really the scope of my PhD: going across Ontario, interviewing either the chief and council or the main technical staff, seeing what energy issues they have, what capacity they have, and kind of working from there.”
“It’s not about prescribing what they need to do, but rather about generating a large system map to understand the social, technical, and environmental needs that exist and then developing the technology with those in mind. It’s whole new approach, and I’m very excited to get started.”
– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on September 9, 2026, by Tyler Irving.