Navindra Soodoo had a victorious end to his summer. A graduate student from Guyana, Mr. Soodoo stepped out of the lab and into the arena to compete for Canada at the tri-annual International Karate Daigaku (IKD) World Championships in Barbados from August 16 to 19.

It is not every day that one gets to compete on the international stage, and Mr. Soodoo made the opportunity count, winning a gold and two silver medals in three events.

“It feels great to be recognized at the world tournament level and I am highly honoured to receive such awards,” he said. This was Mr. Soodoo’s first world tournament and his first time winning a gold medal at the international level.

Mr. Soodoo says the support he gets from staff and students in the departments of Physics &Astronomy and Chemistry,the Environmental & Life Sciences graduate program, and the Trent Centre for Biomaterial Research (TCBR) motivates him to succeed. In the TCBR he is investigating new molecular compounds derived from vegetable oils to create materials to replace those currently being produced from petroleum, thereby reducing dependency on it to mitigate global warming.

Up next, Mr. Soodoo hopes to bring karate classes to the Trent Athletics Centre and continue to work towards his goal of becoming a chemistry professor.