New MROO Targeted Scholarship

After 17 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in awards, the MROO Scholarship Program added a new wrinkle in 2023, the targeted scholarship. While all MROO scholarships in the past were awarded to the relatives of MROO members entering the 2nd year of a university, college, or equivalent program, the Board of Directors accepted a new recommendation to add scholarships to post-graduate students (masters or PhD students) either studying for careers or doing research that would directly impact the lives of seniors. The first agreement is with Carleton University in Ottawa and MROO expects to announce our second partnership in the near future.

Our first targeted scholarship has been awarded to Orleans, Ontario, native, Aidan Lochbiler. Aidan is a graduate of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at Colonel By Secondary School in Gloucester, one of just 300 such programs in the world.

From Left to Right: Ken Noakes (Executive Director at MROO) and Aidan Lochbiler (MROO Scholarship recipient)

After completion of high school Aidan attended Carleton University where he received his undergraduate degree in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering. Aidan is now completing his first year of his Masters of Science degree studying Computer Engineering with a specialization in Data Science at Carleton.

Aidan is currently doing research monitoring and understanding the behaviours of individuals while operating autonomous (self-driving) vehicles versus manual vehicles. Aidan hopes his research will lead to improving autonomous driving overall while also improving the safety of these systems. Concurrently this research could also lead to improved physiological metrics that detect cognitive decline in senior drivers. This could lead to better testing that could allow seniors to maintain their drivers licenses longer, helping to reduce the social isolation that often increases when driving privileges are lost.

Aidan hopes to use this knowledge and have a positive impact on people’s lives either in the engineering arm of an automaker or in further research with Transport Canada.

MROO wishes Aidan the best of luck in whatever field he chooses.