Zixuan Li

Alex was born and raised in Shenzhen, China, before immigrating to Canada with his family at the age of 11. STEM has been an integral part of Alex’s life ever since elementary school.

Alex graduated from Ridley College—a boarding high school nestled in St. Catharines, Ontario, a modest city near Niagara Falls—as the first student in the school's history to achieve a perfect score on the IB Diploma program. During his time at Ridley, Alex was deeply involved in the STEM academic community. He served as the leader and lecturer of the Math Competition Club and was the captain of the school's first-ever math team. Through his involvement, the team performed admirably in several international competitions, such as the Berkeley Math Tournament and HMMT.

In addition to leading teams, Alex himself excelled in both pure and applied math competitions. Through his performance in the COMC, Alex qualified for the Canadian Mathematics Olympiad, a contest for only the top 90 high school students across Canada. Notably, Alex also competed in the International Mathematical Modeling Challenge. As team captain, he led his group in developing a research paper on an optimal land-use algorithm utilizing linear programming, TOPSIS, and genetic algorithms. This innovative approach secured their team’s position to represent Canada in the international round, where they earned the title of international outstanding and world champions—a first for Canada. Alex also trained Ridley College’s next-generation teams for the IMMC alongside a professor from York University. These teams continued to excel, securing positions to represent Canada and achieving success on the international stage.

Beyond mathematics, Alex has embarked on a decade-long robotics journey, including experience with EV3, VEX IQ, and VEX EDR. In high school, Alex served as the build lead and team captain of his VEX EDR team, which qualified for the world championship twice and won awards like the Divisional Think Award. His robotics journey extended into his junior year summer, where he began his capstone research project: developing a bionic squid AUV aimed at coral reef preservation. Inspired by nature, Alex leveraged the unique features of squid to enhance the AUV's maneuverability and agility. This project won a gold medal in the computer science and engineering category at the Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair, qualifying Alex for Team Canada at ISEF, where he won a fourth-place award in the robotics and intelligent machines category.

Alex’s pursuit of innovation did not stop there. To further optimize the AUV’s design, he employed CFD. By adjusting the head’s length, Alex achieved a balance between pressure and viscous drag, reducing net drag force to enhance energy efficiency and speed. Additionally, inspired by guided missile design, he added a disk in front of the AUV to reduce pressure drag by inducing recirculation. The CFD results were validated through flow visualizations using miniatures in a lab. This study was documented and entered into the Yau Science Award, where Alex placed in the top eight in North America in the Physics category. The paper was later published in a research journal indexed by EI.

Beyond academics, Alex has been a tenor saxophone player for six years, performing in his school’s jazz band, which qualified for the Canadian National Music Festival in his senior year. He has also co-hosted concerts at his school, raising money for both Amnesty International and Girl Up STEM organizations. In his free time, he enjoys playing ultimate frisbee with his friends.