Alumna Mackenzie Habash (BSc. Hons 2021) credits the critical thinking skills she gained as an economics major for her career success.

“I found my honours economics degree was a great catalyst to look at a problem wholistically to try and solve it,” says Habash.

“It gave me the skills to have good financial acumen to look at a problem and be able to come up with a multitude of solutions – whether it be technical or business solutions.”

While still an undergraduate, she started an internship with Invest WindsorEssex at their Automobility and Innovation Centre. After graduation she was hired as a grant administrator to help startups through grants funded by the provincial and federal governments.

"My main responsibility was writing a grant proposal that secured funding for the OVIN (Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network) Regional Technology Development Site (RTDS). We received funding to deliver 14 different programs and services to automotive technology startups across the province. After the grant was awarded, I moved into a program management role, where I oversaw seven of those programs."

“Every day brings something new, and that’s what makes this job so exciting. There’s always a flow of interesting innovations and projects coming through, which keeps things fresh and engaging.”

In June 2024 Habash was promoted to senior program manager. In that position, she runs the Windsor-Essex RTDS and the federal government initiatives and programs. 

“My job is to meet with companies one-on-one, learn about their businesses, and anticipate what their biggest business problems will be,” she says. “Then we see how our RTDS engineers can generate solutions to those problems.”

Within the centre, Habash says Invest WindsorEssex offers the largest publicly accessible virtual reality (VR) CAVE in Canada.

“If you think of a VR headset, it is like that but a room you can walk into where we can create a digital twin and take a physical product or a process to put it in a virtual environment,” says Habash.

“This allows multiple people to walk into a room, see that product and be able to collaborate in real time.”

In her role, she says the mathematical modelling she completed during her economics degree comes in handy when building programs or looking at financial balancing budgets and getting the maximum support she can for startups.

"Because of my science background at UWindsor, I developed the ability to collaborate effectively with engineers and other highly skilled professionals, allowing me to engage in complex technical and business discussions and craft innovative solutions to their challenges."

As a fourth-year student, Habash was a MySci mentor for newer undergraduates, as well as a Students Offering Support tutor. But her real passion was travel and she thanks UWindsor for that opportunity because she learned about these trips through an on-campus information session.

“I got to travel, see amazing places, and volunteer for projects in Africa, Asia and South America,” she says.

She says travelling was not just a highlight of her degree, but it also got her hired at Invest WindsorEssex.  

“Not many have lived in the Amazon for three weeks building sanitation tanks for the tribe that lives there – it made my resume stand out and taught me life lessons.” 

“When I talk to students at UWindsor, I always tell them that taking five years to finish my degree was the best decision I made. Switching my major gave me an extra year to travel and an extra summer to do my internship at Invest WindsorEssex, which really kick-started my career.”