Kendra Nayanka

Kendra is a first-year engineering student at McMaster University with a longstanding passion for STEM. Throughout high school, she was active in two robotics teams, self-taught coding, enjoyed tinkering, and taught STEM to children. She's also a tennis athlete, started playing when she was seven, became a competitive player then a coach. Now, she's on the McMaster University tennis varsity team.
In June 2023, during a high school province-wide tennis tournament, Kendra experienced the impact of Quebec's wildfires on Ontario's air quality despite the absence of smoke and odor. She noticed varying effects on her mother, coach, and herself. Shortly after, she read about the death of a child in BC due to air quality from wildfires. That fall 2023, she started developing Port-AM, a portable, affordable, and personalized air quality monitor for outdoors and wildfires.
Port-AM has earned six awards at a regional science fair and a national award in the health and well-being category. Recently, Kendra was selected for a competitive health innovation hub at McMaster University for health innovators, where she'll receive support to develop Port-AM. She's committed to bringing Port-AM to market in the coming years. Be More Grant is helping to turn her vision into reality.