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The book club that went to YC

Kristy Gao's path from Waterloo to San Francisco runs through a small community.

How landing in the ER led Kristy Gao to Y Combinator
AlumniHow landing in the ER led Kristy Gao to Y CombinatorPhoto: University of Waterloo / original source page

Kristy Gao's path from Waterloo to San Francisco runs through a small community.

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / yc. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Sources 1
  1. Original reporting · uwaterloo.ca
Next · p.68Nicole Noel and Xiaoye Michael Wang join Waterloo Optometry ahead of the Eye Institute’s 2027 openingNoel studies photoreceptors in turquoise killifish, and Wang studies 3D visual perception with virtual reality and co-founded the Asian Arts and Culture Trust.

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This story is from the September 2026 issue of Alumni Digest · Waterloo. It's free, monthly and independent.

Alumni Digest is independent and is not an official University of Waterloo publication. Stories summarize the public reporting linked under each piece; photographs belong to the credited sources and remain under rights review.