Schulich Engineer Fall 2010 by Amy Dowd

FALL 2010

Schulich E N G I N E E R

Schulich School of Engineering

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MENTORING What the best university teachers do BY KEN BAI N

Mentoring in the invisible profession BY P ETER KENTER

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Schulich Engineer Permission to reproduce any part of this publication for commercial purposes should be obtained by writing to the address below. Reproduction for other purposes should acknowledge the source. INTE RIM DE AN Anil Mehrotra EDITOR IAL TE AM Mary Anne Moser Director of Communications Jennifer Sowa Media Relations Officer Amy Dowd Communications Officer CO NTRIB UTOR S Amy Dowd, Peter Kenter, Jacqueline Louie, Jennifer Sowa P HO TOGRAP HY Riley Brandt, Andrew Britton, Amy Dowd, Greg Fulmes, Stephanie Leblond, Elden Menezes, Serey Sinn, Jennifer Sowa

CONTENTS FA L L 2 01 0

VIEWPOINT Behind every successful person there are effective mentors

HELLO?!!

BY PAT CAR LS O N

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FEATURES What the best university teachers do BY KE N B AIN

Are you reading this?

PAGE 8 Mentoring in the invisible profession BY P ETE R KE NTE R

PAGE 13 The unsung technicians: they can make or break success

DES IGN Sasges Inc.

BY AM Y DOWD

C ONTACT INFO RMATIO N Editorial inquiries and advertising: Jennifer Sowa, Managing Editor Schulich Engineer Dean’s Office, EN C202 Schulich School of Engineering 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 Email: magazine@schulich.ucalgary.ca Website: schulich.ucalgary.ca

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O N THE C OVE R The Art Initiative Honourable mention in the 2010 Internship Photo Contest. Photo by Olivia Norton

PAGE 48 In conversation with Nader Mahinpey, Kathy Sendall, and Gary Kurek

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VIEWPOINT

Pat and Connie Carlson are key financial supporters of the Schulich School of Engineering’s Engineering Leaders campaign, which is aimed at building more student space and modernizing laboratories.

BY PAT CARLS ON

Behind every successful person there are effective mentors

MY FIRST MENTORS WERE MY PARENTS , WHO WERE VERY INFLUENTIAL IN THE WAY I APPROACH THINGS . They were both labourers with partial high-school educations. They were very responsible members of society and spent a lot of time volunteering for a number of charities. They taught me early on that people need to contribute however they can because that’s what makes a society work. Giving back is really important and it can take many forms: giving time, giving money or – as I learned many years later as a young engineer – sharing knowledge. When I first began studying engineering at the University of Calgary, we were still using slide rules. Many of the processes I learned have since been computerized. When I graduated with a chemical engineering degree in 1975, I was lucky enough to start my career working with a gentleman named John who was a real “techie” type of engineer. He just loved the technology. This was in the days when computers were starting to become more available. Because of John, I got in-depth exposure to the emerging digital age and that gave me a really sound technical background. It also opened the door for me to learn more. I returned to university and took a number of excellent night classes. The more you learn, the more exposure you get and it has a snowball effect. You begin to ask more complicated questions of more experienced people. By the end of my first year in industry, I’m sure I was doing more technical work than most of the others in my

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“Engineering is done best when it’s done collaboratively, and teaching and mentoring are important parts of that. You learn from people in traditional leadership roles such as professors or bosses, but you also learn from other professionals, whether they’re higher in the organization’s ranks or not.” graduating class. John was a great mentor and he was selfless. He was generous with his time and generous with his knowledge. Then, in the business world, a fellow named Peter was my partner in my first two companies. He was a lawyer by trade and I was the “techie.” I knew what equipment to use, how to do the calculations, and I’d supervise the operations in the field. I was comfortable with everything an oil company does except for counting the money and making the deals. Peter helped me learn about accounting, finance, business law and corporate governance. I was lucky to work with both those men because they were extremely influential in my career. I’m certain that behind every successful person there are effective mentors. Engineering is done best when it’s done collaboratively, and teaching and mentoring are important parts of that. You learn from people in traditional leadership roles such as professors or bosses, but you also learn from other

professionals, whether they’re higher in the organization’s ranks or not. Innovation comes from collaborating and coming up with better ideas. Everyone brings something to the table and contributes in a way that nobody else on the team can. Because technology changes and evolves and the tools we use keep getting better, quite often it’s the younger people – the more recent graduates – who have better technical skills than the senior people. If we’re modeling a hydraulic fracture, for example, the more junior staff members are able to run the models and the senior staff can oversee it because they’ve experienced more frac jobs but in a different way. It’s all about taking the wisdom that comes from experience and combining it with fresh knowledge. I think of myself as a very technically oriented and capable engineer of my generation, but I’d sure hate to go back and try to compete with today’s graduates and run the computer models that they run. But I think they would also benefit from interacting with me because I have more experience with other things. By sharing knowledge with others, you create opportunities for them to learn more. I’m passionate when it comes to leadership and interpersonal issues and I encourage my staff to read books about how to build strong organizations. We must continue to find ways to help bring out the best in people and help them reach their full potential, whether it’s by improving the education

system or by sharing knowledge with colleagues. It’s how we retain our wealth as a nation and remain competitive on the world stage. The generosity I saw from my mentors John and Peter is a perfect example of the more you give, the more you get back. Collaboration, empowerment and getting people involved are easier if we don’t have a rigid hierarchical structure that dictates what responsibilities you have and when you get to move up the ranks. A group approach and a variety of ideas always result in a better product. Working with people is essential in every aspect of life, not just in engineering. My advice for graduates and graduate students is to look for people

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They have also contributed to the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Education for research and education to improve methods of teaching students who have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

you can learn from, look for people who are willing to share their knowledge. And be a person willing to share knowledge because that’s one of the best ways of giving back. Pat Carlson is CEO of Seven Generations Energy Ltd.

IN CONVERSATION

Photo courtesy Frank King

WITH NADER MAHINPEY KATHY SENDALL AND GARY KUREK

Nader Mahinpey is an asso-

2010 CANADIAN ENGINEERING LEADER AWARD FRANK KING, P.Eng, O.C., IS THE 2010 RECIPIENT OF THE CANADIAN ENGINEERING LEADER AWARD. Every year, the Schulich School of Engineering recognizes an engineer who has achieved professional excellence while giving back to the community and serving as an inspirational role model to future engineers. King was Chair and CEO of the 1988 Calgary Olympic Winter Games Organizing Committee. He received several awards and accolades for his role in the success of the Games, including induction into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame. He also received the Olympic Order in Gold, the highest award presented by the International Olympic Committee, and was honoured with an Officer of the Order of Canada award. He was the Calgary Booster Club’s Sportsman of the Year in 2000. King wrote about his experiences in the book It’s How You Play the Game: The Inside Story of the Calgary Olympics.

Frank King graduated in 1958 with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Alberta. He received an Honourary Doctor of Laws Degree from the University of Calgary in 1988. King was the Executive in Residence at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business from 1988 to 1990. Since then, he has held several corporate directorships and senior management positions in industry. He is currently president of Metropolitan Investment Corporation. King has supported a wide range of initiatives in the community including his long-standing affiliation with the Chancellor’s Club at the University of Calgary, the Calgary Booster Club and Canada Winsport. In 1992, King served as national co-chair of Canada 125, the celebration of the nation’s 125th birthday. King was a board member of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce for four years and served as co-chair of the Alberta campaign for the establishment of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. He is a long-standing member and the past president of the Rotary Club of Calgary South. The Canadian Engineering Leader Award is presented annually at the Schulich School of Engineering Dean’s Holiday Reception in Calgary.

ciate professor at the Schulich School of Engineering and a researcher funded by Carbon Management Canada, a national research network focused on carbon management in Canada’s fossil energy sector. He manages a research team at the Schulich School of Engineering that includes two masters students, nine PhD students and four postdocs. How important are all the members of your team when producing strong research? The success of my research team fully depends on all my students: postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students. This is an era of great technological advancements and it requires different people with various technical skills and backgrounds, and by no means could one individual possess them all. What does a strong research team look like? It consists of people who work together to follow a systematic and strategic route to achieve specific objectives that support the group’s common goals. They use the fundamentals in applied research to find the solution to the problems that various industries are facing. In my opinion, the most important facet of research at the university level is to facilitate learning through practical examples of applying theory, learning to make assumptions and evaluate solutions based on common sense and judgment. What is your advice to others if they want to build a strong team? Never underestimate the role of students and always listen to them carefully. I always try to involve students, not only in their specific research objectives but also when it comes to the general direction of the group. It’s vital that engineering students realize that their education, including what they learn through their research

projects, is training for professional careers in problem solving. They will be relied upon to make sense of complex issues and systems using logical thinking and good judgment. My philosophy is that each student is an individual with distinct needs and sensitivities and a unique learning style. I encourage and support each student equally to strive for excellence in academia and the world beyond. What kind of mentoring goes on in your group? I have different levels of scholars in my group, from postdocs to PhD, masters, and undergraduate students. A postdoc typically assists one or two graduate students. We have weekly group meetings to exchange ideas. These meetings, along with group projects, provide students with valuable interaction so they can practice communicating their ideas and hone their interpersonal skills. What do your students teach you? I’ve learned immensely from them. I might have a more comprehensive vision as to where we’re heading simply because I have more experience in this field. But my students are the ones who come up with the objectives. Our graduate students come from all over the world and we exchange of a lot of cultural information. That makes the whole learning experience even more exciting. I believe the most important step in preparing to grow as a university professor is to develop a philosophy of research and teaching that recognizes the need to learn and grow along with your students. Who mentored you early in your career? I’ve had so many mentors from early in my education all the way through to my current role as a university professor. I’m indebted to them because of their generosity, altruism, and dedication. My Grade 5 teacher was the one who got me very interested in science and

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engineering, and that’s the main reason I pursued chemical engineering. From my father, I learned to take risks. He taught me it’s never too late to learn something new. He has an insatiable desire to learn. He’s in his seventies and has started to study a new language.

Kathy Sendall is President of Sendalta Ltd., Vice-Chair of Alberta Innovates – Energy and Environment Solutions and a director of CGGVeritas, a global provider of geophysical services and equipment based in France. She is the former Senior Vice-President of Petro-Canada’s North American Natural Gas Business Unit. In 2006, Sendall became the first woman to head the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. From 2002 to 2006, she made the list of the 100 most powerful women in Canada and was inducted into the Top 100 Hall of Fame in 2007. A mechanical engineering graduate from Queen’s University, Sendall played the key role in establishing the NSERC/Petro-Canada Prairie Regional Chair for Women in Science and Engineering. The chair promotes education and research opportunities for women in engineering. Who was the most influential mentor in your life or career? I have been blessed with many terrific supervisors, colleagues and friends from whom I learned a great deal and who offered sage career advice and guidance. I am a big fan of the “multiple mentor” concept: learning from the various skills, attributes and experience of many people over the course of one’s career. What qualities do all good mentors share? All good mentors possess two essential skills: the ability to be a very good listener and the ability to empathize.

“. . . men are generally mentoring men and women are generally mentoring women. I would like to see that change. Given that female engineers are often in male-dominated environments, male mentors can be invaluable to them when it comes to offering advice and insight.” I NSI GHT

– KATHY SENDALL

Have you seen anything that tends to derail a mentoring relationship? In my experience, mentoring relationships can become completely derailed in a few ways: unclear expectations by both mentor and mentee, a lack of organization and preparation for meetings on the part of the mentee and failing to make time for regular interaction.

under 20, an annual list compiled by the non-profit group Youth in Motion to recognize young Canadians who demonstrate significant innovation, leadership and achievement. Kurek is focusing on building his company, GET Mobility Solutions Inc., and plans to attend engineering school in the future.

In general, how do you think mentoring works most effectively in engineering companies? In many organizations a semi-formal mentoring program works well. There is a matching of mentors/mentees, a defined process for setting goals and expectations, and regular meetings. I don’t think that a lot of paper and reporting add much value.

What is it that you have invented? The Rollator Wheelchair Hybrid is a universal kit that can be retrofitted to any design of four-wheeled rolling walker. It’s basically a combination of an electric wheelchair, powered walker and manual walker. Physically disabled users can choose which function they want to use by switching between these functions with the push of a button. The Rollator provides the flexibility I discovered is lacking in other devices that are intended to assist mobility.

Do you think there is a difference in the way men or women are mentored? Should there be? I think that at this time men are generally mentoring men and women are generally mentoring women. I would like to see that change. Given that female engineers are often in male-dominated environments, male mentors can be invaluable to them when it comes to offering advice and insight.

“Having many mentors from a variety of backgrounds really helped me grow from an optimist to a realistic optimist.” DIVE RSITY

How does mentoring change at various stages of your career? In my experience, mentoring does change at various stages of your career. Sadly, there seems to be a perception that mentoring and coaching are not as important at more senior levels.

– GARY KUREK

What’s the best advice you can give young women who are considering engineering as a profession? My top three: get your operational experience early in your career, move around to get a breadth of experience and learn to speak “male” as a second language.

“From my father, I learned to take risks. He taught me it’s never too late to learn something new.” FA M ILY

– NADER MAHINPEY

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Gary Kurek, 18, graduated from high school in June 2010 and has patented an invention and created a company to bring it to market. In 2009, his invention won 17 awards at Canada’s national science fair, including the Best in Fair National Championship. Earlier this year, Kurek won gold at the International Science and Engineering Fair in California. In May 2010, Kurek was named one of Canada’s Top 20

How did you get the idea? My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and she went through the progressively debilitating stages that often come with the disease. Over time, she became very frail and easily fatigued. I saw this happen again to my grandfather with cancer and my aunt with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. I noticed a lot of dysfunction in the mobility devices they were prescribed. I wanted to come up with my own solutions that would help them stay independent. After doing a lot of research, I realized my family members weren’t the only ones going through this. Thousands of other people were having similar issues with these devices. Do you have any mentors or collaborators? In terms of developing my inventions and technologies, much of my work has been independent; however I couldn’t have done everything alone. I’ve been very lucky to be noticed by some very good hearted influential people quite early on into my work. These people represented government, industry, and academia. Having many mentors from a variety of backgrounds really helped me grow from an optimist to a realistic optimist. I was introduced to many harsh realities of trying to commercialize a product. Mentors have been a great source of inspiration for me and I enjoy paying it forward and mentoring other youth. Someone can look up to a mentor and his or her

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achievements and gain confidence from knowing someone else believes in them and what they’re trying to accomplish. How would your friends describe you? I think all my friends would agree that I’m reliable. They see how determined and motivated I can be through my attitude and the work I do. Whenever any of my friends need help, they know they can turn to me and trust me to use that very same passion to assist in any way I can. Do you think math is taught well in high school? I think the methods of delivering math material to students need improvement and more consistency. All public high schools in Alberta follow the same curriculum but teachers and school administrators have different ways of doing things, so the quality of math instruction in this province varies. I do find it rather unfortunate that, at the end of the semester, the student is the one who suffers the consequences of a failed diploma examination, even when a teacher’s classes may repeatedly have below-average grades. This is the case at a number of schools, and it’s not fair to all students. What is the personal attribute that you think has contributed to your early success? Work ethic. I have a strong Type A personality and that makes me very determined to work on projects I’m passionate about. Strong work ethic has pushed me to build a collection of personal attributes that help me succeed in various areas. Photos top to bottom: Gary Kurek with his award-winning invention Photo courtesy Gary Kurek

Kathy Sendall Photo courtesy Kathy Sendall

Nader Mahinpey with two members of his research team, Feridoun Salak and Pulikesi Murugan Photo by Jennifer Sowa

FEATURE

While others might be satisfied if students perform well on the examinations, the best teachers assume that learning has little meaning unless it produces a sustained and substantial influence on the way people think, act and feel.

BY KEN BAIN

ONE

What Do the Best Teachers Know and Understand?

WHAT THE BEST UNIVERSITY TEACHERS DO Are there certain characteristics that good teachers share? Can good teaching be learned? Below are the major conclusions from a landmark research project on teaching. ANYONE WHO EXPECTS A SIMPLE LIST OF DO ’ S AND DON ’ TS MAY BE GREATLY DISAPPOINTED. THE IDEAS HERE REQUIRE CAREFUL AND SOPHISTICATED THINKING, DEEP PROFESSIONAL LEARNING, AND OFTEN FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTUAL SHIFTS . They do not lend themselves to teaching by the numbers. Our conclusions emerge from six broad questions we asked about the teachers we examined.

Reprinted by permission of the publisher from What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain, pp. 15 – 21, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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Without exception, outstanding teachers know their subjects extremely well. They are all active and accomplished scholars, artists, or scientists. Some have long and impressive publication lists, the kind the academy has long valued. Others have more modest records; or in a few cases, virtually none at all. But whether well published or not, the outstanding teachers follow the important intellectual and scientific or artistic developments within their fields, do research, have important and original thoughts on their subjects, study carefully and extensively what other people are doing in their fields, often read extensively in other fields (sometimes far distant from their own), and take a strong interest in the broader issues of their disciplines: the histories, controversies, and epistemological discussions. In short, they can do intellectually, physically, or emotionally what they expect from their students. None of that should surprise anyone. This finding simply confirms that people are unlikely to become great teachers unless they know something to teach. The quality of knowing a discipline isn’t particularly distinctive, however. If it were, every great scholar would be a great teacher. But that’s not the case. More important, the people in our study, unlike so many others, have used their knowledge to develop techniques for grasping fundamental principles and organizing concepts that others can use to begin building their own understanding and abilities. They know how to simplify and clarify complex subjects, to cut to the heart of the matter with provocative insights, and they can think about their own thinking in the discipline, analyzing its nature and evaluating its quality. That capacity to think metacognitively drives much of what we observed in the best teaching.

We also found that our subjects have at least an intuitive understanding of human learning akin to the ideas that have been emerging from research in the learning sciences. They often use the same language, concepts, and ways of characterizing learning that we found in the literature. While others, for example, talk about transmitting knowledge and building a storehouse of information in the students’ brains, our subjects talk about helping learners grapple with ideas and information to construct their understanding. Even their conception of what it means to learn in a particular course bears the mark of this distinction. While others might be satisfied if students perform well on the examinations, the best teachers assume that learning has little meaning unless it produces a sustained and substantial influence on the way people think, act, and feel. TWO

richer line of inquiry to design a class, lecture, discussion section, clerkship, or any other encounter with students, and they begin with questions about student learning objectives rather than about what the teacher will do. THREE

What Do They Expect of Their Students? Simply put, the best teachers expect “more.” But given that many professors “pile it on” their classes without necessarily producing great learning results, what do the most successful teachers do to stimulate high achievement? The short answer is that they avoid objectives that are arbitrarily tied to the course and favor those that embody the kind of thinking and acting expected for life.

How Do They Prepare to Teach? Exceptional teachers treat their lectures, discussion sections, problem-based sessions, and other elements of teaching as serious intellectual endeavors as intellectually demanding and important as their research and scholarship. That attitude is probably most apparent in the answers our subjects gave to a simple question: “What do you ask yourself when you prepare to teach?” In some teachers that inquiry might have prompted uninspired responses that emphasized the mundane: How many students will I have? What will I include in my lectures? How many and what kind of tests will I give? What will I assign to read? While those questions are important, they reflect a conception of teaching much different from the one embodied in the preparation of the people we studied. Our subjects use a much

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FOUR

What Do They Do When They Teach? While methods vary, the best teachers often try to create what we have come to call a “natural critical learning environment.” In that environment, people learn by confronting intriguing, beautiful, or important problems, authentic tasks that will challenge them to grapple with ideas, rethink their assumptions, and examine their mental models of reality. These are challenging yet supportive conditions in which learners feel a sense of control over their education; work collaboratively with others; believe that their work will be considered fairly and honestly; and try, fail, and receive feedback from expert learners in advance of and separate from any summative judgment of their effort.

All the teachers we studied have some systematic program – some more elaborate than others – to assess their own efforts and to make appropriate changes. Furthermore, because they are checking their own efforts when they evaluate students, they avoid judging them on arbitrary standards. Rather, the assessment of students flows from primary learning objectives.

FIVE

How Do They Treat Students? Highly effective teachers tend to reflect a strong trust in students. They usually believe that students want to learn, and they assume, until proven otherwise, that they can. They often display openness with students and may, from time to time, talk about their own intellectual journey, its ambitions, triumphs, frustrations, and failures, and encourage their students to be similarly reflective and candid. They may discuss how they developed their interests, the major obstacles they have faced in mastering the subject, or some of their secrets for learning particular material. They often discuss openly and enthusiastically their own sense of awe and curiosity about life. Above all, they tend to treat students with what can only be called simple decency.

trary standards. Rather, the assessment of students flows from primary learning objectives. Three more general points need to be made before I move on:

First, this is a discussion about what outstanding teachers do well; it’s not intended to imply that they don’t ever come up short or that they don’t struggle to achieve good teaching. They all had to learn how to foster learning, and they must constantly remind themselves of what can go wrong, always reaching for new ways to understand what it means to learn and how best to foster that achievement. Even the best teachers have bad days, as they scramble to reach students. As the study revealed, they are not immune to frustrations, lapses in judgment, worry, or failure. They don’t even always follow their own best practices. Nobody is perfect. It may be easy to forget those imperfections, or to think that great teachers are born, not made. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise. I suspect that part of the success they do enjoy stems, in part, from the willingness to confront their own weaknesses and failures. When we asked one of our earliest subjects, a philosophy professor from Vanderbilt, to give a public talk about his teaching, he tellingly chose as his title, “When my teaching fails.”

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How Do They Check Their Progress and Evaluate Their Efforts? All the teachers we studied have some systematic program – some more elaborate than others – to assess their own efforts and to make appropriate changes. Furthermore, because they are checking their own efforts when they evaluate students, they avoid judging them on arbi-

Second, they didn’t blame their students for any of the difficulties they faced. Some of our subjects taught only the best of students; others, only the weakest; but many worked with individuals from a variety of backgrounds. We wanted to know what cut across all these grounds, whether anything was common to the best teaching in both highly selective institutions and schools with the most open of admissions policies.

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Third, we noticed that the people we selected generally had a strong sense of commitment to the academic community and not just to personal success in the classroom. They saw their own efforts as a small part of a larger educational enterprise rather than as an opportunity to display personal prowess. In their minds, they were mere contributors to a learning environment that demanded attention from a fellowship of scholars. They frequently worked on major curricular initiatives and joined public conversations about how to improve teaching in the institution. Many of them talked about how the success of their own teaching hinged on something students learned in other classes. Consequently, they tended to maintain vigorous exchanges with colleagues about how best to educate students and often cited something they learned from working with others. Fundamentally, they were learners, constantly trying to improve their own efforts to foster students’ development, and never completely satisfied with what they had already achieved.

Learning from the study How can anyone use these conclusions to improve their teaching? The full answer to this simple question will take an entire book to explain, but an initial point seems obvious: We cannot take single pieces of the patterns noted here and simply combine them with other, less effective or even destructive habits and expect them to transform someone’s teaching any more than adopting Rembrandt’s brush strokes would, by itself, replicate his genius. We must understand the thinking, attitudes, values, and concepts that lie behind pedagogical masterpieces, observe practices carefully but then begin to digest, transform, and individualize what we see. To take the Rembrandt analogy a step further, the great Dutch artist could not be Picasso

any more than the Spanish painter could replicate his predecessor; each had to find his own genius. So too must teachers adjust every idea to who they are and what they teach. Ultimately, I hope this study will inspire readers to make a systematic and reflective appraisal of their own teaching approaches and strategies, asking themselves why they do certain kinds of things and not others. What evidence about how people learn drives their teaching choices? How often do they do something only because their professors did it? Ideally, readers will treat their teaching as they likely already treat their own scholarship or artistic creations: as serious and important intellectual and creative work, as an endeavor that benefits

from careful observation and close analysis, from revision and refinement, and from dialogues with colleagues and the critiques of peers. Most of all, I hope readers will take away the conviction that good teaching can be learned. Reprinted by permission of the publisher from What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain, pp. 15 – 21, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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FEATURE BY PETER KENTER

GUIDE PAL

COUNSELOR

FRIEND

Engineering mentors: Invisible encouragement for the invisible profession

COACH

You can go back to classical Greek mythology to find the earliest use of the word “mentor.” For a modern understanding, we need only go as far back as 1699 when François Fénelon published Les Aventures de Telemaque. In that book, the lead character, Mentor, was everything we now understand a mentor to be: a trusted friend, a wise counselor, a coach, a pal or an experienced guide in unfamiliar terrain. THE ENGINEERING FIELD RELIES ON MENTORS NOT ONLY TO GUIDE STUDENTS INTO ENGINEERING CAREERS , BUT ALSO TO HELP NEWLY HIRED ENGINEERS LEARN THE BUSINESS OF ENGINEERING.

If engineering is the “invisible profession” – as engineers themselves say, unrecognized by the public unless something goes wrong – then engineering mentors are doubly transparent, operating in formal or informal arrangements just beneath the radar of engineering schools and busy professional practices.

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Gillian Lorimer on a bridge replacement job site near Lillooet, British Columbia. Photo courtesy BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

In the field of engineering, mentorships can pay big dividends. However, whether formal or informal mentorships work depends entirely on the players. “In my experience as a mentor or a mentee, it’s always been an invisible and unstructured relationship,” says Brian Moreland, chair of the board of Calgary’s 3esi. Moreland is a 1980 mechanical engineering graduate of the Schulich School of Engineering and a member of the Schulich Industry Advisory Council. “People found one another and the relationship developed. I’ve always been fortunate over my career to have the opportunity to work with someone I could look up to and learn from.” For Moreland, mentoring typically focuses on the softer engineering skills such as business etiquette, interpersonal relationships or management skills. Often it’s as simple as sharing an anecdote about something from the past – even something that went wrong.

“In my experience as a mentor or a mentee, it’s always been an invisible and unstructured relationship. People found one another and the relationship developed. I’ve always been fortunate over my career to have the opportunity to work with someone I could look up to and learn from.” “We all read the same textbooks and the physics and math are all written down in them, so arguably you don’t really need a mentor there,” says Moreland. “I think back to some of my strongest mentors and they were primarily people I respected not only for their technical ability, but more so for the way they conducted themselves and dealt with the human equation. As a mentor today, I often find it valuable for a mentee to understand where I’ve made a mistake in the past. Screwing up is an important part of learning.” 3esi specializes in software that enables oil and gas exploration and production companies to better understand, manage, and optimize their portfolios. In order to be successful, 3esi is staffed with a mix of commercial software development experts and oil and gas domain specialists. “I’m one of the most senior people here,” says Moreland. “But my background is almost entirely in the oil and gas domain. Some of the younger engineers here don’t know as much about oil and gas, but they know plenty about software development. It’s developed into an interesting two-way mentoring relationship, where I help them to understand the industry, and they help me to understand how to translate that into a software product.” Senior software engineer Christian Tempro, who graduated from the University of Calgary in 2004, worked with Moreland at 3esi for about two years. He was responsible

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“Mentorship helps to make them feel comfortable and to fit in, while they’re gaining valuable hands-on experience supported by experienced engineers, their mentors.”

“The mentors provide us with the practical technical skills and knowledge we require to earn our Professional Engineer designation. The program is designed to help EITs develop the essential technical skills and also the less obvious soft-side skills required to navigate the engineering workplace. This balance, along with experience in a variety of departments, helps establish the foundation of a well-rounded career.”

for writing programs to manage client data and integrating third-party software. “In my previous job experience I learned about oil rigs and drilling, but upstream oil and gas budgeting was all new to me,” says Tempro. “Brian taught me about the budgeting life cycle from inception to re-forecasting based on the best available information.” On the other hand, Tempro showed Moreland more about the software development process, including how automated testing scripts could provide quality assurance to verify results as new batches of data were integrated. “Brian was very knowledgeable,” says Tempro. “But most of all, he was accessible, sharing his insight with me when it was needed most.” The British Columbia government’s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has operated a mentor program since the 1960s as part of its Engineer in Training (EIT) Program. It’s currently helmed by Dirk Nyland, chief engineer, and Nancy Merston, director of strategic human resources, who describes her role in the program as balancing current and future staffing needs. “It’s all about succession planning,” Merston says. “We need to constantly be aware of how many engineers we’re hiring, how many we’re retaining and then linking the latest requirements of the ministry with the skills of incoming engineers. We try to ensure we’re bringing in the right numbers of junior engineers to replace our senior staff over time.” The ministry’s EIT program places student engineers at three or four different locations throughout the province during the training period. “Often it’s their first time away from home,” says Nyland. “So mentorship helps to make them feel comfortable and to fit in, while they’re gaining valuable hands-on experience supported by experienced engineers, their mentors.” Nyland stresses that in addition to the skills being imparted, mentors who are committed to developing junior engineers and make themselves fully accessible make the best mentors. “A good mentor designs the work term to make sure that there’s time for both the work that needs to be done and some time devoted just for one-to-one relationships,” he says. “You may have great skills, but you have to be available in order to mentor others.” Gillian Lorimer, who studied civil engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, has been part of the BC training program for two years and is now

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Audrey Kertesz, left, helps Grade 8 student Kristen Hamilton build an electrical circuit

during a mentoring day at the Schulich School of Engineering in May 2010. Photo by Jennifer Sowa

Quick tips for supervisors of engineering interns from the Supervisor’s Guide to Internship, Schulich School of Engineering

How early can mentoring start?

When Audrey Kertesz graduated in June 2010 from the Schulich School of Engineering, she received four top academic awards, including the Governor General’s Medal for highest distinction in undergraduate scholarship. One of the first people she contacted with the news was her Grade 6 teacher, whom she credits with helping her achieve academic success. “He stands out among all of my pre-university teachers. He was a tremendous teacher and he took a genuine interest in all of his students. He taught us life and organizational skills. He also put on a public speaking course every week. I used to be a dismal public speaker but I learned to speak with more fluency and confidence. He really inspired me to apply myself in school.” Kertesz graduated with a degree in electrical engineering with a biomedical specialization.

entering her third rotation in Kamloops. She says a major part of the program’s appeal was its offer of mentorship by a Professional Engineer. “The mentors provide us with the practical technical skills and knowledge we require to earn our Professional Engineer designation,” she says. “The program is designed to help EITs develop the essential technical skills and also the less obvious soft-side skills required to navigate the engineering workplace. This balance, along

“Our supervisor engineers are special people who love to work with young people and they bring a lot of energy to their role as mentors.” with experience in a variety of departments, helps establish the foundation of a wellrounded career.” The City of Calgary offers a similar opportunity – the Engineer in Training Rotation Program – that moves trainees through various city departments to provide exposure to a wide variety of disciplines. “Mentorship is a big part of the program,” says engineer and program director Jennifer Enns. “Our supervisor engineers are special people who love to work with young people and they bring a lot of energy to their role as mentors.” The Schulich School of Engineering in Calgary likewise offers a large mentoring component through its internship program. “Students typically come into engineering and for the first year or two, it can be like deer in the headlights with respect to career decisions,” says Jack Gray, director of the school’s internship program. About 80 percent of students choose to participate in the school’s internship program, which involves 12- to 16-month placements upon completion of their third academic year. Students work in Calgary, across Canada and internationally, with many receiving placements in the United States, Switzerland, Japan and Australia. While on internship, a student’s support consists of mentoring from a supervisor within the place of employment, academic mentors at the university and internship career advisors who stay in touch with interns throughout their work term. “Those who take advantage of an internship and the mentoring that the program offers leave as nervous students with third-year textbooks and come back with a degree of confidence that’s astonishing,” says Gray. “When students return to project classes in the fall, professors have told me they can tell within minutes the students who have been on an internship. It also shows with employment offers. In excess of 50 per cent of students upon the completion of their internship are extended employment offers to return to the company upon their graduation.”

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- Be explicit about your expectations. The intern may not immediately understand the cultural differences between your workplace and the university environment or that of prior workplaces. - Use your first meeting to open lines of communication with your intern for regular and timely feedback on performance. Outline your supervisory style and how you will provide feedback during the work term, such as at regular meetings, informal chats, etc.

Guidance and Role Modeling

For interns, the most valuable workplace learning comes from receiving frequent and specific feedback from their supervisors on how well they are progressing. Our hope is that you will be a mentor to the intern. Throughout the internship, we encourage you to sit down with the intern at regular intervals in scheduled meetings as well as informal conversations. We also ask you to include the intern in company business meetings and networking opportunities as appropriate. By sharing your expertise, experience, insights and honest opinions, you will help your intern to gain the understanding and knowledge they need to become a well rounded graduate and successful engineer in the future.

- If your availability is going to be limited, let the intern know who else they can go to for help. Many organizations assign a “go-to buddy” to the intern. - Give interns a tour of the office and introduce them. - Keep your expectations high. The greatest benefit to the intern is when you treat him or her like a regular employee. - Invite the intern to participate in meetings. One of the most exciting duties we hear about is the opportunity to make a presentation to colleagues and/or management.

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Morgan Pel (left) with her mentor, Debanjan Mookerjea of Toronto engineering firm R. J. Burnside & Associates Ltd. Photo by Ryan McCreight, R.J. Burnside & Associates Limited.

“For mentees here at the company, we want them to learn all they can across areas of technical expertise, and across client and market sectors to see what they’re most interested in.”

Debanjan Mookerjea is a project manager at a Toronto engineering firm, R. J. Burnside & Associates Ltd., and a 2002 graduate of the environmental engineering program at the University of Guelph. He believes younger engineers can play a vital role in mentoring students who are making the transition between education and career. He volunteers in Professional Engineers Ontario’s engineer-in-residence outreach program. “It’s the relatively new graduate who remembers what it’s like to make that transition from school to the working world,” says Mookerjea. “The transition is as simple as going from a variety of classes and seminars across campus with your friends during the day, working on papers all night and going through the undergraduate wringer – and then suddenly having a more steady work period with professional colleagues. We’re still tapped into that life. I feel a strong connection to that group coming in.” The new engineers arrive with a raft of technical skills, but they aren’t as well versed on such matters as the business of engineering, how to apply their skills to client problems, how to develop client relationships and how to handle complex skills such as project management. Mookerjea says that young engineers are hungry to learn all they can about their new profession and any mentoring relationship encourages them to get a feel for as much of the field as possible. “For mentees here at the company, we want them to learn all they can across areas of technical expertise, and across client and market sectors to see what they’re most interested in,” he says. “Some people come into the profession focused on calculations and designing systems and then find out they’re also interested in project management, client management and business development.” Sometimes, mentorship opportunities exist where you’d least expect to find them. While at the University of Guelph, Mookerjea was honoured with the Scott Robertson Award, recognizing a graduating student who demonstrates hard work, spirit and leadership skills. “All of the people who have previously won that award collectively decide who gets that award each year,” he says. “We have an entire network of past winners joining new winners who keep in touch socially in a large informal mentorship group.” Among the younger members involved in mentoring, Mookerjea says that social media applications can play an important part but aren’t usually the driver of the mentoring relationship. “There’s lots of room for social media in mentoring relationships, because the new grads come in completely fluent in Facebook and Twitter,” he says. “They’re used to checking out these types of internet applications, so it’s more a matter of using them to keep in touch with mentors in familiar ways than it is to build a mentorship program around them. They use it to post interesting facts about their organizations but, since other people in the same position are easy to find across the internet, it opens up a lot of opportunities for ad hoc mentoring.”

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Tips for lunching in the corporate world

The business lunch is as old as commerce itself, but for people new to the workplace, it can be a social etiquette minefield. Here are a few tips to secure your seat at the table. - The purpose of the business lunch is “business” more than “lunch” so be professional at all times. - Always be on time, if not early. - Set ground rules first as to who pays. Be direct about expectations at the beginning of the meal by asking, “How are we splitting the bill?” If you’re lunching with a client or a prospect, be prepared to pick up the tab.

- If your boss is taking you out, don’t just assume they will pay. Offer to chip in when the bill comes. - Never order anything you don’t know how to eat. Choose something you are familiar with, something that is easy to eat, does not stain and does not require slurping or putting your fingers in your mouth. - When choosing which fork or knife to use, the key is to work from the outside in.

- Your napkin should stay on your lap until the end of the meal. If you get up to use the washroom, put it on the seat of your chair. When lunch is over, you can put the napkin on the table. Adapted with permission from “It’s more than just lunch” by Jacqueline Louie, LAUNCH magazine, University of Calgary Alumni Relations.

Some mentorship programs are entirely web-dependent. The Cybermentor program, a collaboration between the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta and the Alberta Women’s Science Network, takes mentorship entirely into the digital arena by linking girls and women across the Internet. Now in its tenth year, the program matches female scientists, engineers and students studying science and engineering at Alberta universities with girls aged 11 to 18. While the program’s primary goal is to expand knowledge of career possibilities, it also

“There’s lots of room for social media in mentoring relationships, because the new grads come in completely fluent in Facebook and Twitter. They’re used to checking out these types of internet applications, so it’s more a matter of using them to keep in touch with mentors in familiar ways than it is to build a mentorship program around them.” allows role models to encourage students to continue studying math and science. The program works, says director Meredith Underell. The Schulich School of Engineering has the highest percentage of female students for a school of its size in the country at 24 per cent. The University of Alberta follows close behind at 22 per cent. More than half of Cybermentor participants choose an engineering education and many go on to become program mentors themselves. “Online mentoring has shown itself to be just as effective as face-to-face mentoring,” says Underell. “Mentoring simply works and cybermentoring is just an effective way to extend that experience.” Occasionally engineers choose less traditional mentors. Last year, Rehana Rajabali, an engineer in training with the City of Calgary, was accepted as a participant in the Order of Canada Mentorship Program, which matches 25 youths with mentor members of the Order of Canada. Rajabali’s mentor, however, wasn’t an engineer. “She said she had enough mentoring opportunities on the engineering side in the EIT program,” recalls Jennifer Enns. “She explained that a good engineer is also a well-rounded person, so she selected a poet as her mentor. You can have various mentors to help develop the different aspects of your personality.” Peter Kenter is a regular contributor to Daily Commercial News, Journal of Commerce, OH&S Canada magazine, Sponsorship Report and a contributor to infrastructure magazines in the United States. He is also a columnist for the Driving section of the National Post and the author of TV North, a book on Canadian television.

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Back row: Parents Jennifer Logan (Program Coordinator for the Bachelor of Health Sciences Program at the University of Calgary) and R. Brent Logan ( family doctor)

Middle row: Caitlin Logan (mechanical engineer), Alison Logan (mechanical engineer), Elizabeth Logan (chemical engineer) Front row: Brittany Logan (U of C health sciences student), Holliston Logan, Richard Logan (Grade 10) Photo by Andrew Britton, courtesy Holliston Logan

ENGINEERING THE FAMILY PHOTO Like father, like daughter, like brother and sister? There is no such thing as an engineering gene but sometimes the family photo would suggest otherwise.

Four sisters in engineering among six siblings

“I’ve wanted to be an engineer since I was a toddler and I’ve received endless support and mentorship from my family and from the Holliston Logan is a first-year student and Schulich inspirational women I have met through the scholarship recipient. She plans to pursue a mechanical mentoring program Cybermentor. My parents engineering degree with a biomedical specialization. and four older sisters all work in or are pursuing education in the sciences, and they’ve strongly supported my choice to become an engineer. My younger brother Richard enjoys math and science, so he too may be headed towards a career in engineering.”

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Left: Ravinder Minhas (second from left) on graduation day with his mother, Rani (left), father Manmohan and sister Manjit.

Below: Brothers Casey (left) and Brett Smit Photo courtesy Brett Smit

Photo courtesy Ravinder Minhas

Like father, like son and daughter Ravinder Minhas graduated in 2005 with a degree in oil and gas engineering from the Schulich School of Engineering. When he was a first-year student, he founded the Mountain Crest Brewing Company with his sister Manjit, an engineering graduate from the University of Regina. Mountain Crest is now the fourth largest brewing company in Canada. Their father, Manmohan Minhas, graduated from the Schulich School of Engineering with a mechanical engineering degree in 1980.

“While I was growing up, my dream was always to become an engineer like my dad,” says Ravinder, president and CEO of Mountain Crest. “My father taught me a lot because he was also an entrepreneur, so you could say I definitely followed in his footsteps.”

Not twin brothers, really Brothers Casey and Brett Smit grew up on Vancouver Island and came to Calgary to study at the Schulich School of Engineering. Brett is two years older than Casey but it worked out that they were in their final year of engineering together and graduated with electrical engineering degrees in June 2009.

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“Casey and I lived together in residence, we were in the same classes, we did our fourth-year project together and we studied together. We worked together pretty closely,” says Brett. “We’re the only engineers in our family. Ever since I was a kid sitting in my sandbox building things, I knew this was something I was interested in.”

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Below: Arpad Soos (left) and Agnes Soos

Right: Maureen (left) and Jill Saunders

Photo courtesy Arpad and Agnes Soos

Photo courtesy Jill Saunders

“My father, an engineer, always taught me to seek answers about how things work and he Arpad Soos is in his second year of geomatics engineering encouraged me to take apart and analyze everywith a biomedical specialization. Agnes Soos is a fourththing that was broken in the house,” recalls year chemical engineering student with a biomedical Arpad. “Occasionally, I would take apart specialization. Their father is an engineer with a PhD from the University of Calgary. things that were in perfect working order and, to my consternation, they would not always “My dad has always encouraged me in all my work after reassembly. Oops! I’ve learned a endeavours,” says Agnes. “I was drawn to the great deal from these ‘experiments’ and hope to challenge that biomedical engineering offers. learn more throughout my engineering career.” Not only does it combine traditional engineering and health science principles, it also enables me to apply my creativity to practical problems that could have significant benefits for many people.” Brother-sister engineers

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Not twin sisters, really Maureen Saunders (left) graduated from the Schulich School in June 2010 with a civil engineering degree with a biomedical specialization. Her sister Jill is two years younger. She is a Schulich scholarship recipient and is pursuing a degree in civil engineering with a minor in architectural studies.

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“There are many people I admire who have taught me a lot, and Maureen is definitely one of them. She basically blazed a trail for me through engineering,” says Jill. “We don’t have any other engineers in our family. Our dad is a teacher and our mom is a nurse.”

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Members of the University of Calgary’s Power Engineering Group at work in 1982. Photo courtesy Garwin Hancock

THE UNSUNG TECHNICIANS: THEY CAN MAKE OR BREAK SUCCESS BY AMY DOWD

If you are an engineer, an engineering student, a scientist or, yes, even a communications officer like me, technicians and technologists are often the physical interface between idea and reality, theory and practice, experiments and results and, more often than you might think, problems and solutions.

THEY ARE , IN FACT, PIVOTAL TO DIS COVERY, ESPECIALLY AT A TIME WHEN THE FRONTIERS OF RESEARCH ARE RIFE WITH COMPLEX AND POWERFUL TOOLS

–

THEY CAN MAKE OR BREAK THE SUC -

What makes them tick? A passion to make things work. What makes them so vital? Just ask their colleagues, their students, and the research teams that depend on them.

CESS OF ANY RESEARCH PROJECT.

Having been “rescued” by a couple of techs before myself, I can also offer this: sometimes they just make things a little less impossible. There are as many types of technologists and technicians as there are fields of science and engineering. They set up labs and conduct experiments, build and fabricate equipment, develop programs, diagnose, test and analyze, design, teach, support, volunteer, and everything in between. In Alberta, technology professionals can even practice engineering, since the advent of a new professional designation, P.Tech.

MAKING IT RUN IS PART OF THE RESEARCH In the early 1980s, the Power Engineering Group at the Schulich School of Engineering collaborated with the Siberian Energy Institute, Irkutsk, in the U.S.S.R. to develop digital techniques to stabilize disturbances in major power generating stations. The group’s technologist, Garwin Hancock, provided the technical design and operational aspects of the electrical interface and computer system while researchers worked to develop the new algorithms necessary to accomplish the

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desired rate of stability. They were the first research group anywhere to consider a digital implementation of these power system stabilizers. “Even today a vast majority of these stabilizers are still analog. That kind of approach takes 20 to 30 seconds to stabilize a disturbance in the power system,” says Hancock. “Digitally we can do it under four seconds. In addition to speed, it has many other advantages that analog devices do not have.” The nature of the study made it necessary for the research group to conduct their tests on site at power plants in Canada, the Soviet Union and China. Now, when you’re halfway around the world and your equipment fails, it’s more than inconvenient. But when your technologist manages to rework that equipment and get it running within an

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Om Malik, Garwin Hancock and Gordon Hope of the University of Calgary’s Power Engineering Group in 1982. Photo courtesy Garwin Hancock

“The hardware failed to perform in Siberia and a valuable research opportunity was lost. After they dropped the equipment off to the lab, it was under an hour and I had it running again. I was fully familiar with the equipment. After all, I built it.” G ARWIN H ANC OC K

hour of your return to Calgary, it’s a wake-up call. “The hardware failed to perform in Siberia and a valuable research opportunity was lost,” recalls Hancock. “After they dropped the equipment off to the lab, it was under an hour and I had it running again. I was fully familiar with the equipment. After all, I built it.” “Usually, they would pack up the hardware, go do their tests, come back and say, ‘Thank you it worked fine.’ But this enticed them to check with their funders to find out if it would be possible to bring me along. And they said, ‘Most definitely, if he’s involved with the research and is actually doing it, of course he can go.’” With permission from their funders at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Power Engineering Group made arrangements for Hancock to accompany them after that point. So, that got him travelling, when he wasn’t building up yet another crazy idea in the lab, of course. “I’ve always had a desire to be outward, to try things, to put things together, as opposed to just being the guy who repairs things,” he says. Hancock has co-authored over 20 research publications as part of his extensive contributions to the work of research teams. Currently, he is technical lead in the electrical and computer engineering department. THIS ISN’T A REPAIR SHOP What kid doesn’t grow up taking things apart to see what’s inside?

At age seven, Christopher Simon had his first encounter with technology. “I put a wire across a battery and it glowed red. I guess I could have just thrown it away, but instead, I asked, ‘Why?’” How things work is fascinating to him. If you ask him to tell you about what he does, he will answer your questions. But in the grand scheme of things, he’d much rather show you than tell you. In lieu of a proper sit-down interview, I accepted an invitation to attend one of Chris Simon’s Practical Practice sessions. Bookended by electrical engineering students, Simon managed to walk even me through one of the fundamentals of electronics, soldering the component parts of a circuit to a circuit board, the focus of this particular session. I quietly listened, watched and worked, but when my speaker chirped and my LEDs flashed, I was on board the Titanic – I was king of the world! Simon’s students obviously have a great affection for him, and it is easy to see why. For four years, he has turned his Tuesday lunch hour into an open-door drop-in session of practical skills practice. The lab is Simon’s effort to give undergrads, graduate students, professors, or anyone really, an opportunity to practice a skill they wouldn’t normally be exposed to or to work on a project with the added benefit of technical support. “I’ll help them do it. I don’t like the idea of doing it for them; this is not a repair shop, this is where you’re going to learn how to fix it yourself,” says Simon. “Don’t we all want to know ‘why’ about

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something? For me that’s how it is, and it’s the same for a lot of these students.” Simon knows it’s a challenge for students to exercise their creativity and get practical experience in the formal confines of labs and lecture theatres, so he encourages them to pursue the types of projects that really wow them whenever possible. For instance, last year he supported two fourth-year student projects that ultimately won big at the year-end design fair, a levitation machine and a coil gun. Both projects definitely had that wow factor. “Every Monday we would pack in here and close the door and go through what I thought was possible and not possible. Think of it this way: if a four-yearold can see some wow factor in a project, then it’s a success. That’s what I’m aiming for,” says Simon. “When students are engaged, they find the time and the resources to do it. The wow factor is about motivation.” As he rushes off to meet with another group of students, this time to talk about forming a robotics club, he offers me this line: “The sky is not the limit, your imagination is.” I remind him that if he believes it, it’s not a line. IMAGINATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN KNOWLEDGE Albert Einstein said that. So does the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) website. Science, engineering and computing technologies are constantly advancing

thanks to both imagination and knowledge, and so must the skills and knowhow of the technicians and technologists. And if you’re talking advanced science, it’s difficult to find something more advanced than the research that’s currently being undertaken at TRIUMF, Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics. Nuclear research is, perhaps ironically, massive in scale – we’re talking about the fundamental workings of the universe here, understanding nature itself. The science may be huge, but even in these very large projects, the details definitely matter.

“I’ll help them do it. I don’t like the idea of doing it for them; this is not a repair shop, this is where you’re going to learn how to fix it yourself.” C H RISTO P HE R S IM ON

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Jens Dilling is a nuclear physicist, a senior scientist and adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia. He also leads the TITAN (TRIUMF’s Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear Science) research group at the facility. “A good fraction of the particle physics we are doing takes place at CERN and the Large Hadron Collider, and a good portion of the nuclear physics we are doing takes place here at TRIUMF where we use a facility called ISAC, the Isotope Separator and Accelerator.” The physics is complicated, and equally fascinating. In a nutshell, ISAC provides exotic synthesized atoms or isotopes to experiments. One of these experiments is TITAN, which is used to determine the mass of these isotopes. Since measuring this mass isn’t an easy

Amy Dowd is the communications officer for the Schulich School of Engineering.

“We have what I would call a super tech, he is extremely versatile in a number of disciplines; he operates on the interface between conceiving an idea and developing a concept of how to put it into reality.”

Photo by Elden Menezes JE N S DILLIN G

prospect, TITAN uses measurements of frequency instead. Frequency can be determined very precisely and is directly proportionate to mass. Once the mass is determined, it is possible to use Einstein’s E=mc2 to figure out the energy stored in the atoms, and from there, the decay energy. These measurements can further be used to test and evaluate the Standard Model of particle physics. Whew. Dilling’s research group consists of TRIUMF faculty members, research associates, graduate and undergraduate students, visiting scholars and a single “super” technician. “We have what I would call a super tech, he is extremely versatile in a number of disciplines; he operates on the interface between conceiving an idea and developing a concept of how to put it into reality. He works very closely with me or a grad student and will say, ‘Well, that sounds very nice, but it’s probably not realistic to achieve that.’ He is our front line before we go to the engineer and it becomes totally embarrassing,” Dilling says with a chuckle. According to Dilling, his research group’s technician, Mel Good, is critical to the practical day-to-day operation of the group. So what makes a super tech so super? Well, a diverse background. In Good’s case, that means extensive knowledge of ultra-high vacuum, cryogenic operation, mechanical engineering, high-voltage operation, and, of course, attention to detail. “For the precision we’re operating at – these are really cutting-edge mass

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measurements – you have to have a certain mentality. You have to be detail oriented and that’s one of his strengths, to a level where it even becomes annoying to the students,” says Dilling. Besides his work on the front lines, Mel Good is also charged with maintaining equipment and providing some of the operational skills instruction to students who are new to the facility. “The grad students learn pretty quickly that he acts as much of an authority as I do,” says Dilling. “If they come up with a brilliant idea but he says, ‘That’s not possible,’ the ball stops there. Then we have to rethink. He’s an integral part of our team.” TECHNOLOGISTS MAKE GREAT TEAMMATES “I’ve learned most of my practical skills in engineering with the help of civil engineering technologists,” says Guillermo Guglietti, who graduated from the Schulich School of Engineering in June 2010. As a student, Guglietti served as construction manager for the school’s Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race (GNCTR) team in 2007 and as concrete manager the following year. “Last year, the GNCTR team stepped up and introduced a series of technological innovations in the concrete slab – we made the slab pretensioned, thinner and self-compacting. As far as we knew, this had never been done before, and it required skills I hadn’t previously encountered in the competition. The technologists were key to making it a reality. They supported

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us and really became part of our team, sharing the experience, and trying something new while showing us the way.” As Guglietti sees it, engineers can sometimes become further removed from aspects of practical application as they advance in their careers and are increasingly faced with assignments that rely more heavily on textbook theory. “I think that’s a rather false image of engineering. It detaches the action, its consequences and its magnitude, from the decision making,” says Guglietti. “Working with techs exposes you to the real meaning of the issues we are trying to tackle. It gives you an understanding of volume, forces, and procedures that are key to your professional career. Everyone studying engineering should try to experience this.” Technically speaking, the skills Guglietti acquired from his own experience constitute an added value he was able to bring to his employer, Dillon Consulting Ltd. Guglietti is now an engineer in training in London, Ontario, working in the areas of urban planning, water resources and municipal and transportation engineering. “When you think about a competitive labour market, those skills are the ones that make the difference.” Technicians and technologists are specialists in bridging the gap between ideas and the realization of those ideas, between the technology and the research and oftentimes, between the study and the discovery. Good techs back the winners. It’s as simple as that.

COVER 2010 INTERNSHIP PHOTO CONTEST

Beauty and Engineering The winning entries are presented here from the 2010 internship photo contest at the Schulich School of Engineering. The panel of judges chose 13 images in four categories from over 80 entries, in what was described by one judge as the highest quality of entries overall since the contest started three years ago. Meet the judges: -

Marjan Eggermont Senior Instructor and Artist-inResidence at the Schulich School of Engineering Ewan Nicholson Ewan Nicholson Photography Inc. Member and Past President of the Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communications Jack Gray Director, and members of his Internship Office team at the Schulich School of Engineering

Read more about the winning photographs and other finalists at schulich.ucalgary.ca.

LI FE ON I NTERNSHI P

LI FE ON I NT ERNSHI P

LI FE ON INTER NSHI P

Honourable Mention

Second Place Winner

First Place Winner

Previous Page: Overlooking the Peace Bridge from Crescent Heights - Calgary, Alberta

Left: Admiring the sunrise, White Desert near Cairo, Egypt

Below: Enjoying some sunshine on the cobblestones of Rome, Italy

Submitted by Nadia Chamberland

Submitted by Sapna Sanders

Photo by Joseph DeRidder

Photo by Jason Gaul

Photo by Samantha Lam

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CHECK T H IS OUT

LI FE ON INTER NSHI P

Second Place Winner

First Place Winner

Honourable Mention

Previous Page: Dock on Etang Blanc - Seignosse, France

Left: First light - Austrian Alps

Below: In the search for adventure...jumping into Piburger See - Oetz, Austria

Photo by Matt Quinton

Photo by Ben McDonald

Submitted by Jason Gaul Photo by Ben McDonald

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CHECK T HIS OUT

Honourable Mention

Second Place Winner

Below: The Burning of the Böögg - Switzerland

Left: Capturado por el toro - Pamplona, Spain

Photo by Olivia Norton

Photo by David Kushner

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Honourable Mention

First Place Winner

Left: The art initiative - Berlin, Germany

Below: Angular position sensor test apparatus Yo!

Photo by Olivia Norton

Photo by Matt Quinton

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ADVENT URES ABR OAD

AT WORK ON INTERNSHI P

Honourable Mention

Second Place Winner

Below: The oddities of Berlin - Berlin, Germany

Right: Leaders among us Coleman, Alberta

Photo by Alex Staudt

Photo by Shubham Tiwari

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ADVENTUR ES ABR OAD

First Place Winner

Mountain surfing at the top of the Alps - Saas Fee, Switzerland Photo by Emmanuel Ly

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PEOPLE

Left: Andy Younger Photo courtesy University of Calgary Archives

Right: Ayo Jeje, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) at the Schulich School of Engineering Photos by Greg Fulmes

He developed Canada’s premier natural gas processing graduate course at the University of Calgary in 1963 and passed his knowledge along to thousands of students.

Above: Left to right: Ian Wheeliker (Executive Director, Central Alberta Emergency Women’s Shelter), Erin Gibbs van Brunschot (University of Calgary sociologist), Alberta Minister of Justice and Attorney General Alison Redford, Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson, University of Calgary President Elizabeth Cannon, and Gérard Lachapelle (Schulich School of Engineering) at the announcement of the joint research project. Photo by Riley Brandt

#UARC 82.009_02.15_02

Industry leaders, colleagues and former students of Andy Younger establish chair in his name Andy Younger was a professor, mentor, respected colleague and pioneer in the natural gas processing industry. His career spanned 60 years and his legacy is evident in many modern processing technologies. He developed Canada’s premier natural gas processing graduate course at the University of Calgary in 1963 and passed his knowledge along to thousands of students. Younger passed away in 2005 and left a $100,000 bequest in his will to the Schulich School of Engineering to create a research chair in gas processing.

That amount grew to nearly $1.9 million because of donations from industry leaders, friends and former colleagues wishing to honour Andy Younger’s legacy. The A. H. Younger Chair in Hydrocarbon Processing will focus on education, teaching and research to help meet the growing need for process engineers and to create new and innovative designs in hydrocarbon processing. Marco Satyro has been appointed to the position for a five-year term that began on July 1, 2010. Satyro is an associate professor whose research areas include natural gas dehydration and sweetening, heavy hydrocarbon phase modeling and process simulation.

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Pilot, runner, researcher and – above all – dedicated teacher Ayo Jeje believes all successful people have had influential mentors and teachers at some point in their lives. Ayo Jeje is usually the one handing out awards, whether it’s recognizing teaching assistants for their dedication or serving on the committee that selects the highschool students who receive prestigious Schulich scholarships. This time, Jeje himself has been recognized for excellence in a field that is his greatest passion: teaching. “It’s a joy to see students come in green and leave as sophisticated, confident engineers full of enthusiasm with successful careers ahead of them,” says Jeje,

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Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) at the Schulich School of Engineering. He was among five winners of the University of Calgary’s inaugural Killam Trust Research and Teaching Awards for 2010. Jeje caught the “teaching bug” early on. Back home in Nigeria, his father once taught in an elementary school and always stressed the importance of an education to his five children. Three of them grew up to be engineers, one a medical doctor and the other a scientist. Jeje’s middle brother, a mechanical engineer, is a university professor as well and teaches at the premier university in Nigeria, the University of Ibadan. When he was 16, Jeje came to North America on a scholarship to Purdue

University in Indiana. He earned his undergraduate degree at Purdue, then completed his master’s and PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Afterwards, he was a resident scholar at Harvard University. At the Schulich School of Engineering, he provides one-on-one mentoring for faculty and students and somehow finds the time to teach courses. He admits it’s a juggling act and says busy people must have balance in their lives. He finds solace in running and loves soaring above the clouds as a private pilot. But he always gets right back to the work he loves: influencing the education of future engineers. “These students are the next generation, the people we’re passing things over to,” says Jeje,

recalling several memorable teachers and mentors in his own life. He stresses the importance of that role in the lives of students, no matter what their area of study.

“If you look at a successful person, there’s a mentor in there somewhere. There’s someone who cared and took an interest and gave that person advice. They were also

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there to let the person know when he or she was getting off track.” Jeje says if professors focus on students’ understanding of the material and do whatever it takes to help them, then they’ve been successful. Criminal tracking goes high-tech The Position, Location and Navigation (PLAN) Group at the Schulich School of Engineering is playing a key role in exploring the effectiveness of using GPS technology to monitor offenders who have been released into the community. The Alberta govern-

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ment’s Safe Communities initiative provided $1 million for this three-year research project. Radio frequency monitoring technology, usually in the form of ankle bracelets, is currently used by law enforcement officials. GPS technology offers a more accurate way to track offenders because it determines location in real time and by longitude, latitude and speed. University of Calgary researchers include sociologist Erin Gibbs van Brunschot and Gérard Lachapelle, iCORE/Canada Research Chair in Wireless Location, and his team at the Schulich School of Engineering.

PEOPLE

Left: Artist’s renderings of the University of Calgary’s entry in the 2011 Solar Decathlon competition Photo courtesy U of C Solar Decathlon team

Right: Pat and Connie Carlson at the public launch of the Engineering Leaders campaign in June 2010. Photo by Stephanie Leblond

The team designed a solar-powered home specifically for First Nations communities of southern Alberta. The house will produce at least as much energy as it consumes, making it “net-zero.”

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Students head to Washington, D.C. with solar house Twenty students from the Schulich School of Engineering will form part of the University of Calgary contingent representing Canada in the Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C. in October 2011. The event is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and challenges teams from colleges and universities to design,

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build, and operate solarpowered houses that are cost-effective, energyefficient, and visually appealing. The winner is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. The team from Calgary designed a solarpowered home specifically for First Nations communities of southern Alberta. The house will produce at least as much energy as it consumes, making it “net-zero.”

More than 40 teams entered the competition and only 20 were chosen. The University of Calgary team is the only Canadian group to qualify and will compete against teams from the United States, China, Belgium and New Zealand. The team brings multidisciplinary skills from students in the Faculty of Environmental Design, the Schulich School of Engineering and the Haskayne School of Business. They won a 2010 Emerald Award for outstanding achievement in sustainability in Alberta. On September 27, 2010, the Engineering Leaders Campaign reached the $35.7-million mark on the path towards the goal of $60 million. The Engineering Leaders campaign is an initiative to raise funds for a new building and main entrance to the Schulich School of Engineering along with upgrades to lecture theatres, laboratories and student activity spaces. Five years ago, Canadian philanthro-

pist Seymour Schulich gave $25 million to the University of Calgary, the largest donation in the history of the institution. He returned in June 2010 with $5 million to launch the Engineering Leaders campaign for improvements and expansion of the engineering school that bears his name.

Pat and Connie Carlson are investing in space that will lead to more innovation Pat and Connie Carlson were the sponsors of the public launch of the Engineering Leaders campaign at the Hotel Arts in downtown Calgary on June 8, 2010. Both were engineering students in Calgary and went on to start several successful companies, including Seven Generations Energy. Established in May 2008, Seven Generations is a Calgary-based private energy company focused on developing non-conventional resource plays in Canada and the US. The team is led by Pat Carlson,

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who built and led three successful private energy companies, including North American Oil Sands. They are passionate about influencing the education of future engineers particularly when it comes to teaching environmental sustainability. Their gift of $2.8 will go towards capital expansion at the Schulich School of Engineering. “Without the space, you can’t add the people, programs and technology that are fundamental to building a strong, sustainable economy and healthy community,” says Pat Carlson. EllisDon Construction Services Inc. is building up the training ground for future engineers Vince Davoli, Senior Vice President Western Canada, graduated from the Schulich School of Engineering in 1983 with a degree in civil engineering. He has helped drive the commitment of EllisDon to investing in future engineers and contributing towards capital expansion at the Schulich School of Engineering.

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The Carlsons’ gift of $2.8 million will go towards capital expansion at the Schulich School of Engineering.

Left and Below: The rope room before Photo by Serey Sinn

Below: The rope room after Photo by Amy Dowd

“The Schulich School of Engineering is one of the premier engineering faculties in Canada and EllisDon employs a significant number of graduates. We want to participate in the success of the school’s programs and help prepare the leaders of tomorrow,” says Davoli. In 2009, EllisDon provided support for much-needed upgrades to a homeroom for fourthyear civil engineering students. The EllisDon Civil Engineering Homeroom provides students with a sense of community and a space for collaborating on projects. The renovated space also accommodates more students than before. EllisDon is a global construction services company and one of the largest building contractors in Canada. The firm provides services in construction management, project management, design build, publicprivate partnerships and general contracting.

Penn West Energy is enhancing the student experience A gift from Penn West Energy will strengthen innovative student programs at the Schulich School of Engineering and the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary. It will support awards for undergraduate and graduate students, enhance career development initiatives and create a fund to support student activities for learning outside the classroom. “Penn West is proud to support the Schulich School of Engineering and help foster the next generation of talented and intelligent engineers,” says Mark Fitzgerald, Senior Vice President of Production. “At Penn West, we pride ourselves on recruiting and maintaining the top talent in the industry. Many of the professionals that work with us have come through the Schulich School, which I believe is a testament to the quality of experience and instruction that the students receive.”

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Penn West Energy is one of the largest conventional oil and natural gas producers in North America. It has supported the University of Calgary since 1995. Anchors away The legendary “rope wall” in lecture theatre ENE 241 at the Schulich School of Engineering came down during the summer of 2010 as part of upgrades to the lecture theatres in E Block. But instead of tossing out the fond memories of the dusty 30-year-old décor, the Schulich School of Engineering mailed thousands of little rope clippings to alumni around the world. The response included notes like this:

“I am an alumna from 2002, currently working in South Korea, and I am very homesick. Today, I received the very thoughtful gift from you of a

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clipping from the rope wall in the lecture theatres. I have to say that I teared up a little when I realized what it was. Thank you very much! It is so thoughtful of you to have sent this, and I’m sure that other alumni feel that same way” EllisDon Construction Services Inc. and the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA) provided funding to revitalize two of the lecture theatres. Renovations included replacement of the ceiling, floor and walls, upgrades to audio/visual equipment, new blackboards, white boards and furnishings, and wheelchair accessibility.

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2010 DEAN’S AWARD FOR CORPORATE LEADERSHIP Lafarge Canada, a leading supplier of build-

ership of Raafat El-Hacha, a structural engineer-

CORPORATE

ing materials, is a longtime supporter of the

ing professor in civil engineering. It is the largest

LEADERSHIP. THIS AWARD GOES TO A CANADIAN

Schulich School of Engineering and regularly

chamber of its kind in North America and is used

CORPORATION THAT HAS SHOWN SIGNIFICANT

hires summer students and graduates from the

for testing building materials under a variety of

LEADERSHIP IN SUPPORT OF RESEARCH AND

school. The company provided support for the

weather conditions.

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES IN THE SCHULICH

Lafarge Canada Inc. Materials Laboratory, the

The Dean’s Award for Corporate Leadership

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING.

central concrete laboratory in civil engineering,

is presented annually at the Schulich School of

created an annual Lafarge Student Activities Fund

Engineering Dean’s Holiday Reception in Calgary.

LAFARGE CANADA INC. IS THE WINNER OF THE 2010

Contact the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary at 403-220-8490

We are over halfway to our goal! The Engineering Leaders campaign is a $60 million fundraising initiative at the Schulich School of Engineering that strengthens one of the best engineering schools in North America. www.ucalgary.ca/engineeringleaders

DEAN’S

AWARD

FOR

and provided financial support for diversity initiatives within the Women’s Advancement Office. Lafarge Canada helped bring a one-milliondollar environmental testing chamber to the Schulich School of Engineering, under the lead-

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REVERSE ENGINEERING

BLACK

NAVY

WHITE

TAN AND CREAM

Sophisticated, authoritative, powerful, assertive, mysterious

Honest, trustworthy, hardworking, organized

Fresh, clean, hopeful, reliable, artistic, expressive

Elegant, approachable, trusting

BROWN

CHARCOAL GREY

BURGUNDY

PLUM

Stable, secure, persevering, slow to change

Strength of character, authoritative, refined

Classic, refined, elegant, formal

Regal, diplomatic, sophisticated

Common perceptions of colour in business Source: Camille Kim, First Impressions Image Ltd, www.fiimage.com Illustrated by Brittany Hellec

INDIGO

TEAL

RED

Creative, unusual, artistic, intuitive

Inventive, soothing, balancing

Confident, assertive

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For the second time in a row, the Schulich School of Engineering is ranked #1 among engineering schools in Canada for integrating environmental sustainability into the school experience.

THE SCHULICH SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING IS RANKED #1 AMONG ENGINEERING SCHOOLS IN CANADA

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