The Department of Chemical Engineering is proud to announce that Professor Pendar Mahmoudi is the 2025 recipient of the Faculty Teaching Excellence Award and the Boyce Family Teaching Award.
"I feel truly honoured and humbled to win these awards. Getting rewarded for a job I enjoy is a blessing. I am extremely thankful for the support of my colleagues in the department, who will happily listen to new ideas or issues and offer assistance or advice," says Mahmoudi.
The Faculty Teaching Excellence Award is adjudicated by program chairs and directors, whereas the Boyce Family Teaching Award is a student-driven award.
Although judged by very different groups, they both reached the same conclusion that Mahmoudi’s teaching methods successfully incorporate experiential learning, innovative teaching and commitment to student connection and success.
Mahmoudi began teaching in 2018 after finishing her PhD at the University of Waterloo. It was during her graduate studies that she discovered her passion for teaching.
“I started teaching assistant positions and I realized how much I enjoyed explaining things to students. I really loved planning tutorial lessons for them,” says Mahmoudi. “Students would come and ask me to explain a concept that they did not understand in class and leave with a better understanding. So that kind of was the first spark.”
Mahmoudi is constantly working to better her teaching skills through courses at the Centre for Teaching Excellence. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in her own experience as a student. She remembers what it is like to try to stay focused in class, especially when being taught new material. She uses a variety of teaching methods to reach as many students as possible.
“I really like to see that comprehension sparkle in their eyes. That's definitely my favorite part. Especially for a student that comes into a course already struggling with the content or carrying a self-perception that they are not good in this area,” says Mahmoudi. “I always say in the upper year courses, if you think or perceive that you are weak at this topic, I want to talk to you in the first week.”
Mahmoudi values hard work and perseverance as much as intelligence in students. She was influenced by a professor that she had at Sharif University of Technology in Iran who took her class on field trips to show the equipment that Mahmoudi was learning about.
For Mahmoudi, the experience of actually standing in front of huge pieces of equipment used in real manufacturing settings allowed her to understand the scale of what she was learning in class.
Mahmoudi teaches computer and math heavy courses, such as CHE 120 - Computer Literacy and Programming for Chemical Engineers and CHE 312 - Mathematics of Heat and Mass Transfer.
“I break things down as much as I can. So that students are not just memorizing things. When teaching the curriculum, I provide logical ideas and examples of why something is done,” says Mahmoudi.
As part of the Boyce Family Teaching Award, she will be delivering the “And one more thing” speech to the 2026 graduating class.