Convocation honours for EWB founders and professor

Parker Mitchell and George Roter, co-founders of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), will each receive an honorary Doctor of Engineering at Waterloo Engineering’s fall convocation on October 27.

Mitchell, right in photo, and Roter (both BASc ’99, Mechanical), started EWB in 2000. Throughout the years it’s grown from an

idea scribbled on a napkin to one of Canada’s most influential non-governmental organizations dedicated to tackling global poverty.

Both have been recognized with Canada’s Meritorious Service Cross (Civil) and numerous other honours, including Waterloo Engineering’s Team Alumni Achievement Medal.

Mitchell, the founder and CEO of SHIFT, and Roter, now a director at Mozilla, will address convocation. On October 26, they'll give a public lecture entitled Global Impact One Engineer at a Time: Why we Founded Engineers Without Borders. They'll discuss their journey from Waterloo Engineering to the founding of Engineers Without Borders and beyond. The lecture takes place at 3 p.m. in the second-floor event space of the new Engineering 7 building.     

At the same convocation ceremony at which Mitchell and Parker will be honoured, Leo Rothenburg, left, will be recognized as a Distinguished Professor

Emeritus. Rothenburg, a former chair of Waterloo’s civil and environmental engineering department, also served as acting dean of the Faculty as well as associate vice-president, international.

His expertise in theoretical and computational methods are used in the geomechanics of mining, petroleum, solid waste and transportation. As well as his innovative research achievements, the long-time civil and environmental engineering professor is known for exceptional teaching and student supervision.