Pearl Sullivan, chair of Waterloo’s mechanical and mechatronics engineering department, will become Waterloo’s eighth dean of engineering on July 1, 2012. Sullivan, an award-winning professor and accomplished researcher, joined the university as a professor of mechanical engineering in 2004. She will succeed Adel Sedra whose second term as dean ends June 30, 2012. “The exemplary reputation of Waterloo Engineering fueled a lot of international interest in this position,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president of the University of Waterloo. “We were thrilled that, in the end, one of our own professors was the best person for the job. Faculty and students both here and elsewhere have the greatest respect for Pearl Sullivan-a striking example of the top-quality educators and leaders we have in our own community.”
Sullivan has had a distinguished academic career. She is the founding director of Waterloo’s joint graduate program in nanotechnology within the faculties of engineering and science. Before joining Waterloo, she was a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of New Brunswick, and a lecturer and visiting professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.