Director, Ideas Clinic

The success of the Mechatronics Engineering program, prompted the launch of the IDEAs Clinic. The Ideas clinic was tasked to bring real-world hands-on activites to all programs within the Faculty of Engineering. Todate the achievements include introducing an activity within the early terms of every program. In total 24,000 student contacts (a student taking part in one activity is one student contact) have taken place. The Ideas Clinic has employed over 100+coop students, 10+ RA's and 5 sessional lecturers. The Ideas Clinic has sponsored five courses including a course on engineering and art, an experiential engineering module for MEng students and a practical FEA course for upper year graduates. 

Director, Mechatronics Engineering

I lead the Mechatronics engineering program as its Director for two terms. During this time the program grew from a fledgling into a premiere program in the country. It was the darling of the start-ups scene at Waterloo.

Launch of Mechatronics Engineering

In the early nineties computers were morphing engineering education. Electrical Engineering, in its traditional sense, was being modified and it was moving closer to computer and software engineering. Mechanical Engineering, having kept pace with evolution incomputers upto the eighties, was resisting more changes. As this change was taking place in education, industry was experiencing its own changes. Industry was moving away from building mechanical machines to electro-mechanical devices. The changes in education and in industry had created a gap. To fill this gap, I proposed that Mechanical Engineering, at that time(1996), start a electro-mechanical engineering specialization. A core of supportive colleagues worked delegently to launch, first the Mechnatronics option, and subsequently the Mechatronics Engineering Program.