Exciting news! Women in Engineering RoundTable series will move on campus for in-person events in the Spring Term. To kick off, we are honored to host two WiE leaders; Kealy Dedman, P.Eng., MPA who is the Commissioner of Public Works for the Region of Peel, and the 2022 Douglas Wright Engineer in Residence to share her story. Her talk is titled "The Role of Women in Engineering and Leadership" and promises to shed light on the uncompromising commitment of women in engineering and governance. Our second WiE Leader is Nadine Ibrahim, PhD, Turkstra Chair in Urban Engineering and Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Her talk is titled "Engineering that speaks human".
This event will be in-person on campus in the Engineering 7 Building, please sign up today to reserve your spot and obtain location details which will soon be publicly announced. This event will hold on Monday June 6th, 12:00-1:00 pm (EST). Start the conversation today by sending in your questions ahead of the event at Round Table Questions Form.
About the Round Table Discussions Series:
Round Table with WiE Leaders is a series of monthly roundtable discussions which provide networking and mentorship forum for graduate and undergraduate students. At the Round Table, we hope to connect you to WiE leaders in academia, industry and government. We hope you will join us to listen to their stories and be inspired to overcome and succeed.
About Kealy Dedman P. Eng., MPA
Kealy Dedman is the Commissioner of Public Works for the Region of Peel. She leads a team of 1300 staff responsible for providing Transportation, Waste Management, Water and Wastewater, Planning and Development, and TransHelp services, to approximately 1.5 million people and over 175,000 businesses within the Region.
Prior to Peel, Kealy was the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer – Infrastructure, Development and Enterprise with the City of Guelph. She has also held engineering leadership positions with the cities of Cambridge and Mississauga, and began her career in the private sector.
With over 25 years of industry experience, she is committed to building sustainable communities through engineering excellence, innovation, and collaboration across sectors. Kealy thrives on developing and supporting her staff to become passionate municipal leaders of the future.
A strong advocate for public works and sustainable infrastructure, Kealy is currently Chair of the Regional Public Works Commissioners of Ontario. Previously, she served as president of the Canadian Public Works Association and president of the Ontario Public Works Association. She has also been a member of several federal stakeholder groups to inform infrastructure-related government policy matters, including the Municipal Infrastructure Forum and the Canadian Report Card Advisory Committee.
Kealy earned Bachelor of Science degrees in both Civil Engineering and Biology from Queen’s University and has a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Western Ontario. She is currently the Douglas Wright Engineer-in-Residence for the civil and environmental engineering department at the University of Waterloo.
About Nadine Ibrahim BASc, MASc, and PhD
Nadine Ibrahim is the Turkstra Chair in Urban Engineering and Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. She holds a BASc, MASc, and PhD in Civil Engineering, and a Certificate of Preventive Engineering and Social Development from the University of Toronto. Transcending the boundaries of engineering, Nadine’s research explores topics related to sustainable cities and their influence on urban governance and public policy, which she uses to influence her teaching.
She has Industry experience in environmental consulting in Canada and the Middle East & North Africa region. In Canada, she worked with municipalities in Southern Ontario on asset management, risk assessment, infrastructure planning, and capital budgeting. In the Middle East & North Africa, she worked in international development on large-scale projects for clients including the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, and the Global Environment Facility. She was also a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto on Engineering Education for Sustainable Cities in Africa, launching a Sustainable Cities course online, and piloting a Global Classroom.
She leverages her academic experience and industry practice in the areas of urban infrastructure, sustainable cities, and sustainable development, focusing on climate change mitigation in global cities, and sustainability assessments in megacities and megaregions. Nadine is active in the scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering leadership, and chairs the special interest group on the Engineer of 2050 at the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA), and is an Ambassador to “How to Change the World” and was on the Pan-Canadian advisory committee on the Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges (CEGC).