Andrew Hrymak Full Interview

Chemical engineer Andrew Hrymak describes his experiences as an undergraduate and graduate student, a university professor and Department Chair at McMaster University and as Dean of Engineering at Western University. Drawn to chemical engineering by a design project in the first year of his undergraduate program, that involved a processing plant to generate electrical power from steam, his subsequent work was in this same area of process systems engineering. He worked as a research assistant at McMaster and was introduced to polymer processing, developing computer codes and mathematical models to determine pressure distributions during different processes. His supervisor for this work, John Vlachopoulos became a mentor who provided advice for through a long part of Dr. Hrymak's career. Dr. Hrymak describes his career as having three "chunks". The first 15 years were as a university professor, doing teaching using problem-based-learning techniques, and conducting research within his group and with colleagues. He became Chair of the Chemical Engineering Department in 2000, and, with his colleagues, took advantage of opportunities provided by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Canada Research Chair programs to recruit new professors and build up the research infrastructure. Then in 2009, he started a decade as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Western, developing projects such as the WindEEE Dome, the world's only three-dimensional wind tunnel, polymer composites research with the Fraunhofer Institute of Chemical Technology in Germany. Dr. Hrymak describes his new interest in sustainability – exploring the circular economy, changing the perception of byproducts from "waste" to "value opportunities". He reflects on the changes he has seen during his career, particularly the explosion of information that is freely available. He advises high school students interested in possible careers in engineering that an engineering degree can spawn many different careers, in academia, business management, and government. And he encourages newly graduates to develop their soft skills to develop effective teams and communication with others. He encourages new graduates to think more about how technology is impacting different socioeconomic groups.