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Mechanical Engineering

Madiha Kotb Snippet B

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Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb, ingénieur mécanique, décrit comment le projet “Engineering for Change,” a vue le jour lors d’un de ses mandats sur le comité de gouvernance de la American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Cette plate-forme web, crée par des ingénieurs afin d’aider le public en matière d’ingénierie, permettait au public de discuter avec des ingénieurs afin de solutionner des problèmes technique. Ce faisant, la plate-forme offrait des solutions concrètes tout en favorisant l’entraide internationale. Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb est toujours un membre actif du conseil d’administration de “Engineering for Change.”

Madiha Kotb Snippet C

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Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb, ingénieur mécanique, explique l’importance de la « conquête de l’espace » dans sa vie, autant au niveau professionnel que personnel. Elle décrit sa rencontre avec l’astronaute Neil Armstrong ainsi qu’avec Gene Krantz, ingénieur aéronautique Américan, directeur de vol et directeur de la NASA connu aussi pour avoir dit « l’échec n’est pas un choix envisageable » lors de la mission de secours pour l’équipage de l’Apollo 13. Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb raconte l’importance de cette phrase sur son parcours.

Madiha Kotb French Interview

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Le choix de devenir ingénieur s’est dessiné dès un jeune âge pour Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb alors que son professeur de 5e année du primaire a remarqué son « talent pour les mathématiques ». Ayant grandi avec un père ingénieur, Madiha découvre rapidement son intérêt pour ce domaine. Elle début le programme d'ingénierie des matériaux à l'université américaine du Caire, mais à la suite du décès inattendu de son père, elle et son mari déménagent au Canada. Elle obtient son diplôme en ingénierie mécanique à l'université Loyola de Montréal en 1976, ayant été la seule femme de sa cohorte. 

Après quelques années passées au Nigeria, elle revient au Canada pour obtenir une maîtrise en génie mécanique et accepte par la suite un poste au ministère du travail du Québec afin d’élaborer des règle et normes pour les chaudières et les appareils sous pression. Elle devient membre du National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors et fait part de comités techniques connexes de l'American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Elle devient inspectrice en chef des chaudières et appareils sous pression pour le Québec. Elle devient éventuellement vice-présidente de l'évaluation de la conformité pour l'ASME, puis membre du comité de gouvernance de l'ASME et, enfin, elle devient également la 132e présidente de l'ASME, soit la deuxième femme à obtenir le mandat et la première femme canadienne à occuper la présidence. 

En outre, elle participe à des initiatives dans le domaine de l'énergie nucléaire, en assistant à la construction, à la mise en service et au déclassement de la centrale nucléaire Gentilly 2. À sa retraite de son poste au gouvernement du Québec, elle travaille comme consultante et rédige un chapitre du livre « Daughters of the Nile : Egyptian Women Changing Their World » (Filles du Nil : des femmes égyptiennes qui changent leur monde), destiné à inspirer les étudiantes.

Madiha Kotb Snippet A

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Mechanical engineer Madiha Kotb describes her calling as "engineers do fix things". Life-saving equipment found in hospitals is designed and maintained by engineers. Society takes engineering achievements for granted, even though they are essential and everywhere in every-day life: from plumbing fixtures to electricity to the buildings that we live in. "Unfortunately", she says, "engineers did not used to be good communicators" – though initiatives like the oral history project are changing this.

David S. Weaver Snippet A

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Dr. David Weaver describes his 16 years of retirement as "travelling around the world solving big problems". Always an avid modeler, one of his first initiatives as a new professor at McMaster University was to build a model of Cape Breton Island control structures for the hydro-electric power stations. He used the model to identify and resolve potential problems converting Megawatts of water power into electricity, and as a tool to design the various components. The work, when published, was used globally to design these control structures.

Martin Fandrich Snippet A

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Mechanical engineer Dr. Martin Fandrich describes one of his design-build projects – a boat lift. The lift reaches under the water surface to pick up the boat and rotates it to the left or right for a forklift to take it to dry storage. The owner of a boat that was at the limit of the lift's capacity offered his vessel for a load test. Dr. Fandrich recalls "I am not a mariner – but it was a very expensive-looking boat!" Fortunately, the new lift functioned perfectly

Madiha Kotb English Interview

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Madiha Kotb's fifth grade teacher noted her "talent in math" and that, plus marking her 16th birthday with Niel Armstrong's moon walk, led to her decision to choose a career in engineering. She started the materials engineering program at the American University in Cairo, but with the unexpected passing of her father, she and her husband moved to Canada, and she completed her degree at Loyola in Montreal in 1976. After a couple of years in Nigeria, she returned to Canada to do a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering, and took a job with the Quebec Department of Labour to develop regulations and standards for boilers and pressure vessels. She became a member of the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors and related technical committees of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Eventually she became Chief Boiler Inspector for Quebec. She became Vice President of Conformity Assessment for ASME, then a member of the ASME Board of Governors, and, finally, served as the 132nd President of ASME. She was also aligned with nuclear power initiatives, seeing the construction, commissioning, and eventual decommissioning of the Gentilly 2 nuclear power plant. In retirement, she has worked as a consultant and written a chapter of the book "Daughters of the Nile, Egyptian Women Changing Their World", intended to inspire female students.

David S. Weaver Full Interview

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Dr. David Weaver describes his youthful interest in gasoline-engine powered go-karts, home-built radios, servicing cars, and how this led him to study mechanical engineering. He left his first job with the Ford Motor Company in Oakville to return to university for a Master's degree on satellites for Spar Aerospace and then a PhD in mathematics and physics. He found a university position and began researching nuclear for Ontario Hydro Research and hydroelectric power generation for Nova Scotia Power. He contributed to a model study of flood protection for the City of Venice conducted by the Dutch Hydrodynamics Laboratories in Delft. He worked on a fusion energy project the Joint European Taurus (JET) in England. In retirement, he has worked for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and with Babcock and Wilcox, Ontario Power Generation, and Atomic Energy of Canada. He talks of the evolution of computational tools from slide rules to computers and their applications to autonomous vehicles – and the importance of selecting the appropriate tool to max the complexity of a problem.

Martin Fandrich Full Interview

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Mechanical engineer Dr. Martin Fandrich recalls feeling engineering was the right career when he recognized he could readily visualize cross sections of objects in an undergraduate graphics class. He received a prestigious scholarship to earn his PhD from the University of Cambridge, studying vibrations. He returned to work for Rolls-Royce in Montreal, in particular the conversion of gas turbine engines originally designed for aircraft to become stationary plants for power generation. H returned to the UK to work for five years at Frazer-Nash Consultancy, working on projects "as diverse as a child's tire swing and a nuclear power plant." He subsequently created his own consulting company, Bannerman Consultants in British Columbia, where he enjoys the variety of the projects that he works on. These include: a heated press that applies a glue component to turn cleaned chopsticks into a substantial block; a mechanized boat lift for a marina; and failure analysis work. He stresses the importance of effective communication in engineering and encourages new graduate Engineers-in-Training to be humble so that they can learn from all participating in a project.