Q&A WITH engHERO: Samin Eftekhari

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment as an engineer?

Ever since I was a child, I was interested in the creation of new things. Being trained as an engineer, gave me the ability to advance in my professional career based on my interest and passion. My patented novel biomaterial for bone repair applications is my proudest achievement.

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

While I was doing research for my Master’s degree, I was working on developing a new material to be used as an artificial artery, and trying to modify its blood coagulation capability. The process was full of hurdles and obstacles, but I did not give up because I wanted to have my contribution in making the lives of the patients with heart-related conditions, including my father, easier. For my PhD project, I decided to do research on the common ways for treating bone fractures and finding new solutions and ways to alleviate the pain of patients with bone injuries. Whole my life, I’ve tried to make an impact in people’s lives for a better future.

Q: What are you doing these days?

I am working on a project that came out of my PhD research. I have developed a novel orthopedic material that mimics natural human bone. Using this patented technology, we are in the process of developing personalized orthopedic implants with customizable shape, strength and absorption rates for each individual patient with bone injury. Artin Biomed, is a start-up company that I have founded to develop these implants and brings them to the medical market.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

I believe engineering transforms students into future entrepreneurs. I feel it is important to train more female engineers because engineering skills empower women, so that they will have the required abilities to change the lives of everyone around them.

Q: When you were becoming an engineer, were you nervous and stressed out about all the math and science? What made you push through and become an engineer? Were you sure that you wanted to become an engineer when you were in Grade 12?

In some regions of the world, girls face double discrimination and unique barriers to development, simply because they are female. My passion and courage to break social barriers helped me cope with all of the challenges related to the technical difficulty of the field that I chose.

Q: Do you have any hobbies/passions that give you a unique perspective in engineering?

I exercise every day and swim every weekend. As an engineer, I know that in order to operate functionally and productively, we have to take care of the most important and amazing machine of life: our bodies!

Q: Tell us about your Norman Esch Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award idea, and what motivated you to get started?

I was privileged to receive Norman Esch Engineering Awards. I used the award money to fund market analyses for my business idea, build a business model, and test it out. I believe that through this ongoing experience, I became much more familiarized with business and management skills such as budget management and business planning. I developed a business plan for my idea, which stems out of my PhD research. Through this opportunity, I have been able to hone in on a great deal of skills which I believe are valuable assets in order to be a successful entrepreneur in the future.

Q&A WITH engHERO: Laura Smith

Q: What’s one thing you wish you knew about engineering back when you were in high school?

I wish I knew that Software Engineering could be a career for me! I was intimidated by technology and programming so I didn’t consider it a viable option for me. It wasn’t until my first year programming class that I tried programming for the first time. I then realized that Software Engineering combines math, problem solving and logic, which were all things that I loved!

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment as an engineer?

My proudest accomplishment has been building my startup Pout, and then getting acquired by a great company! As the sole technical team member of Pout, I learned how to build solutions to constant challenges. I also saw the product I was creating being loved by our users, which was very gratifying!

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

Programming languages are constantly changing so I am constantly discovering new ways of architecting and building apps. At my current job, I’m on a great team where there is a culture of curiosity and humility. We all are open to learning from each other and excited to build great products.

Q: Do you feel your work contributes to society? How so?

Yes, I get to see millions of people using the Everalbum iOS app and specific features that I built, which is very rewarding! The Everalbum app allows people to better organize all of their photo and video memories in one place. Solving this problem is very valuable to people as they struggle to keep track of all of their memories from various places on their devices and the internet.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

More than 50 percent of users of apps are female, so it only makes sense that we also have females contributing to and building these apps! Teams with diversified perspectives make better decisions so having females on the team is hugely important!

Also, there is a massive deficit of software engineers, which will only continue to grow. If the same number of females became Software Engineers as males, this would be a game-changing boost to our economy and the speed and quality of technology innovation.

Q: When you were becoming an engineer, were you nervous and stressed out about all the math and science? What made you push through and become an engineer? Were you sure that you wanted to become an engineer when you were in Grade 12?

I always enjoyed math and science, but I didn’t see myself working as an engineer. I was especially intimidated by Software Engineering, after watching too many Hollywood movies highlighting “genius hacker kids”. Having never done programming until my first year, I thought I was far behind my classmates who had tried it in high school. However, I really enjoyed my first year programming course and all of its projects. With my professor’s encouragement, I followed my interest, despite being intimidated!

Q: What are you doing these days?

I am working as a Software Engineer on the iOS team at Everalbum, the company that acquired Pout. My day-to-day work involves programming new features, analyzing how people are using our app, and using this information to decide what features to build next.

Q&A WITH engHERO: Siobhan Robinson

Q: What’s one thing you wish you knew about engineering back when you were in high school?

That engineering is all about helping people.  When I was younger I was dead set on being a doctor because I wanted to help people live healthier, happier lives. I decided to enroll in chemical engineering and complete it with a biology minor to get most of the medical school pre-requisites out of the way. I also wanted a degree that would open doors and I figured that double engineering and medicine degrees would be very powerful.

In my last year of my undergrad, I took a course on water and wastewater treatment and my whole perspective on engineering changed.  I found out that, historically, the most significant impacts to public health were connected not to advances in medical science, but to the disinfection of drinking water and installation of proper sanitation systems. This discovery helped me to connect my desire to help people live healthy lives with the engineering and problem solving that I had come to love through my undergraduate degree. I haven’t looked back!

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment as an engineer?

This one is tough. I remember feeling very proud when I was chosen to travel to northern BC to talk to students about engineering, to expose them to the work that we do and talk about how engineering is all about helping people.  I had only been working for a couple of years and I felt like I was being chosen to be an ambassador for the profession. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and have continued to look for opportunities to interact with kids and show them the wonderful world of engineering. My other proudest moment was when I received my professional designation and joined the ranks of the incredible engineers who have paved the way for all who follow… pun intended :).

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

I work as a consultant which gives me lots of opportunities to work in teams with smart people with different areas of expertise to solve difficult problems.  One project where my work has been about discovery or curiosity is a corrosion project for the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMoW). The RMoW has many different water sources and historically has seen evidence of internal corrosion across their system (i.e. green staining of faucets, pinhole leaks in domestic piping and leakage in particular areas of the distribution system). They hired us to work with them to figure out how this corrosion might impact the lifespan of their pipe in the ground and identify the best way to manage any corrosion that is occurring.

To start, we had to determine how corrosive the water actually was, then figure out the best way to manage it. In doing our background research we found out that not only is there no standard way to determine if source water is corrosive, but also that there is a lot of disagreement in the scientific community about how corrosive water actually degrades the pipes from the inside out (particularly with copper corrosion typically associated with green staining). We did some baseline testing and found that the water is very aggressive to steel, but copper samples installed in the system were not degraded rapidly. We’re very curious about what is happening on the surface of the materials and are currently partnering with the University of British Columbia to discover what is actually happening at to the surface at the molecular level and determine how this will impact the lifespan of RMoW’s infrastructure.

Q: Do you feel your work contributes to society? How so?

Absolutely! My work focuses on water and wastewater infrastructure which I feel is the foundation for healthy communities… I might be a little bit biased here.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

I think that teams benefit from the diversity of not only gender, but also practice area, race, and age because this diversity brings many different perspectives to the table. These varying perspectives allow us to be more creative and innovative in the way that we solve problems. With these differing opinions, approaches and perspectives it’s not always easy to agree on a solution, but when we do, the solution is usually a much better one. One other strength I see with my female peers is that we are often excellent integrative, systems thinkers who are good at seeing the big picture and using this perspective to figure out how to organize and break down difficult problems.

Q: Is there a person who influenced your decision to become an engineer?

Yes, I was definitely influenced by two strong women in my life. My Aunt who is a civil engineer/lawyer who works as a patent and trademark agent and my sister who started chemical engineering two years ahead of me then went on to do her PhD in biomedical engineering.

Q: How did it feel to be listed as one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women in 2015?

Surreal! It is humbling to be part of a group of such incredible women. This network has inspired me to dream big and to believe that I can accomplish anything that I set my mind to.