Natasha D'Souza

Dr. Nadia Bhuiyan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Concordia University. We spoke about her journey into engineering. She had numerous engineers in her family therefore knew quite a bit about while growing up. She was part of the talented and gifted (TAG) program in high school and excelled in math, physics and chemistry.

“After CEGEP I wanted to go to university and do some teaching in some capacity at a university level. I did not pick arts because I did not want to be a starving artist.”

She picked Industrial engineering as the descriptions of this program seemed to indicate that it was more people oriented and cross functional. She did her undergraduate at Concordia University and went on to McGill to do a Masters and Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering. Her thesis work was building analytical and simulation models of concurrent engineering processes.

We talked about what a graduate student does asides from take courses.

“As a graduate student I collaborated with companies to get data which I used to build analytical models to represent the processes. These findings were then published in journals and research reports. I read a lot of books and attended conferences as well.”

With a year still to go in her Ph.D program, Nadia moved to Queens University to teach in the Business School there. She finished the Ph.D along the way.

“I moved back to Montreal to work as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Concordia University.

“I have been here for five years and currently going through the process of tenure. Tenure is the process whereby you have to prove yourself to your peers. You have to be good at teaching, serve the university community and do lots of research. On average I teach three to four courses a year, spend about ten percent of my time on committees and spend the most time on research.”

For the first three years, as assistant professor, she worked very hard and surpassed any goals that she set for herself. We discussed what doing research means.

“Doing research means that you have to pick a topic that you want to work on. This could be an extension of graduate studies. From there I branch off into different areas. Typically maintain the main stream of research. You have to be self driven and motivated as you don’t have a boss to tell you what to do. You have to read extensively in your area, find gaps and fill in those gaps. Others have looked at this area and made many assumptions so one possibility is investigate this further and make it a little more realistic. Collaboration with other professors is another way to do research. This research is presented at various conferences and published as well”

Nadia is currently going through the process of tenure. After working as an assistant professor for five years you are eligible to start the process of tenure. This involves submitting a dossier of about four hundred to eight hundred pages that describes the research you have done, committees you have been part or teaching etc. This is then presented to a committee. If accepted you then become an associate professor. To become a full professor you have to so a lot more publishing.

I asked Nadia what aspects of being a professor she likes.

“I really like the teaching part and interacting with the students. The research is very interesting and like that part too. I am very passionate about the teaching. The best advice that I can give anyone considering a career is to follow your bliss and try to find what you really like to do. You are at work for at least eight hours a day, five days a week. So make sure it’s something you love to do.”

When Nadia is not doing research or teaching she spends time with her son.