The Ottawa Citizen published the following story about Carleton Engineering Professor Moyra McDill. It was written by Louisa Taylor on November 20, 2009.
Dr. Moyra McDill is a Carleton engineering prof who on Saturday (Nov. 21) will receive an award from the Ontario Professional Engineers Assn.
Photograph by: Bruno Schlumberger, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA-She’s to be honoured by her peers for her contribution to engineering and society. Louisa Taylor speaks with Moyra McDill.
When she was a little girl growing up on River Road in south Ottawa, Moyra McDill loved her dolls and her building blocks, but she cherished one toy more than any other.
“My brothers gave me a toy construction shovel; it was orange and it had a fully functional bucket,” McDill says. “I thought it was the best thing going. I kept that shovel until just a couple of years ago. By the end, the plastic was brittle and falling apart.”
So it might seem like destiny that today, McDill, 52, is an engineer at the top of her profession, about to be honoured by her peers for her contribution to engineering and society. An expert in thermal-mechanical numerical analysis, McDill is a professor and associate chair (undergraduate studies) with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Carleton University, a commissioner of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, an author and a mentor to young engineers.
However, McDill says her story is about far more than destiny. It’s also about receiving support and encouragement every step of the way.
“This is about parents who grit their teeth and let me use their tools,” says McDill, noting that her father lovingly saved a snowplow she nailed together from old two-by-fours when she was six.
“It’s about every elementary and high school teacher along the way who supported my love of math and science, every prof who gave me summer research jobs. It’s about Carleton University, which gave me my professional start after I got my PhD.”
On Saturday, McDill will be in Toronto to receive the Engineering Excellence medal from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.
“Moyra is extraordinarily well-rounded,” said Jeanette Southwood, the chair of the awards committee. “She serves on the nuclear commission, she has been a mentor to many, many students, and she has served the profession.”
McDill’s main research focus uses mathematics and physics to create “what if” scenarios to help predict how a material will withstand stress, such as during welding or other stages of manufacturing. “It saves full-scale testing and reduces the time and money spent on it,” McDill says.
After graduating from Merivale High School, McDill arrived at Carleton University in 1975, one of 10 women in the engineering class. She become the first woman to get a PhD in mechanical engineering at Carleton and the first woman to be promoted through the ranks to a professorship.
McDill married her first-year lab partner, Alan Oddy, and they had their first child, Sarah, in 1989: the same year that gunman Marc Lépine killed 14 women, 12 of them engineering students, at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal. McDill was on maternity leave at the time.
“After an event like that, you take stock of things and wonder if there isn’t a different kind of contribution you should be making,” McDill says. “When I returned to work in January, I became the dean’s adviser for women in engineering.”
McDill also became more active in mentoring young women, researching the barriers to girls and women in science and doing outreach in schools.
McDill’s career reached another fork in 1998, when Oddy collapsed one day after the couple marked their 20th wedding anniversary. The diagnosis was terminal brain cancer, and, in spite of aggressive experimental treatments, he died in 2001.
Now a single mother of three, McDill took on new roles, such as her current associate chair position, which gave her greater flexibility. Since 2002, she has sat on the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which regulates nuclear power plants, research facilities, uranium mines and other uses of nuclear material, a position she loves for the way it pulls together various elements of her background.
In 2007, McDill branched out again with the publication of When Cancer Entered Our Family, a cancer resource book. “It felt good to write it and share it so that people can see what happens inside a family when you get that diagnosis,” she says.
McDill’s daughter, Sarah, now 20, is the latest engineer in the family, studying chemical engineering at the University of Ottawa. Twins Andrew and Carolyn, 15, are in high school.
One of the perks of being involved in administrative work, McDill says, is that she has lots of contact with students and a chance to give them the same support she received along the way.
“I really value that part of the position,” McDill says. “Students are the future.”
Friday, November 20, 2009 in News Releases
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