PhD students who apply for CAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards will automatically be considered for the Martha Salcudean Prize in Mechanical Engineering.
Prizes totaling $1,000 have been made available annually by the Department of Mechanical Engineering, in memory of former Department Head, Professor Martha Salcudean (FRSC, OC, OBC) (1934-2019) for outstanding Ph.D. students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who have written a strong doctoral dissertation. Professor Salcudean (1934-2019) was a leading expert in computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer, and the first woman to lead an engineering department at a Canadian university. Born in Romania, Professor Salcudean was a Holocaust survivor and lived under totalitarian communist regimes before emigrating to Canada 1975. Head of UBC Mechanical Engineering from 1985 to 1993, she was integral to the growth of the department. Professor Salcudean was internationally recognized for her contributions to metallurgy and pulp and paper processes.
- Eligibility : Mechanical Engineering students must have submitted the final copy of their PhD thesis to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. Note: Students who apply for CAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards will automatically be considered for the Martha Salcudean Prize in Mechanical Engineering and no extra application will be required.
- Evaluation criteria: The award(s) will be given to the student(s) who has achieved an outstanding academic record as a doctoral student(s), as assessed through the applicant’s submitted materials to the Governor General’s Gold Medal.
- Value: Each award is valued at $1,000. The prize is contingent on a candidate who is outstanding in the above criteria, and may not be awarded every year.