First Year Engineering

Special Interest Group

Dr. Carol Hulls, P.Eng. is Associate Chair Teaching and a Continuing Lecturer in the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Department at the University of Waterloo.  Her role involves supporting instructors in the department to improve teaching and learning in a wide range of areas including mentoring of new faculty, supporting the adoption of innovative teaching and learning approaches, and promoting reflective practice as a way to improve teaching.  She received her PhD from the University of Waterloo in Electrical and Computer Engineering.  She has been teaching courses in programming, sensor fusion, and computer hardware since 1999, and has taught several thousand first year engineering students, primarily in mechanical and mechatronics engineering.  In 2016 she received the Brightspace Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning for her work developing open-ended design activities for first year students in engineering.  After having spent much of the pandemic live-streaming her lectures from home, she is happy to return to the classroom and the greater interaction it provides with students.

Co-chair: Farrah Fayyaz

Dr. Farrah Fayyaz is a Lecturer in the Center for Engineering in Society in Gina Cody School of

Engineering and Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She got her PhD in

Engineering Education from Purdue University. She holds Bachelors and Master degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. She has taught Electrical Engineering related courses for almost twenty years now. She is very passionate about teaching and research related to math intensive concepts of engineering. Her research seeks to improve engineering education by studying electrical engineering students' conceptual understanding across the borders. In addition to teaching and research she enjoys mentoring and coaching young future engineers.