Print
$10,000 Scholarship for Civil Engineering Undergraduate
May 22, 2009
Kyla Fisher was days away from boarding a plane to do volunteer work in Ghana with Engineers Without Borders (EWB) when she received the news. She was one of three recipients of the 2009 Vale Inco Undergraduate Scholarship from the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation (CEMF) and would be receiving $10,000.
Kyla is a second-year civil engineering student at McMaster enrolled in the water and environment stream. She is a member of the Engineers Without Borders chapter and active in organizing its very popular high-school outreach program. She had also been chosen as a junior fellow, which meant working in Ghana this summer.
One of the scholarship perks that Kyla had to pass up because of her work was being flown by Vale Inco to the CEMF Annual Awards Luncheon to receive her award. This year they were held in Montreal during the inaugural Engineering Summit and the Engineers Canada annual general meeting on May 22.
But for Kyla, it was a small sacrifice to make. Having flown into Ghana on May 13, she was focused on working with the local government in the northern Gushiegu District for the next three and a half months. She describes her work on her blog [http://kylasummer09.blogspot.com] as follows:
“My job is to help improve planning processes and data management at the district level with the aim of improving the Gushiegu District’s ability to effectively deliver infrastructure to the area. This is part of EWB’s larger strategy working with the government in Northern Ghana called the “Governance and Rural Infrastructure” program (GARI). I find this program really interesting and can’t wait to see how it actually works in Ghana.”
The Vale Inco scholarship program with the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation was introduced this year to recognize women in university undergraduate engineering programs who serve as role models for younger women. Students apply for the scholarship and are chosen on the basis of their leadership, extracurricular activities and dedication to encouraging women to enter engineering.
The other two scholarship recipients this year are Alix Bertrand, a third-year mining engineering student at Laurentian University, and Suzan Matti, who is pursuing a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Windsor.
The Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation provides a total of 13 scholarships at the undergraduate, Masters and PhD levels of study and promotes engineering as a career choice for women through their website, Annual Awards Luncheon and scholarship winner presentations to high school students. The Foundation was founded in 1990 and honours the memory of the 14 women from École Polytechnique in Montreal who lost their lives on December 6, 1989.
Scholarship criteria for the 2010 Vale Inco Undergraduate Scholarships will be posted in July 2009. The deadline for submissions is January 8, 2010. Click HERE for more details.
