Four distinguished alumni and faculty were lauded on June 19 by the Faculty of Engineering at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum for its annual Applause & Accolades recognition event.
The theme, “New Heights,” celebrated the outstanding careers of the award recipients, who proudly represent Mac Eng in their respective fields. Guests, including faculty, staff, alumni, industry partners, and friends of the Faculty, had the opportunity to engage with five space and aerospace clubs and teams while enjoying piano tunes by McMaster Software Engineering student Aidan Lao.
During remarks by Heather Sheardown, Dean of Engineering, she noted the event being a highlight of the year for the Faculty and reinforced McMaster Engineering’s multifaceted and ever-growing connections to the space and aerospace industries.
“Applause and Accolades is a marquee event for our Faculty. It’s an opportunity to gather as an academic community and applaud people who are using their engineering ingenuity to create a brighter future,” says Sheardown.
The honourees of Mac Eng’s 2024 Applause & Accolades, include:
Michelle George ‘95 | Engineering Leadership Award
Michelle George is Senior Vice President and Chief Transition Officer at Enbridge Gas Inc. and a member of Enbridge’s Executive Leadership Team. She is responsible for driving organizational change and initiatives that enable growth, position the company to capture new opportunities, and ensure we continue to add value to our customers and stakeholders. She works closely with senior leadership and across businesses to streamline business processes, enhance competitiveness and sustain high performance in service of Enbridge’s mission to be the first choice for energy delivery in North America and beyond.
George was elected as a Fellow into the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 2022 and was named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 by the Women’s Executive Network in 2019. She is a Professional Engineer and holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and Management degree from McMaster University.
Having the opportunity to look back now over the decades, there’s no question that we’ve come a long way in our industry and in society in general when it comes to diversity but we’re still on a journey and the real goal is inclusion. People are most effective when they could be authentically themselves at work and we benefit when everyone brings their unique skills to the work that they do.
Carlos Filipe | Faculty of Engineering Entrepreneurship Award
Carlos Filipe joined the Faculty of Engineering at McMaster in 2002. He is currently the chair of and a professor in the department of chemical engineering and will soon take on the role of Associate Dean, Research, Innovation and Partnerships in the Faculty.
In 2019 he co-founded a company called Elarex with the mission to make all types of medicine and drugs more accessible. As Elarex’s scientific advisor, Filipe’s company developed a technology to thermally stabilize vaccines so that their distribution becomes less dependent on maintaining the “cold chain”. This innovation addressed the critical need for more efficient ways to transport vaccines, particularly liquid mRNA vaccines, that played a key role in the global community’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccination is a pillar of global health, says Filipe, and creating sustainable forms of transporting these vaccines means they become more accessible to remote communities in Canada and throughout the world.
I would like to first thank the Faculty of Engineering. It’s a nurturing, very supportive place where you’re recognized when you take risks, when you fail and when you succeed. And different types of contributions like teaching, research and service are all greatly valued.
Isabela Ozamiz ‘17 | Engineering Young Alumni Leadership Award
Isabela Ozamiz is a software development manager at Hopper Inc. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering and Management in electrical and electronics engineering from McMaster University.
She is the co-founder of Lynx Learning, which provides coding workshops that teach an introduction to HTML and Javascript. Founded during the COVID-19 pandemic, it supports individuals without programming experiences to create their own online resume websites. Lynx Learning has helped learners gain employment in the tech industry.
Ozamiz has also partnered with Parents for Diversity to create resources for teachers, including the Periodic Table of Canadian Black History and the Periodic Table of Canadian Women’s History. Both resources have been accessed by more than 300,000 unique users and have been used in classrooms for the past three years.
I’m really grateful for all my time there and to McMaster; this school really sets you up for success. The Fireball Family means a lot to me, and I’m just so grateful.
“I would like to first thank the faculty of engineering, it’s a nurturing, very supportive, a place where you’re recognized when you take risks, when you fail, and when you succeed, and different types of contributions teaching, research, and service which are all greatly valuable. And not only the faculty and students but also staff.”
Geordie Rose ’94 | L.W. Shemilt Distinguished Alumni Award
Geordie Rose co-founded Sanctuary in 2018 and is its CEO. Prior to Sanctuary, Geordie founded D-Wave, the world’s first quantum computing company, and was the CEO of Kindred, the world’s first robotics company to use reinforcement learning in a production environment. He has sold quantum computers and robots to Google, NASA, Lockheed Martin, Gap Inc. and several US government agencies. He was named the 2011 Canadian Innovator of the Year, was listed on Foreign Policy Magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2013, and won the 2014 Canadian Technology Leader award.
Rose holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of British Columbia. He is a two-time Canadian national wrestling champion, is a member of the McMaster University Hall of Fame, and was the winner of the 2010 NAGA masters white belt Brazilian jiu-jitsu world championships in both gi and no-gi categories.
The Faculty of Engineering accepted Rose’s award on his behalf as he was unable to attend the ceremony.