After joining Waterloo as Dean on July 1, 2003, Dean Sedra has overseen many of the changes in Waterloo’s engineering programs and facilities. Three new programs were introduced during his term: Mechatronics in 2003, Nanotechnology in 2005 and Management in 2007. The School of Architecture also moved from the Faculty of Environment to the Faculty of Engineering in 2005, bringing another program into our engineering family.
He also oversaw the beginning of a renaissance in construction for engineering facilities on campus with the construction of Engineering 5 in 2010, marking the first of the numbered engineering buildings to open since 1971, when Carl Pollock Hall (originally Engineering 4) opened. Engineering 6 opened shortly afterwards in 2011.
Coming into the position to work on the Vision 2010 plan, it seems only fitting that he would leave once having overseen the completion of the Vision 2015 plan, which among other things lays groundwork for Engineering 7 and 8, a program in Biomedical Engineering, and the overhaul of many aging labs.
Always one to enjoy student input and teaching, he co-wrote one of the most widely used textbooks on microelectronic circuits and taught a course on electronic circuits. While The Iron Warrior was unable to meet with him in the week before publication, we opted not to leave our appreciation for his leadership for the past nine years unnoticed, and wish him luck in his retirement and potential future endeavours.
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