Nov 17, 2000
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA Nov 17, 2000 |
 Tragedy along the way to his mechanical engineering PhD tested Ramin Sedaghati’s will to continue his studies.The sudden death of popular professor Dr. Bez Tabarrok (in April 1999 following heart surgery) struck Sedaghati particularly hard. Tabarrok — his mentor, the person from whom he sought advice on a daily basis, the guiding hand behind his doctoral thesis — was gone. “It was a real shock. We had worked with each other every day for two years and then suddenly he’s not here. I became depressed and lost interest to continue,” says Sedaghati who, like Tabarrok, was born in Tehran. “The whole idea behind my thesis belongs to Dr.Tabarrok. He introduced the topic, raised up issues and gave me milestones to reach for in the thesis.” The loss was compounded because few others share the expertise Tabarrok (founding chair of UVic’s mechanical engineering department) possessed in structures such as the antennae and robot arms designed for the space shuttle and the International Space Station. But department chair Dr. Sadik Dost linked Sedaghati with Dr. Afzal Suleman, an adaptive structures specialist who had arrived at UVic only six months before Tabarrok’s death. With Suleman’s guidance, the student regained his passion for his work, which he has dedicated to the memory of his mentor. Sedaghati, 35, completed his PhD in three years (a year ahead of schedule) with an 8.8 grade point average. His thesis research, which offers a faster computer-based method of structural design optimization, has been published 15 times in journals and conference proceedings. He now turns his sights to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), having accepted a post-doctoral fellowship funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. “My work at CSA hasn’t been defined specifically but it may involve multi-disciplinary design optimization and reduction of over-testing during vibration tests of the space shuttle. In the long-term I plan to seek a faculty position at a Canadian university.” Bez Tabarrok’s graduate student — the last of many inspired by him — is moving forward proudly. |