Faculty of Engineering

Valerie Davidson was one of four women in her first-year Engineering class at McMaster. After completing her B.Eng. in chemical engineering, she earned a Master of Food Science at the University of Guelph and then a PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Toronto. Currently a University Professor emerita at the University of Guelph, Dr. Davidson started at Guelph as an associate professor in the School of Engineering and adjunct professor in the Department of Food Science. She has since been director of the Food Research Program, developed an innovative food engineering program and held the NSERC/HP Canada and NSERC/RIM Chair for Women in Science and Engineering. A Registered Professional Engineer (Ontario) since 1979, Dr. Davidson has also been a consultant to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. 

A keystone of Dr. Davidson’s career has been her advocacy for inclusion in engineering. She has been a member of the Canadian Committee on Women in Engineering, helped lead the Engineering Professional Success mentorship program and led the team that developed an outreach program that connects with everyone from elementary students to technology professionals. She was the founding chair of the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering (ONWiE) and a founding member of the Women in Engineering Leadership Institute. She has been a member of the board of directors for the WinSETT Centre, a not-for-profit that works to increase female participation in science, engineering, trade and technology careers, and she has also served on the boards of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation and the Canadian Society of Professional Engineers. 

Dr. Davidson has received the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers’ Award for Support of Women in the Engineering Profession and the YMCA-YWCA of Guelph’s Women of Distinction recognition. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Citizenship Award at the Ontario Professional Engineers Awards and in 2022, the University of Waterloo granted Dr. Davidson with an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree.  

Jay Botham is graduating from McMaster University’s Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering program. Jay’s passion for finding innovative solutions to climate change has guided her academic and extracurricular activities while at McMaster.

As an active member of the Chem-E-Car team, she attended the national championship in Boston in 2025 and served as the team’s Co-President in 2025-26. She also served as Vice-President of the Chemical Engineering Society and held several student mentoring roles. She competed in various engineering competitions, where her team placed first at the Ontario Engineering Competition and second at the Canadian Engineering Competition. She also completed three research internships in Vancouver and Munich, Germany, and is a co-author of two academic publications.

In her free time, Jay enjoys hiking and spending time outdoors. This fall, she will begin a PhD in Materials at the University of Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar, where her research will focus on next-generation solar panels.

Eleanor Robson is graduating from the Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering program, where she took a special interest in bioreaction engineering and separations technologies. Her interest in bioengineering emerged in high school, when she began to travel through remote areas of northern Ontario and the Yukon on extended whitewater canoe trips. These immersive experiences, paddling and living in some of the most beautiful areas of Canada, inspired her to embrace environmental stewardship – to learn how to protect the environment and preserve the clean water around her.

Through her time at McMaster, Eleanor completed co-op terms in diverse areas of chemical engineering and gained a breadth of industry-specific knowledge in biofabrication and tissue engineering, nuclear fuel containment, and molecular recycling of waste plastics. Her final internship was as a Process & Applications Engineering Intern at Veolia, focusing on municipal water and wastewater treatment – a true full-circle moment. In August, she will return to Veolia in the Water Engineering Program, gaining practical experience and working toward a career in water treatment engineering. Eleanor looks forward to contributing to a future where clean water and healthy ecosystems thrive for generations to come.

Hady Ibrahim is graduating from McMaster University’s Integrated Biomedical Engineering and Health Sciences program, specializing in Software and Biomedical Engineering. As a recipient of the Governor General’s Academic Medal, Hady has distinguished himself through exceptional academic achievement, industry experience, research, and teaching.

Hady has built a strong foundation across machine learning, healthcare technology, and real-world intelligent systems. He has completed internships at Apple and Shopify, contributing to software and machine learning systems used in industry. At McMaster, he worked with Dr. Matthew Giamou on intelligent convolutional neural networks for detecting magnetic microrobots in ultrasound imaging, with potential applications in targeted drug delivery. His capstone project, Hearpoint.ai, developed real-time AI-powered hearing assistance by isolating a desired speaker in noisy environments using low-latency, on-device machine learning.

Beyond his technical work, Hady has served as a teaching assistant in health design, genetic engineering, digital systems, and programming. After graduation, he will return to Shopify to build machine learning systems that help power smarter product discovery and the future of AI-driven commerce.

Jay Botham is graduating from McMaster University’s Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering program. Jay’s passion for finding innovative solutions to climate change has guided her academic and extracurricular activities while at McMaster.

As an active member of the Chem-E-Car team, she attended the national championship in Boston in 2025 and served as the team’s Co-President in 2025-26. She also served as Vice-President of the Chemical Engineering Society and held several student mentoring roles. She competed in various engineering competitions, where her team placed first at the Ontario Engineering Competition and second at the Canadian Engineering Competition. She also completed three research internships in Vancouver and Munich, Germany, and is a co-author of two academic publications.

In her free time, Jay enjoys hiking and spending time outdoors. This fall, she will begin a PhD in Materials at the University of Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar, where her research will focus on next-generation solar panels.