Parisa Bastani awarded UBC Outstanding Future Alumnus Award

Not many people can claim to have driven a race car, and hardly anyone can say they headed a team to design, build and compete in one, but for recent engineering grad Parisa Bastani this experience was just one of several highlights to mark her jam-packed years at UBC. Her student record is notable not only for outstanding academic achievement, but also for extensive involvement outside the classroom and a willingness to serve the student population as a leader, mentor and representative.

Ms Bastani’s brush with race cars came as captain of UBC’s Formula Society of Automotive Engineers, which designs and builds a new race car each year to compete against 140 other universities and colleges worldwide in an annual race in California. She was the first female to captain and technically lead a Formula SAE team in North America competitions and during her time at UBC has been a mentor to more than 100 students in automotive engineering design and manufacture.

But the Formula Society was not the only team she was involved with. As chair of the Engineering Student Team Council (ESTC) she provided leadership to hundreds of fellow students working in 12 teams on challenging projects to design and/or build submarines, robots, space shuttles, rockets, concrete toboggans, helicopters and fuel-efficient green cars. She not only provided technical expertise, but also encouraged collaboration among departments and facilitated fundraising.

She has mentored many junior students in their career planning and academic needs, helped international students settle into new surroundings and advised on effective leadership in multi-cultural teams. She has been a speaker for various leadership, engineering, and international events, and has served on several committees and councils within the faculty of Applied Science.

Academically, Ms Bastani is outstanding. She was a permanent fixture on the Dean’s Honour list since her first year at UBC and in 2009 was named a Wesbrook scholar, UBC’s most prestigious student designation. She has also been noticed by professional organizations and the corporate sector, and was granted an award for Best Engineering Paper on suspension design from GM in a competition that included faculty as well as students. She recently accepted full graduate scholarships for Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Although she will be in demand from industry, automotive engineering isn’t necessarily her future. Her graduate work will be in technology management and policy. She is driven by humanitarian considerations and how technological advances can be optimized and regulated for the well-being of all segments of society.