Mentors of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
Brandon Haworth
Assistant Professor
I grew up in the southern US and immigrated to Canada as a young teenager. I lived in southern Ontario for about 19 years, most of that time either in the GTA or Toronto. In 2020, I moved to Victoria to start my appointment at UVic. I have lived most of my life below the poverty line and I am the first in my family to attend University. During my education, from grade school to grad school, I was often told I was not fit for the program or not applying myself. In most of those moments, I was struggling with the consequences of poverty and later, in university, those of being a first-gen student. Now I am a first-gen faculty member, and my goal has been to emulate those mentors who helped me on my path.
Website: https://bhaworth.ca
Lab Website: https://gaidg.uvic.ca
View Brandon Haworth’s UVic profile
Bruce Kapron
Professor
Bruce Kapron grew up in Kitchener, Ontario. While neither of his parents finished 9 grade, he and his siblings all made it to post-graduate studies, and beyond. Bruce was fortunate that, as a high-school student in the 1970s, he was able to roam the halls of the University of Waterloo and get access to the computing systems there – eventually by legitimate means. This was one formative experience that led him into a lifelong study of Computer Science, although these days he is more interested in proving theorems than in hacking mainframes.
View Bruce Kapron’s UVic profile
Charles Perin
Assistant Professor
I’m an Assistant Professor in Computer Science; the road was hilly to get there. I grew up in a relatively large family in a small village in France; I had no idea what I wanted to do and so tried an Engineering school (ENIB), a University (UBO, Math), then another one (Rennes, CS), with more failures than successes. Until I discovered, by accident, Computer Science research, and more particularly human-computer interaction. I then studied in Paris and worked in Calgary, London UK, and Victoria. I attribute my success to a system where education was free; to hard work; and to luck. Through this mentorship program , I’m hoping I can help others be as lucky as I have been.
Jens Weber
Professor
I grew up in Germany. I am not only the first in my family to go to University but also the first to go to high school. Germany’s school system is different in that there are multiple tracks when leaving elementary school after Grade 4. Kids from “non-academic” families enter schools that finish at Grade 10 and then normally lead into trades or industrial work. At that age, parents usually decide for their kids according to “family tradition”. This is what happened to me. But after grade 10, I decided to upgrade to high school (another three years) and enter University to learn about computer science despite opposition from my parents. This path has not always been easy but eventually very rewarding. I am looking forward to meet and learn to know other first generation students.
View Jens Weber’s UVic profile
Keivan Ahmadi
Associate Professor
I was born and raised in a relatively small city in the northwest of Iran. I completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Engineering in Iran and then moved to Canada for my PhD at the University of Waterloo. Being the first in my family to complete a university degree has been the source of many challenges as well as important opportunities in my academic life. I am hoping to use some of those past experiences to support first generation university students, and especially international students, to overcome many barriers that they may face along their academic path.
Teseo Schneider
Assistant Professor
Teseo Schneider is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the Univerity of Victoria. Teseo earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Universita della Svizzera italiana (2017) in Switzerland. He earned a PostdocMobility fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to pursue his research at NYU. His research interests include finite element simulations, mathematics, discrete differential geometry, and geometry processing. Teseo is the leading developer of Polyfem (https://polyfem.github.io/), a flexible and easy-to-use Finite Element Library. He is one of the maintainers of libigl (https://github.com/libigl/libigl) and a contributor to wild meshing (https://github.com/wildmeshing), a 2D and 3D robust meshing library.
View Teseo Schneider’s UVic profile
Yun Lu
Assistant Professor
I came to Vancouver, Canada from Taiwan when I was in fifth grade, not knowing how to speak a word of English and learning it through watching old cartoons. While my parents always supported my interest in academia, as a first gen student and immigrant, I always had to seek outside help on university applications and resume writing–or advice on picking a major–I switched to Computer Science fairly late into my undergrad. I am fortunate to have some incredibly kind mentors throughout my academic journey, and I would love to pay it forward by becoming a mentor myself.