Professor Martha Salcudean was a professor emerita and former head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UBC. She passed away on 17 July 2019.

Professor Salcudean was born in Romania. She survived internment in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and decades living under totalitarian regimes in Romania, before emigrating to Canada in 1976. She held the position of Professor at the University of Ottawa for nine years before moving to UBC, where she served as the first female head of a Canadian university’s engineering department.

Greatly respected in the field of heat transfer and fluid flow, Professor Salcudean published extensively and held many awards. She received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Ottawa, University of Waterloo and UBC, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Professor Salcudean was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 1998 and became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2004.

Professor Salcudean was a beloved friend and mentor to many. She will be missed by her family, colleagues and many friends at UBC and around the world.

To honour Professor Salcudean’s life and accomplishments, her colleagues at UBC will be establishing the Martha Salcudean Memorial Award. Your gift will pay tribute to Professor Salcudean’s life by supporting students studying engineering at UBC. Final decisions on the award description and student eligibility will be made in consultation with the family.