Dr. David T. Lynch

Dean, Faculty of Engineering
University of Alberta

Dr. David Lynch has been called the “Building Dean” because of the $250 million in new infrastructure investment that has taken place on his watch as head of the University of Alberta Faculty of Engineering. He has also been a tireless builder of Alberta’s science and technology community in other, equally significant, ways.

Since he was appointed dean in 1995, Dr. Lynch has concentrated on recruiting outstanding students and faculty and obtaining the resources to provide them with an exceptional educational and research environment. The results have been dramatic. Undergraduate enrollment has increased 40 per cent, placing the faculty in the top five per cent of engineering schools in North America. Graduate enrollment more than doubled in the last five years, to over 1,000, at a time when graduate enrollment nationally was flat. And the faculty has grown by one third, to 165. 

This impressive growth was achieved with no sacrifice of quality. The faculty’s undergraduate entrance requirements have risen from 70 to 80 per cent, the highest on campus. In a recent three-year period, students in the faculty received five out of the six C.D. Howe awards, granted for the best undergraduate engineering students in Canada. The faculty has the highest current number of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Steacie Fellows of any engineering faculty in Canada. It has also increased its NSERC industrial research chairs from one to 10, the most of any faculty in Canada.