STRONG, determined and resilient, yet full of kindness and whimsy – that is how Kuala Lumpur-born Dr Pearl Lee Sullivan is remembered at the University of Waterloo, Canada.
“She was, as someone once said, in every sense an ‘iron butterfly’,” said the university’s Engineering dean Prof Mary Wells of her predecessor.
Sullivan, who was the first woman to be appointed to the role at the university, steered the Faculty of Engineering through a period of significant growth and innovation during her tenure from 2012 to 2019, before her passing in 2020 at the age of 59 after a battle with cancer.
Her legacy continues to be honoured at the university through the recent renaming of its iconic Engineering 7 building as The Pearl Lee Sullivan Engineering Building.
Prof Wells, in an email interview with StarEdu, said the renaming was made possible by a transformational $20mil (RM59mil) gift from Frank and Valerie Baylis’s Gloria Baylis Foundation.
“The foundation saw a powerful connection between Gloria Baylis and Pearl Sullivan, both trailblazing women whose resilience and leadership opened doors for others. It is a fitting tribute to Pearl’s impact on our community and to the standard she set for engineering education and research,” she said.
Reflecting on Sullivan’s contributions, Prof Wells said as dean, Sullivan elevated Waterloo Engineering’s global research profile in fields like artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, nanotechnology and robotics, while ensuring students had the hands-on experiences to match their ambitions.
“She championed the Educating the Engineer of the Future campaign, led the construction of Engineering 7 and the launch of the Engineering IDEAs Clinic – now also named in her honour – and strengthened a culture that values both entrepreneurship and inclusion.
“Those choices continue to shape how our students learn, how our researchers partner with industry and how we work for the public good,” she said.
An aerial view of the building. – University of Waterloo
