Rabab
Kreidieh Ward is a Lebanese-Canadian electrical engineer specializing in
signal processing
Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniq ...
. She is a
professor emerita
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
of electrical and computer engineering at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
.
Education and career
Despite finishing high school with the highest marks in her year in Lebanon, Ward was refused admission to the engineering program at the
American University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...
because she was a woman. Instead, she began studying medicine at
Cairo University
Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...
to please her father, but quickly switched to engineering there, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1966. She worked briefly for the Ministry of Hydro-Electric Resources in
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
before coming to the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
for graduate study in electrical engineering and computer science, where she earned a master's degree in 1969 and completed her PhD in 1972.
She moved to Vancouver following her husband, a civil engineer who had obtained a faculty position at the University of British Columbia while she had been unsuccessful in her own academic job search. Eventually, she found part time work as a lecturer at the University of British Columbia, from 1973 to 1975. In 1975, they both obtained faculty positions at the
University of Rhodesia
The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) is a public university in Harare, Zimbabwe. It opened in 1952 as the University College of Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and was initially affiliated with the University of London. ...
, where she became a lecturer and then senior lecturer, but by 1979 they were pushed to leave by the growing unrest of the
Rhodesian Bush War
The Rhodesian Bush War, also called the Second as well as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe-Rhodesia).
The conflict pitted three for ...
, including the execution of the head of her department. They returned to the University of British Columbia and she returned to her part-time lecturer position. Finally, in 1981, she was appointed as an assistant professor, the first woman to become an engineering professor in British Columbia. She was given tenure as an associate professor in 1985, promoted to full professor in 1993, and retired as professor emerita in 2015. At UBC, she directed the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems from 1996 to 2007.
Recognition
Ward became a Fellow of the
Engineering Institute of Canada The Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) ( French: l'Institut canadien des ingénieurs; ICI) is a federation of fourteen engineering societies based in Canada, covering a broad range of engineering branches, and with a history going back to 1887. ...
in 1997. She was named a
Fellow of the IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
in 1999, "for contributions to digital signal processing applications in television and medical imaging". She also became a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Canada judges to have "made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life ...
in 1999, and a Fellow of the
Canadian Academy of Engineering The Canadian Academy of Engineering (french: L'Académie canadienne du génie) is a national academy of distinguished professional engineers in all fields of engineering, who are elected on the basis of "their distinguished service and contribution ...
in 2001. She was elected as an international member of the
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...
in 2020, "for innovative applications of signal processing to industrial and bioengineering problems".
In 2007, the
IEEE Signal Processing Society
The IEEE Signal Processing Society (IEEE SPS) is one of the nearly 40 technical societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the first one created.
Its mission is to "advance and disseminate state-of-the-art scien ...
gave her their Society Award (later renamed the Norbert Wiener Society Award), "for outstanding technical contributions and leadership in advancing the field of signal and image processing". She was president of the IEEE Signal Processing Society for 2016–2017.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Rabab
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Canadian electrical engineers
Canadian women engineers
Lebanese engineers
Lebanese women scientists
Cairo University alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Academic staff of the University of Zimbabwe
Academic staff of the University of British Columbia
Fellows of the IEEE
Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Engineering
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Engineering