Gina (Parvaneh Baktash) Cody, MEng 81, PhD 89 (photo courtesy of Concordia University)

Gina Cody back in Montreal to meet the Mayor

Gina Parveneh Cody is the woman whose name now graces Concordia University’s school of engineering.

She made Canadian history, donating $15 million (CAD), creating the first engineering faculty in the country, named after a woman.

The Gina Cody school of Engineering and Computer Science is significant step forward in the process to encourage young girls to consider so-called STEM careers.

“The only way that you can survive in this society as a woman is with education”

It certainly worked out for Gina Cody.

In an interview with Concordia’s Joseph Leger, Cody credited her mother.

“My mother was a housewife who never finished high school. She married very young, and she felt it was extremely important for me and my sister to be in charge of our own destiny,” Cody recalls. “My mother said, ‘The only way that you can survive in this society as a woman is with education.’”

Gina graduated with a bachelor’s in engineering from Aryamehr University of Technology (now Sharif University of Technology) in Tehran.

In 1979, at the end of the Iranian Revolution, she left her home arriving in Montreal where her brother had studied. 

Gina Cody remains grateful for the help and support she received at Concordia. She credits the university, and mentor Cedric Marsh, with changing her life.

She made history in 1989, being the first woman to graduate with a PhD in building engineering from Concordia.

Gina Cody as graduate student at Concordia.

She went on to some amazing work in Toronto, climbing the skyscrapers as a crane inspector and eventually became a most successful engineering executive, and named one of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs

Now retired, Gina Cody is following through on some of the other lessons learned in childhood, the obligation to give back.

Today she was honoured at Montreal City Hall, by another pioneering woman, Mayor Valerie Plante.

The first woman mayor of Montreal, Plante invited Gina Cody to a special signing ceremony of Montreal’s official guest book.

On September 24th, Gina Cody made her historic donation to Concordia, which will help provide scholarships for young women and visible minorities.

 And it will go to supporting three new chairs in data analytics and artificial intelligence; in the internet of things; and in Industry 4.0 and advanced manufacturing.

“I want this donation to inspire other proud Concordia graduates to come forward.” Gina Cody said in September.

“The goal is that in 10 to 15 years there will be so many examples like me that I am forgotten. I hope there will be so many women in science, engineering and technology that it’s no longer an issue — that it becomes the norm.”

It will be interesting to hear how the students say they’re going to “Gina Cody”.

(With files from Concordia University and Gina Cody)

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