Tawfik Kettanah

Tawfik Kettanah began his career with a 10-year stint as a structural engineer/concrete expert at various construction sites representing the Government of Iraq, for several reinforced concrete projects in and around the city of Baghdad, Iraq.

In 1993, he acted as the reinforced concrete expert/inspection engineer on the site of four skyscraper buildings in the city of Ankara, Turkey. He worked as a structural design engineer on a group of public buildings, reinforced and steel structures, and residential wood structures in Oakville throughout 1994. In 1996, a non-profit organization hired him as a site manager on a three-storey steel structure in Toronto.

Tawfik studied computer programming at Sheridan College to learn and utilize the new technology tools for the engineering profession, including computerized solutions for routine analysis and design problems and exploring new perspective/meaning for building engineering. He graduated with honours in 1999.

Shortly thereafter, he was hired by Microsoft Inc. in Redmond, Washington, to serve as support engineer/consultant to support software companies in software development and programming issues.

In 2001, he returned to the School of Applied Computing & Technology at Sheridan College to develop and teach advanced programming/database courses. He was asked to teach engineering courses for the school of architecture within the Faculty of Applied Science & Technology (FAST).

Tawfik continued to teach structural engineering courses and compiled Theory of Structures, a textbook that was published by Pearson Canada. He worked on his master’s of engineering degree at McMaster University in the area of advanced design focusing on Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and graduated in 2010.

He started his work on a PhD in structural engineering at Ryerson University, and completed the requirements to work on the proposed thesis in 2012 in the area of self-healing concrete (biomimetic). He is currently pursuing the research at another university.