Curiosity kills the cat, but not an engineer. Later I learned that she is a professor in SFU Engineering. Wow, that is great, I thought. A female faculty member! Finally, there is a female faculty member in SFU Engineering. I am glad it happened before I graduated. I became more interested and decided to interview her. This should fulfill my own curiosity and be a good introduction for those of us who have not had the opportunity to take courses from her.

I arrived early and found her in her office. I introduced myself and explained that since I had a class at noon, the interview should be no more than 50 minutes. She was surprised. "50 minutes! I did not expect it to be that long." Well, me neither. I had a list of ten questions and I really did not know how long it would take someone to answer ten questions. Since neither of us had any experience with interviews for student newspapers, we decided to go where the conversation flowed.

"What does Enscquire mean?" Ljiljana asked. I replied that it is a concatenation between engineering and inquire, feeling unprepared since I have never confirmed my educated guess. "Are you on the editorial board?" she struck again. "No. I just thought it would be interesting to introduce you to my fellow engineers since you are the latest addition to SFU Engineering and you are the first female faculty." I felt justified with my answer but she pointed out that she was not the first female faculty.

Prior to joining SFU Engineering, Ljiljana has had extensive industrial research experience at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Communications Research. When asked what made her switch from working in industry to academia, she replied that she always wanted to be in academia since her intellectual interest is in applied theoretical work and industry was becoming too short term focused for her. Also, she feels that the projects she would like to see done in her lifetime have more opportunities to happen in academia.

She was also a visiting professor at UC Berkeley for two years. When asked about the difference between the EECS program at Berkeley and the SFU Engineering, she replied that it was not possible to compare the two schools: SFU Engineering is a very young school compared to UC Berkeley which was chartered in 1868 (with the College of Engineering formed in 1931), with different infrastructure and rules in place. However, she pointed out that her impression of UC Berkeley is more of a research institution with much emphasis on the graduate program, while SFU Engineering focuses more on the undergraduate program. She sees that there is room for growth and improvement in the graduate program at SFU Engineering. She also mentioned that UC Berkeley has a 17-week semester and that engineering students take five courses, while SFU runs on a 13-week trimester system and engineering students take five to six courses. Furthermore, our students are required to maintain a higher minimum GPA than the Berkeley Engineering students. When I mentioned that a few people take seven courses, her comment was "unbelievable," and questioned how much material is retained if students take so many courses.

Why SFU Engineering? Ljiljana said that she had several offers and the offer from SFU Engineering was quite decent. When asked whether the proximity to Vancouver was a factor, she replied, "I would work on Mars if it were the right job." It was the job she considered first because she devotes a lot of time and effort to her work, but she admits that this is the most beautiful city she has ever lived in. Also, she was delighted to find grocery stores selling Balkan food that reminds her of her happy childhood. Ljiljana also loves Japanese food, especially sashimi. She also likes Chinese food, buys Chinese vegetables, and has learned all the Chinese vegetable names. "After living on the North American food for twenty years," she said, "ethnic food in Vancouver was a welcomed change."

Ljiljana came to SFU Engineering as an Associate Professor in mid January of 1998. In less than a year and a half, she has taught ENSC 220 (Fall 1998), and ENSC 151 (Spring 1999). ENSC 220 had 84 students enrolled, and ENSC 151 had 79 students. She said that preparing and teaching such large classes required a lot of time and energy. However, she is looking forward to teaching ENSC 220 this Fall, and ENSC 151 in the Spring of 2000 again. She sees it as an opportunity to improve her teaching skills and is coordinating with John Bird, responsible for ENSC 320 (to be first offered in 2000-1), to adjust the amount of material for ENSC 220. She is considering giving fewer assignments and midterms to lighten the workload. She felt that as a new faculty member she was trying to do a good job and may have required more work than necessary for a 3-credit course. However, one must admit that it is not easy to judge the amount of work based on the number of credits assigned to an engineering course.

As a student, Ljiljana had nearly perfect GPA's throughout her undergraduate (9.97/10) and graduate studies (3.9/4.0, 4.0/4.0, and 4.0/4.0). When asked why she did two M.S. degrees, she said that she did it because she had always been interested in computer engineering. When asked how she balanced her life as a student and whether she had extracurricular activities, she replied that she was a very good student and had a lot of encouragement and support from her family, friends, and her teachers, so she devoted most of her time to school. However, she maintained that it is important for engineers to have hobbies. She enjoys swimming, mountaineering, and rock climbing.

Women engineers? I asked her if it was difficult for women to study engineering 25 years ago. Her answer surprised me. She said that, even though there were only two women in her class, by the time she obtained her first engineering degree, the enrollment of women at the Electrical Engineering Department of University of Pristina in Yugoslavia was higher than, for example, the 20% seen in the US institutions. Also, since education was free, families did not have to make a decision between sending a son or a daughter to school based on cost. There are also a lot of female medical doctors in Yugoslavia because medical schools are also free. She feels that "economic equality brings freedom."

She feels that it is very positive to encourage women to study engineering. Also, she strongly believes that race, skin colour, gender, or even accent, should not matter. There should never be an issue or a problem because it is "who can do the best job that counts." "What is important is the person's ability." When asked if she had any role models while pursuing her goals, she said that she had a great support group: her family, friends, and her teachers and professors, who really believed in her and encouraged her. She has great respect for many people she has worked with and feels she has learned a lot from them. When asked if she could give any suggestions to women engineering students her answer was short and right to the point: "Work hard. Be the best. Nothing replaces technical competence." The interview was 50 minutes long and it was filled with laughter and inspiring discussions. "I am glad you got me to talk," she said. "We sure had lots of material to cover a 50 minute interview!"

Welcome to SFU Engineering, Ljiljana! May your dreams flourish here.