Engineering with Purpose: What Does It Mean to Take the Leap?

Engineering with Purpose: What Does It Mean to Take the Leap?

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

12:00 to 1:30 p.m. EDT

Online | Free to attend

What does it mean to build a career in engineering with purpose?

Engineering education develops the technical expertise needed to solve complex problems. And the engineers shaping our future are also being called upon to lead, navigate uncertainty, understand the human impact of their decisions, and consider a deeply personal question:

What kind of impact do I want to make through the work I choose to do?

Join us for the next Impact Exchange: Engineering with Purpose: What Does It Mean to Take the Leap?

Sonia Di Maulo, creator of Take the Leap! Make an Impact, will host a live conversation with five members of the Take the Leap! and Concordia University community whose journeys span engineering, learning, leadership, and human performance.

Together, we will explore questions including:

• What does purpose look like in engineering today?

• How can engineers connect technical expertise with the impact they want to make?

• What challenges and opportunities do engineering students face as they prepare for meaningful careers?

• How can universities, industry, and communities create environments that support purpose-driven engineers?

• How has Take the Leap! influenced your personal and professional journeys?

There are no presentations. The Impact Exchange is designed as a candid, conversational space where lived experience, different perspectives, and meaningful questions can emerge.

Meet the Panelists

Bowen Xu

CFD Simulation Engineer & Program Integration Manager | AtkinsRéalis

Bowen Xu is a CFD Simulation Engineer and Program Integration Manager at AtkinsRéalis, with experience spanning advanced engineering simulation and major rail transit projects. A Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) and LEED AP, he is also a PhD candidate in Civil Engineering at Concordia University, with research focused on hydrodynamics, environmental fluid mechanics, and data-driven modeling.

Henrique Lima

Researcher in Civil Engineering | Dynamic and Acoustic Analysis & Numerical Modeling | Concordia University, Montreal

Henrique brings his engineering experience and perspective to the conversation, sharing how purpose, professional development, and leadership intersect within an engineer's evolving career.

Maryam Shirazian

Director of Learning and Performance | Studio7 Communications

Maryam is the Director of Learning and Performance at Studio7 Communications, a leading training and performance agency based in Quebec. She has devoted her career to advocating for employee performance improvement, rather than just creating training modules that are not rooted in knowledge, skills, or attitude gaps. With a robust foundation in education and technology, she combines her expertise of two decades to align learning strategies with performance and business objectives to help clients achieve higher ROI. Committed to continuous professional development, she actively participates in conferences and webinars, staying abreast of the latest advancements in instructional design and performance consulting.

Preetham Reddy Yerraguntla

Systems Thinker | Product Variability & Tools Specialist @ Alstom | Rethinking First-Moment Blood Insights

Preetham works at Alstom, where he focuses on digital systems that connect data, workflows, and decision-making. With a systems-thinking approach, he is interested in understanding how interconnected systems behave and how they can be made more reliable in real-world conditions. His broader exploration extends to the intersection of hardware, sensing, computer vision, and machine intelligence. His work has included developing systems that interpret blood-based reactions using computer vision and deep learning, with a particular interest in making critical information available earlier and more continuously. Preetham is drawn to complex, undefined problems and to turning emerging ideas into practical, end-to-end systems that work.

Nurdan Tokoz

Industrial Engineer, Reinvention and Adaptability Strategist, and founder of Nurdanpinar Solutions for Human Performance

Nurdan Tokoz is an Industrial Engineer, Reinvention and Adaptability Strategist, and founder of Nurdanpinar Solutions for Human Performance. Her career has evolved from engineering and operations into learning, human performance, leadership development, and organizational transformation, while retaining the systems-thinking foundation of her engineering education.

As an Engineering Leapster, Nurdan has continued to explore what it means to build a career around purpose, contribution, and meaningful impact. Today, she works with leaders and organizations navigating disruption and change, helping them strengthen adaptability, develop new behaviours, and translate insight into action.

She is the creator of the Adaptive Leaders’ Blueprint™ and serves as Faculty at the Reinvention Academy. Nurdan holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Engineering and a Bachelor of Education in Adult Education.

At the heart of her work is the belief that people remain an organization’s greatest asset for performance and productivity, even as automation, AI, and technology continue to reshape how work gets done. For Nurdan, engineering is not only about designing better systems and solutions, but also about ensuring the people within those systems have the capability to adapt, contribute, and thrive.

Purpose-Driven Engineers

This special Impact Exchange also supports awareness of the Take the Leap: Purpose-Driven Engineers FundOne campaign at Concordia University's Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, in partnership with the Department of Engineers in Society.

Our vision is to expand access to Take the Leap! for engineering students and allow more emerging engineers to explore purpose, strengthen their leadership capacity, and begin defining the contribution they want to make through their profession.

The campaign brings together alumni, organizations, companies, and individual supporters who believe human-centred leadership development has an important place alongside technical education.

Whether you are an engineering student, educator, engineering professional, organizational leader, Tak

e the Leap! community member, or someone who believes in preparing the next generation to lead with purpose, you are warmly invited to join the conversation.

Come hear their stories. Explore your own relationship with purpose. Discover what it can mean to Take the Leap.

About the Impact Exchange

The Impact Exchange, stewarded by Harvest Performance, brings people together for conversations about leadership, purpose, human performance, and meaningful impact. Each exchange creates space for lived experience and practical insight while connecting people who are committed to creating positive impact through the work they do.