Keith Hipel believes in following your passion to achieve success .
“Persevere at achieving your heart’s desire with the goal of benefiting others and success will naturally follow,” Hipel, a systems design engineering professor, said.
Hipel won the 2019 Killam prize, which is awarded to Canadian scholars who have made a significant contribution in their field of study, along with $10,000.
In winning this prize, Hipel has shown that he has a significant impact in “helping in the building of Canada’s future by encouraging advanced study,” as stated by the objective of the Killiam program by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Hipel’s interdisciplinary research from a systems engineering perspective looks at conflict resolution due to social and political influences, multiple criteria decision analysis, enforcement of environmental regulations and monitoring, systems management and decision making under uncertainty, and environmetrics and time series analysis. These are applicable in water resources management, hydrology, environmental engineering, energy, and sustainable development.
“Professor Hipel is a world-class researcher and educator, and has been an impactful member of our community. The entire University celebrates with him today as he is recognized for his many accomplishments,” Feridun Hamdullahpur, president of UW said.
In addition to five books and almost 600 academic papers and conference articles, Hipel has been a professor at UW for more than four decades, where he had also earned three degrees as a student. He is the fifth professor from UW to win the Killam Prize.
Pearl Sullivan, dean of Waterloo Engineering praises Hipel for his hard work. “He has been a tireless champion of using a systems approach to address complex problems related to the environment, and the industrial and services sectors,” Sullivan said.
Hipel is also an Officer of the Order of Canada, Past President of the Academy of Science (Royal Society of Canada), Senior Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Fellow of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and Coordinator of the Conflict Analysis Group at Waterloo.
“It feels good,” Hipel said. “To me, this is the top prize in engineering in Canada, and I share it with all of my students and colleagues.”
