Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
Carol-Ann McGuinty
"I enjoy the people I work with; they are all very intelligent, hardworking, and ethical. I also enjoy continuing to learn new things and make myself more effective at work. It brings a great sense of pride and satisfaction."
Carol-Ann McGuinty's brother Raymond influenced her to go back to school when he earned a Business Administration degree and then a Law degree. "He was an excellent example, he influenced me the most to succeed and pursue an education."
In 1989, Carol-Ann graduated from Queen's University with a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering. Today, she works at Dupont Canada in Kingston, Ontario as a Senior Research Scientist. Being part of a global team, she often gets to work with people from all over the world. Her job is to design and lead experimental work, analyse the results and extract implications to [Dupont's] products, customers and business. Communication also plays a key role in her job, as she then shares knowledge gained from the experimental work with the technical marketing team and customers. She also leads projects to install new laboratory equipment, provides direction and guidance to technical support people in our group.
School was very challenging for Carol-Ann. At the time, she had to juggle schoolwork and life as a mother of two young children. She admits the toughest thing about school was "I missed being with [my kids] when I had to spend weekends doing schoolwork - having to put your family and friends lower on your priority list at times [was difficult]." Because she always imagined herself in a lab setting working with numbers, she was determined to finish her degree. She is really glad she did because she believes that "with a degree, you will have many employment opportunities that will allow you to develop your leadership abilities."
She would like to encourage Aboriginal students to not only stay in school but to take as many math and science courses as they can because "you will have an enormous range of choices available to you [and it will be easier to] get the jobs you want." She adds, "the skills and training [you learn] can make a positive difference in your community [and] are necessary to provide the infrastructure for economic development and self-sufficiency."
In her own time, Carol enjoys spending time with her four children. "I love watching my son play soccer, listening to all of them practice their musical instruments, skating and swimming together."