Professor Chirag Variawa (ISTEP) has been recognized as a fellow of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA). The CEEA fellowship is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional service to advancing engineering leadership and engineering education.
A double U of T Engineering graduate, Variawa has been a part of the engineering community for over 25 years. Variawa’s research focuses on addressing unseen barriers to learning in engineering education through an inclusivity lens — a philosophy he applies in his teaching. As an instructor, he teaches foundational first-year design courses APS111/112. At the PhD and MEng level, he instructs TEP1203 as part of the Prospective Professors in Training Program, and TEP1701, a new course created to meet the strong demand for practical, experience-based learning opportunities to help MEng students navigate engineering workplaces.
He has served in various roles in the faculty, most notably as Director, First Year Curriculum from 2016 to 2025. In this role, Variawa worked across the curriculum to build connections among first-year courses, helped navigate issues arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic, support new students, staff and faculty, and continue to build a robust first-year program for all.
Variawa is the founding member of the First-year Engineering Education Research (FYEER) group to support undergraduate and graduate student engineering education. Projects from FYEER include using sentiment analysis to understand large-scale student feedback, creating chatbots to support positive learning strategies, and understanding the expectations and realities of first-year student workload. His current students are exploring the use of Expectancy-Value theory and other conceptual frameworks to understand the role of ownership in engineering student learning; these insights can help educators better understand how student identities affect one’s journey through their engineering education.
Variawa also served as the inaugural Faculty-in-Residence at the Chestnut Student Residence, supporting students with events and initiatives, which include Dinner with your Professors, Industry Nights, Community Pop-ups and more.
Variawa’s honours and awards include the U of T Engineering Early Career Teaching Award in 2021, the CEEA-ACEG Ron Britton Vanguard Award for Engineering Education in 2021, the TEAL Fellowship in 2019 and the Dean’s Emerging Innovation in Teaching Professorship in 2018.
Variawa is the eighth ISTEP faculty member to be recognized as a CEEA fellow.
“Professor Chirag Variawa is a pillar of the U of T community whose contributions have been felt both here and nationally for more than two decades,” says U of T Engineering Dean Chris Yip.
“His outstanding commitment to our students creates a welcoming environment right from the outset of their engineering journeys. On behalf of the faculty, congratulations on this recognition.”
