Dr. Leila Notash is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering of Queen's University, a Fellow of Engineers Canada and a licensed member of the Professional Engineers Ontario. Her research area includes: design, kinematics, calibration, and implementation of serial and parallel manipulators; fault detection, and fault tolerant design and operation of manipulators; and mechatronics.
Leila Notash was born and grew up in Tabriz, the capital of the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. She graduated as a High Honor Student and ranked 2nd out of 166 graduates. She obtained her Master of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto, and received her Ph.D. degree in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Victoria. She received several awards during her post graduate program. These included: University of Toronto Open Fellowship; University of Toronto International Differential Fee Waiver; and the Charles S. Humphrey Graduate Student Award, University of Victoria. She was the University of Victoria's nominee in the Engineering Category for the 1996 NSERC Doctoral Prize.
From 1995 to 1996, Dr. Notash was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering, University of Windsor. In 1997, she joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, where she was an Associate Professor during 2001-2006.
Dr. Notash is very active in teaching, research and also service to the university and profession. She has taught a variety of courses on different subjects as a faculty member, for which she prepared very organized course notes and handouts (typed lecture notes). At the University of Windsor, she taught courses on database system analysis and design, material handling, manufacturing technology and processes, and robot kinematics and introduction to mechatronics. At Queen's University, she has taught courses on mechatronics, dynamics, and robotics (introductory and advanced levels).
From 1998 to 2000, she was one of the three organizers of the Reading Week shop course, Design Basics 1.0, with Professor John McGeachy and Dr. John Garner. The objective of this course was to provide a hands-on shop experience for the students on machining, welding, and hot metal forging. With the support and hard work of all co-organizers and the technical staff of the machine shop, the course was tremendously successful, and over the years, received many praises from the participating students. Although the course was mainly for the first-year Applied Science students, each year a couple of upper years, as well as graduate students, participated in this course. During 1997-2003, Dr. Notash was the Canadian coordinator of an international undergraduate student design project (IVDS). IVDS was a joint project among the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Departments of the Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey), Union College (Schenectady, NY) and the Mechanical Engineering Department of Queen's University. The objective of IVDS is to provide a collaborative design experience to students in different international locations. In addition to the Mechanical Engineering students, over the years, a few students from the Queen's Applied-Math (Mechanical Option) and Electrical Engineering Departments have participated in the IVDS program.
Dr. Notash has served on a variety of Departmental and University Committees. From 2003 to 2006, she was the Faculty Advisor for 161 Queen’s Mechanical and Materials Engineering undergraduate students (Mech’06).
From 1998 to 2004, Dr. Notash was on the executive council of the Member Organization (CCToMM) of International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM) in which she served as the Communications Officer of CCToMM, as well as the Editor of CCToMM Newsletter and was in charge of the web page of CCToMM. She has been on the Editorial Board of the Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) since 1999, and a member of the Academic Review Committee of Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) since 2003. As of 2001, Dr. Notash has been a member of the IFToMM Permanent Commission on Communications and the Editor of IFToMM Newsletter. She has been the chair of IFToMM Permanent Commission on Communications for 2006-2011, and has been elected as a member of the Constitution Committee for 2012-2015.
Dr. Notash is a member of the Canadian Committee for the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms (CCToMM), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Robotics and Mechatronics Technical Committee of IFToMM.