Dr. Gina Parvaneh Cody immigrated to Montreal from Iran in 1979. She holds a master’s and a doctorate in building engineering from Concordia University, making her Canada’s first woman PhD in the discipline.
Dr. Cody spent more than 30 years in the private sector as an engineer, corporate executive and principal shareholder of an engineering firm. She received the Canadian Standards Association’s Award of Merit and was inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. She has also been named one of Canada’s Top 25 Women of Influence and to the Orders of Montreal and of Canada.
Dr. Cody co-chairs the Campaign for Concordia, the most ambitious fundraising initiative in the university’s history. In 2018 she made an historic $15-million gift to the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science at her alma mater, which renamed it the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science. It is the first engineering faculty in Canada and one of the first in the world named after a woman. Dr. Cody chairs the Gina Cody School Advisory Board.
She lives in Toronto with her husband, a retired banker. The couple have two daughters: one completed her law degree and the other a PhD in engineering.
