Sundos Garwan

ASU already felt familiar to Sundos Garwan, whose brother and sister both graduated from there. Impressed with the student diversity, Garwan could see herself as an ASU student before she had even enrolled or chosen to pursue industrial engineering.

Garwan found that what she was learning in her industrial engineering classes could be applied to a wide variety of industries, and started applying an engineering mindset to her everyday life.

“I started applying the concept of lean in every place I go to and thinking of ways to reduce waste in any process,” Garwan said. “I remember one day I was in a hospital and was frustrated from the long waiting and the unnecessary steps that I had to go through and started to think of ways that could have made the process go much faster and smoother. It was at this moment when I realized the importance of having good industrial engineers.”

Garwan was a teaching assistant for two years under professor Linda Chattin, who she says helped her develop a passion for engineering education.

“I believe that my biggest achievement was overcoming the fear of public speaking and being able to present and explain important concepts to students and answer their questions,” says Garwan. “I also feel proud that I was able to help a student who failed the class twice to pass by teaching them the methods I followed and the way I managed to succeed in this class.”

After graduation, Garwan plans to go back to Saudi Arabia to complete her graduate studies, but she hopes to return to ASU in the future.

“I aspire to earn my Ph.D. in industrial engineering and become a professor here at ASU,” says Garwan. “I would also like to do research in the healthcare engineering area and to be able to develop a solution to trace and control infectious diseases.”

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ spring 2020 class here.