222 Palisades Creek Drive
Richardson, TX 75080
Phone: 972-952-9393
Fax: 972-952-9435
Email: [email protected]
Western Carolina University
Engineering Technology
Yussef Syed Ahmed
What are your career goals?
I want to keep one foot in design and one in research. Right now I’m a licensed P.E. finishing my master’s at Western Carolina. Long term, I want to keep building on both sides of that, getting sharper on the research end so I can bring smarter, more efficient HVAC ideas into the buildings I design.
Do you have any research areas of interest specific to your discipline?
Mostly AI-based control for HVAC airflow. I’ve been a research assistant at Western Carolina working on using machine learning to manage airflow better, keeping people comfortable while cutting the energy the system burns doing it. That work turned into a paper that’s been accepted for publication and a patent application that’s still pending. Outside of that I’m interested in building energy modeling, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality.
What is one piece of advice you have for fellow engineering students?
Take the FE while you’re still in school. Everything you need is already in your head from your coursework, and every year you wait it gets harder to sit down and study for it. I’d also say start thinking about licensure now instead of treating it as some far-off thing. It ended up shaping my career more than any single class did.
What has been your favorite engineering course and why?
HVAC design, easily. It was the first class where thermo, fluids, and heat transfer stopped being three separate subjects I was memorizing and turned into one actual problem: size the equipment, run the ductwork, keep the building comfortable without wasting energy. I liked it enough that I’ve basically been doing it ever since.
Which clubs, campus organizations, and activities do you participate in?
I’m a member of SME, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
What are you most looking forward to gaining from being an FE ambassador?
Honestly, I want to be the person I didn’t have. I didn’t grow up around engineers, and I figured out the FE and P.E. process mostly in pieces, on my own. Doing it with a degree from outside the U.S. added a few extra steps too. If I can save some students that confusion, that’s worth a lot to me. I’m also looking forward to meeting ambassadors from other schools and other disciplines.