This year’s recipient of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies - Saskatchewan’s Brian Eckel Memorial Scholarship is Shanleigh McKeown, who is in her final year of Environmental Engineering with certificates in Ethics, Justice, & Law and Professional Communication.

Throughout her university career, Shanleigh has served in multiple student government roles, spending most of her time on a national and international stage, serving as the Western Canadian Ambassador and President for the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES). As President of the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES), Shanleigh helped craft the Engineering Grand Challenges in co-creation with Engineering Deans Canada (EDC). The six Engineering Grand Challenges were a response to the United Nation’s 16 Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) that focus the thoughts and actions of the Canadian engineering community on the most compelling and critical issues facing Canada and Canadians today and over the next decade. Through her roles in the CFES, Shanleigh leveraged this opportunity to ensure the acknowledgement of the ways in which climate change affects our most vulnerable communities. The recognition of climate justice and inequity by EDC required a significant push from the CFES, with the student organization mobilizing the voice of all 85,000 Canadian undergraduate engineering students to ensure the acknowledgement of the fact that a holistic response to climate change must also include a response to climate justice.

When Shanleigh McKeown graduates, she wants to build an engineering career founded on compassion. As a leader in her community, the most important values to McKeown are kindness & authenticity. “I think often we look at being an effective leader simply as being an efficient leader; checking boxes off as we complete tasks,” she says. “There is something very sacred and beautiful about choosing to extend kindness & love in all circumstances – a leader gets to make that choice every day, and I think it’s the most important one to make.” Throughout her leadership career, she has continually demonstrated that when we prioritize people, we not only create efficient organizations, but kind ones. Upon graduation, McKeown’s goal is to work in environmental safety, focusing on mining, to help protect vital resources in a way that benefits both the planet and our communities. Most importantly, McKeown hopes to extend her belief of kindness to the communities she works in.