Dr. Gina Parvaneh Cody immigrated to Canada from Iran in 1979.
Dr. Cody holds a master’s and a doctorate in building engineering from Concordia University. She was the first woman awarded a PhD in building engineering at Concordia. Dr. Cody has more than 30 years of professional practice in the private sector as a professional engineer, corporate executive and principal shareholder of an engineering firm. Dr. Cody has provided professional engineering services to some of Canada’s largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), financial institutions, builders and developers.
Dr. Cody served the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) for more than 15 years as a member of the Discipline Committee and eight years as chair of the Professional Practice Committee. Dr. Cody was granted the Certificate of Fellowship and the Award of Honor by PEO. Dr. Cody is also a recipient of the Award of Merit by the Canadian Standards Association. Dr. Cody was awarded the Order of Montreal in 2019 and was named one of the Top 25 Women of Influence in Canada in 2020. In December 2020, she was appointed Member of the Order of Canada.
Dr. Cody serves on the board of trustees of the Canadian Apartment Properties REIT and the European Residential REIT. She is a member of the Board of Governors, the Governance Committee and chair of the Real Estate Planning Committee and the chair of the Gina Cody School Advisory Board. She is also the co-chair of the Campaign for Concordia, the university’s most ambitious fundraising initiative ever. Dr. Cody has been a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Engineering since 2019.
In 2018, Dr. Cody made an historic $15 million gift to Concordia University’s Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science. In honour of her professional accomplishments and her generosity, the faculty was renamed the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science. It is the first engineering faculty in Canada, and one of the first internationally, named after a woman.
Dr. Cody lives in Toronto with her husband, a retired banker. The couple have two daughters, one completed her law degree and the other a doctoral degree in engineering.
