Rabab Ward's career includes many firsts, particularly for women in engineering and signal processing, paving the way in three continents and spanning over four decades. This did not come as easy as we discovered.  After many years of perseverance, Ward became the first woman with a Ph.D. to be appointed as professor of electrical engineering in Canada in 1981. 

When did you first come into touch with signal processing? What was your motivation of following a career in this domain?
In 1984 I obtained my first degree which was a five years diploma in Electrical Engineering. My favorite courses were quite diverse, from Electromagnetism and Antenna Theory to Automatic Control, System Theory and Stochastic Processes.