Marinos Stylianou

A life-long connection to UVic

Sometimes they gathered at the Grad House to watch Star Trek, or in L-Hut for late night pizza, but most often the close-knit, international community of engineering students found themselves at Bez and Carolyn’s house being treated to warm hospitality and family dinners. For Marinos Stylianou, these memories, and particularly the influence of Dr. Bez Tabarrok, cemented a life-long connection with UVic.

Marinos first studied under Dr. Tabarrok at the University of Toronto, and, after a stint working in industry, followed him to UVic to pursue a PhD. Dr. Tabarrok was a leading researcher in Canada in computational mechanics and finite element analysis. He was also, Marinos says, “a great teacher and a very special individual.”

Putting his education to work

After completing his PhD, Marinos developed finite element analysis software for a Vancouver based company, S-Frame, before moving to the US where he worked for almost fifteen years at MARC Analysis Research Corporation and MSC Software. He’s now the CEO of S-Frame, which he’s helped become a global leader in structural engineering software.

A transformational gift for civil engineering

Marinos maintained his connections with the Tabarrok family, so when Bez passed away in 1999, he donated to a scholarship fund in his memory. This year Marinos took his support much further, through a substantial donation of S-Frame product licenses and tech support worth half a million dollars. It’s a transformational gift for UVic’s fledgling civil engineering program that will have a direct and lasting effect on students.

“Typically only large multi-national companies can afford this software,” Marinos explains. “Becoming proficient with these tools during their undergraduate degree puts UVic students at a competitive advantage for securing co-op placements and jobs.”

For Marinos, this latest gift is another way to honour the strong legacy of Dr. Tabarrok. Collectively remembered as a prominent scholar, and the founding chair of mechanical engineering at UVic, Dr. Tabarrok was also a significant teacher and mentor to students like Marinos. “Everything I used in my career, I learned from him,” he says.