Page 46 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2025 - Online Magazine
P. 46
Exceptional
SENIORS
Educator
& Engineer
Extraordinaire
Kishor Mehta
by Barbara Jensen
ome educators are born, raised, and live their entire From New York, Kishor took a train to Ann Arbor,
lives in one area, knowing the people, the culture, Michigan, where the University of Michigan had given
Sand the protocols, without even having to think him credit for some of his college education in India, and
about it. For others, early experiences are a series of where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
lifestyle changes, meeting new people with new cultures, civil engineering.
and learning new protocols.
After college, Kishor worked for a large construction
Such is the case with Kishor Mehta, a native of India, company, first in New York, and then in Arizona, where
whose research into wind, the damage it can cause, and he worked on the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam.
what can be done to prevent that damage created the There he met Mary Ann Gaffney, a nurse from Watertown,
benchmark for determining how to build structures to New York. They dated for six months and decided to
withstand winds. marry. This created more changes in lifestyle, like when
he informed his family in India where arranged marriages
In Kishor’s youth, much of the world was owned by are the norm, and they said they already had six girls
Europeans. India was controlled by Great Britain, and picked out for him to choose from. He also learned
although he spoke English, much of his upbringing was that he had to get Mary Ann’s father’s permission for
still Indian, including his religion, his vegetarian diet, and the marriage, which involved a pay phone and a short
the structure of the patriarchal society where his father’s conversation.
suggestions were followed. After two years of college in
Bombay (now Mumbai) his father suggested he become an Marriage created a change in direction for Kishor, as a
engineer and offered him an education abroad. Kishor’s construction village was no place to raise children, so he
travels to the USA to study began with a few days in decided to get his PhD in Engineering and go to work for
England where the first changes of his lifestyle began as an engineering consulting firm. They moved to Austin,
he learned to use a knife and fork, because in India those Texas, and he attended the University of Texas where
he also worked as a teaching assistant. The teaching
utensils were not often used. He took a flight to New York experience changed his trajectory from working for a
and lived for a short time at the YMCA, where, in the consulting company to becoming a teacher. His advisor
cafeteria, he had to learn the names and flavors of various at UT suggested that he might be interested in Texas
meats, although it took some time before those became a Technological College, which had a new engineering
regular part of his life. program expanding into graduate studies and research.
46 Lubbock Senior Link