Danaka Porter, BA, MEng, PhD candidate

Danaka Porter, BA, MEng, PhD candidate

Sessional Lecturer

Contact

Calgary campus | 

About

I grew up in:

Vancouver, B.C., but I have lived in 6 different cities in North America.

My alma maters are:

UBC, MIT and U of Calgary. 

I started working with the Dhillon School of Business in:

January 2019

My research interests are:

Process improvement and supply chain optimization, project management and improving medical technology for end users.

I am passionate about:

Life, honestly so much! I love watching the light bulb moments in my students. Optimizing processes and systems - yes my closest is organized by colour and occasion, yes my spice drawer is alphabetized,  yes I am constantly evaluating how I do things in order to do them better and faster. On a personal note, I love fresh tracks, watching the birds, bunnies and deer in my yard fight over the birdseed, growing plants from seed, making cards, and working out daily.

My biggest fear is:

To spend too much time focusing on the future that I forget to enjoy the present.

If I could only eat one meal for the rest of my life it would be:

Salad - because it has no rules. Add meat, fish, any veggies, fruit, nuts, you name it, as long as it has greens - it's a salad.

Book(s) I recommend:

"The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" by Robin Sharma, and "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. The first will help one understand that work is not everything, the second will provide tactics to obtaining resiliency.

The best advice I have ever received is:

Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

Advice that I would give:

It's okay to change your interests many times in your life, it's okay to start fresh, it's okay to keep learning no matter how old you are. some of the best inventions and outcomes came from people with wildly different backgrounds.