Gratitude has brought Dr Ahmed Elgezawy to Mackay to teach Engineering.

After decades of learning and working for consultancy firms, the lecturer who moved to Australia 27 years ago had decided to give back to the country that helped pay for some of his education.

New lecturer: Mechanical Engineer Dr Ahmed Elgezawy with students, from left, Wayne Sherry, Simon Fraser and Michael McLean

"Australia helped me with my scholarship (in the early 1990s) and now I want to give back to the community," Dr Elgezawy said.

Dr Elgezawy moved to Mackay about a month ago with his wife and 3 children and has taken on the new second year of engineering at CQU Mackay.

While in Mackay, he also hopes to start a professional mechanical engineering group to share research and findings and help with problems.

Dr Elgezawy, born of a German mother and Egyptian father and who grew up in Egypt, said he was drawn to mechanical engineering from youth when he would look in wonder at, and later tinker with, trucks and excavators.

He has spent 14 years working within engineering and 13 years in academia, including periods at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where he developed a system of water lubrication.