Dr. George Shaker is an Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical and Mechatronics Professor at the University of Waterloo, whose main research interests and activities are in the area of Bio-wearable electronics and systems RF/microwave/millimeter wave/Terahertz (THz) circuits and antenna systems. Radio frequency (RF)/microwave packaging, and Electromagnetic compatibility.
Prof. Shaker is supervising this project with the help of Karly Smith, who was in France as part of the student exchange program between Sorbonne Universities and the University of Waterloo. Karly is studying Biomedical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Previously, she was a full-time co-op student for four months (and then a part-time undergraduate research assistant student for another four months) working with Prof. Shaker at the UW CIARS and UW RIA Sensors labs. These past work placements helped her acquire various skills in the fields of electromagnetics, radio frequency, radars, along with machine learning and artificial intelligence. These skills were instrumental in helping her getting selected to travel to prof. Kokabi’s group in France.
Karly had an amazing time on her exchange and was able to develop personally and professionally. While researching in France she was exposed to their work culture, which to her surprise was shockingly laid back and supportive. She was placed in lab environment with PhD and master students with diverse interests and backgrounds. She met with her supervisors often and she reported that they provided significant instruction and hands-on guidance. She said that the environment was very social. Her French colleagues were very welcoming and were excited to share their culture. Although the differences were subtle, both workplace cultures did favor efficiency.
However, Karly did note that she faced some challenges during and before her stay. The Visa process, dealing with administrative tasks, setting up a bank account, train strikes, and the language barrier, all posed some difficulty during the exchange. It is through these challenges that Karly believes she gained the knowledge and independence required to overcome these inconveniences. She constantly was able to explore Paris and the surrounding cities, due to the superior transits systems in place, this allowed her to enjoy the food and stunning night life France had to offer. She was surprised with the amount of France she was able to see during her time there, and was able to travel almost every weekend. It is due to this that exchange passed all of her expectations.
As far as the project goes, Karly worked towards developing and testing Radio-Frequency (RF) sensors that could characterize biological tissues. Upon her arrival the sensor for solid tissue was already functioning, so her role was to try to create a sensor that would work for liquid tissue (I.e. blood). More specifically they were looking to see if they could measure the amount of glucose in the blood when placed on the resonator. The goal is to be able to measure the difference in frequency between the biological materials placed on the sensor to be able to distinguish between the types of tissue. They found that the resonator could categorize how dielectric the tissues were, however it was not strong enough for tissues with high dielectric properties.
A possible biomedical application for this research would be seen in people with diabetes. Ideally, people would be able to use this sensor to track their blood glucose levels. However, at this stage, the sensor cannot detect the blood through skin and requires a larger pool of blood than the diabetes kits that are currently available. It is due to this that possible next steps are to develop a more sensitive sensor that will be able to see application in the medical field. In fact, the UW group has already made progress along those lines and a have working prototype that can scan through the skin.