Biomedical signals and devices

Dr. Ban is Associate Director for the Centre for Intelligent Antenna and Radio Systems, and a researcher at the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology. His expertise lies in the conversion of near infra-red light directly to visible light, design and fabrication of high-performance quantum devices and the development of ultra-sensitive surface plasmon sensors. 
 
Dr. Ban pioneered the development of new methods in scanning probe microscopy to observe, with nanometric spatial resolution, two-dimensional profiles of conductivity and potential inside actively-driven lasers. He also resolved the nanoscopic reason for anomalously high series resistance encountered in ridge waveguide lasers. His work has provided the first experimental visualization of the inner workings of operating semiconductor lasers and has also provided a platform for enabling tools for biomedical research. 

Dr. Sushanta Mitra serves as the Executive Director of Canada’s largest nanotechnology institute – the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN). He also served as the President of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering.  

He has an entrepreneurial mind, being the Founder & CEO of a Canadian startup, Aquabits Inc. (on quantum computing) and a Dutch startup, SLE Enterprises B.V. (on ultra-fast encapsulation technology), supported by Waterloo. Dr. Sushanta has also implemented a “Mobile First” learning platform to improve preparedness for post-secondary STEM programs in partnership with K-12 school and industry. 

Jennifer Howcroft is a Continuing Lecturer in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. 
 
Her research encompasses technical and pedagogical research areas. Her pedagogical research focuses on engineering education, particularly engineering design, holistic engineering education, and empathy. Her technical research is predominantly focused on sensor-based human movement analysis encompassing signal analysis, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence techniques. 

In his Ph.D., Dr. Ewen MacDonald investigated the consequences of the loss of temporal synchrony on speech intelligibility in noise. The loss of synchrony in the auditory system reduces temporal information that is available to a listener's brain and can occur because of aging and/or synaptopathy (often referred to as "hidden" hearing loss). After graduating from the University of Toronto, he moved to Queen's University and investigated the role of auditory feedback on control of speech production. This work examined how talkers changed their speech when the acoustic feedback they received was altered in real-time. In 2011, Ewen moved to Copenhagen to take a faculty position at the Technical University of Denmark. There he continued his research into the perceptual consequences of hearing loss and how they can be addressed by hearing assistive devices. A recent focus of his research has been on the timing of turn taking in interactive conversation and how this can be used to evaluate hearing-aid signal processing. 

Mahla Poudineh is an Assistant Professor and Director of the IDEATION Lab in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. She received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering (with a minor in Biomedical Engineering) from the University of Toronto in 2016. Prior to joining UWaterloo, Mahla completed postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto, Department of Pharmaceutical Science and Stanford University, School of Medicine in 2017 and 2019, respectively. She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, both from the University of Tehran, Iran in 2010 and 2012, respectively. Her research interests include developing bio-sensing approaches for therapeutics and diagnostics purposes and translating biomedical devices to the clinic. 

Dr. Yavuz is the Director of the Nano- and Micro- Systems Lab at the Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology (WIN) and Director of Collaborative Graduate Nanotechnology Program.  

His research area is micro and nanoscale materials and device design, fabrication, functionalization and characterization, in four key applications areas: a. high-temperature-superconductor (HTSC) accelerators for “driven subcritical fission” superconducting magnets (thorium-recycle nuclear reactors); b. HTSC-Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) for bio-sensing and Qubits for quantum information storage; c. Nano- and micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems (O-N/MEMS) devices for sensing, actuation and energy harvesting, and d. O-N/MEMS packaging, and reliability. 

George Shaker oversees wireless activities in the sensors and devices lab at the UW-Schlegel Research Institute for Aging. Previously, he was with Research in Motion (BlackBerry).  

In 2017, George was selected by the office of the president of NSERC among a group of ten Canadian professors to discuss Canadian research advancement on the Internet of Things (IoT) area at the special NSERC-NRC-MOST meeting in Ottawa. In addition, prof. Shaker serves on the organizational committee of the French-Canadian Bioengineering School. 
 
With more than fifteen years of industrial experience in technology, and about eight years as an adjunct faculty member leading projects related to the application of wireless sensor systems for healthcare, automotives, and unmanned aerial vehicles, Prof. Shaker has many design contributions in commercial products available from startups and established companies alike.