News

Congratulations to electrical and computer engineering PhD student, Ahmed Elbaroudy! Ahmed’s paper was selected as winner of the North American Conference on Molecular Beam Epitaxy (NAMBE 2023) Best Journal Paper Award! The paper entitled “Observation of an abrupt 3D-2D morphological transition in thin Al layers grown by MBE on InGaAs surface,” was chosen by the NAMBE Advisory Board from papers presented at the 37th North American Conference on Molecular Beam Epitaxy (NAMBE 2023) and published in JVST A.

The Government of Canada announced funding for several University of Waterloo faculty members through the New Frontiers Research Fund (NFRF).

“The New Frontiers in Research Fund supports high-risk, high-reward Canadian projects with the potential to spark transformational innovations,” said Charmaine Dean, vice-president, Research and International. “This year’s awardees from the University of Waterloo represent a variety of truly impactful research areas, including equitable approaches to climate change adaptation and improving eye health outcomes in children. Congratulations to the 2024 winners.”

Today, fifty-four new Fellows were elected to the Canadian Academy of Engineering - two of those new Fellows are University of Waterloo electrical and computer engineering professors – professors Ladan Tahvildari and Alfred Yu.

The Academy's President, Dr. Soheil Asgarpour commented: “Over the past 37 years, Fellows of the Academy have provided engineering leadership in the fields of education, infrastructure, innovation, energy, transportation, and many more. New Fellows have been selected for their outstanding contributions to engineering in Canada and around the world and for their service as role models in their fields and to their communities.”

Electrical and computer engineering professor, Claudio Cañizares, has been elected Fellow of the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering (CSEE) for his outstanding contributions in the field of electrical engineering science and technology. Founded in 1934 in Shanghai, the CSEE's members include over 120,000 individual engineers and over 1000 organizations.

New collaboration will allow quantum researchers to study effects of solar radiation on quantum computing

A new collaboration between researchers from the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo, SNOLAB near Sudbury, Ontario, and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden has been awarded a new grant to investigate the impact of radiation and cosmic rays on quantum technologies.

This grant, “Advanced Characterization and Mitigation of Qubit Decoherence in a Deep Underground Environment,” sponsored by the Army Research Office, a directorate of the U.S Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory, has been awarded to Dr. Chris Wilson, a faculty member at IQC and professor in Waterloo’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, alongside Dr. Jeter Hall, Director of Research at SNOLAB and adjunct professor at Laurentian University, and Dr. Per Delsing, professor at Chalmers University of Technology and director of the Wallenberg Center for Quantum Technology.

Researchers track the personalities of social robots to improve how they interact with humans

An interdisciplinary research team from the University of Waterloo's Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Lab (SIRRL) has found that people prefer interacting with robots they perceive to have social identities like their own.

This finding was made by a pair of Waterloo professors: Dr. Moojan Ghafurian, based in the Department of Systems Design Engineering and Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who worked together to conduct new research on human interactions with social robots. These robots possess social abilities and can interact with humans in interpersonal and social manners.

Electrical and computer engineering professor, Xuemin (Sherman) Shen, has been elected an International Fellow of The Engineering Academy of Japan (EAJ). The EAJ is composed of leading experts from academia, industry, and government institutions who possess a wide range of knowledge and have made outstanding contributions in engineering and technological sciences, and closely related fields.
 

A research team from the University of Waterloo is using radar technology to monitor people’s health while at the wheel, turning the ordinary car or truck into a mobile, medical hub.

Dr. George Shaker, an adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, and Ali Gharamohammadi, the lead PhD student on the project, have integrated radar with evolving vehicle technology to make health checks easier—without the need for any type of wearable.

The radar, smaller than a USB thumb drive, is integrated into the vehicle cabin and sends out signals that detect human vibrations, which are then sent back to the radar. The technology can detect tiny movements like the rise and fall of a chest from breathing or heartbeats. 

Electrical and computer engineering professor, Amir-Hossein Karimi is the recipient of this term's Igor Ivkovic Teaching Excellence Award for his commitment and dedication to teaching the course ECE 457B.

Each term the Engineering Society welcomes nominations from students to recognize lecturers, professors, or laboratory instructors from the Faculty of Engineering who exemplify the spirit of Professor Igor Ivkovic’s teaching, through employing non-conventional teaching techniques, allowing opportunities for experiential learning, and showing a commitment and dedication towards ensuring the academic success of students. 

Dr. Mahla Poudineh, assistant professor and director of the IDEATION Lab in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is one of five researchers to receive funding from the Ontario government.

Each award from government is valued at $100,000, and is matched by an additional $50,000 from the researcher's institution. Dr. Poudineh won the award for her project titled: A new transdermal patch to continuously and without pain track and treat diabetes. Her research will develop a new, low-cost system which is smaller (approximately seven centimetres) and capable of smart insulin sensing and delivery.