Engineering research received a boost with three professors awarded Canada Research Chair appointments on October 16.
John McPhee, a systems design engineering professor, is the new Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Biomechatronic System Dynamics
McPhee's research has broad applications that include rehabilitation robots that exercise the arms and lower limbs in stroke patients, sports training systems for athletes, devices that help the elderly walk and stand, and power steering systems that automatically adjust to different drivers.
Sriram Narasimhan, a civil and environmental engineering professor, is the new Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Smart Infrastructure
Narasimhan will detect failures in infrastructure automatically through the use of sensors and smart data acquisition technology so that the condition of structures can be evaluated with confidence to predict and avoid catastrophic failures.
Carolyn Ren, a mechanical and mechatronics engineering professor, had her appointment renewed as the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in
Ren’s research will advance both fundamental understanding of droplet microfluidics and LOC technologies for manipulating individual droplets. Discoveries from her research may revolutionize the current level of High Throughput Screening (HTS) analysis, which will help areas such as drug discovery, life science research, material synthesis and environmental monitoring.
A new chair was also awarded to Evan Risko, a psychology professor. He became the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Embodied and Embedded Cognition.
Outstanding researchers
“I'm pleased that the University of Waterloo has been granted an additional four Canada Research Chairs. These outstanding researchers will continue to advance knowledge and innovation, and further strengthen Waterloo's reputation as a world-class research institution,” said Peter Braid, member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo.
The Government of Canada established the Canada Research Chairs program in 2000 to build Canada’s research and development capacity. The program invests approximately $265 million per year to attract and retain some of the world's most accomplished and promising minds researching in the areas of engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences.