Executive Director; Professor, Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Physics and Astronomy

Research Interests: Microfluidics/Nanofluidics; Bio-MEMS; Integrated Water Management

Biography

Sushanta Mitra is the Executive Director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. He is cross-appointed as a Professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Physics & Astronomy, and Chemistry at the University of Waterloo. Before joining UW, he was the Associate Vice-President Research and Kaneff Professor in Micro & Nanotechnology for Social Innovation at the York University. His research interests are in the fundamental understanding of fluid transport in micro and nano-scale confinements with applications in energy, water, and bio-systems. He has authored and co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed journal papers, which includes publications in Nature Publishing Group, American Physical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, American Chemical Society and Elsevier journals. His research has been featured by a number of media outlets including Maclean’s, Vancouver Sun, Edmonton Journal, Times of India. He has delivered over 100 invited lectures across the world including the 2012 Lester Pearson Lecture.

He is equally passionate about teaching and has implemented experiential learning for first-year undergraduate engineering curriculum through public-private partnerships. He has implemented a “Mobile First” learning platform to improve preparedness for post-secondary STEM programs in partnership with K-12 school and industry.

He was the Associate Scientific Director for the Canada-India Research Centre of Excellence, IC-IMPACTS, the first bi-national Network Centres of Excellence created by the federal government of Canada. He contributed significantly to the community and technical societies through his role as past President of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, a member of the Committee on International Scientific Affairs, American Physical Society and many others. For his contributions in engineering and sciences, he has been elected as the Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME), the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), the Canadian Academy for Engineering (CAE), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC, UK), the American Physical Society (APS), the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE – Foreign Fellow), National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI - Foreign Fellow) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is also a Fellow of the National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) and the recipient of 2015 Engineering Excellence Medal from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.

Sushanta Mitra
Affiliation: 
University of Waterloo