Carolyn L. Ren is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo and holds a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Microfluidic Technologies.
As a member of the Microplastics Fingerprinting project, Professor Ren contributes to a multidisciplinary initiative of over 30 team members, including faculty, graduate students, and support staff. The team’s diverse expertise brings a holistic perspective to tackling the complex challenges of plastic pollution.
Professor Ren and her trainees including Dr. Weijia Cui, Maziar Shafieidarabi (PhD) and Samarpreet Bhatti (co-op), focus on developing portable microfluidic microwave sensors for field testing microplastics smaller than 1 mm in size. Their work began with using the QWave system (developed by QuantWave Technologies, a spin-off company based on Dr. Ren’s lab technology), to directly measure microplastics concentrations. In this system, water samples containing microplastics are pumped through microchannels and are detected by integrated microwave sensors. The team then advanced the sensor’s capabilities, improving its detection limits and enabling simultaneous measurement of microplastic concentration and size. Currently, they are integrating a microfluidic channel network for sample processing with microwave sensors to continuously detect particle size and concentration. This system aims to process larger numbers of water samples, providing statistically meaningful data for environmental monitoring.
Carolyn’s passion for water quality monitoring and protection stems from her childhood experiences in rural northern China, where access to clean drinking water was scarce and poor water quality contributed to health issues. This background fuels her dedication to developing innovations that address water quality challenges and their impact on human health. Her research on microfluidics integrates various electrical, electrochemical and optical sensors to advance water quality monitoring. Through QuantWave Technologies, she has developed microfluidic microwave sensors for detecting E. coli, and heavy metals like lead.