Profiles

Dr. Aiping Yu is a professor of Chemical Engineering, received her PhD from University of California-Riverside. Her research is highly multidisciplinary which focuses on 2D and carbon nanomaterials for energy storage and polymer composites aiming for physical (mechanical, thermal, and EMI/electrical) properties and anti-corrosion reinforcement. She is a recipient of NSERC Steacie Memorial Fellowship and RSC Rutherford Memorial Award.

Dr. Alexander Wong in a Canada Research Chair with a focus on operational artificial intelligence, particular in the areas of scalable machine learning, explainable machine learning, and responsible artificial intelligence.  Dr. Wong has worked with numerous companies across industries to bring artificial intelligence from theory to practical reality.  He has published over 600 refereed journal and conference papers, as well as patents, has given over 80 invited talks, and recognized with over 30 research and industrial awards and over 300 media coverage around the world. 

Professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, receiving his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2000. He has expertise in numerical simulation of composite structures and fabrication processes. Participated and coordinated numerous academic and industrial RD&I projects involving aerospace companies, e.g. Embraer, SAAB and Akaer.

Ali Elkamel is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering and BSc in Mathematics from Colorado School of Mines, MSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado, and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. His specific research interests are in computer-aided modeling, optimization, and simulation with applications to energy planning, sustainable operations, and product design.

Armaghan Salehian is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Professor Salehian’s research interests and expertise include structural dynamics and vibrations and applications of smart materials for energy harvesting, sensing, and actuation.

Baris Fidan is a Professor in Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering, with cross appointment in System Design Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Dr. Tan’s research is focused on thermochemical processes for green energy production & air emission control. He received his BSc and MSc degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing in the 1990s, and PhD degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA in 2004. Dr. Tan’s contribution to scholarship has been recognized by international peers, as evidenced by the popularity of his technical books in his fields of research.

Dr. Costa Kapsis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Costa’s research lies at the interface between science, engineering and architectural design with an emphasis on energy in buildings and communities. His research is focused on questions of energy efficiency, solar energy generation and energy transaction in the built environment.

Increases funding for Engineering’s research enterprise through large-scale, strategic initiatives in partnership with industry and government funding agencies; Promotes Engineering’s research capacity and expertise to external parties, and supports Engineering researchers’ applications to government programs.

Dr David Correa's research looks at biological structures and processes as a source of insight for the development of new fabrication processes and advanced materials. The research aims at implementing state of the art digital fabrication tools (robotic manipulators, 3D printers and CNC milling) to develop innovative and high-performance design solutions for industrial and architectural applications. 

Professor Cronin has established a unique in Canada and globally recognized program in computational injury biomechanics, supported by advanced material characterization and experimental testing. Recognized by a Premier’s Research Excellence Award, Dr. Cronin is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Trauma Biomechanics and Injury Prevention (tBip) and leads the Neck Model (NM) Centre of Expertise (COE) for the Global Human Body Models Consortium, developing one of the most detailed and biofidelic Human Body Models (HBM) used globally by industry and academics to predict injury at the tissue level.

Dr. Eric Croiset is a Chemical Engineering professor and former department chair. Croiset was awarded his doctorate from Universite d'Orleans in 1996 and has research interests in alternative energy, reaction engineering and sustainable energy management. He also researches the optimization of carbon dioxides capture processes, having collaborated with CanmetENERGY, Natural Resources Canada.

As an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Dr. Esmaeil Sadeghi focuses on sustainable materials manufacturing technologies, such as additive manufacturing (AM). Since obtaining his doctorate in 2018 from University West, Sweden, he has been teaching and supervising graduate and undergraduate students. His research objective is to develop innovative, sustainable, and clean manufacturing technologies for durable and eco-friendly material systems.

Dr. Eugene Yee is a Defence Scientist at Defence R&D Canada. In this capacity, he conducted pure and applied research including experimental investigations and stochastic modelling of turbulence and turbulent diffusion phenomena in the atmosphere, experimental and computational modelling/methods related to urban flow and dispersion, and application of Bayesian inference for sensor/model data fusion in the context of source reconstruction.

Fatma Gzara is an Associate Professor with the Department of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests lie in the areas of optimization, network models, supply chain management, transportation risk and logistics. Currently, she uses bi-level mathematical modelling to determine the routes that trucks carrying hazardous materials will be most likely to take. Professor Gzara gathers real data and uses it to keep residential and industrial areas safe. In the last few years, she has written articles for journals such as Operations Research Letters, Telecommunication Systems, and the European Journal of Operational Research. 

Professor Flora T. T. Ng obtained her B.Sc. at the University of Hong Kong , M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She joined the University of  Waterloo, Canada in 1987, appointed University Research Chair in 2006 and holds the prestigious title of University Professor since 2008. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Professor Ng has expertise in catalysis, bitumen oilsands upgrading, green chemistry and engineering and a world leading expert on catalytic distillation, a green reactor technology.

Prof. Lien has 30 years of experience developing and systematically applying Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to a wide range of fluid mechanics and multi-physics problems, such as wind energy, urban flow and dispersion modeling, aerodynamics, aeroacoustics and aero-elasticity. His current research interests in wind energy include wind turbine wakes, wake-induced fatigue analysis, wind turbine pitch control, wind turbine noise prediction/reduction, micro-siting of a wind farm and AI-based wind power forecasting.

Dr. Gennaro Notomista's main research interests lie at the intersection of design and control of robotic systems for long-duration autonomy with applications to environmental monitoring. Prior to joining University of Waterloo, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the CNRS/Inria/IRISA, Rennes, France.

Prof. George Shaker is an adjunct associate professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Waterloo. He also 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). He was also with Georgia Institute of Technology. He has been the Principal Scientist and Head of Research at Spark Technology Labs (STL), since its founding in 2011.

Hamid Jahed is a Professor in the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Department. He is the Director of the Fatigue and Stress Analysis Laboratory (FATSLab) at the University of Waterloo. Professor Jahed’s research interests lie in the mutiscale characterization, modelling, and life enhancement of lightweight materials under cyclic loading, and the development of solid-state additive manufacturing using cold spray technology. Jahed has received several awards including Faculty of Engineering and Sandford Fleming Foundation Teaching Excellence Award, and Engineering Research Excellence Award. 

Dr. Shafiee is an AI researcher; his research interest is mainly on machine learning models especially deep learning and graphical models with different applications in computer vision. He has extensive industrial research experience in leading many large-scale industrial and academic projects collaborating with companies like Microsoft and Intel. He has several best papers award on designing efficient, operational, and robust machine learning models.

Jean-Pierre Hickey is an assistant professor in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering. He is also involved in the Multi-Physics Interaction Lab at the University of Waterloo. His research interests include Fluid dynamics, Combustion, Supercritical Thermodynamics, and Aeroacoustics.  

John Montesano is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo and the Director of the Composites Research Group (CRG). His research interests lie in the field of mechanics of fiber-reinforced composite materials and structures. One of the main pillars of Prof. Montesano’s research is to investigate the influence of manufacturing processes on the integrity composite structures.

John Z. Wen is a Professor with the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering and is cross appointed to the Chemical Engineering department at the University of Waterloo. He is also the Director of the Laboratory for Emerging Energy Research at the university and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) and the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering (CSME). 

Dr. Sagar Naik’s research interests focus on: (i) monitoring of physical systems to ensure their safe operations using wireless sensor networks; (ii) monitoring of wireless devices in cyber-physical systems to detect their anomalous behavior; (iii) designing secure and efficient communication protocols for vehicular networks; (iv) designing energy harvesting sensor modules for sustainable communication in harsh communication environments; and (v) software testing and quality assurance. 

Dr. Kumaraswamy Ponnambalam is a Professor in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. His research interests include design optimization under uncertainty with emphasis on developing operations research techniques as well as stochastic modelling. He is an expert applying AI techniques to many problems in resource management and his current interests include using regenerative economics and triple bottom analysis to design systems with attention to sustainability, equity, diversity, and inclusion. 

Professor and Chair of Systems Design Engineering (SYDE), Dr. Lisa Aultman-Hall received her PhD in Civil Engineering from McMaster University in 1996. Prior to Waterloo, Aultman-Hall served as a faculty member at three American universities, and was the founding director of the Vermont Transportation Research Centre (TRC). Her research focuses on intercity long distance travel behavior, network resiliency, non-motorized transportation, streetscape design and transportation systems. 

Dr Alfano is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at Waterloo. His research focuses on the mechanics of solid bodies and layered lightweight structures. The interplay between manufacturing and structural performance is a highlight of Marco’s recent research work, which enjoys an even balance between analytical, computational and experimental methods in fracture mechanics.

Dr. Mehrdad Kazerani is an expert in power electronics, with a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University. His research areas include topology development, modeling and control of converters for renewable energy sources integration, electrified powertrains, hybrid energy storage systems, smart battery chargers with V2G capability, energy access and microgrids.

Dr. Mehrdad Pirnia, a PhD Waterloo alumnus in Electrical and Computer Engineering, is a faculty member and Graduate Attributes lecturer in the Department of Management Sciences. His main research focus is enhancing the operation and planning of energy and transportation systems through artificial intelligence, optimization and stochastic techniques. He has previously held positions with California ISO, ALSTOM Grid, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Michael Worswick is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering of the University of Waterloo and is Executive Director of the Waterloo Node of the Advanced Manufacturing Consortium. He held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in “Light Weight Materials Under Extreme Deformation: Forming and Impact” (2004-2018) and currently holds a University Research Chair under the same title.

Dr. Vlasea is an Assistant Professor and the Research Co-Director of the Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing Lab. Her research focuses on innovative design, process optimization and adoption of new materials for powder bed fusion and binder jetting additive manufacturing processes. Dr. Vlasea collaborates closely with industry partners in the additive manufacturing supply chain and applications, including aerospace. In recognition of her scholarly work, student mentorship, and industry outreach, she was recognised as the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) 20 Most Influential Academics 2021 and as the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer 2020.

Dr. Azad’s primary research interests lie in: (i) intelligent controls and automation with applications to automotive systems as well as autonomous systems like automated vehicles and drones, and (ii) innovative applications of AI methods to solve complex modeling, optimization, control, and automation problems. He has over 70 publications in peer-reviewed journals and received an Early Researcher Award in 2015 from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.

Dr. Maftoon is an assistant professor in the department of Systems Design Engineering. Dr. Maftoon received his PhD training in biomedical engineering at McGill University performing research in physiological acoustics and auditory mechanics followed by a postdoctoral training in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology at the Harvard Medical School. One research focus of Dr. Maftoon at the University of Waterloo is noise and vibration leveraging his industrial experience in vehicle research and development.  

• Engineering 

Dr. Paria Karimi is a research assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering. Her research focuses on eliminating environmental effect and reducing energy consumption in aerospace applications through additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. Her main passion is to use new AM technologies to create a healthy environment devoid of pollutants and requiring less energy, with the lack of universal guidelines on new design approaches, the classification of manufacturing materials, and processes serving as her primary motivation.

Dr. Parsin Haji Reza is an award-winning teacher, researcher, entrepreneur, published novelist, and inventor of photoacoustic remote sensing (PARS^®) microscopy. His research explores designing and developing novel hardware and software methods for clinical and pre-clinical biomedical applications. These new technologies aim to provide clinicians and researchers with novel capabilities and information that is presently difficult to obtain with existing techniques. He invented and pioneered several new technologies/concepts including, Photoacoustic Remote Sensing (PARS^®) microscopy, a novel absorption-based, non-contact, non-invasive, label-free imaging technique. He also is the co-founder of illumiSonics Inc., where he holds position of CTO and Chairman of the Board.

Dr. Rebecca Saari has interdisciplinary training and professional experience in sustainable engineering. Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, she worked as an air quality engineering consultant and atmospheric scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. She completed her PhD in Engineering Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Rodrigo Costa is an assistant professor of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Costa received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. Prior to joining Waterloo, Dr. Costa was an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University. His research on societal and environmental systems examines how communities' physical, economic, and social systems interact to exacerbate disaster risk and further socioeconomic and racial inequalities. Rodrigo works at the interface between engineering and social sciences. Dr. Costa’s goal is to inform targeted interventions to reduce disaster impacts, accelerate recovery, and ensure that all of society participates in the benefits.  

Dr. Saeed Ghadimi is an assistant professor in the Department of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo. Before joining UWaterloo, he was an associate research scholar at Princeton University. He also received his PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from University of Florida.

Dr. Saeed Maleksaeedi is a material scientist with a focus on additive manufacturing technologies, received her PhD from Shiraz University in 2009. His research explores application of additive manufacturing in various industry sectors including aerospace, biomedical and tooling.

Dr. Fischmeister is a Professor at the University of Waterloo, leads the Real-time Embedded Software Group, and is NSERC/Magna Industrial Research Chair for Automotive Software. Dr. Fischmeister performs systems research at the intersection of software technology, distributed systems, and formal methods. His preferred application area is safety-critical embedded real-time systems. Jointly with industry and researchers, he built the APMA Connected Vehicle Technology Demonstrator as well as several CES demos, including the Renesas Autonomous Vehicle as well as the DENSO Driving AI demonstrator.

Dr. Serhiy Yarusevych received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2006. Since 2006, he has been directing the Fluid Mechanics Research Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. His research is focused on aerodynamics and its multidisciplinary applications in engineering, including operation of lifting and control surfaces, flows over bluff bodies, turbulence, flow induced vibrations and noise, and flow control. Additional details on the laboratory and ongoing research work can be found at www.fmrl.uwaterloo.ca.

Shi Cao (“SHER TSAO”) studies human factors engineering. His research projects include human performance and workload modeling, human-machine system reliability, the applications of virtual and augmented reality, and new aviation training technologies. Cao has developed computational cognitive models and human performance prediction systems (Google Scholar list). He is also the director of Human Optimization Modelling Lab (HOMLab) and the Committee Chair of the Collaborative Aeronautics Program.

Dr. Sirisha Rambhatla is an Assistant Professor in the Management Sciences Department, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Her research focusses on reliable artificial intelligence (AI) models for real-world decision making for critical applications in healthcare, intelligent automation, and climate change, using deep learning, time- series and spatiotemporal data analysis, explainable AI, and provable algorithms. Her inter disciplinary work spanning both theory and practice of machine learning (ML), has been published at top ML venues such as NeurIPS, ICLR, KDD, IJCAI, AAAI, and clinical venues such as AMIA, Urology Clinics North America, and Surgery.

Associate professor with the Department of Management Sciences, Dr. Stan Dimitrov's research primarily focuses on the interface of operations research and information systems. Dimitrov graduated from the University of Michigan with a doctorate in Industrial and Operations Engineering in 2010. Dimitrov's work pays special attention to business data analytics, mechanism design, game theory and telecommunications, and he is interested in creating solutions to industry problems related to pricing, process, and customer relationship management. 

Stephen L. Smith is a Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering where he directs the Autonomous Systems Lab and is a Canada Research Chair in Autonomous Systems.  He received his BSc degree from Queen’s University, his MASc degree from the University of Toronto, and his PhD degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Sushanta Mitra’s research interests are in the fundamental understanding of fluid flow in narrow confinements applicable to energy, environment and bio-systems. Before joining Waterloo, he had several administrative roles in Canadian higher education, including Department Chair (Lassonde School of Engineering), Associate Vice-President Research (York University) and Assistant Vice-President Research (University of Alberta).

Dr. Vijay Ganesh is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo and the Co-Director of the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute. Prior to joining Waterloo in 2012, he was a research scientist at MIT (2007-2012) and completed his PhD in computer science from Stanford in 2007.

Xianguo is a Professor in the Deparment of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. His main research interests and activities are in the area of thermal fluid/science, including energy systems and energy storage, various energy conversion devices, propulsion and power generation systems, aerosol generation and applications, and transportation fuel cell and battery systems. 

A focus on sustainable energy conversion and chemical production processes! XiaoYu Wu is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. He obtained his PhD and was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)He also obtained his MS and BS degrees in Zhejiang University. He is enthusiastic about sustainability, especially how clean technologies can impact sustainability and how developing countries can incorporate sustainability in development. He has published papers in journals such as Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, AIChE Journal and ChemSusChem. He serves as the Guest Associate Editor in an open-access journal Frontiers in Energy Research for a theme collection of “Sustainable Hydrogen for Energy, Fuel and Commodity Applications.” 

Dr. Pant is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where he leads the Control, Learning and Logic (CL2) group. His research focuses on decision-making for multi-agent and autonomous systems, drawing on elements of Control Theory, Machine Learning, Formal Methods, and Optimization.

Dr Yilan Liu Yilan got her MASc at Chinese Academy of Sciences, where she earned Master of Natural Science. She pursued her PhD in Biochemical Engineering at Chinese Academy of Sciences.  She conducted post-doctoral training at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and at University of Toronto. In Liu’s lab for synthetic biology and sustainable development (LSS), we harness synthetic biology for sustainable development. Her research explores how to engineer bacteria to convert mixed solid waste into biofuels. 

Yimin Wu is an assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering and Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology (WIN), Director of Materials Interfaces Foundry, at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Wu received his DPhil degree in Materials from the University of Oxford on 2D electronics in 2013. Then, he worked as a SinBeRise Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Zhao Pan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo and the Principal Investigator of the Interdisciplinary Fluid Physics Lab - Pan Lab. Prior to joining Waterloo, he worked at Utah State University and Florida Center for Advanced Aero-propulsion (FCAAP, FSU) as a postdoctoral fellow. His research interests span from fundamental fluid physics (e.g., jets, bubbles, droplets, and cavitation), micro/bio-fluids, to advanced fluid flow diagnostics. Most of his studies are driven by curiosity and serve both academia and the community with creative ideas and broader social impact. Working with scientists and engineers from different fields, his multi-disciplinary fluid dynamics studies have been published in journals such as PNAS, Nature Plants, J. Fluid Mech, Phys. Rev. Fluids, Phys. Fluids, and Soft Matter, etc. His work has also been featured on journal covers (Nature, Plants, Soft Matter), editor’s picks, and in 40+ leading media outlets (e.g., Science, Nature, The Washington Post, EurekAlert!, etc.).