McPhee is the Canada Research Chair in Biomechatronic System Dynamics
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) welcomes Dr. John McPhee to the 2025 class of Fellows, the country's highest academic honour.
McPhee is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Biomechatronic System Dynamics and a professor in the Department of Systems Design Engineering. He is a leading expert in system dynamics and has pioneered the mathematical development of graph-theoretic modelling, launching a new and highly impactful field of research — multibody system dynamics.
His ground-breaking advances in symbolic computing and simulation were commercialized by Maplesoft and are being used by thousands worldwide to accelerate the design of complex mechatronic systems. His research has changed the way industry innovates across many domains, including hybrid electric vehicles, exoskeletons, rehabilitation robots and sports. He held the NSERC/Toyota/Maplesoft Industrial Research Chair from 2009 to 2015 and received the highly prestigious Professional Engineers Ontario Gold Medal and NSERC Synergy Award for Innovation in recognition of his impact.
Throughout his distinguished career, McPhee has supervised more than 125 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Many of his mentees have gone on to become academic leaders and innovators in emerging technologies, including wearable robotic exoskeletons, surgical planning, autonomous electronics and AI-driven baseball pitching robots. He was a co-architect of the mechatronics and biomedical engineering programs at Waterloo, and executive director of the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research.
McPhee’s leadership within the international research community extends back 30 years. He co-founded two journals, including the flagship publication, Multibody System Dynamics, and three international technical committees devoted to the field. He continues to play a pivotal role in fostering global collaboration and advancing research in system dynamics.
McPhee is one of six University of Waterloo faculty members recognized by the RSC this year. Go to RSC recognizes research excellence at Waterloo for the full story.