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Dr. Biswas honoured for work on clean water

UWindsor professor Nihar Biswas received an honorary degree from the University of Guelph in recognition for his contributions to environmental engineering education and to clean water technology that has improved the lives of people worldwide.

Dr. Biswas, a former acting vice president-research, former senior associate dean of engineering, and a faculty member since 1981, told graduands at the June 12 Convocation celebration that continued access to safe clean water continues to pose a challenge in countries across the globe.

“You will of course face challenges in your work, in your life,” he said in his formal address acknowledging his honour. “Innovation could be the key to solve those challenges.”

UWindsor students and alumni honoured by engineering community

Several University of Windsor engineering students and alumni were honoured during a local celebration of the engineering profession.

Windsor’s Engineering Month Committee hosts an annual awards luncheon to “bring public awareness to the diversity and importance of the exciting fields of engineering and technology and invite prospective students to consider these professions,” said Tina Hawco, chair of the Engineering Month Committee.

The committee is comprised of engineers and technologists from local municipalities, consulting engineering firms, the University of Windsor, St. Clair College, professional associations and industry.

Priscilla Williams, a PhD candidate in the civil and environmental engineering department, Michael Cappucci, BASc ’11, and Aaron Blata, BASc ’14, were named the Top Three Under 30 during a ceremony April 13, 2018 at the Fogolar Furlan Club for demonstrating higher than average abilities to undertake engineering projects, outstanding work ethic and leadership early in their careers.

Hum generating buzz on the other side of the world

A University of Windsor engineering professor will be featured in a Japanese science show for his investigation into the source of the infamous Windsor Hum.

A camera crew from Japan’s national public broadcaster NHK made a special trip to campus April 16 to interview and film Colin Novak, an associate professor in the mechanical, automotive and materials engineering department.

Production co-ordinator Takayo Nagasawa said the segment will run as part of an episode focused on the sound of the cosmos and people who make data from sound.

“We found out about the Windsor Hum and we couldn’t tell the story without interviewing Dr. Novak,” she said during a break from filming in the university’s Centre for Automotive Research and Education.

Blog records student involvement in Indian hydro-engineering project

Dylan Verburg grew up on a farm, and his experience with small construction projects there has proven invaluable in his current challenge — deploying equipment in a drainage pond outside the Indian capital of New Delhi in an attempt to improve water quality.

“Two 50-foot sections of tubing were placed … with the intention of oxidizing the inlet stream before it mixes with the main body of the lake,” the civil engineering student writes in a blog on the Windsor Engineering website. “Six additional lines are placed strategically in the main body of the lake,” located along the Yamuna River in North Delhi.

He will measure the resulting changes, which aim to aerate the water, allowing beneficial bacteria to flourish and naturally restore the ecosystem.

Combustion research lands Andrzej Sobiesiak international accolade

The head of the UWindsor Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering has been recognized by the Polish Academy of Sciences for his outstanding contributions towards advances in the knowledge of combustion process and technologies.

Andrzej Sobiesiak received the Dionizy Smoleński Medal September 5, during a joint meeting of the Polish Section of the Combustion Institute and XXIII International Symposium on Combustion Processes in Rynia near Warsaw, Poland after delivering a keynote lecture on “Internal Combustion Engines Fuelled with Solutions of Liquid and Gaseous Fuels.”

At the award ceremony, Dr. Sobiesiak was cited for his research on droplets combustion in microgravity, development and work on flameless combustion and ultra-low NOx burner, Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engines charged with fuels derived from biomass and unique split-cycle engine fuelled with natural gas.

UWindsor engineering researchers receive nearly $2 million in government funding

Dr. Daniel Green displays a sheet metal specimen in the Mechanical Testing Lab at the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation. The specimen was stretch-formed in a formability test.

An injection of nearly $2 million in federal funds will aid University of Windsor researchers like Daniel Green, who is helping automakers incorporate lightweight sheet materials into their vehicles.

The automotive sector is turning to lightweight materials as an alternative to steel to improve fuel efficiency. However, lower-density metals tend to have limited formability, says Dr. Green, an associate professor who specializes in materials engineering.

“Innovative forming processes need to be developed and optimized for the production of automotive parts,” he said. “With high-speed forming, we can get 100 per cent more formability than we can with conventional stamping.”

Green is one of 14 UWindsor engineering professors who was awarded funding through the 2017 Discovery Grants Program — an annual competition run by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to advance research in Canadian universities.

Engineering graduate receives Governor General’s Gold Medal

Lakshmi Varaha Iyer, a recipient of the Governor General’s Gold Medal, receives congratulations from UWindsor president Alan Wildeman and chancellor Ed Lumley, Saturday at Convocation.

An engineering graduate was honoured for his outstanding academic achievement this past weekend during the 108th Convocation ceremonies held in the St. Denis Centre.

Lakshmi Varaha Iyer, who received a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2016, received the Governor General’s Gold Medal from Provost and Vice-President, Academic, Douglas Kneale.

The medals were established in 1873 by Lord Dufferin, Canada’s third Governor General after Confederation, to encourage academic excellence across the nation. Over the years, they have become the most prestigious award that students in Canadian schools can receive, recognizing a student graduating with the highest grade point average among peers.

During his time at UWindsor Dr. Iyer received, among other honours, an NSERC Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship; a Tri-Council Recognition Scholarship; and the University of Windsor Graduate Scholarship and Outstanding Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity.

International partnership with UWindsor aims to improve water quality in India

A UWindsor engineering professor is leading the way on an industry-academia collaboration that aims to improve drinking water quality in the capital of India.

Dr. Rajesh Seth has obtained funding through the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability (IC-IMPACTS) — a Canadian Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) dedicated to the development of research collaborations between Canada and India.

The joint project with researchers from the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) – National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in India aims to improve sewage contaminated lake water quality through aeration and floating wetland plants. Dylan Verburg, an environmental engineering MASc. candidate studying under Dr. Seth, will spend the fall semester in India collecting samples and data from Sonia Vihar Lake, a small polluted water pond which discharges into the Yamuna river — a source of Delhi’s drinking water.

Adjunct professor to head ozone research association

A UWindsor adjunct professor who helped Windsor produce some of the best-tasting water in the province will be the first Canadian president of an international scientific organization dedicated to ozone research.

On January 1, 2018, Saad Y. Jasim will begin a two-year term as president-elect of the International Ozone Association, thereafter taking up his two-year term as president. The association formed in 1973 to research and promote technologies on ozone and related compounds.

Civil engineering grads give back in celebration of 50th anniversary

Dr. Rupp Carriveau talks about his underwater energy storage research with graduates from the Class of 1967 in UWindsor's Turbulence and Energy Lab.

Henry Regts (BASc 1967) says he owes a lot to the University of Windsor.

Admitted as a mature student to the civil engineering program, Regts said the education he received prepared him for a successful career in the profession. He helped to bring together several fellow graduates of the Class of 1967 Wednesday for a tour of the Centre for Engineering Innovation.

“It’s Canada’s 150th year and our 50th year,” he said. “We’ve only had one reunion in that time and to me it was a big deal graduating in 1967. You’ve got to celebrate these things.”