2019 News Archive

A UWindsor student studying aerospace engineering is one of four province-wide to receive an Ontario Aerospace Council scholarship.

Atilla Saadat, a third-year mechanical engineering student in the aerospace stream, received a $2,500 scholarship for academic achievement and his work outside the classroom. Saadat is the founder and space systems technical lead of the University of Windsor Space & Aeronautics Team (WinSAT), a multi-disciplinary group of more than 30 students building a space-ready 3U Cube Satellite for Low Earth Orbit to compete in the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge.

“His work has already demonstrated a tangible impact at UWindsor, as WinSAT aims to increase the space and aeronautics engineering opportunities at our institution,” says Afshin Rahimi, an assistant professor in the University’s Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering.

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Two UWindsor masters students of engineering materials claimed prizes for their oral presentations at the 2019 Canadian Materials Science Conference, June 10 to 13 in Vancouver.

The conference is a forum for academics and professionals to discuss advancements in a wide range of areas of materials science, as evidenced by the UWindsor winners.

Alexandra Rose’s presentation “Analyzing the fracture behaviour of tool steels in various stress triaxialities,” under the supervision of professors Ahmet Alpas and Daniel Green, was judged best in the symposium dedicated to advanced characterization of materials.

Liza DiCecco won the best oral presentation award in the additive manufacturing symposium for her work “Fatigue Behaviour of Shot-Peened Additive Manufactured Ti-TiB,” supervised by professor Afsaneh Edrisy.

UWindsor professor Jonathan Wu has been inducted as a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

The Canadian Academy of Engineering inducted UWindsor electrical and computer engineering professor Jonathan Wu as a fellow at a ceremony Friday in Quebec City in conjunction with its 2019 annual general meeting.

The academy brings together the nation’s most distinguished and experienced engineers to provide strategic advice on matters of critical importance to Canada.

A citation noting Dr. Wu’s election called him a “world-leading expert in the field of computer vision and machine learning” and praised his development of systems for a wide variety of real-world applications.

His was one of 55 appointments announced by the academy Friday; president Eddy Isaacs said he expects them to make considerable contributions to public policy.

Hundreds of students seeking jobs in engineering had the chance to engage with local employers June 7 at the university’s annual Engineering Career Fair.

The Office of Career Development and Experiential Learning and the Faculty of Engineering hosted the event for hundreds of new grads, soon-to-be grads, and recent alumni seeking full-time employment.

“Career fairs like this are a great way to showcase student talent and engage employers on campus,” says Sarah Overton, the event organizer and campus engagement co-ordinator. “We were thrilled with both student and employer participation today.”

The free event, held in the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation, included a LinkedIn photo booth and more than 40 representatives from industry. View photos from the event on the UWindsor Engineering Facebook page.

A team of University of Windsor students is proposing a more reliable and cost-effective way to monitor contamination in Lake Erie.

Comprised of engineering and law students, the group has entered its idea in Erie Hack— a competition created by the Cleveland Water Alliance and the Creativity and Innovation Team at NASA Glenn Research Center in hopes of accelerating technology solutions to the lake’s most pressing problems.

One of these problems is hazardous algal blooms primarily caused by agricultural runoff. These blooms release harmful toxins, which result in loss of plant and fish life and increase water treatment costs. Monitoring these blooms is a critical part of the mitigation process, says environmental engineering PhD student Mohammad Madani.

A UWindsor engineering student’s design of a reconfigurable hand brace has landed her first place in a national competition.

Shreya Patki, a third-year mechanical engineering student and UWindsor Outstanding Scholar, took top honours in the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) Canada Makes 2019 3D Challenge for her design of an environmentally friendly, custom hand brace that can assist elderly people who lack fine motor control or people with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome — a genetic connective tissue disorder.

“The problem with current braces is that they are expensive to customize and generally sized braces don’t allow for flexibility or comfort. This is where my research comes in,” Patki says.

How does a building manager decide which energy retrofit is the most economical and least impactful on occupants and the environment?

Rania Toufeili has the answer. A master’s student of environmental engineering, she has designed an asset management decision support tool that can assist building managers in selecting the preferred technically feasible energy retrofit. The support tool landed her second place at the Canadian Network of Asset Managers student research symposium held May 6 to 9 in Kelowna, B.C.

“Building energy retrofits are a very effective way to decrease the energy consumption of a building and in turn decrease global greenhouse gas emissions,” Toufeili says.

Her tool combines multi-criteria decision making with life cycle thinking to develop a more comprehensive and expansive retrofit evaluation method than others on the market. The evaluation considers the energy retrofit’s environmental, economic, social, and technical performance by using a set of relevant key performance indicators.

Toufeili was selected from approximately 30 student applicants and nine student symposium presenters studying topics connected to asset management.

Studying engineering at the University of Windsor has shown Faraz Talebpour his potential to make a difference.

A doctoral candidate in electrical and computer engineering, his work on a remotely controlled underwater vehicle can find immediate application on real-world challenges. It was one of more than 30 research projects displayed during an open house Friday in the Centre for Engineering Innovation.

Talebpour says his experience scuba diving has helped him to appreciate how pollution threatens aquatic ecosystems.

“Going under the water you see how we’re destroying that world,” he says. “This project can save the marine life that we have endangered.”

A University of Windsor engineering professor is helping students grasp more than complex electrical engineering concepts.

Shervin Erfani has made a six-figure dollar donation to the Faculty of Engineering to help students finance their education and foster collaboration in the classroom.

“The greatest reward I have ever been given is the simple opportunity to teach generations of young people how to think in an ‘engineering way’ about the world around them,” Dr. Erfani said at a gathering of his immediate family and colleagues, Friday in the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation.

There, Dean of Engineering Mehrdad Saif unveiled the newly-named Dr. Shervin Erfani Learning Studio and recognized Erfani’s philanthropic investments to endow two scholarships in memory of his father Dr. Ibrahim Erfani. The scholarships will support undergraduate and graduate engineering students and are set to begin disbursing in 2020.