Celebration of Achievement 2011-2012

Celebration of Achievement 2011-2012

January 23, 2012

The Department of Mechanical Engineering recently held their annual Celebration of Achievement ceremony. Please take a look at the photos below!

The event was held at the First Nations House of Learning. It was an opportunity to recognize the achievements of exceptional students within the Mech department. Congratulations to all recipients!

2011 Department Scholars  (This honourary designation may be given to a student at any point in their graduate program, and they hold the designation through the remainder of their degree): Ashkan Babaie, Farzad Khademolhosseini, Farbod Khameneifar, Jeremy Kooyman, Kenneth MacLean, Hadi Mansoor, AJung Moon, Marie-Eve Myrand-Lapierre

Wesbrook Scholar, UBC Premier Undergraduate Scholarship: Connor Schellenberg-Beaver

UBC Graduate Teaching Award: Matthew Pan

Student Leadership Award (Students that excel as leaders among their peers): Ryan Beaumont, Jayson Bursill, Ambrose Chan, Thomas Curran, Amy Leson, Amanda Li, Doug McLeod, AJung Moon, Andrea Palmer-Boroski, Matthew Pan, Eric Pospisil, Sina Radmard, Behnam Razavi, Shalaleh Rismani, Richard Schaap, Connor Schellenberg-Beaver, Navid Shirzad

Vinod J. Modi Endowment Travel Award: Rami Mansour, Colin Russell

Undergraduate Academic Achievement: Kenard Agbanlog, Kevin Asperin, Eric David Etienne Buckley, Artem Iourievitch Bylinskii, Hung Keat Chua, Thomas Curran, Alexander Dahl, Anton Davydovski, Kristopher Lendl De Asis, Mark Dyck, Stephen Ecklin, Jordan Scott Eichorn, Joshua Fong, Jay Roderick Hope, Derry William Lappin, Robert Wayne Lion, Ryan Loi, Neal Steward O’Grady, Daniel Thomas Paterson, Alistair James Deuchars Pimlott, Andrew Pires, Pimchanok Kwang Pithayachariyakul, Jennifer Candice Reimer, Shalaleh Rismani, Byrom Roehrl, Ian Saari, Connor Schellenberg-Beaver, Colin Lewis Schlosser, Kevin Leong Song, Guy Wilkins, Denise Xiao Wen Wong, Terence Sui-Kit Woo, Yutian Xing, Michael Zhihao Yang, Leon Ching Fung Yuen, Leon King Wah Yuen

 

Mechanical Engineering Student, Connor Schellenberg-Beaver, accepts one of UBC’s most prestigious designations

January 19, 2012

The Department of Mechanical Engineering would like to congratulate Connor Schellenberg-Beaver for his outstanding achievements.  Connor has recently accepted the Wesbrook Scholarship, the Harry Logan Memorial Scholarship, and the Harold B & Nellie Boyes Memorial Scholarship.

The Wesbrook Scholarship is one of UBC’s most prestigious designations. It is given to a maximum of twenty senior students who exhibit outstanding academic performance, leadership, and involvement in student and community activities. In fall of 2010, the first half of Connor’s 3rd year, he was the Engine and Electronics lead in the UBC Supermileage Team, continuing his commitment to the team throughout his Co-op term. In the second half of his 3rd year, Connor maintained an exceptionally high average, rarely seen in our challenging program. Connor is now Team Captain for the UBC Supermileage Team, continuously making impressive changes and improvements to the team.

The Harry Logan Memorial Scholarship and Harold B & Nellie Boyes Memorial Scholarship are 2 scholarships awarded together. They are awarded by the committee to a student who exhibits a good academic standing, achievement in sports, and participation in other student activities. Connor possesses all of these qualities. He stands out as a leader and mentor as captain of the UBC Super mileage Team. Connor actively sought sponsorship from the broader engineering community to support an expanding team, and during his time as captain he more than doubled the number of team members. One of Connor’s teammates who nominated him as a student leader writes:

“Beyond shaping and training 30+ Mech 2 students as the captain of the Supermileage school team, Connor guides my peers and I in our academics, as exemplified by    the helpful exam-tip email he constructed for our benefit during finals.”

Connor is a natural born leader. He organizes his Supermileage Team in such a way that all members are working with a mentor- a senior member with more experience. He encourages questions, focuses on the bigger picture, and fully commits himself to helping his fellow students grow as engineers. Connor is an exceptional student, who is an outstanding example of the leadership, vision, and spirit that UBC inspires.

Connor Schellenberg-Beaver receiving an award

Dr. Peter Cripton recently secured a $2.3 Million Dollar Grant funded by the United States Department of Defense CDMRP

January 16, 2012

 

Dr. Peter Cripton, Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, Patrick Campbell Chair in Mechanical Design and Principle Investigator at the spinal cord research centre ICORD at UBC, has recently received a $2.3million dollar grant funded by the United States Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP). The “Applied Research and Advanced Technology Development Award” is designed for independent investigators interested in conducting research on “battlefield injury and care, particularly in post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, prosthetics, and restoration of eyesight, and other vision-related ailments. …”[1]

The focus of Dr. Cripton’s research is to establish the allowable limit of vibrations for a person with an acute spinal cord injury. A broken bone through injurious compression, tension shear or bending of the spine can all damage the spinal cord and thus cause partial or complete paralysis. This also creates an unstable spine. Vibration of the unstable spine could exacerbate the effects of the spinal cord injury.

Dr. Cripton hopes to find guidelines for the safe medical evacuation of people with spinal injuries including military personnel as well as civilians. He hopes to develop the best evacuation procedure for people in emergency situations. For example, for a civilian who injures their spinal cord in a car accident, the vibrations caused by a bumpy ambulance ride to the hospital can potentially make the injury worse. For a soldier being evacuated from battlefield by helicopter, the vibrations of could also cause exacerbation of the spinal cord injury.

Dr. Cripton’s collaboration on this three year project with the University of Iowa, which specializes in vibrations, the United States Army Aero Medical Research laboratory, and UBC spine surgeon/neuroscientist Brian Kwon, will provide invaluable research on the effect of medical evacuation-related vibration on spinal cord injuries, which will ultimately benefit both the military and civilians.

[1] Adams, Donisha. “Applied Research and Advanced Technology Development Award: Improving Health Care for U.S. Service Members.” Science Career Magazine 14 Sept. 2009. Web.

 

UBC engineering students recognized by Engineering Institute of Canada

December 5, 2011

Congratulations to Katelyn Currie, a second-year UBC Mechanical Engineering student, for receiving the Engineering Institute of Canada Vancouver Island Branch Scholarship Society scholarship on November 4, 2011. The $2,000 award is supported by the Canadian Society for Senior Engineers (CSSE). The scholarship is awarded to Vancouver Island high school graduates with high academic standing, financial need and leadership roles in extracurricular activities who are entering a second- or third-year engineering program in Canada.

Katelyn Currie has volunteered at numerous events and had been a part of a robotics team, designing and fabricating a robot to compete in Skills Canada Competitions, in high school. In addition to her extremely high academic average, she currently serves on the UBC Engineers Without Borders (EWB) executive as the Director of Overseas Connections and competes with the UBC Supermileage Team.

For the full article, please click here

Connect with Mech

November 17, 2011

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$2.5M gift from UBC alumni to create student Engineering Design Centre

November 2, 2011


The Wayne and William White Engineering Design Centre officially opens today. The facility was made possible by a $2.5 million donation by UBC Mechanical Engineering alumnus William White (BASc ’67), and his twin brother, Wayne White (BASC ’67 Metallurgical Engineering).

“We are very grateful to Wayne and William White for their generosity and vision,” says Applied Science Dean Tyseer Aboulnasr. “They have contributed to a learning environment where students can develop into professional engineers equipped to tackle society’s most pressing issues.”

“It gives us great pleasure to provide a facility that we would have greatly enjoyed and benefited from as students,” says William White.

The $8.5 million Wayne and William White Engineering Design Centre is the first and only building on campus specifically intended to connect students from all UBC’s engineering programs in order to promote interdisciplinary team work, increasingly the norm in industry.

Dr. Srikantha Phani’s research with Centre for Blood Research colleagues published in UBC reports

November 1, 2011

An article about Dr. Srikantha Phani’s recent research with colleagues from the Centre for Blood Research was featured In UBC reports. Dr. Phani works with Associate Professor Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu to develop a series of experiments to test new surface coatings for medical implants.

 

Oct 20 – Engineering students and alumni to compete in UBC entrepreneurship competition

October 19, 2011

Come out and see Engineering students and alumni affiliated with Aeos Biomedical, Dynamic Monitoring Technology Corporation and RentGeek compete in the UBC’s entrepreneurship@UBC Seed Accelerator Competition! They have made it to the final rounds and will be pitching to become the first recipients of investments between $25k and $100k from the entrepreneurship@UBC Seed Accelerator fund.

Please join us for this exciting event:

  • Location:  Room 222, West Mall Swing Space, 2175 West Mall, UBC
  • Date:  Thursday October 20th, 2011
  • Time:  5:30 – 7:30pm

For more on the competition visit: www.entrepreneurship.ubc.ca

 

Aeos Biomedical
Aeos Biomedical, co-founded by Colin O’Neill (BASc ’10, IGEN), is an early stage medical device company. Their lead product, Target Tape, is a disposable adhesive tape with radiopaque locational markings, used with medical imaging. Target Tape is applied to the patient’s skin over the area of interest. The locational markings then appear on the medical scan image. When Target Tape is removed, it leaves behind an ink imprint of the locational markings, allowing the doctor to correlate and localize between the scan image and the patient’s skin. The two founders are alumni from Applied Science and the Sauder School of Business. They conceived of the Target Tape product as part of the 09/10 New Venture Design program.

Dynamic Monitoring Technology Corporation
Dynamic Monitoring Technology Corporation, co-founded by Daniel Sepasi (PhD ’11, MASc ’07 MECH) and Amir Rasuli (PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering), is a private company specialized in machine health monitoring systems. Their lead product, DyMoShovel, is an intelligent shovel health monitoring system used in cable shovels operating in open pit mines, and provides fault diagnosis, failure forecast and prevention, visual and audio feedback to the operator, optimized maintenance schedule and real time analysis of cable shovel performance.  The founders and management team are composed of a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, a PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering at UBC, and an MBA Candidate from the UBC Sauder School of Business.

RentGeek
RentGeek, which includes Danny Lum (BASc ’07, ECE) and Cameron Johnson (fourth-year ECE), is a personalized home rental site that integrates lifestyle needs, distance calculator, neighborhood information, and browse listings all in one place and makes smart recommendations as to which neighborhood fits your lifestyle.  The founders and management team include recent alumni from the Sauder School of Business and Faculty of Applied Science.

 

UBC innovator receives major Manning Foundation award for green engine technology

October 6, 2011

Vancouver, Canada—October 6, 2011—University of British Columbia Professor Emeritus Phil Hill has been named the 2011 recipient of the $100,000 Encana Principal Award by the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation. Hill was chosen for his discovery of a technology that enables diesel engines to run on clean-burning natural gas.

The high-pressure direct injection (HPDI) technology, which is being commercialized by UBC spin-off company Westport Innovations, allows diesel engines to operate on natural gas with the same power and efficiency they are known for, but reduces emissions of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and particular matter. It also reduces emissions of greenhouse gasses by up to 27 per cent.

Hill conceived of HPDI and first developed the technology in the late 1980s in his research lab at UBC’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research group’s work led to the founding of Vancouver-based Westport Innovations Inc. in 1995. Westport is now a publicly-traded company of over 650 employees and whose technology portfolio includes more than 200 patents, many of which stem from Hill’s original series of inventions.

The Manning Innovation Awards, which honour Canadian innovators in any sector, are selected by a distinguished independent body recruited from across Canada.

“There is a critical need for more innovation in Canada,” said David B. Mitchell, President of the Manning Foundation, in announcing its 2011 award winners. “Canadians need to create and commercialize innovations to compete in the global economy. We want to support, celebrate and draw attention to Canadian innovators and young Canadians showing potential to become future innovators, who have the imagination to innovate and the stamina to succeed.”

“As a university particularly concerned with sustainability and environmental issues, UBC is proud of this recognition of Prof. Hill’s work and of the resulting development of one of its most successful spin-off companies in Westport Innovations,” said UBC President Stephen J. Toope. “In addition to the environmental and economic impacts of his work, new generations of students and faculty at UBC now benefit from the legacy of his discoveries through multiple ongoing and productive research relationships and employment opportunities with Westport.”

Ten award winners in various categories – including young innovators – will be honoured in front of a large audience of Canadian leaders from business, academia and governments on October 14 in Edmonton.

For more information on the 2011 Manning Innovation Award recipients, please visit www.manningawards.ca.

To read more about Westport innovations, please visit www.westport.com

UBC Mechanical Engineering PhD Candidate Farzad Khademolhosseini Receives The Vanier CGS Graduate Scholarship

September 28, 2011

PhD Candidate Farzad KhademolhosseiniUBC Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate Farzad Khademolhosseini has received the Vanier CGS graduate scholarship – one of the most pretigious graduate scholarships in Canada.  According to the Vanier CGS website, the award is given to doctoral students who demonstrate both leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the natural sciences and engineering, social sciences and humanities, or health sciences. The award is valued at $50 000 a year for three years.

Farzad Khademolhosseini’s research interests are in the field of Biomedical Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (BioMEMS) and Mechanics of Cells. Specifically, he looks at the interaction of MEMS with cells. He is currently developing microdevices that can increase/direct cellular growth through application of controlled mechanical stresses and strains on cells. Such devices will have applications in the field of tissue regeneration. The goal is to help patients with cardiovascular disease recover faster after surgery. He is a member of the UBC Microsystems and Nanotechnology Group (Mina), works under the supervision of Dr. Mu Chiao, and collaborates closely with researchers from UBC Pharmaceutical Sciences and Vascular Surgeons at the Vancouver General Hospital.