Outstanding New Graduates Recognized

June 2, 2009

Many outstanding new graduates were recognized on May 26, 2009, at a reception following the graduation ceremonies. Alumnus Jay Drew congratulated the new class, and welcomed them to the alumni community.

Major award winners included:
Letson Prizes, for top graduates from the General, Mechatronics and Thermofluids Options: Christopher Bibby (General), Troy Adebar (Mechatronics) and Tu Minh Nguyen (Thermofluids).
Mechanical Engineering Prize in Biomedical Engineering, for the top Biomedical Option graduate: Jeff Kennelly.
Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering Gold Medal, for outstanding academic achievement: Thomas Huryn.
APEG Achivement Award, for a graduate who shows great promise: Pierre Couturier.
Outstanding Future Alumnus, Wesbrook Scholar, and other honours: Parisa Bastani.
Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Student Leader Award: Lana Rupp

Recipients of a Degree with Distinction include:

Degree with Distinction recipients with faculty and staff representatives.

Troy Adebar, Dion Anggabrata, Parisa Bastani, Alan Beran, Christopher Bibby, Jeanie Chan, Arminta Chicka, Nicholas Comyn, Pierre Couturier, Paul Dirksen, Sean Fabris, Sandy Godwin, Thomas Huryn, Keigo Karakama, Jeff Kennelly, Bradley Neels, Tu Minh Nguyen, Chukwuemeka Nzekwu, Hedyeh Rafii-Tari, David Richard, Adnan Siddiqui, Daniel Tsang, Andrew Walsh, and Christopher Wong.

Recipients of the Mechanical Engineering Student Leadership Award include:

Student Leadership Award winners with faculty and staff representatives.

Parisa Bastani, Arminta Chicka, Nicholas Comyn, Eric Kaarsemaker, Chu Lin, Katy Lue, Lachlan MacLean, Morgan Meents, Tu Minh Nguyen, Jad Saab, Michelle Salvail, Daryl Schubert, Richard Situ, Ian Tranter, Kristy Wiens, and Wojciech Ziemnicki.

Recipients of the Capstone Design Awards for outstanding accomplishments in Engineering Design:

Capstone Design Award winners with faculty representatives.

Capstone Design Award in Mechanical Engineering, for the project “Design of a Resonant Drum Compactor:” Ameer Balouch, Michael Parras, Dane Reelie, Salim Semsarilar.
Capstone Design Award in Mechatronics Engineering, for the project “Three-Dimensional Haptic Emulation of Hard Surfaces with Applications to Orthopaedic Surgery:” Sean Fabris, Arya Oskui, Anthony Pak, Bradley Roger, Sina Sajadian-Mousavi, Adnan Siddiqui.

Dr. Elizabeth Croft a Nominee for the YWCA Women of Distinction

June 1, 2009

Dr. Elizabeth Croft, Professor and Associate Head in Mechanical Engineering, has been accepted as a Nominee for the YWCA Women of Distinction Awards, in the category of Technology, Science & Industry.

From the YWCA Website:
“A dedicated engineer, scholar, teacher and mentor, Elizabeth is passionately devoted to supporting and promoting the participation of women in engineering. As an expert in robotics and industrial automation, her work enables robots to work productively and safely in human environments – from factories to hospitals to homes. As a teacher, she has developed visionary and award-winning educational programs, as well as extra-curricular programs to support her students’ development outside the classroom. An energetic motivational speaker, she also encourages young girls to consider engineering as a career.”

Dr. Croft is one of six accepted Nominees in her area. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at an Awards Reception and Dinner at the Westin Bayshore.

"Motorized Neck Brace System" project by MECH students wins "Award of Distinction"

May 27, 2009

Building on last year’s award-winning “Dynamic Neck Brace” project in MECH 457 (2007-2008), the ALS Society of British Columbia increased its support for neck brace design projects this past academic year (2008-2009), as well as for other projects at UBC, SFU, UVic and BCIT that promote the well-being of persons with ALS. A total of 12 student projects were submitted this April for consideration of the Design Award, 4 from UBC.

The “Principal Award” ($5,000), went to Samuel Chua of UBC’s EECE Dept.
for the “Automated Speech Recognition and Intelligibility Enhancement System for PALS with BiPAP Assisted Breathing” project.

The “Award of Distinction”($2,500) went to the “Motorized ALS Neck Brace” project, an interdisciplinary collaboration between supervisor Dr. Van der Loos and students Eric Wen, Brad Neels, Anmy Ho, Sassan Nawabi Shirazi, Varun Rana Singh, Jay Liu, and Jayson Rupert, from UBC’s MECH 451/2 mechatronics capstone design class and in the Industrial Design program of Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

The “Motorized ALS Neck Brace” project is recommended for its group’s achievement in support and mobility of the head, incorporating motorized assistance. The UBC Mechanical Engineering Team collaborated with an Emily Carr student on this impressively designed project, which the PALS Panel members actually trialed on themselves.

Parisa Bastani receives the Outstanding Future Alumnus Award

May 22, 2009

Mechanical Engineering student Parisa Bastani receives the Outstanding Future Alumnus Award.

This award recognizes a UBC student who has demonstrated ambassador-like qualities on behalf of UBC and who has excelled in one or a number of the following: leadership, academic success, community service, university service, athletic or artistic achievement, faculty recognition or other areas worthy of recognition.

Congratulations Parisa on such a great achievement!

Professor Thomas Oxland has been made an American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Fellow

May 21, 2009

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is pleased to announce that Professor Thomas Oxland has been made an American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Fellow. The Fellow Grade recognizes significant engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession.

Professor Oxland’s principal areas of research and development contribution include the biomechanical aspects of the spine, spinal injury, orthopaedic implants and surgical techniques. The scope of the work includes bioengineering research studies and medical product development.

Specifically, he and his colleagues have characterized various aspects of the normal, diseased, and injured human spine and documented novel surgical approaches to treating these potentially devastating conditions. Overall, his 120 journal publications have been cited over 2,200 times (Web of Science). Furthermore, he was the main research and development engineer for novel spinal implants that remain in clinical use today, more than ten years after the initial surgeries.

Emily McWalter and Malcolm Shield receive the 2009 Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Award

April 29, 2009

The UBC Department of Mechanical Engineering is pleased to announce that Emily McWalter and Malcolm Shield have been selected as recipients of the 2009 Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Award. These prestigious awards are given annually in recognition of the valuable role that Teaching Assistants play in UBC undergraduate programs. The award includes both a certificate and a $1,000 prize.

Criteria for the award include the ability to help students actively learn new knowledge, skills and perspectives, the action as a role model, demonstrating high standards, good listening skills and ethical behaviour, and making the university a more humane place. Both Emily and Malcolm have excelled in all these criteria, and are worthy recipients of the 2009 Graduate Teaching Assistant Teaching Award. Congratulations to Emily and Malcolm.

Troy Adebar, Engineering Co-op Student of the Year

April 15, 2009

Congratulations to Mechanical Engineering student Troy Adebar, Engineering Co-op Student of the Year!

Troy has been an active member of the UBC Mechanical Engineering Department where he completed his first two of five terms. His third term was with Kraft Canada and his final two terms were in biomedical research with Evasc Medical Systems. Troys Co-op employers commended and venerated his hard work and dedication to the Co-op program.

Alan Steeves to receive the 2009 President’s Service Award for Excellence

April 14, 2009

Alan Steeves
Alan Owen Steeves, Computer and Electronics Manager, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering is one of five members of the university community to receive the 2009 President’s Service Award for Excellence in recognition of his outstanding contributions to campus life and for personal achievements.

Alan has provided nearly 30 years of dedicated IT support to the department from the first department’s PDP11 to facilitating the donation of the 2003 Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) in-kind contribution to our department, providing computer software and hardware to the department with a commercial value of approximately $240 million. The in-kind contribution, which consisted of computer-aided design, manufacturing, and engineering software, hardware and training, is the largest in UBC’s history. Since then Alan has attracted several more high value PACE donations and in 2008 received the Distinguished PACE Integrator Award for promoting global collaboration among PACE institutions.

Alan is also a founding member of Trout Unlimited British Columbia and is part of the group that helped to resolve the impasse regarding the Pacific Salmon Treaty Commission in 1999. A recognized first nations artist, Alan has donated his works to a number of charitable causes and one of his pieces was presented to the outgoing APSC Dean, Michael Isaacson by our department.

A true, kind, soft spoken gentleman, Alan has always provided our department with the best in IT services with a friendly and helpful manner.

Dr. Clarence de Silva awarded NSERC Canada Research Chair in Mechatronics and Industrial Automation

March 26, 2009

UBC Mechanical Engineering Professor Clarence de Silva has been appointed a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Mechatronics and Industrial Automation. This seven-year, federally funded research position – valued at $1.4 million – is designed to build Canada’s research capacity.

An expert in machine health monitoring, the prediction, detection and diagnosis of malfunctions in engineering systems and machines, de Silva is working to develop a unified framework for industrial systems and machinery that will integrate health monitoring with intelligent supervisory control.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) through its Leaders Opportunity Fund also provides funding for infrastructure associated with a Canada Research Chair.De Silva has received an additional $121,413 from CFI towards a fully networked and integrated laboratory for research and industrial applications in machine health monitoring, intelligent supervisory control and automated design evolution.

Robyn Newell receives a grant from the International Society of Biomechanics

March 9, 2009

Robyn Newell, a PhD candidate with Dr. Peter Cripton, has been awarded a travel grant to travel and collaborate with a group in Switzerland.

The grant was awarded by the International Society of Biomechanics and will allow Robyn to do a 30 day collaboration with researchers at the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research at the University of Bern in Switzerland. The purpose of the trip to Bern is to learn and develop a new research method for describing three-dimensional spinal kinematics using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and fluoroscopy. This technique combines dynamic 2D images from a single fluoroscope image and subject-specific high resolution, static, 3D data sets from magnetic resonance scans to achieve highly accurate and precise 3D kinematics. The proposed work will be part of her thesis project entitled “Kinematics and muscle activation of the cervical spine during vehicle rollover accidents”.

Outstanding New Graduates Recognized

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