161 Louis Pasteur
Room A306
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA K1N 6N5
Tel: (613) 562-5918
Fax: (613) 562-5174
Engineering at Canada's University
The Faculty of Engineering of the University of Ottawa is world renowned for its high quality teaching and research. It is this reputation that attracts the best high school students and professors who continue to make our faculty one of the top ranked Engineering and Computer Science schools in Canada.
Professor Poupak Mehrani of Chemical and Biological Engineering has been awarded a $67,000 grant in the latest Leaders Opportunity Fund competition from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for developing a high-pressure high-temperature gas-solid fluidization laboratory. This award will help build a pilot-scale facility that will be used to characterize various hydrodynamic and transport properties as well investigate major operational issues such as particle agglomeration and fouling in gas-solid fluidized bed reactors employed in the petrochemical, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals industries.
Hi-Tech instruments to monitor lake and river ice in river:
The Canadian Foundation for Innovation/Leaders Opportunity Fund (CFI-LOF) has just approved of 50 000$ grant to Professor Ousmane Seidou for the acquisition of a set of apparatuses to monitor lake and river ice. The CFI-LOF program supports young faculty members who show potential to become leaders in their area of expertise.
The data collected with these instruments will allow studying the conditions of flow under ice cover, a better understanding of ice-jam formation conditions as well as the optimization of some ice-related hydropower dam exploitation constraints. The research program of professor Seidou also includes the development of numerical models to estimate of the impacts of climate changes on the lake and river ice regime.
$1.4 Million in funding from NSERC Strategic Grants Program
Four Faculty of Engineering proposals were successful in the 2008 NSERC Strategic Grants competition. The research project entitled “Production of high quality biodiesel from waste feedstocks,” led by Professor Andre Tremblay of Chemical and Biological Engineering; and projects entitled “High-quality acquisition and rendering of image-based models for tele-presence in remote environments,” led by Professor Eric Dubois, “Autonomic service specific overlay networks,” led by Professor Ahmed Karmouch and “Quality evaluation and enhancement of audiovisual signals based on digital watermarking,” led by Professor Jiying Zhao of School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE) were funded for a total of $1,421,200 over three years.
Three Professors Receive NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplements
Professor Murat Saatcioglu of Civil Engineering; and Professors Jianping Yao and Oliver Yang of SITE were each awarded $120,000 over three years as Discovery Accelerator Supplement (DAS) Grant by NSERC. The supplement was accompanied by significant increases in their NSERC Discovery Grants in the 2008 competition. The DAS program represents a new component of the Discovery Grants Program and aims at providing substantial and timely additional resources to accelerate progress and maximize the impact of outstanding research programs. The three professors are among the 100 select researchers in the country who were awarded DAS.
Professor Saatcioglu Leads the Canadian Team to China for Earthquake Investigations
As the President of the Canadian Association for Earthquake Engineering (CAEE), Professor Murat Saatcioglu of Civil Engineering led the Canadian delegation for earthquake reconnaissance investigations to the Sichuan Province of Peoples Republic of China between September 6 and 16, 2008. The visit was organized jointly by the Canadian Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and the Chinese Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China. The Canadian delegation consisted of four academics and two consulting engineers. The group participated in an International Symposium at Chongqing Construction Research Institute on seismic design practices, followed by a high level International Summit on “Seismic Mitigation,” where Professor Saatcioglu addressed the audience of about 350 Chinese engineers, scientists and government officials. The summit was also attended by representatives from the United States, Japan, South Korea and China. The group subsequently conducted field investigations in Chongzhou, Dujiangyan and Tongji, where the damage to engineered structures was most intense after the May 12, 2008 earthquake disaster. Dr. Saatcioglu was interviewed by a TV Station in the City of Dujiangyan, explaining the apparent deficiencies in local building construction. The group is currently in the process of preparing a reconnaissance report, which will be shared with the government of China.
Dr. F. Handan Tezel Featured in OCRI Cleantech Report spring 2008
Municipal landfills produce methane and carbon dioxide gases. These gases need to be separated for two reasons:
The first reason is greenhouse gas reduction. Since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and methane has 21 times the greenhouse gas effect as carbon dioxide, technologies and techniques to reduce the emission of these gases into the atmosphere are of interest.
The second reason is economics. By developing a technology...
Dr. Diana Inkpen partners with DISTIL to bring video games to life
DISTIL Interactive Ltd. is teaming up with Dr. Diana Inkpen of the School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE) to commercialize the company's 'intelligent' digital game characters. The Ottawa-based company, which makes video games for business training, said that the Ontario Centres of Excellence and Precarn Inc. would be investing $300,000 in support of the partnership. The company will be working with the university to develop a technology that automates the creation of in-game digital characters that can coherently engage in rational, human-like behaviours, without the need for manually scripted interactions.
Dr. Marc Dubé and Dr. André Tremblay are leading a dynamite squad of researchers in the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Engineering who are looking at ways of making diesel more environmentally friendly.
Dr. Jianping Yao has been named University Research Chair in Microwave Photonics. His research could have a great impact on the wireless communications and photonics industries in Canada.
Professor Pierre Berini from SITE of UOttawa is among six rising stars of Canadian research who will receive an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship. It is awarded each year by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).
The Committee for the University of Ottawa Award for Excellence in Research has chosen Professor Hussein MOUFTAH, School of Information Technology and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, as the recipient of the 2007-2008 award.
The Project CONTACT is a program geared towards the enrichment of learning for high school students who show an interest in (but not limited to) the subjects of science and mathematics.
