The engineering faculty welcomed several new staff and faculty members whose diverse backgrounds and expertise will enhance engineering innovation and education. The new faculty positions are part of the University of Windsor's recent decision to add up to 50 new faculty positions across campus.
Dr. Shahpour Alirezaee has joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department as an assistant professor (limited term). Dr. Alirezaee's research interests include control systems and automation; instrumentation and process control; PLC, SCADA and DCS Systems; mechatronics and robotics; data communication; discrete-time signal processing; image processing and machine vision; pattern recognition; FPGA system design and adHoc and wireless sensor networks.
Dr. Balakumar Balasingam has joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Prior to that, he was an assistant research professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from McMaster University in 2008 and after that, he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Ottawa and at the University of Connecticut. His research interests are in signal processing, machine learning and distributed information fusion and their applications in autonomous systems. His research programs in these areas have secured nearly $1.5 million US in funding. Dr. Balasingam has authored more than 50 research papers and three international patents. In 2017, he won the ISIF Jean-Pierre Le Cadre Best Paper Award (Second Runner-up) for his paper titled “Maximum likelihood detection in images,” at the International Conference on Information Fusion in Xi’an, China.
Dr. Don Bourne, has transitioned into the role of lecturer in technical communications. Dr. Bourne has taught technical communications in the Faculty of Engineering since 2013. He previously taught English literature at the University of Windsor and Queen's University, where he earned his doctorate in English literature in 2016. He enjoys working with the engineering students to develop their writing and communication skills.
Srabanti Chitte has joined the faculty as an engineering computing services support technician. In this role, Srabanti will provide computer support for faculty and staff, A/V support in classrooms and meetings and help improve computer operations in labs and different research areas. Srabanti has worked at UWindsor for 11 years as an IT tech for the Centre for Teaching and Learning and the Odette School of Business. She received a MSc degree in Computer Science from the University of Windsor.
Ann Elliott has joined the faculty as assistant to the dean, finance and administration. Ann completed her Bachelor’s degree at York University and has more than 15 years of work experience in administration at York University and the University of Windsor. She also has worked in public sector administration as well as private industry in areas including automotive assembly systems integration and consumer packaged goods.
Dr. Arezoo Emadi has joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. She received her PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Manitoba and her Licentiate degree from the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. She leads academic and industry cross-functional projects to introduce and implement advanced sensor technologies and micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) technologies in a wide range of fields that make abundant use of sensors and transducers such as medical and environmental sciences. She is the principal author/co-author of more than 40 journal and conference papers. Her ongoing research efforts are in the area of micro and nano electronic devices and integrated sensors, chemical and medical sensors, BioMEMS, state-of-the-art ultrasonic transducers and medical imaging systems and micro and nano fabrication processes. Dr. Emadi also holds an adjunct professor position in University of Manitoba’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Professional Engineer.
Kevin Harkai has joined the faculty as a technician specializing in CNC and CAD. Kevin has 20 years of experience working locally in the tooling trade.
Dr. Ofelia A. Jianu has joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering Department. Prior to joining the University of Windsor, Dr. Jianu was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and a research project manager in UOIT’s Clean Energy Research Laboratory (CERL). She has extensive and diverse teaching and research experience and is an active researcher on energy technology and sustainable energy systems. Currently, the main focus of her work is related to thermochemical cycles for hydrogen production. Dr. Jianu has also made significant contributions to the fields of multiphase fluid flows and mass transfer with applications to energy systems. Dr. Jianu holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from UOIT and a Master’s of Science in control engineering from Lakehead University. She aims to demonstrate that her responsibility as a global citizen is to educate for the future by guiding students to think critically, design sustainably and ensure they gain a deeper understanding of the socio-economic impacts of their work.
Dr. Golam Kabir has joined the Faculty of Engineering as an assistant professor (limited term) in the Department of Mechanical, Automotive, Materials Engineering. Dr. Kabir received his PhD in Civil Engineering from the School of Engineering at the University of British Columbia in 2016. Prior to joining the University of Windsor, he was an NSERC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo and postdoctoral research and teaching fellow at the School of Engineering, UBC. He also received his MSc and BSc in industrial and production engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2011 and 2009, respectively. His research interests include system risk, reliability, resilience assessment, interdependent network resilience analytics, multi-criteria decision analysis under risk and uncertainty, sustainable system analytics, data-driven decision making, and multi-objective optimization.
Dr. Yong Hoon Kim has joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Dr. Kim received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in transportation from the University of Seoul, Korea, in 2003 and 2006. In 2017, he received his PhD in civil engineering from Purdue University, Indiana. He worked for two and a half years at the Seoul Institute in Korea as a research engineer. He also worked as a research associate with the NEXTRANS Center, Purdue University. His research interests include intelligent transportation system, connected and autonomous vehicle technology, data analytics for connected transportation system, artificial intelligence for connected and autonomous vehicle applications and traffic safety.
Dr. Lindsay Miller-Branovacki has transitioned into the role of lecturer in technical communications. Dr. Miller-Branovacki has been teaching at the University of Windsor for eight years across the engineering departments. She has also collaborated on several research projects on various topics including air quality, which was the focus of her doctoral research, and sustainable materials selection, which was the focus of her post-doctoral research. Lindsay has also been involved in engineering pedagogy research with a focus on bringing engagement into large classrooms. Her current research focus is in renewable energy and energy finance. Lindsay enjoys interacting with the faculty's diverse student body and with her colleagues and has been involved in many workshops, conferences, and events to promote engineering and the University of Windsor. Lindsay is a licensed Professional Engineer in Ontario and is TESOL certified.
Dr. Rashid Rashidzadeh has transitioned into the role of Academic Planning Liaison. Dr. Rashidzadeh received his BSc degree from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 1989 and MASc and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Windsor in 2003 and 2007. Dr. Rashidzadeh has published more than 65 articles and holds two patents. His research focuses on testability and hardware security, radio frequency identification and IoT security. Dr. Rashidzadeh was the recipient of the Excellence in Scholarship and the Research and Creative Activity Award at the University of Windsor in 2014 and 2016. Dr. Rashidzadeh has a track record of successful collaboration with industry. The industry project under his supervision was recognized among top OCE funded projects in 2016. Dr. Rashidzadeh is a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario. He is currently the Chapter Chair of IEEE Circuits and Systems (CAS) and Computer Societies in Windsor section.
Dr. Roozbeh Razavi-Far has transitioned into the role of academic advisor and coordinator for the Master of Engineering program. Dr. Razavi-Far received his BSc degree in electrical engineering in 2001, and his MSc and PhD degrees from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran Polytechnic, in 2004 and 2009, respectively, and achieved a second PhD degree in nuclear engineering from Politecnico di Milano, in 2011. He was an NSERC postdoctoral fellow at NRCan, Canada; a research scientist at Danfoss A/S at Denmark and a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Control Engineering at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He was a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow in UWindsor’s departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering. His research focuses on machine learning, data mining, big data analytics, computational intelligence, cybernetics, optimization and control, condition monitoring and diagnostics, prognostics and health management of cyber-physical systems. Dr. Razavi-Far is currently the Chapter Chair of IEEE Computational Intelligence, and Systems, Man and Cybernetics Societies Windsor section.