News and Events

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.

An injection of nearly $2 million in federal funds will aid University of Windsor researchers like Daniel Green, who is helping automakers incorporate lightweight sheet materials into their vehicles.

The automotive sector is turning to lightweight materials as an alternative to steel to improve fuel efficiency. However, lower-density metals tend to have limited formability, says Dr. Green, an associate professor who specializes in materials engineering.

“Innovative forming processes need to be developed and optimized for the production of automotive parts,” he said. “With high-speed forming, we can get 100 per cent more formability than we can with conventional stamping.”

Green is one of 14 UWindsor engineering professors who was awarded funding through the 2017 Discovery Grants Program — an annual competition run by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to advance research in Canadian universities.

A team of engineering students has designed a cost-effective and sustainable erosion control structure that will help protect a children’s camp based at the riverbank of the Saugeen River in Walkerton, Ontario. 

“The outer banks of river bends are often subjected to erosion due to the force of the flowing water, which sweep sediments downstream,” said Karla Gorospe, a civil engineering MASc candidate, who worked on the student capstone project. “To minimize the erosive effects of the flowing water at Camp Cherith, we designed a hybrid system that includes a series of rock structures called bendway weirs and woody plants. While the bendway weirs help in redirecting the flow away from the bank, the woody plants and tree cuttings stabilize the soils.”

Camp Cherith, a Christian camp for children and youth, approached the university in fall 2016 to seek help with its erosion problem, which has resulted in significant property loss and affected regular camp activities.

Not only were they the finishing touches, custom valve covers engineered by University of Windsor students were “one of the nicest touches” on a one-of-a-kind Mustang custom-built by a local auto shop.

“On a car that’s extremely beautiful front to back, the engine compartment we worked on with the university is now the sharpest part of the car,” says Chris Darmon, one of the owners of Xcentrick AutoSports, a shop in Oldcastle that specializes in classic and custom cars for a local and global market.

Darmon said they usually do everything in-house, but they needed outside help to bring to life a Toronto customer’s vision for his 1967 GT500 Mustang.

“The customer wanted the valve cover on a 2014 Ford Coyote 5.0L V8 engine to look like a 1960s design,” said Saad Zafar BASc ’11, who was introduced to Darmon through the university’s EPICentre. “There was nothing like that on the market, so we had to start from scratch.”