News 2023

One out of four adult Canadians suffers from obstructive sleep, and a team of UWindsor researchers is hoping to learn more.

Jalal Ahamed from engineering and Anthony Bain from human kinetics are leading a multidisciplinary team working to develop a wearable sensor to measure the breathing of sleeping subjects.

“We engineered breathing sensors that can give us complete metrics of different breathing-related signs and patterns,” says Dr. Ahamed. “Breathing is aligned with a lot of our well-being: it regulates our blood pressure and our heart rate and can impact our mental health.”

The University of Windsor will confer the title of Distinguished University Professor on two members of its faculty during Convocation celebrations Friday, Oct. 13.

The rank is awarded to senior scholars at the height of their careers who have distinguished achievements in teaching and whose scholarly activities reflect a body of work recognized at a national or international level.

Jonathan Wu is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and has been a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Automotive Sensors and Information Systems. He is the founding director of the Computer Vision and Sensing Systems Laboratory at the University of Windsor, Canada. Prior to joining the university, Dr. Wu was a senior research officer at the National Research Council of Canada. An elected fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, he has received the CIPPRS/ACTIRF Best Robotics Paper Award.

Excellent academic performance and a desire to mentor and tutor earned notice for third-year engineering majors Annalise Gignac and Suhaib Moualla.

The annual Liburdi Engineering Mentorship Award, established in 2020 by the WinOne Office for First-Year Engineering and funded by materials engineering alumnus Joseph Liburdi (BASc 1967), provides $10,000 to support two-senior-level undergraduate students who excel academically and express an interest in mentoring other engineering students.

The Liburdi scholars lead the WinOne tutorial program, which provides peer tutoring support for all first- and second-year core courses. They onboard 10 WinOne tutors each semester for one full year, assist with promoting the WinOne tutorials to first-year students, and schedule weekly tutoring sessions and exam review sessions for all tutors — including themselves. In addition to academic support, the tutors mentor students about topics such as program selection, co-operative education, and senior project selection.

The first cohort of Elevate interns showed off the results of their summer research projects in poster presentations before the start of the fall semester.

Elevate scholarships, a new program by dean of engineering Bill Van Heyst, afford opportunities to students from equity-deserving groups: those who identify as Black, female, non-binary, or Indigenous. Along with a $5,000 award, they offer research positions working directly with faculty in the summer following the completion of first year.

Thirty-two students participated this year.

The latest cohort of Graduate Teaching and Learning Fellows, Mahsa Jalali and Ailin Barzegar in the Faculty of Engineering, will facilitate professional development opportunities and mentorship for graduate and teaching assistants.

The program, supported by individual faculties and the Centre for Teaching and Learning, aims to improve the pedagogical knowledge, skills, abilities of GAs and TAs, as well as the student experience overall.

The Centre for Engineering Innovation atrium filled Aug. 4 with engineering students and faculty as first-year students of “cornerstone design” displayed their efforts and competed for cash prizes.

The mandatory course tasks students with designing, programming, and building a product to address a real-world issue. Solutions ranged from a sustainable greenhouse to an electromagnetic brake system, a sensor-augmented white cane, or an autonomous vehicle.

Harshan Bharat, Bruce Ye, and Vikashan Vivekanathan took the task to heart and created something off the beaten path. They found that white canes used by the visually impaired haven’t changed as much as other medical-related technology.

SHIELD Automotive Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence at the University of Windsor and Keysight Technologies have teamed up for automotive cybersecurity training with the Keysight SA8710A Automotive Cybersecurity Penetration Test Platform.

SHIELD is dedicated to advancing and developing automotive cybersecurity solutions by training engineering and computer science students to ensure vehicles are safe and secure. Keysight is a manufacturer of electronics test and measurement equipment.

With a commitment by the federal government to make all vehicles sold electric by 2035, there is a push to ensure those vehicles are safe, as their hyper-connections makes them vulnerable to cybersecurity threats.

The Faculty of Engineering and the Windsor chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) partnered for a two-day workshop on Python and Machine Learning for university and high school students.

Attendees explored several hot topics like the application of Machine Learning in Real-World Scenarios, algorithms, and hands-on project development. At the end of the workshop, the students toured the Machine Learning lab that showcases engineering student innovations.

Students in professor Lindsay Miller-Branovacki’s class “Engineering and Society” will share with interested members of the University community the chance to hear from Cory Jones of Neegan Burnside Indigenous Engineering and Environment consulting company.

Jones will present via MS Teams on “Experiences Delivering Infrastructure to Canadian Indigenous Communities.”

Jones is Anishnaabe from the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation and has spent the last 25 years at Neegan Burnside working with Indigenous communities on projects from wastewater treatment to renewable energy.