3rd Engineering Graduate Research Conference

1st Places ($1,500.00)

Arash Farahdel

Priyanka Tirumareddy

2nd Places ($750.00)

Kathlyn Baron

3rd Places ($600.00)

Ali Jamali

Zahra Teimouri

IEEE NanoTechnology USask Chapter Winner ($250.00)

Ali Abdolahzadeh Ziabari

American Water Works USask Chapter Winner ($250.00)

Rahman Zeynali

                                   Opening Session

10:00 – 11:00 AM

Poster installation, Registration, and Guest arrival

11:00 – 11:05 AM

Engineering Research Graduate Conference (EGRC) Teaser

11:05 – 11:10 AM

Welcoming and Introduction with EGRC competition

11:10 – 11:20 AM

Suzanne Kresta – USask College of Engineering Dean Welcome Message

11:20 – 11:30 AM

Abbas Fazel Anvari Yazdi - EGCC President Welcome Message

11:30 – 11:35 AM

Bert Munro – The Engineering Advancement Trust (EAT)

11:35 – 11:50 AM

Arian Andkhoie – Saskatoon Engineering Society President

11:50 – 12:00 PM

Refreshments (Coffee, drinks, and Snacks)

12:00 – 2:00 PM

Posters Presentation and Judgement

2:00 – 2:40 PM

LUNCH

Break out session for judges deliberation 

                                       Closing session

2:40 – 2:50 PM

SIGMA Program Introduction

Presenter: Dr. Tate Cao

2:50 – 3:00 PM

Western Canada Section of the American Water Works Association USASK Student Chapter Introduction

Presenter: Khaled Zoroufchi Benis, President

3:00 – 3:15 PM

Keynote speaker (Remote): Prof. Dr. Ken-Tye Yong

2022 IEEE Nanotechnology Council Distinguished lecturer and IEEE senior member

Associate Dean for External Engagement

School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Sydney

Presentation title: Nanocarbons for Biology and Medicine: Sensing, Imaging, and Drug Delivery.

3:20 – 3:45 PM

Winners announcement!

3:45 – 4:00 PM

Audiences Raffle Gifts Distribution

Dr. Xiaodong Liang received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in 2013. She is currently an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Technology Solutions for Energy Security in Remote, Northern, and Indigenous Communities at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada.

She serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications; and the Vice Chair and Technical Committee Papers Review Chair for Power Systems Engineering Committee at IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS). She also serves as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, IEEE Industry Applications Magazine, IEEE Access, IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics (JESTIE), and IEEE Open Journal of Industry Applications.

Dr. Liang is a Fellow of IET and a Senior Member of IEEE. She is a registered Professional Engineer in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Dr. Arian Andkhoie is a Professional Engineer registered in the province of Saskatchewan. He has 10+ years of Project Management experience with PMP designation. Arian’s project consists of multimillion-dollar capital projects where he extensively demonstrated leadership, collaboration, and teamwork through the projects. Arian is the Saskatoon Engineering Society President now.

Dr. Sumith Kahanda has graduated with Ph.D. in Agriculture and Bioresources Engineering from the College of Engineering, the University of Saskatchewan, an M.Sc. in Water Resources Engineering from Katholieke University, Belgium and a B.Sc. in Agriculture (Major: Agriculture Engineering) from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Dr Sumith is currently working as a Project Manager at SaskWater. He has over 15 years of industry experience, as an Engineer, Project Manager, and a Leader.  He is the current President, of Saskatoon Engineering Society (SES), and Past President, of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), Saskatchewan Chapter.

Dr. Donna Beneteau is an assistant professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). She obtained her BASc in Geological Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1990. She worked in backfill research at the Noranda Technology Centre, as a mining engineer at Holloway Mine, and consulted with Ionic Engineering before returning to school to earn her MSc in mineral resources engineering at Laurentian University in 2012. At USask she has progressed from a contract sessional position to full-time instructor and then to the professor.

Dr. Seokbum Ko is currently a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Division of Biomedical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He got his Ph.D. degree from the University of Rhode Island, the USA in 2002.

His research interests include computer architecture/arithmetic, efficient hardware implementation of compute-intensive applications, deep learning processor architecture and biomedical engineering.

He is a senior member of IEEE circuits and systems society and associate editor of IEEE TVLSI and IEEE Access. He was an associate editor of IEEE TCASI from 2020 to 2021.

Dr. Shaobo Huang graduated from the Ph.D. program in Engineering Education at Utah State University in the USA, and the Master program in Control Engineering at Harbin Engineering University in China. She is currently an assistant professor in the Ron and Jane Graham School of Professional Development with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been working on the REENGINEERED First Year Program since 2019. Her research interests focus on the assessment and evaluation of engineering student achievement and curriculum design. She is an active member of the Canadian Engineering Education Association and American Society for Engineering Education.

Dr. Anil Sharma is currently working with Team Power Solution in the electrical designing department, where he is working with engineering & manufacturing projects. He has completed a master’s degree in electrical engineering. He has more than ten years of experience in the industry, academia, and training.

He is a member of national and international organizations and volunteers/member with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS), the Saskatoon Engineering Society (SES), Saskatchewan Intercultural Association (SIA), the Saskatoon Open Door Society (SoDS), Hindu Society of Saskatchewan (HSS), and Rotary Club to support the community in all aspect.

With the help of his SES team, he is currently planning to assist recent engineering graduates and working engineers with their professional development.

Dr. Bishnu Acharya is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture Research Chair in Bioprocess Engineering. His research expertise lies in the area of bioprocessing and conversion, particularly in the emerging area of conversion of biomass to bioproducts for chemical, material, and energy applications by adopting a circular bioeconomy approach. Dr. Acharya’s research investigates biomass characterization, thermochemical (torrefaction, hydrothermal, pyrolysis, gasification, combustion), biological (fermentation and anaerobic digestion) and chemical synthesis processes for the conversion of low value biomass to high value bioproducts. He is also developing research capacity to analyze the biopolymer and biobased materials at the University of Saskatchewan. Before joining University of Saskatchewan, he worked at the University of Prince Edward Island. Prior to that he worked for Greenfield Research Incorporated in Halifax, Canada as General Manager - Projects where he led several design and training projects for the development of clean technology.

Dr. Acharya is awarded with Engineers PEI – Engineering Excellence Award (2019) for his professional contribution towards the development of innovative bioproducts from nuisance biomass. His scholarly achievements are recognized with UPEI Faculty Association - Scholarly Achievement Award (2019), and Graduate Faculty Appreciation Award (2018). Dr. Acharya research work has been published in 5 book chapters, 70 journal articles and several conferences. He has 1 US provisional patent filed (with another under consideration). In last 7 years, he has supervised/co-supervised more than 40 HQP and has received around 3 million dollars of funding to support his research activities. Dr. Acharya is also a founding member and scientific advisor of a spin off company that focuses on the commercialization of tunicate-based cellulose nanomaterials. 

He has bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tribhuvan University - Nepal, Masters in Energy Technology from Asian Institute of Technology – Thailand and Doctoral Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dalhousie University – Canada.

Dr. Ildiko Badea is a Professor of Pharmacy and member of the Drug Discovery and Development Research Group. She teaches pharmaceutics and is co-chair of the University of Saskatchewan Biomedical Research Ethics Board.

Dr. Badea’s research program focuses on the development of novel nanoparticle delivery systems and the use of DNA as a biotechnology drug. Her research group develops and tests the transfer efficiency of novel nanoparticle delivery systems. Successfully delivering cytotoxic agents into cancer cells, without affecting healthy cells, can lead to treatments for cancers with poor outcomes, such as skin cancers. Her lab is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Sylvia Fedoruk Centre for Nuclear Innovation, and the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation.

Dr. Sven Achenbach received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. (1996) as well as the P.D. (2000) degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.

Following several Research Assistant positions and a research stipend at the National Research Center CNRS-LURE, Paris, France, he was a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Research Center Karlsruhe, Germany (2000 to 2003), focusing on deep X-ray lithography process technology. In 2003, he was awarded a tenured Research Scientist position at the Institute of Microstructure Technology in Karlsruhe. In 2005, he assumed an Associate Professorship in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Canada, where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2009 and was appointed as a TR Labs Adjunct Scientist. His research interests include instrumentation and process development for polymer- and metal-based micro- and nano devices and applications such as RF-MEMS, optics, and micro/nano fluidics. In the past decade, he has conceptualized and developed the Synchrotron Laboratory for Micro and Nano Devices (SyLMAND), Canada’s deep X-ray lithography facility at the Canadian Light Source CLS, where he is a Beam Team Leader and Principal Investigator. He is the author of a book chapter, a patent, and more than 60 articles.

Dr. Achenbach was the recipient of the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe “Excellent Young Scientists” award and tenured position (2003) and was appointed as the Canada Research Chair in Micro and Nano Device Fabrication (2005-2015).

Mr. Bert Munro retired as Vice President & General Manager of Associated Engineering and ATAP Infrastructure Management, where he was responsible for the business growth and engineering operations of these companies.  With over 45 years of experience in municipal and water resources engineering, project and business management Bert has developed a keen interest in the roles of the engineer, builder, owner, and the public, in infrastructure planning, development, and life cycle management.  He currently provides advisory services and mentorship to engineers and former clients and serves on the Boards of the Saskatoon Airport Authority and the Columbarium at St John’s Cathedral and as a Trustee of the University of Saskatchewan College of Engineering – Engineering Advancement Trust.

A Past President of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan, the Western Canada Water and Wastewater Association and the Consulting Engineers of Saskatchewan, Bert has also served as a Volunteer with the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering; the University of Saskatchewan; SIAST; and the Canadian Cancer Society.

Dr. Ghazal Azarfar is a Research Associate at the Department of Medical Imaging at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her research is on computational imaging, from system modeling to machine learning applications in medical sciences.

She leads multiple initiative collaborative projects at the University of Saskatchewan between the electrical engineering department, Canadian light source, and the medical school. Before joining the University of Saskatchewan, She was a post-doc at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was responsible for technology transfer between the Beckman research institute and Carle foundation hospital. She was awarded her Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in 2019 and received her M.Sc. and B.Sc. in electrical engineering from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran.

Dr. Sonil Nanda is a Research Associate at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He received his Ph.D. degree in Biology from York University, Toronto, M.Sc. degree from VIT University in Tamil Nadu, India, and B.Sc. degree from the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology in Odisha, India. His research areas are in bioenergy, biorefining technologies, supercritical fluids, green catalysis, bioremediation and carbon sequestration. He has authored over 135 articles in high-impact journals and is the editor of 15 books on advanced biofuels, biochemicals, biomaterials and circular economy published by Elsevier, Springer Nature, American Chemical Society, CRC Press, Routledge and Apple Academic Press. Dr. Nanda is ranked among the Top 2% of Scientists worldwide according to a recent Stanford University database of standardized citation metrics.

Dr. Biswajit Saha is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan and is also the Mitac project Scholar under supervision of Prof. Ajay K Dalai. Dr. Saha has been working in the field of petroleum refinery processing technologies and gasification technology since 2013 and has enjoyed doing research on it. Dr. Saha had completed his B.Tech, ME and PhD from India. His PhD thesis was based on non-conventional desulfurization techniques for light petroleum fuel. Recently he is working on conversion of waste plastic into fuels and hydrogen production from methane pyrolysis.