Awards & Announcements


BEAU STANDISH JOINS THE DEPARTMENT

Jul 11, 2011

Dr. Beau Standish will join the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on August 1, 2011 as an Assistant Professor. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Standish was a Post-Doctorate Fellow and a Business Project Manager with Biophotonics and Bioengineering Research Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Ryerson Univerity. Dr. Standish will bring a strong research profile in biophotonics to the Department and his appointment will further enhance the leading position of Ryerson University in biomedical engineering.

Dr. Standish received his B.Eng. degree in engineering physics from McMaster Univeristy and PhD. in medical biophysics from University of Toronto.


AMIRNASER YAZDANI JOINS THE DEPARTMENT

Jul 11, 2011

Dr. Amirnaser Yazdani will join the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on August 1, 2011 as an Associate Professor with tenure. Prior to his appointment at Ryerson University, Dr. Yazdani was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of University of Western Ontario as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Yazdani will bring a strong research profile in power systems to the Department and the newly launched Center for Urban Energy at Ryerson University. His appointment will further enhance the leading position of Ryerson University in energy systems.

Dr. Yazdani received his PhD. from University of Toronto and is a registered professional engineer in the province of Ontario.


SARWAN SAHOTA AWARD

May 24, 2011

Congratulations to Dr. Sri Krishnan for being awarded the "2011 Ryerson Sarwan Sahota Award for Distinguished Scholarly, Research, and Creative Activity".

This award recognizes an individual's outstanding contribution to knowledge or artistic creation in their area of expertise while employed at Ryerson University.


HEC SUMO ROBOT WINS 1ST PLACE

May 17, 2011

(L-R) Dr. Chris Macnab (organizer, U.Calgary), Ismail Rawoof, Danny Porthiyas.

Two students from Ryerson's Hobby Electronics Club, Danny Porthiyas (Electrical Engineering) and Ismail Abdul Rawoof (Computer Engineering) participated in the annual IEEE-sponsored 2011 Western Canadian Robot Games. Their first time at the competition, held on May 14th at Calgary Aerospace Museum, Danny and Ismail won First Place in the Full Size Sumo Wrestling Robot category.

Photo & video credit: James Andrew Smith.


CIHR and NSERC Grants

May 16, 2011

Congratulations to Dr. Sri Krishnan who has been awarded a research grant from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and NSERC for a total of $641,609 with $311,988 coming from CIHR and $329,621 from NSERC towards his research on signal processing for predicting sudden cardiac death.


Fed Dev ARC Funding Awarded

Apr 17, 2011

Congratulations to Dr. Muhammad Jaseemuddin who has been awarded Fed Dev ARC (Applied Research and Commercialization) Initiative funding for his project, "Developing Internet Routing Failure Detection and Analysis Tool" in collaboration with Solana Networks, Ottawa.


NSERC Discovery Grants

Mar 28, 2011

Congratulations to Drs. Alagan Anpalagan, Gul Khan, Farah Mohammadi, and Leyla Soleymani who have been awarded NSERC Discovery Grants with the average amount of $24,500/year for five years.


CIHR Grant Award

Feb 7, 2011

Congratulations to Dr. Victor Yang for being awarded a three-year grant from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for, "Optical Coherence Tomography for Intraoperative Imaging during Skull Base Neurosurgical Procedures".


CIHR Grant Award

Feb 1, 2011

Dr. Karthi Umapathy was awarded a 3-year Operating Grant from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the research project titled, "Studying Dynamic Electrical Conduction Pathways in Understanding Human Ventricular Fibrillation". The grant co-applicants included Dr. K. Nanthakumar from the Toronto General Hospital, Dr. D. Jaffray from the Princess Margaret Hospital and Dr. Sri Krishnan from this department.


Engage Grant Awards

Jan 24, 2011; updated May 24, 2011

Congratulations to Dr. Soosan Beheshti for the NSERC Engage Grant award for "Image Optimization for Pulmonary nodules detection at Lung Cancer Screening".

Congratulations to Dr. X. Zhang for the NSERC Engage Grant award for "Real-time video categorization algorithms for content aware adaptive video encoding" in collaboration with ViXS Systems.

Congratulations to Dr. A. Anpalagan for the NSERC Engage Grant award for "Optimized Receiver Design for Short Range Wireless Communication in Urban Residential Areas" in collaboration with industrial partner PESIPLEX.

Congratulations to Dr. O. Das for the NSERC Engage Grant award for "Development of a test suite for a new generation language processor" in collaboration with industrial partner TechnoBasics Software Inc.


2010 Faculty Research Excellence Awards

Dec 6, 2010

Congratulations to the winners of 2010 Faculty Research Excellence Awards.

Outstanding Research Award 2010
Dr. B. Wu, for outstanding contributions to research excellence in power electronics.
Faculty Research Excellence Award 2010
  • Dr. D. Androutsos
  • Dr. A. Apalagan
  • Dr. J. Alirezaie
  • Dr. X. Gu
  • Dr. Y. He
  • Dr. R. Sedaghat
  • Dr. K. Umapathy
  • Dr. D. Xu
  • Dr. L. Zhao
  • Dr. X. Zhang

The objective of Faculty Research Excellence Awards (FREAs) is to promote scholarly research and publication in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals and conference proceedings, books and book chapters, and patent applications. This year, eight faculty members with expertise covering all major research areas of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering were invited to serve on FREA Selection Committee. All applications were evaluated rigorously.


Eastman Kodak Research Grant

Nov 29, 2010

Dr. Xiao-Ping Zhang received a research grant award by Eastman Kodak Company, USA, to support his research on "Statistical Model based Fast Video Navigation and Summarization". In this line of research, Dr. Zhang and his CASPAL team are developing advanced theories and innovative intelligent technologies in visual media management and interaction for video navigation and summarization applications. The research results are expected to be used in content-based intelligent fast video summarization and navigation consumer applications.


2010 Graduate Research Excellence Awards

Nov 19, 2010

It is my great pleasure to announce the winners of 2010 Graduate Research Excellence Awards.

2010 GREA winners in MASc. category: Nima Soltani, Yushi Zhou, Anita Tino.

2010 GREA winners in PhD. category: Anirban Sengupta, Yun Tie, Rui Zhang, Muhammad Talal Ibrahim, Sivasothy Senthuran Surinder Jassar, Lamiaa Raafat Khalid, Hamed Rasouli, Matija Milosevic, Zhiming (Peter) He, Victor Dumitriu, Jiacheng Wang, Masoud Farzam, Junfeng Jiang, Richard Rzeszutek, Mahdi Marsousi, Sattar Hussain.

The objective of Graduate Research Excellence Award (GREA) is to promote scholarly research publications of graduate students in peer-reviewed main-stream scientific journals and conference proceedings. This year, there were 7 MASc. applications and 37 PhD. applications competing for 20 GREAs.

To ensure a fair and transparent selection process, the GREA Selection Committee consisting of eight faculty members with expertise covering all the major research areas of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering conducted a rigorous assessment of all applications. A selection criterion was developed and used to assess all applications. Each application was assessed by all GREA Selection Committee members independently and the eight scores from the eight GREA Selection Committee members on each application were averaged to generate the final score of the application. The applications were then ranked based on their final score.

Congratulations to all 2010 GREA winners and keep up the excellent work in research!

Fei Yuan, PhD.
Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ryerson University


American Heart Association Young Investigator Award

Nov 19, 2010

K. Umapathy receives the award.

Dr. Karthi Umapathy received the Young Investigator Award from the American Heart Association for his abstract on: "Real-Time Electrogram Characteristics During Human Ventricular Fibrillation for Quantification of the Antegrade Coronary Flow to Optimize Resuscitation Outcomes". The research, which was a collaborative work with Toronto General Hospital and St. Michael's Hospital, involved a non-invasive methodology to quantify the amount of coronary flow during cardio pulmonary resuscitation using waveform markers extracted from electrograms. The near real-time feedback on the amount of coronary flow positively influenced the resuscitation outcomes and thereby increased the survival rates of patients suffering ventricular fibrillation— a medical condition related to most of the sudden cardiac deaths.

The research study was unique as it was conducted using sick isolated human hearts received from heart-transplant patients (with informed consent) at the Toronto General Hospital. The research was presented at the Resuscitation Science Symposium 2010, in Chicago, on November 13th.


First Prize in NSERC/WESNet Poster Competition

Nov 12, 2010

Congratulations to Venkata Yaramasu (PhD. candidate) and Xiaotian Tan (MA.Sc. candidate), both supervised by Dr. Bin Wu, for their poster entitled "State-of-the-Art Power Converter Topologies for Wind Energy Conversion Systems" which won first prize in the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada - Wind Energy Strategic Network (WESNet) Student Poster Competition, held in Montreal, Quebec during Nov. 1-2.

The poster competed with 35 posters from 16 Canadian universities, several companies and government research institutes such as Environment Canada. This nation-wide competition was supported by Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) and sponsored by Rockwell Automation.


Biosensor Researcher Profiled

Oct 22, 2010

The most recent faculty member to join the department, Dr. Leyla Soleymani, was recently profiled (PDF) by CMC Impact for her research which developed a biosensor that combines new and advanced materials with biomolecular probes, to improve the detection of viruses and bacteria.


NSERC Strategic Grant Award: Xijia Gu

Oct 22, 2010

Congratulations to Dr. Xijia Gu, for winning a 2010 NSERC Strategic Grant for, "All-fiber Infrared Lasers and Components for Chemical Detection Applications". The award was worth $461,950 over three years and included Lawrence Chen from McGill University and Han-Peter Loock from Queen's University.

This project will develop all-fiber mid-IR lasers that are inexpensive, efficient, rugged, and compact. These lasers, which are based on a class of fluoride glass materials (ZBLAN) that have a high transmission for mid-IR light, will be used to increase the sensitivity and chemical specificity of novel fiber-based spectrometers.

The market for mid-IR sensors is projected to reach $2.5 billion by 2015 and one quarter of the $2.8 billion industrial laser market is dominated by fiber lasers. This project will develop the knowledge and technologies for Canada to become a leading manufacturer of all-fiber mid-IR sensing and laser solutions for these key markets.


2010 Best Graduate Thesis Awards

Oct 19, 2010

The Ph.D. thesis of Jingya Dai entitled "Current Source Converters for Mega-watt Wind Energy Conversion Systems" (co-supervised by Dr. Bin Wu and Dr. David Xu) has been awarded "2010 The Best PhD. Thesis" by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Jingya has also been nominated for The Governor-General Gold Medal by the Department.

The M.A.Sc. thesis of Nima Soltani entitled "Radio-Frequency Power Harvest and Remote Calibration of Passive Wireless Microsystems" (supervised by Dr. Fei Yuan) has been awarded "2010 The Best MASc. Thesis" by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.


Wroclaw Graduates

Oct 12, 2010; updated Oct 29, 2010

(Left photo) S. Krishnan and the first double degree graduates at WUT.
(Right photo) Ryerson student Hussein Berisso receives his double degree at Ryerson convocation.

During the Fall 2010 convocation, the first batch of students graduated with double Masters degrees from Ryerson University (RU) in Canada and Wroclaw University of Technology (WUT) in Poland. Dr. Sri Krishnan, former Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Ryerson University attended the convocation ceremony.

The combined graduate program between RU and WUT was established in December 2007, to foster student exchange within the context of bilateral curricular development in the areas of power and control engineering.


NSERC Strategic Grant Award: Victor Yang

Oct 7, 2010

Congratulations to Dr. Victor Yang for winning a 2010 NSERC Strategic Grant for "Ultrasound and MRI Guided Interstitial Optical Coherence Tomography".


NSERC Engage Grant Awards

Sep 30, 2010; updated Nov 12, 2010.

Four faculty members were awarded NSERC Engage Grants which are intended to give companies that operate from a Canadian base, access to the knowledge and expertise available at Canadian universities. This program fosters the development of new research partnerships between academic researchers and companies by supporting short-term research and development projects that address a company-specific problem.

Dr. Andy Ye: An NSERC Engage grant for improving the efficiency of Field-Programmable Gate Array architectures with Altera Toronto Research Centre.

Dr. Lian Zhao: The NSERC Engage grant, entitled "Power Line Communication (PLC) for Automotive Applications" aims to develop a functional prototype transceiver module to implement communication inside vehicles using DC power line as transmission media. The developed PLC technique can simplify and limit the wiring bundles, achieve cost saving and flexibility for harness and installation.

Dr. Sri Krishnan:

  • NSERC Engage Grant with Pressure Pipe Inspection Company (PPIC) to automatically detect leaks in pipelines by using time-varying audio signal processing techniques.
  • NSERC Engage Grant with WhoTheMan (WTM) Inc. to monitor sports media content by applying intelligent multimedia signal processing algorithms.
  • NSERC Engage Grant for project on Integrated Biomedical Systems for Improved Health and Wellness.

Dr. X. Zhang: NSERC Engage Grant with Pressure Pipe Inspection Company entitled "A New Generation of Visualization and Analysis Algorithms for Live Pipeline Inspection Systems". In this project, advanced signal processing technologies, such as noise removal, signal enhancement, and optimal signal synthesis, will be developed to automate the data analysis of Pipe Diver in the production loop.

Dr. Dimitri Androutsos: NSERC Engage Grant with SpatialView Corporation on investigating new advanced methods for automatic depth map generation for 2D to 3D conversion.

Dr. Fei Yuan: NSERC Engage Grant to F. Yuan for the project "Low-power reconfigurable radio-frequency front-end for software-defined radio".


FRSC Membership

Sep 16, 2010

Dr. Anastasios (Tas) Venetsanopoulos has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in the Academy of Sciences. Dr. Venetsanopoulos is an internationally recognized leader in telecommunications, signal and image processing and biometrics. His pioneering applications have found numerous applications in digital media, biomedicine, geophysics and biometrics.


Centre for Urban Energy

Sep 1, 2010

Ryerson University announced today the creation of the Centre for Urban Energy (CUE). This unique research and technology centre will be devoted to the discovery and commercialization of innovative and practical solutions to urban energy issues. It will be the first faculty-based research centre in the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Science.

Most energy around the world is consumed in urban centres. The CUE will bring together industries, government and top researchers from across Canada and around the world to undertake collaborative and multi-disciplinary approaches to the study of urban energy. Combining engineering, science, environment, business and infrastructure management, CUE will tackle immediate challenges in the areas of:

  • Alternative local energy/fuel applications and options;
  • Conservation and demand management;
  • Renewable energy integration;
  • Carbon footprint reduction;
  • Distributed generation and energy storage applications;
  • Integrated planning methodologies and models;
  • Plug-in hybrid vehicle and electric vehicles infrastructure requirements;
  • Transmission supply enhancements;
  • Transmission and distribution power engineering and utility applications.

The goal of CUE is to help develop solutions to these and other challenges for urban centres around the world. The Centre will expand and adapt as necessary to meet future needs and opportunities.

The Centre for Urban Energy will receive up to $7 million from three founding sponsors. Hydro One and Toronto Hydro Corporation have each committed $2.5 million over five years, while the Ontario Power Authority will provide up to $2 million during that same period. The CUE will administer up to $900,000 annually for approved research projects, and will grant $100,000 in bursaries and awards each year to students engaged in CUE's work. The Centre will issue a call for proposals shortly.

Professor Bala Venkatesh has been appointed Academic Director of the Centre. An advisory board consisting of leaders in the energy, innovation and business sectors, including representation from the three founding sponsors, will be established.

Located in the Merchandise Building on Dalhousie Street, the Centre will open within the next few months.

Dr. Mohamed Lachemi, P.Eng.
Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Science


MITACS Accelerate PhD Fellowship Award

Aug 23, 2010

Thomas Behan's application to the MITACS Accelerate PhD Fellowship Program, under the supervision of Dr. Lian Zhao, was been approved with a grant of $40,000.00 for 1 year. The objective of MITACS Accelerate is to provide graduate student and researchers with applied research opportunities by enabling them to work with organizations to address real business issues. The project is titled, "Vehicle Class Identification Via Footprint Pressure" for Behan Construction Ltd.


Bronze Prize Design Award

Aug 17, 2010

ELCE students Mark Makary, Evgeny Sheinfeld and Dwain Lobo-Pires, supervised by Dr. X. Fernando won the Bronze Prize ($500) in an international design competition for their project, "Wireless Treadmill Control using Heart Rate Monitoring".

The MTT Alive 2010 International Video Competition, organized by IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, was open to undergraduate students all over the world and the entries were judged by a panel of IEEE members. Prizes were awarded based on the following criteria: 50% creativity, 25% novelty of wireless aspect and 25% systems thinking in the design.

The students and their project during the 2010 EDP Open House.

The prizes were announced at the 2010 International Microwave Symposium held recently in Anaheim, California during the Student Awards Luncheon. The other award winners were:

  • Gold Awards ($1,000 Prize): Gannon, McMaster
  • Silver Awards ($750 Prize): Concordia, RPI
  • Bronze Awards ($500 Prize): Ryerson, Virginia Tech, NCSU

ICEMS Best Paper Award

Aug 17, 2010

SAR researchers Yashodhan Athavale and Professor Sri Krishnan in collaboration with Ted Rogers School of Business Management Researchers Lyubomir Halachev and Professor Aziz Guergachi have been awarded the Best Paper Award in the International Congress on Environmental Modeling and Software held in Ottawa in July.

Their research paper was titled "Analysis of the Economic Sustainability of Companies in the Water Sector". The details are available in this press article.


Media Coverage of GARP-4 Robot

Jul 20, 2010

Dr. James A. Smith is working on developing legged robots based on biological research as part of the Locomorph Consortium, based in the European Union (Ryerson is the only non-EU partner in the consortium). He is currently looking at applying biomechanics data from three- and four-legged dogs to his GARP-4 robot to see how the robot can cope with the loss of a limb. In the long term he hopes to use the results to develop better rehabilitation therapies in humans and animals when limbs are damaged or lost.

He and his research team recently returned from a robotics conference at University of Jena, Germany. European press coverage (two items below) included photos of his robot, the GARP-4:


2010 Department Administrative Appointments

Jul 5, 2010

The administrative appointments for the 2010 academic year are:


FEAS Dean's Teaching Award

Jun 14, 2010

Congratulations to Soosan Beheshti for winning the 2010 Dean's Teaching Award for FEAS! Thank you for continuing to make the teaching reputation of our department top-notch!

Dimitri Androutsos,
Chair, ELCE


Chancellor's Award of Distinction in Teaching

Jun 14, 2010

Congratulations to Gosha Zywno on being awarded the Ryerson 2010 Chancellor's Award of Distinction in Teaching. This is Ryerson's premier Teaching Award!

Dimitri Androutsos,
Chair, ELCE


25-Year Club

May 19, 2010

Congratulations to Mike Kassam and Jim Koch for 25 years of dedicated service to Ryerson.

The ceremony took place on May 13, 2010 and a reception followed in the Atrium. The inductees into the 25 Year Club were honoured by their respective department heads and the university President.

25 Year Club commemorative pin.

M. Kassam (left photo, far right); J. Koch (right photo, far right)
receive their certificates and commemorative pins.

Photo credits: D. Upham (pin, left photo), L. Koch (right photo).


NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship

Apr 19, 2010

Dear colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I formally announce to all of you that Raymond Phan, a Ph.D. candidate in our department has been awarded an NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarhsip (VCGS2) worth $100,000 over 24 months.

This is NSERC's most prestigious and top scholarship program. Raymond received one of only 57 Vanier Awards awarded nationwide by NSERC this year.

Congratulations to Raymond!

Sincerely,
Dimitri Androutsos,
Chair


March FEAS Staff Recognition Award

Apr 14, 2010

J. Naughton receives the award from M. Lachemi.

Congratulations to Mr. Jason Naughton, recipient of the March FEAS Staff Recognition Award. Jason, who is a lead engineer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to service within his department and beyond. To quote from one of his nomination letters, "Jason is a dedicated, easy-to-approach, service-minded and volunteer-spirited staff. His service to Ryerson is outstanding". Jason's achievements will be recognized during the mid-April Chairs' Council meeting.

Congratulations also to all the nominees, your dedication to the service role is essential to making FEAS the strong team that it is.

M. Lachemi,
Dean, FEAS

Photo credits: L. Fernandes.