Archived CEPS Awards

The Department of Chemistry lab coordinator team, comprising of Robert Reed, Kate Stuttaford, Jennifer Proulx and Dara Schaefer, have received the University of Guelph's 2022 Exemplary Team Recognition Award for their outstanding efforts to deliver high-quality learning experiences to students including pivots related to COVID-19.

The annual award bestowed by the president's office at U of G recgonizes "employees who have demonstrated outstanding service to the University community and/or who have made extraordinary contributions to the University community beyond what is normally expected in their job."

The team can be seen to the left in the front row as follows from left Robert Reed, Kate Stuttaford, Dara Schaefer and Jennifer Proulx with U of G leadership and other award recipients.

Congratulations!

Read the full story

Each year, the Canadian Society for Bioengineering presents a Young Engineer of the Year Award to celebrate and encourage excellence within the Canadian bioengineering community, and recognize the work of a young engineer as well as encourage excellence among young members of the society.

The 2021 recipient of the Young Engineer Award is Dr. Prasad Daggupati, who is an Associate Professor in Water Resource Engineering at the University of Guelph.

Dr. Daggupati is also the 2022 recipient of the Young Engineer Award from the Northeast Agricultural and Biological Engineering Conference (NABEC), given to an NABEC member for outstanding accomplishments in research, design, extension or other areas in the field of agricultural and biological engineering and who also contributes to the overall advancement of the profession.

Congratulations, Prasad!

Dr. Ed McBean, a professor in the School of Engineering, is the recipient of the Excellence in Innovation Civil Engineering Award from the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering for his project Design and Performance of a Novel Low-Tech Water Filter System.

The award from CSCE, sponsored by CANAM, recognizes outstanding civil engineering innovations that have had "a significant and far-ranging beneficial impact on the prosperity and well-being of society."

McBean's project looked at bringing access to safe, clean drinking water through a novel, low-cost water treatment system to communities often lacking resources and/or in remote areas. The water filtration system has a long-term (>5-year) lifespan.

Congratulations to Dr. McBean!

Dr. Lei Lei, Associate Professor in the School of Engineering, was recently honoured by N²Women: Stars in Computer Networking and Communications 2021. The "star" recognition is given to women who meet the required criteria, such as self-defined female researcher in the communications and networking field, more than 10 years' experience post-PhD, and outstanding contributions in the field, among others.

N²Women is a discipline-specific community of researchers in the fields of networking and communications, which is supported by several major professional associations. According to the organization, "Lei made significant contributions to the field of performance evaluation and optimization in wireless networking, edge computing, and Internet of Things (IoT) control with highly cited papers and remarkable impacts on standardization... Her 16 years’ research experiences on cutting-edge areas and services have established her as a female research star in her field."

Lei’s research is focused on applying artificial intelligence and machine learning methodologies to the optimal control of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and mobile cloud/edge computing for applications such as smart grid, autonomous driving, and cloud robotics.

Read the story here.

Dr. Ramesh Rudra, Professor in the School of Engineering, has been named Fellow of American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE).

Called "ASABE's highest honour," the society defines a Fellow "as a member of unusual professional distinction, with outstanding and extraordinary qualifications and experience in, or related to, the field of agricultural, food, or biological systems engineering. ASABE Fellows possess a minimum of 20 years of active practice in, or related to, the profession of engineering; the teaching of engineering; or the teaching of an engineering-related curriculum and a minimum of 20 years as an active Member-Engineer or Member in ASABE."

Rudra’s research is focused on agricultural watershed management, water budgeting, and source water protection for water quantity, quality and non-point source pollution. Rudra explores processes of soil erosion, infiltration, irrigation and drainage.

Read the award story here.

Dr. Bob Dony, Associate Professor in the School of Engineering, receives the Engineers Canada Meritorious Service Award for Professional Service for 2022.

The Meritorious Service Award for Professional Service recognizes outstanding contribution to the Canadian engineering profession through a professional, consulting, or technical engineering association or society in Canada.

According to Engineers Canada, "for 24 years, including seven on the Professional Engineers of Ontario Council where he served a term as president, Bob Dony has provided exceptional leadership to the engineering profession."

Congratulations to Dr. Dony!

Congratulations to School of Engineering professor and CEPS interim dean, Dr. Richard G. Zytner, P.hD., P.Eng., for his work on assessing the environmental impacts of an on-site wastewater treatment system in the fresh-cut fruit processing industry, which is featured as the cover article in the January 2022 issue of Water Environment Research. The work was funded by the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance (previously the OMAFRA-U of G Partnership).

In comparison to treating wastewater in municipal wastewater treatment plants, Zytner and team found that on-site treatment systems had fewer environmental impacts on climate change and human health.

Chu, T., Abbassi, B. E., & Zytner, R. G. (2022). Life‐cycle assessment of full‐scale membrane bioreactor and tertiary treatment technologies in the fruit processing industry. Water Environment Research, 94(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/wer.1661

Dr. Xiaodong Lin and team have received the IEEE Computer Society's 2020 Best Paper Award for IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. The work was co-authored by Lin's former PhD student, Jianbing Ni, and looks at ways to improve user privacy with mobile device data collection.

Congratulations to Dr. Lin and team!

Read the publication:

J. Ni, K. Zhang, Q. Xia, X. Lin and X. S. Shen, Enabling Strong Privacy Preservation and Accurate Task Allocation for Mobile Crowdsensing, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 1317-1331, June 2020.

Dr. Ali Dehghantanha, associate professor in the School of Computer Science and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Cyber Security and Threat Intelligence, receives the IEEE 2021 Outstanding Leadership Award.

The IEEE TCSVC Outstanding Leadership Award recognizes one individual for her/his outstanding leadership contributions to the services community and to the field of services computing, and his leadership and visionary contributions to society at large through promotion and applications of services computing concepts to improve global business management, enterprise computing and applications of services computing to a variety of science, engineering, and business domains.

Dehghantanha’s interdisciplinary research focuses on topics in digital forensics and artificial intelligence. He is an academic-entrepreneur in cybersecurity and director of the Cyber Science Lab – a research lab dedicated to advancing research and training in cybersecurity. He is also the founder and director of the Master of Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence program at U of G.

Congratulations to Dr. Dehghantanha!

Dr. Wael Ahmed and colleagues in the School of Engineering have designed an energy-efficient airlift pump which receives one of two U of G Innovation of the Year Awards for 2021.

Since 2016, the annual awards from the Office of Research and the Research Innovation Office recognize researchers for creative strategies or products that make a difference in people’s lives and have made or have the potential to generate value for Canada.

Learn more about FloNergia Inc., the company incorporated to commercialize this innovative technology.

Read the full release about the award winners, including the other prize winner, Dr. George van der Merwe and team in the College of Biological Science.

Congratulations to Ahmed and van der Merwe.

Victoria Lucas, Jeffrey Stevens, Kelly Ward, and Daniel O'Connell just placed 2nd in the Student Design Competition for 2023 at the WEFTEC Technical Exhibition and Conference in Chicago. The students are from the 41X group in the Environmental Engineering program and advised by Dr. Bassim Abbassi.  After winning the Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO) Student Design Competition for 2023 in March, they were chosen to represent Ontario at this international competition against 14 universities from Canada, the USA and Costa Rica. 

Each summer, the Bloorview Research Institute (BRI)’s Ward Family Summer Student Research Program attracts students from universities from all over Canada to collaborate alongside some of the brightest minds in childhood disability and developmental differences research in the world. The BRI is housed at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Canada’s largest pediatric children’s hospital. These budding young scientists are embedded in Bloorview Research Institute's research labs such as the Autism Research Centre, the CP Discovery Lab, the Neuromodulation Lab and the PRISM Lab to help researchers unlock a world of possibilities for children and youth with disabilities. This year, they have 17 of the best and brightest undergraduate students who were selected for this prestigious program from over 1,800 applications coast to coast.

Kathryn Currie is a University of Guelph student who has been chosen for the program. She is completing her degree in biomedical engineering.

The final highlight of the program is the opportunity for these talented students to highlight their research at the annual Ward Research Day and compete for the best research poster and best oral presentation. Kathryn will showcase her research and compete for the best research poster and best oral presentation. The Ward Research Day and Pursuit Awards Competition will be held in-person at Holland Bloorview at 150 Kilgour Road, Toronto, and will be live-streamed over Zoom Webinar.

You can also get a sneak peak of the student’s research poster on Monday, July 11 on the Research Day and Pursuit Award Competition event page.

Hannah is standing in a real scale mimic of a tunnel to be used for a deep geological repository research.

MSc. Chemistry Student Hannah Oreskovic won 1st place at the 47th annual Canadian Nuclear Society/Canadian Nuclear Association (CNS/CNA) conference. The poster explained the relatively novel elemental analysis technique, using negative muons (elementary particles that mimick heavy electrons or light protons)  to achieve non-destructive, sub-surface analysis of samples. It also detailed planned applications of this technique to study deep geological repositories (DGRs), which are underground networks of used nuclear fuel containers. Future study will help determine the longevity and degradation rate of the containers.

Click the link below to view Hannah's Research Poster!

Hannah’s Research Poster

Congratulations to Jagandeep Saraya for winning 2nd place in the Laurentian SETAC AGM in the Doctoral Posters category!

Congratulations Regan Sheppard! The University of Guelph community voted and selected Regan, a MASc. engineering candidate as this year's 3MT Community Choice Award winner. Watch her thesis presentation to see why.

Our very own, Kevin Kasa (MASc) was selected to join the Chief Science Advisor's Youth Council to contribute to the ongoing discussions around AI / data during his term.  Kevin is currently doing research at both U of G and the Vector Institute working on developing uncertainty measures for artificial intelligence (AI) systems to ensure their safe deployment in safety-critical applications.

Kevin previously graduated with a B.Eng. in Aerospace Engineering from the Toronto Metropolitan University, where he contributed to research projects on robotics, satellite systems, and remote sensing. He also has experience developing AI systems for biomedical engineering at the Sunnybrook Research Institute, and Geo-intelligence at MDA.

In addition to fundamental scientific research, Kevin is also passionate about translating research efforts to real-world applications, and deep-tech entrepreneurship.

During his undergraduate, he co-founded and led a student-run startup developing high-payload & autonomous vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. As a member of the Chief Science Advisor’s Youth Council, Kevin hopes to continue advocating for greater research and entrepreneurship opportunities for young Canadians across the country, as well as address pertinent questions on the rapidly growing impact of artificial intelligence.

Read more about the council and its objectives.

Chemistry Ph.D. Candidate, Sharon Abner, recently won the J.P. Hobson Prize for the best oral presentation at the 2023 Surface Canada Forum. Her presentation looked at fabricating and inexpensive, yet efficient catalysts for CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR to combat the drastic increase in greenhouse gas emissions). Using electrochemical conversion of captured CO₂ to create industrial low-carbon chemicals and synthetic fuels can provide a way to repurpose CO₂ gas.

Emmanuel Boateng’s poster competed at the Spring Symposium of the Canadian Section of The Electrochemical Society held at the Queen's University last month. His work entitled, "Design and Electrochemical Study of Three-Dimensional Graphene-Based Materials Decorated with Pd Nanoparticles for Hydrogen Storage" won 2nd place; this work has also been published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

The research supports a future hydrogen economy enabling global energy security by tackling one of the biggest challenges: hydrogen storage. Moving hydrogen to the forefront of the energy sector could be a game changer in the fight against global warming. Hydrogen offers high energy output and zero-carbon emissions. Current storage options include compressed gas at high pressure or as liquid at cryogenic temperatures, both of which have challenges for logistics and commercial applications.

Emmanuel shares that “From the cost and safety perspective, solid-state hydrogen storage is preferred over the conventional storage methods. My PhD research focuses on the development of novel graphene-based materials modified with palladium nanoparticles for efficient hydrogen storage.” If the research is successful, enhanced storage capacity at moderate temperature and atmospheric pressure will be ideal for commercialization. Emmanuel “hopes the concepts and strategies being developed will greatly contribute toward future solid-state material designs for a sustainable hydrogen economy.”

An earlier publication in Materials Today Advances titled “Recent advances in nanomaterial-based solid-state hydrogen storage” by Emmanuel and Professor Aicheng Chen is listed as the most cited article published in the journal over the past three years. Clearly hydrogen storage is top of mind.

Student Experience Awards honour the achievements and contributions of campus leaders who have made a lasting difference in students’ lives and in campus-community relations.  Each year, the University community is invited to submit nominations for staff, faculty and students who exemplify commitment and contribution to U of G and the greater community.  This year’s Student Experience Awards were celebrated at an in-person event, the first since 2019.

Learn more about this year’s inspiring winners here.

On Thursday, March 30th, University of Guelph Student Experience gave out their annual Student Experience Awards. Chemistry Ph.D. candidate Genievieve Borg was one of three CEPS students recognized, alongside Rithik Choudhary and Bawneet Singh. Genievieve received the Erin Angus Graduate Student Engagement Award, which is awarded to a graduate student who has made significant contributions to graduate and all student life throughout their campus community engagement during the past year.

Genievieve grew up in Brantford, Ontario, before enrolling in the BSc. Chemistry Co-op program here at the University of Guelph in 2014. “What drew me to chemistry in the first place is that it provides a different understanding and perspective of how the world works. Everything is made up of molecules. If you can understand how to manipulate molecules to impart desirable properties, you can do some pretty cool things!”

During her time in graduate studies, she has become very involved in the campus community. She is a competitive paddler on the University of Guelph’s Dragon Boat Team and served as Co-Chair of the Indigenous Student Society (ISS) this year. “Through the ISS, I have been able to learn more about my culture and traditions and realized my passion for Indigenization and advocating for Indigenous success in academia in STEM”, she shared. “Toward Indigenization of the University of Guelph campus, I drummed at the Installations of President Charlotte Yates and Chancellor Mary Anne Chambers and currently serve on the President’s Advisory Committee on Anti-Racism.”

Genievieve was featured in the Iron-Willed Women in STEM Exhibition at the Guelph Civic Museum and their corresponding History Bites: Iron Willed Women in STEM podcast. Additionally, she was featured on the cover of the 16th edition of Inorganic Chemistry and published an editorial detailing her experience as an Indigenous woman in a Ph.D. Chemistry degree. “I put a lot of hard work into improving all the circles I am a part of, so it feels great to be recognized for that,” she added.

The School of Engineering is proud to announce that four 41X students recently competed and won the Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO) Student Design Competition for 2023. The design challenge focused on upgrades to the Mid Halton Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in anticipation of significant growth. Kelly Ward, Victoria Lucas, Jeffrey Stevens, and Daniel O'Connell will go on to represent Ontario at the Water Environment Federation Student Design Competition in Chicago in October this year.

Dr. Bassim Abbassi supervised the student team and was impressed, “they were curious, motivated, and dedicated to learning. During their work on the design project, they were actively engaged, asked thoughtful questions…they were able to collaborate and effectively communicated their ideas clearly and persuasively.” The School of Engineering’s focus on design and experiential learning seems to be paying off. Victoria Lucas has already benefited from the co-op stream and in fact heard about the WEAO competition while working in the Engineering Services at the Region of Peel.

When asked what the biggest moment of the competition was for Victoria, she answered, “being able to present our preliminary designs to a panel of five industry advisors where we were able to receive feedback. It was a great experience to answer questions about our design and discuss ways to improve our design based on actual industry experience.” It’s these kinds of interdisciplinary design opportunities that drew Victoria to the Engineering program in the first place. The program “presented a magnitude of opportunities for me to expand my knowledge of environmental systems and design innovative solutions to current issues,” she shared.

The Phase 1 solutions of the team’s design will start in the next couple of years. This will include retrofitting an existing centrate storage tank at the plant into an equalization tank that uniformly returns the sidestream flows to the head of the plant. The equalization tank will reduce the negative effects of inconsistent sidestream flows and consequently reduce the spikes in nutrient concentrations in the aeration tanks. Moreover, optimization of the aeration tank by reducing the rate of returned activated sludge (RAS) will be implemented. This will increase the food-to-microorganism (F/M) ratio and, accordingly, reduce the growth rate of filamentous bacteria that have a negative impact on the efficiency of the secondary settling tank. Phase II won’t start until 3-5 years from now and will include additional innovations.

Abbassi is confident that suggested improvements in the wastewater treatment system design can “significantly reduce operational costs by reducing the amount of energy, chemicals, and other resources required to treat wastewater, resulting in reduced environmental footprints.”

Let’s hope for another win for Victoria, Kelly, Jeffrey, and Daniel in October!

On Wednesday, March 22nd, the University of Guelph celebrated gender equity with the annual HeForShe event, a cross campus initiative supported by the Lang School of Business, Gryphon Athletics, and the School of Engineering. Two-time Olympic bronze medalist and former professional soccer player Diana Matheson was the keynote speaker, sharing her journey of resilience through losing, injuries, retirement and her new initiative Project 8, to help launch Canada’s first women’s professional soccer league.  

Awards were distributed to honour students who support equity and have overcome their own challenges. First year engineering student Hallee Woodward won the Diana Matheson Resilience Scholarship for $5,000. Her journey of resilience began long before coming to the U of G.

Diagnosed as a child with Cystic Fibrosis, Hallee has spent much of life ill, battling the ongoing damage to her lungs and pancreas caused by the disease. “I think the biggest turning point for me and the way I perceived the world was when I turned 13 and found out in my 7th grade science class that I wasn’t expected to live much past the age of 45,” Hallee shared. This of course has shaped her decision making ever since.

Resilience for Hallee has meant, “Failing and trying again, and again… then failing once more before I finally get it right, [it] will always be a little bit humbling… but it has landed me here at the University of Guelph.” After touring the U of G last year, Hallee knew she could feel like home on campus. She was confident a degree in mechanical engineering could provide her with the skills she needed to pursue a career and as a proud member of the Gryphon rowing she would find community.

Hallee continues to look for, “experiences that are a great reminder to not let my life be dictated by how much time I have left to live it.” A new drug recently approved in Canada has improved her symptoms, relieving pain and allowing her to get the most of her student experience. Excited for what the next few years hold, Hallee is ready to take on the next opportunity “to learn and grow as a woman and future engineer.”

Water Resource Engineering PhD candidate, Cody Kupferschmidt, received the Engineers Canada – Manulife Scholarship. Each year Engineers Canada awards three scholarships valued at $12,500 each to support Canadian engineers returning to university to further study or research in their chosen engineering field.

Cody is a professional engineer and PhD candidate whose research is focused on improving our knowledge of the factors that influence river channel migration and bank erosion. As part of his PhD, Cody has been engaging with the Canadian engineering and geoscience community to help understand existing practices and challenges. Building from these findings, he is working to combine machine learning with traditional engineering techniques to develop models that can more accurately forecast river channel migration. This research has the potential to improve engineering best-practices in Canada and help to more accurately assess erosion risks to homes, roads, and other infrastructure.

Learn more about Cody’s scholarship and his motivations for pursuing a PhD. 

Three CEPS students are among the incoming University of Guelph recipients who received top entrance awards for their studies. Biomedical engineering student Sydney Yott received the Lincoln Alexander Chancellor's Scholarship. Biomedical Engineering student Lily Eldon and Biological Engineering student Livia Fleischmann each received President's Scholarships.

Congratulations to all recipients!

Read the story

Electrochemistry PhD student, Joshua Van Der Zalm, received the best presentation award in the Recent Advances in Nanomaterials and Nanocomposites towards Photocatalysis and Photoelectrocatalysis symposium during the 105^th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition held in Calgary between June 13-17, 2022.

The Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition is a national forum for learning, knowledge exchange, innovation, and celebration of all that Canadian chemistry has to offer. 

“Winning this award at a national conference with participants from top universities and research institutions in the country is a huge honour and speaks to the excellent quality of research coming out of the Department of Chemistry at Guelph.” says Van Der Zalm. 

Congratulations, Joshua!

Four University of Guelph (U of G) students in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (CEPS) will receive Vector Scholarships in Artificial Intelligence, valued at $17,500 each, as they embark on master’s degrees at U of G in Fall 2022.

The merit-based entrance scholarships are awarded to top-tier applicants entering Vector-recognized master’s programs in Ontario, studying AI-related topics ranging from engineering to computing or informatics, among others.

Students meeting application criteria and entering eligible Ontario-based AI master’s program can apply for these scholarships from the Vector Institute for AI (Vector), a Toronto-based organization dedicated to advancing AI research in Canada. 

Scholarships are awarded either through preallocation or an open competition process, with nominations from 14 universities and 48 programs across the province.

This year in CEPS, three scholarships were received by incoming Master of Data Science students: Somaye Ahangar Saryazdi, Adam Green, and Hauwa Umar. One was received by a Collaborative Specialization in AI student, Anton Naim Ibrahim. All four were awarded from open competition.

Both the Master of Data Science and Collaborative Specialization in AI are Vector-recognized programs, meaning that they have been found by Vector to equip graduates with AI skills and competencies sought by industry.

“Our success rate in the open competition demonstrates the level of talent selecting U of G to further their AI studies,” says Dr. Graham Taylor, academic co-director for the Centre for Advancing Responsible and Ethical Artificial Intelligence (CARE-AI) and program director for CSAI. “U of G’s growing suite of AI-related academic programs and CARE-AI, along with our interdisciplinary AI faculty experts, bolster our ability to attract and retain these stellar students.”

Alongside the financial award, recipients will have access to Vector’s Digital Talent Hub, career development and networking events, and AI-specific career support programs.

Learn about the scholarship recipients

Somaye Ahangar Saryazdi

Master of Data Science

“Machine learning holds great potential for national statistical organizations (NSOs) by automating certain processes or assisting humans to do processes. It allows NSO to use new data sources. My current goals of applying big data sources using machine learning techniques inspired me to pursue my studies in the Data Science program. It allows me to gain a better understanding of the added value of AI techniques in NSO by improving accuracy and reliability.”

Adam Green

Master of Data Science

“My primary motivation for pursuing an education in artificial intelligence is the immense potential and diversity of possible applications for the technology. My professional interests span the fields of healthcare, finance and sport. Education in AI allows me to transition throughout these fields to tackle innovative projects across personalized healthcare, predictive stock analytics and improved sport safety through data harvesting. From an industry perspective, as significant growth occurs in decentralized applications, AI will be a primary tool in expanding the field further.”

Anton Naim Ibrahim

Collaborative Specialization in AI

“During my later years of undergraduate studies, I have placed a great emphasis on AI and related fields, both by taking relevant courses, such as data science and computational intelligence courses, and through work experience. In the future, I see myself working in industry, with my career centered around artificial intelligence and software development. I have seen the impact and the excitement that AI brings to a variety of industries, through both my education and work experience, and I have decided that I would like to be a contributor in this exciting field of research.”

Hauwa Umar

Master of Data Science

“I pride myself on being a life-long learner. I have taken online courses to further my data skills in data visualization, descriptive and inferential statistics, and machine learning and plan to take more soon. Having troves of data contextualized by machine learning algorithms to help company decision-makers understand their business better and make informed decisions is something I find interesting and would like to pursue as a career.”

School of Engineering Water Resources Engineering student Emma McNeill is the recipient of the University of Guelph Student Experience Award, Kishaadigeh Award.

This award is presented to a First Nations, Métis or Inuit student who is engaged in co-curricular activities that enrich their educational experience and is achieving well academically. The recipient is also connected in meaningful ways to the larger community, actively encouraging others to become involved and is a role model for other Indigenous learners.

Learn more about Emma's efforts and the U of G Student Experience Awards.

Congratulations, Emma!

A graduate student in engineering, Hannah May, has received the Golder Scholarship for Indigenous Students in Water award from the Canadian Water Resources Association (CWRA) in the amount of $2,000 CAD. 

"It’s a great honour to receive the 2022 Golder Scholarship for an Indigenous Student in Water from the CWRA.

My graduate studies have involved a lot of time outdoors in the watershed doing hands-on field work. I’m so grateful to have spent this time connecting with the land and curating my relationship to the water.

My research is focused on understanding how nutrients are partitioned between different parts of the water cycle in relation to seasonal weather events. This includes nutrient transfer between surface water, groundwater, sediments, and subsurface drainage. The hopes of this research are to contribute to our understanding of the water and nutrient cycle in agricultural watersheds. The transport pathways of nutrients are intrinsically linked with the water cycle, and consequently weather events such as precipitation and snowfall. As climate change is expected to alter the magnitude and timing of weather events, its crucial to develop a robust understanding of high-risk times and pathways of nutrient transport to avoid excessive nutrient loadings to our surface waters. Keeping a nutrient balance in headwater catchments is critical to the long-term longevity and productivity of the fresh water ecosystems of the Great Lakes," says Hannah May. 

To learn more about Hannah May, check out this link: Hannah May - Food from Thought

Congratulations, Hannah!

School of Engineering Master of Applied Science student Miriam Naim Ibrahim received an Oral Presentation Award at the 20th Annual Imaging Network Ontario Symposium in March 2022 for her presentation: Automated Fatty Liver Disease Detection in Point-of-Care Ultrasound B-Mode Images. 

"The end goal of our research is to develop machine learning software, capable of detecting and distinguishing between the stages of fatty liver disease from point-of-care ultrasound images," says Ibrahim. "Point-of-care ultrasound is highly accessible, portable, and affordable. This makes it an ideal screening technology for primary care doctors, the most frequent and ongoing point of contact for patients. Ultimately the goal is to produce more accessible screening technologies for the disease."

The project was in collaboration with Oncoustics, a medical imaging company. Oncoustics is a Toronto med-tech start-up where Ibrahim completed an eight-month co-op placement during her undergraduate studies, and sponsored her current study as a partner company through MITACs. Oncoustics develops AI technology for a multitude of liver diseases with the goal of producing more accurate and accessible diagnostic solutions in the hepatology space.

Read about the award from Imaging Network Ontario.

Congratulations, Miriam!

Two University of Guelph students, Prabhleen Ratra and Ananya Thukral, worked with their team members Shin Wah Low and Judy Yeonghyeon Ham to create an app called Food Cycling that allows people to use the leftover portion of the food/ingredient to create their own recipe, beauty product, or planting. The Team won second place for the ElleHacks Bell Award for using Technology to Support Environmental Sustainable Decision-Making for their innovative concept.

Some special features that the app provides include considering allergies and creating allergy alerts, alerts for inedible parts of the dish, and the app allows users to scan an item and get the name of that item and receive more information on how to cook with that item.

ElleHacks is the largest hackathon created for women and non-binary individuals of all experience levels to compete and show off their skills to solve real life problems in an inclusive and safe space.

Read the full article here

About ElleHacks

School of Engineering student Ally Zaheer has been awarded the 2022 Environmental Stewardship Award from the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students. The award recognizes an engineering student who has either founded or made significant improvements to an environmental protection or stewardship initiative.

Read about some of Ally's achievements.

Congratulations, Ally!

Department of Physics student Jay Florica has been awarded the 2021 Allan Carswell Physics Educator Scholarship from the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) in recognition of Florica's outstanding academic record and exceptional teaching potential.

According to CAP's website, "the Allan Carswell Physics Educator Scholarships, valued at up to $5000 each, are awarded annually to one or two physics students with a strong academic record and a demonstrated passion for physics and physics pedagogy. With the help of the Allan Carswell Physics Educator Scholarship, the winners will pursue a career in physics education at the secondary school level."

Florica is dedicated to explaining complicated physics concepts in simple and understandable ways so that physics is more accessible to wider audiences.

Read the full release about the scholarship.

PhD student Qi Li and master's student Giuliano Sovernigo in the School of Computer Science, alongside Dr. Xiaodong Lin and their collaborators, have won the Best Paper Award at the 24th Information Security Conference (ISC 2021) for their research on voiceprint template security, an important element of daily life with voiceprints widely used as personal identifiers. They present Voxstructor, a voiceprint-based voice constructor that can be used for bulk template reconstruction attacks. Their findings showed the high sensitivity of voiceprint template. Congratulations!

"Winning the Best Paper Award in a leading information security conference is one of the great honours in academia. I hope that our work in discovering the risks of voiceprint applications will encourage others to continue researching in this area. In the future, we will further explore the important issues related to audio forensics, security and privacy." -Qi Li, PhD student

"Thank you to the conference organizers, to the committee for recognizing our work, and to Qi and Dr. Lin for including me in this important research. I hope to see more research in voice reconstruction security in the future!" -Giuliano Sovernigo, master's student

Read the full paper.

Five graduate students in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences have been named Scholars in the University of Guelph's Highly Qualified Personnel program, funded jointly through Food from Thought and the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance.

Congratulations to the outstanding recipients who span the School of Engineering and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics!

• Domenique Mastronardi
• Leonardo Melo
• Micheal Pupulin
• Peter Zytner
• Sarah Rixon

Read more about the students and their research: Stories from our Highly Qualified Personnel Scholars

Each fall, the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (CEPS) presents dozens of awards to undergraduate students based on their academic achievements, community contributions, and leadership. 

The CEPS Dean's Office, the School of Computer Science, and the School of Engineering presented 67 awards virtually to outstanding undergraduate students in Fall 2021.

Read the full story.

Julie Zettl is this year’s recipient of the Thomas Krug Memorial Scholarship. The Thomas Krug Memorial Scholarship was established in memory of Thomas Krug, who showed immense commitment to environmental stewardship through his 30-year career at Geosyntec applying novel approaches to environmental remediation. Julie’s research project reflects Thomas’ commitment to environmental stewardship in northern Canada. She will take part in a study of groundwater quality in the Liard Basin near the community of Fort Liard. Dr. Beth Parker is the Principal Investigator of this multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional project.

A network of monitoring wells will be installed as part of the research project and later will be operated by the Government of the Northwest Territories. The research will enable the development of a groundwater monitoring network that will support the Northwest Territories water stewardship strategy to ensure water remains clean, abundant and productive.

More information and the full article can be found on the Morwick G360 Groundwater Research Institute website.

Congratulations Julie!

Two CEPS master's students received first place in Microsoft's competitive Discover Upskilling AI Journey program. Abdullah Al-Hayali and Zachary Szentimrey, both Master of Applied Science in Engineering with Specialization in Artificial Intelligence students, participated in the Discover Upskilling AI Journey program led by Microsoft and first launched in 2020. The program involves a multi-step journey, including teaching modules; training from Microsoft and other AI experts; and competitions; for young participants to expand their knowledge of AI and gain hands-on experience in executing AI projects during associated challenges.

The Discover AI Challenge involved the team applying AI to real-life projects and challenges, developing a project idea and building a prototype with a Microsoft coach. Al-Hayali and Szentimrey's team, DICE-AI, proposed a machine learning algorithm that would improve Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology, particularly in improving the speed for MRI results for soft tissue such as the prostate. Their technology would help the patient to avoid rescans, allowing for a more efficient prostate cancer scanning system, and lessen the wear and tear on the scanning machines.

Al-Hayali and Szentimrey pitched their concept to engineers and managers from Microsoft Montreal and Germany. They received first place in the challenge out of more than 300 teams participating worldwide.

Congratulations to Abdullah and Zachary!

Each year, the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences awards convocation prizes to outstanding graduating students to recognize their persistent excellence and long-lasting contributions to the University of Guelph community. Congratulations to all of this year's recipients and to all students who graduated.

E.B. MacNaughton Convocation Prize

This prize is awarded to the student chosen as the W.C. Winegard Medal nominee for our college who has shown excellent academic achievements and outstanding contributions to the campus and community.

Keefer Rourke
BCH.CS:C-MATH

College of Engineering & Physical Sciences Graduation Prize

This prize is awarded to the student graduating with the highest cumulative average from an Honours Program in the college.
 
Gabriele Wehrle
BSCH.BPCH:C

College of Engineering & Physical Sciences Society of Excellence

Membership in the Society of Excellence is awarded to graduating students who have demonstrated excellent academic achievement and have made outstanding contributions to the University of Guelph community and beyond throughout their university careers.
 
Andrew Shepherd
BENG.BME:C
 
Aysu Gündoğan
BCH.CS:C-MBG
 
Domenique Mastronardi
BENG.BIOE
 
Elizabeth Diederichs
BENG.BME:C
 
Gabriele Wehrle
BSCH.BPCH
 
Isaac Wismer
BCH.CS:C-GIS
 
Jay Chen
BSCG.PSCI
 
Keefer Rourke
BCH.CS:C-MATH
 
Mackenzie Cameron
BSCH.MSCI_INDV-CW
 
Taylor Rounds
BSCH.BPCH

The Walter Vaughan Medal recognizes the contributions of a student member of senate. The winner will be announced at this years virtual graduation celebration where students will be awarded for their distiguished service and academic achievement.

Sooraj Modi, School of Computer Science student and former secretary of Senate is this year's recipient of the Walter Vaughan Medal. Congratulations Sooraj! 

More Information

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. Graduate students from all seven University of Guelph colleges have earned a chance to compete in the 3MT® campus final.

M.A.Sc. Engineering + AI student Valerie Bauman has placed 3rd overall in the University of Guelph competition. Congratulations, Valerie! For more information: https://graduatestudies.uoguelph.ca/3mt

Two College of Engineering and Physical Sciences undergraduate students in the School of Computer Science and the School of Engineering are receiving top U of G Student Experience awards for 2021.

School of Computer Science student Sooraj Modi receives the Brian D. Sullivan Leadership Award, presented to a graduating student who has made significant contributions to student leadership through her/his involvement as an elected or appointed student representative at the University of Guelph. From Student Experience:

"Sooraj has been involved in a variety of clubs, organizations and initiatives during his time at the U of G from Director of the CSA, to a member of the Executive of the Society of Computing and Information Sciences (as Vice President Internal and as President), a member of Jack.org and is Co-Chair of the Student Senate Caucus and a member of the Board of Undergraduate Studies. His time in student leadership has been marked by a constant appreciation for diverse opinions, inclusivity, determination, commitment, and ethical process. Alongside all of his hard work and involvement, Sooraj has also participated in outreach and recruitment activities for the School of Computer Science showing others just how great U of G is."

School of Engineering student Zante Botha receives the R.P. Gilmor Student Life Award, presented to an individual student or student group AND an individual staff or faculty member/group who shares Paul Gilmor's commitment to improving the student experience and has contributed to the betterment of student life at the University of Guelph. From Student Experience: 

"Zante is a student athlete, part-time employee and chair of the Athletic Advisory Committee within the Department of Athletics. She lead the initiative to develop a club tennis program which eventually got to compete in a Tennis Canada National event – the first Gryphon team to compete in this event. She also advocated for NRG passes to be free of charge to students with financial need which lead to Athletics having 5 bursaries to distribute each year. Outside of Athletics, Zante was also involved in Interhall Council from 2016-2018 and the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Student Council where she was the VP External and President for the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 terms respectively and was the Co-VP Sponsorship for the Ontario Engineering Competition, responsible for raining approximately $100k in sponsorship funds. Though she has transitioned out of her roles in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Student Council, she has volunteered her time this year to help run a virtual Women in STEM conference."

Learn more about the awards.

We are pleased to announce that the two presenters from CEPS moving forward to the University of Guelph competition are:

• PhD candidate Jenita Manokaran for her presentation, Artificial Intelligence for COVID-19 Diagnosis, and 
• MASc candidate Valerie Bauman for her presentation Artificial Intelligence for the Bettering of Human Health.

Both winners receive a certificate and cash prizes—Manokaran receives $500 and Bauman receives $250.

Read more about this year's competition and the winners: 2021 CEPS 3MT® College Heat Winners

Chelsea Ohiolei Ehimiaghe, fifth year mechanical engineering student, is the recipient of the 2021 HeForShe Adrienne Clarkson Resilience Award. 

Chelsea is Co-President of Engineering for the Guelph Black Professionals at #UofG and is a mentor for Guelph Women in Science and Engineering.

Info: https://www.uoguelph.ca/lang/heforshe

Three graduate students have received awards from the inaugural CEPS Graduate Student Research Day on October 16, 2020. The winners are:

• 1st Place: MASc candidate Valerie Bauman
• 2nd Place: PhD candidate Singam Suranjoy Singh
• People's Choice Award: MASc candidate Aidan England

Congratulations to all the winners! Read the event recap here.

Four University of Guelph engineering students have won first place in the 2020 WEF Student Design Competition in the Water Environment category. Congratulations to Justin Salvucci, Rebecca Beutel, Rebecca Bar, Acacia Markov on this impressive achievement!

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia and takes place annually at universities around the world, including the University of Guelph. Following a college-level competition, students from all seven U of G colleges have earned a chance to compete in the 3MT® campus final. CEPS MSc student, Aidan England (Department of Chemistry), has placed third in this year's university-wide 3MT final. Congratulations, Aidan!

Emma Steckner, fifth year biomedical toxicology student, is one of five University of Guelph recipients of the Life Sciences Ontario Scholarship. Congratulations!

Each year, the Canadian Society for Bioengineering/La Société Canadienne de Génie Agroalimentaire et de Bioingénierie (CSBE/SCGAB) presents Awards and Grade of Fellows to celebrate and encourage excellence within the Canadian bioengineering community. An outstanding five University of Guelph engineering master's students were recipients of the Graduate Thesis Award (MSc).

• Ramandeep Kaur Sandhu for a thesis entitled "Evaluation of the effectiveness of light emitting diodes in post-harvest shelf life extension of blueberries" (Advisor: Ashutosh Singh and Christopher Collier).
• Kelsie McNeill for a thesis entitled "Time Series Analysis and Statistical Model Development for Food and Water Availability in the Grand River Watershed" (Advisor: Andrew Binns and Ashutosh Singh).
• Baljeet Kaur for a thesis entitled "Assessment of Water Security in Grand River Watershed, South-western Ontario, Canada" (Advisor: Prasad Daggupati).
• Taranjot Singh Brar for a thesis entitled " Modification of the LTHIA GIS model to assess the water quantity and quality of Canadian Great Lakes watershed" (Advisor: Prasad Daggupati).
• Charles Harrison Brodie for a thesis entitled " Development of Accessible Hyperspectral Imaging Architectures Towards Biomedical Applications" (Advisor: Christopher Collier).

“The number of winners from the University of Guelph speaks to the quality and research potential of our engineering students,” says Christopher Collier, engineering professor and thesis supervisor for two of the award recipients. “We have seen exceptional outputs from these students and continued advancement in their skills, with potential to make significant contributions to biological engineering during their careers. For example, Ramandeep Kaur Sandhu’s light-based research has great potential to reduce postharvest losses in food and Harrison Brodie’s work has important implications for widespread application of hyperspectral imaging.”

Erika Ziraldo, PhD student supervised by engineering professor Michele Oliver and member of the DRiVE lab at U of G, is one of four winners of the 2020 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Student/Young Professional Technical Paper Competition. The award was given as part of this year's World Congress (ultimately cancelled for this year due to COVID-19), a conference generally attended by more that 9,000 delegates from around the world each year. Ziraldo submitted two papers which will be full-length journal articles in the SAE International Journal of Advances and Current Practices in Mobility. Though both submissions were deemed top papers by the judges, Driver Response to Left Incurring Path Intrusions at Sign-Controlled Intersections was the paper that ultimately earned one of four coveted spots in the competition.

Ziraldo was interviewed by SAE on her success. An excerpt from her interview in the SAE members' magazine: 

At the School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Ziraldo’s doctoral research involves investigating patterns in human driving behaviour for applications in accident reconstruction and decision-making for autonomous vehicles.

How satisfying is it for you to have been named winner of SAE’s tech paper competition?
Being named as a winner of SAE’s tech paper competition was unexpected, but very satisfying. This was my first time through the academic publishing process, and it feels wonderful to know I’m on the right track. I feel especially grateful to my co-authors and our reviewers who steered the paper in an impactful direction.

Matt Bebis, a software engineering co-op student, worked as a career services peer helper at the University of Guelph. He enthusiastically represented the co-op program to employers and prospective students at events, helped promote Experiential Learning Hub services to new students, and developed resources to support student job search and networking skills.

Read the Co-op Awards announcement here: Students and Employers Celebrated with Co-op Awards.

"As a technical writer at Johnson & Johnson, Megan Farkas was assigned the role of scribing for an auditor. The role had never been assigned to a student before and Farkas efficiently assisted in executing the successful audit. Farkas was also the sole technical writer for a cost improvement project that resulted in a $12,000 savings for the company."

Read the Co-op Awards announcement here: Students and Employers Celebrated with Co-op Awards.

"During her work terms with Magnet, Morgan McLellan represented the organization at external events, including speaking with numerous high school students and their parents about her experiences in the high-tech industry. After impressing her employer, she was chosen to assist with training a new tester."

Read the Co-op Awards announcement here: Students and Employers Celebrated with Co-op Awards.

"Over her eight-month co-op term, Shannon Fenwick made numerous and significant contributions at Siemens Canada. Fenwick worked on a regional initiative that resulted in over 5M Euro in reported savings. She developed on-time delivery reporting for the company’s largest key client in Canada and identified process deficiencies in data collection and documentation. The corrective action she presented improved on-time delivery metrics for client-specific reporting by 10 per cent."

Read the Co-op Awards announcement here: Students and Employers Celebrated with Co-op Awards.

The Student Experience Awards are presented each year to deserving undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and faculty members.  

Marshall is a graduate student in the School of Computer Science. He has been a mentor to his peers in his lab, extra-curricular activities and to the broader community. Marshall is actively involved in Society for Computing and Information Sciences and has been nominated to be a Graduate Student Senator. Marshall manages the Guelph Coding Community on campus, updating and facilitating activities with both undergraduate and graduate student. Within the lab, Marshall co-led the development of an environmental and health monitoring tool used in the Innuit community of Rigolet, Nunatsiavut. Marshall has clearly made a huge impact on the department of Computer Science, the University of Guelph, and the broader community. 

The Student Experience Awards are presented each year to deserving undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and faculty members.

Dima is a member of the Multi-Faith Resource Team and the president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) who exemplifies what it means to be a Gryphon. Dina lead several important projects while on the Multi-Faith Resource Team, including a collaboration with the Wellness Centre on campus to make an MSA Peer Helper Program, in response to mental health concerns among Muslim students on campus. Dima also worked hard to find Muslim prayer spaces on campus and to increase the availability of Halal foods. Dima and the MSA also ran several Orientation Week events to include new students on campus. Dima is a passionate leader who works hard to ensure the best Gryphon experience for all students. 

Each year, the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (CEPS) celebrates its high achieving students with an Awards Night that also features CEPS trivia, a reception and an opportunity to recognize philanthropic contributions from friends of CEPS and the University of Guelph.

See the full list of award recipients here.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Jacy Conrad, a PhD candidate in chemistry professor Peter Tremaine's lab, recently received the R.E. Jervis Award from the Canadian Nuclear Association and the Canadian Nuclear Society. This award recognizes excellence in research and development carried out by a graduate student in nuclear engineering or related fields.

CNA and CNS Congratulate 2019 Canadian Nuclear Achievement Award Winners

Congratulations Jacy!

Michelle Del Rosso, M.A.Sc. student supervised by engineering professor Christopher Collier, recently received this international scholarship from the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

2019 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship Recipients

Congratulations Michelle!