Speaker: Dr. Rob Messinger, Assistant Professor in Department of Chemical Engineering & CUNY Energy Institute at The City College of New York (CUNY)
Date/Time: Friday, February 16, 2018 from 2:30pm to 4:00pm
Location: Chemical & Biological Engineering Room 102
Hosts: UBC Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering
Title: Molecular-Level Understanding and Design of Rechargeable Battery Materials
Please see the image below for more information:
The Department of Mechanical Engineering wishes to congratulate James Olson on his appointment as the new Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science. Read the full announcement below:
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From Deborah Buszard, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the UBC Okanagan campus, and Andrew Szeri, Provost and Vice-President Academic at the UBC Vancouver campus:
It is our pleasure to announce that the Board of Governors has accepted the President’s recommendation to appoint Dr. James Olson as the new Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science for a five-year term, commencing March 1, 2018.
Dr. Olson, Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been serving as the Interim Dean since July 1, 2017. Prior to this appointment, he has served in several roles, with responsibilities for the leadership and strategic direction in the Faculty, including Associate Dean of Research and Industry Partnerships since 2014 and the director of two UBC research centres.
Dr. Olson cares deeply about the Faculty and the University, greatly values collaborative approaches, and brings a strong commitment to excellence in research and education, while providing direction to six engineering departments, five schools and five research centres, serving 7200 undergraduate and graduate students, at both the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses.
Instrumental in leading the successful expansion of the number of engineering seats at UBC, he is dedicated to providing increased opportunities for BC students to receive an engineering education. He has long been a champion of reimaging professional education to increase diversity, international experience and cultural fluency, business and leadership skills, experiential learning, entrepreneurship and policy and decision making. His recent accomplishments include the successful launch of UBC’s new School of Biomedical Engineering; initiating UBC’s technology venture incubator – HATCH; starting a community engagement event – Innovate; and developing the Faculty’s research goals for its strategic plan – Engage 2020.
Dr. Olson is internationally recognized as an expert in the development of sustainable forest products and for his contributions to developing BC and Canada’s bio-economy transformation strategy. He has extensive experience fostering research success across the university, personally leading the development of UBC’s bioproducts cluster that has recently been awarded a President’s Excellence Chair, a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC), $17M in Canadian Foundation for Innovation funding and establishing the BC Bioproducts Alliance – a collaboration between UBC, FPInnovations, Genome BC, Mitacs, the BC Government and the BC forest sector. Dr. Olson continues to make impactful contributions to industry partnerships and collaborations, leading a globally unique industry consortium focused on industrial energy efficiency.
Dr. Olson received his BASc in Engineering Physics and his PhD in Chemical Engineering, both from UBC. He has received a number of awards and distinctions including the FPInnovation Professorship, two NSERC Synergy awards, and the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Innovation, among others. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineers.
We would like to thank faculty members, staff, students and external stakeholders for participating in the search process, and for providing valuable feedback to the Advisory Committee. We are grateful to the members of the President’s Advisory Committee for their commitment of extensive time and energy throughout the search.
We hope you will join us in congratulating Dr. Olson on this achievement. We are certain that the Faculty will continue to build on its strengths under Dr. Olson’s leadership.
Originally posted on APSC News
Steve Feng, PEng, has been named the new head of the UBC Department of Mechanical Engineering, effective May 1, 2018.
Professor Feng joined the department as an associate professor in September 2007 and was promoted to full professor in July 2010. From 2009 to 2015, he was chair of the Mechatronics and Manufacturing Research Group, and between 2015 and 2017 he served as the department’s Associate Head, Teaching. Feng is the recipient of a UBC Killam Teaching Prize and is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Before joining UBC, Feng spent 10 years as a faculty member in the University of Western Ontario’s Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, where he also served a one-year term as Graduate Chair. He holds a BS in mechanical engineering from National Taiwan University and MS and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University.
We congratulate Professor Feng on his appointment to this new role and thank Sheldon Green, PEng, the outgoing department head, for his tremendous leadership and contributions to our department over the past 11 years.
Announcement adapted from APSC News
Speaker: Professor Lisa Bullard, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University
Date/Time: March 9th, 1:00 – 1:50 pm
Location: Chemical and Biological Engineering, Room 102
Title: Open the Front Door, Close the Back Door: The Impact of Culture on Recruiting and Retention
Please see below for more info.
Congratulations to MECH Professor Gary Schajer on his latest publication: Hole-Drilling Method For Measuring Residual Stresses. This book is intended as a practical guide for students and practicing engineers and researchers, and details the history and practice of the adaptable method of drilling holes to measure residual stresses.
Electronic copies of the book can be accessed by UBC students, staff, and faculty at the following link, when connected to the UBC secure wireless network, or when signed in on the UBC Library system.
The Ada team and industry supporters and mentors
On Monday, March 5, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Sailbot student design team held a private event for team members (current and alumni), industry supporters and mentors, and faculty members to celebrate the return of Ada, the autonomous sailboat.
After missing for months at sea, Ada was found by a research vessel off the coast of Florida in December 2017. Thanks to the hard work of the Sailbot team and the Mechanical Engineering department, Ada returned to UBC in mid February, 2018.
At the event, the Sailbot team shared their initial investigation into Ada’s components and the factors that led to her disappearance, as well as the design improvements they plan on making as a result. They announced their ambitious goal for their next autonomous sailboat (named Raye after Raye Montague): to sail in the Victoria-Maui yacht race. The team is currently looking for support in building their next boat, and hope to one day build one that will sail around the world.
Ada‘s story has captured the attention of many audiences, and was featured on many news sources: CTV, CBC (here and here), and in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Times Colonist, Metro News, Chek and Castanet. Other stories appeared on Global, Breakfast TV, Black Press (here and here), and the Ubyssey.
More photos from the event to come.
Speaker: Dr. Michael J. Rensing, Director of Low Carbon Fuels Electricity and Alternative Energy Division; Biritish Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
Date/Time: Monday, March 19, 2018 at 12:00pm
Location: Chemical & Biological Engineering Room 202
Hosts: UBC Clean Energy Research Centre
Title: The B.C. Low Carbon Fuel Standard
Please see the image below for more information:
Speaker: Dr. John M. Shaw
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 28th at 6:00pm
Location: Chemical & Biological Engineering Room 102
Hosts: The Oil and Gas Initiative
Title: Selection and Validation of PVT and Energy Models for Process Design Calculations Involving Hydrocarbons and Hydrocarbon + Water Mixtures
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Rio Tinto Graduate Scholarships
As part of its ongoing commitment to innovation and research, Rio Tinto offers an $18,000 graduate scholarship for a UBC graduate student in a field of pure or applied science related to Rio Tinto’s activities. (Preferred areas of activity are as follows: Hydrometallurgy; Environment; Electrolysis; Analytical technologies; Aluminium metallurgy; and Modeling and control systems.)
Deadline for nominations to admissions@mech.ubc.ca: 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, 12 April 2018
Further details are available on the G+PS Awards page: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/awards/rio-tinto-graduate-scholarship-program
Questions can be directed to graduate.awards@ubc.ca.
The MECH Department wishes to congratulate Associate Professor Dr. Srikantha Phani on the publication of a research monograph he co-edited.
Dynamics of Lattice Materials covers lattice materials and their dynamic responses, and serves a reference for practitioners and researchers with a background in the mechanics of materials, vibrations, and material physics.
From the book’s publisher:
“Key features [of this book]:
More information about the publication can be found on the publisher’s website.
UBC graduate programs are invited to submit nominations for the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award in the fields of (i) Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Engineering and (ii) Social Sciences.
Please note that this award is very competitive – PhD dissertations from universities across North America are forwarded to this competition. MECH will only forward nominations that are competitive with those from top PhDs throughout North America.
Nomination deadline: Friday, 25 May 2018
Further information: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/awards/cgsproquest-distinguished-dissertation-award
On March 23, 2018 UBC’s Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (NAME) program hosted Brian Carter, President and Chief Executive Officer of Seaspan Shipyards.
Mr. Carter spent the morning with the NAME program directors, touring facilities, and meeting with members of the Sailbot and SUBC student design teams. Both teams shared updates on their projects, including demonstrating their recent work – SUBC’s human-powered submarine and Sailbot’s recently recovered autonomous sailboat, Ada.
Over lunch, Mr. Carter gave a talk on the status of the shipbuilding industry in Canada to over 80 MECH faculty, undergraduate and graduate students. He shared the exciting challenges and opportunities the company faces in designing and building 17 non-combat vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy, and how the shipping industry benefits many other sectors in. His overall message spoke to the importance of the marine industry in Canada, and the promise of investing in it. A lively question and answer period followed the talk, where students and faculty asked about both technical and business details of Mr. Carter’s work.
Seaspan has been a crucial supporter of the NAME program since its inception, and continues to provide invaluable industry experience to NAME students through co-op placements, and employing NAME alumni.
Photos of the visit can be seen below:
Join us for the final MECH 2 Competition of the 2017/2018 school year!
In teams of 6-7, second year MECH students are creating remote-controlled ships to perform certain functions of the autonomous landing platforms used by SpaceX. Their vessels will have to move quickly, maneuver around obstacles, keep position (to receive rocket booster), and maintain stability in waves, while transporting rocket booster models.
Competition schedule:
April 18, 2018
9:30 – 11 am – Poster presentations (EDC 102)
11 am – 2 pm – Competition (KAIS 1180)
Student teams only have about 2 weeks to complete their designs. Want to see how their designs do? Come watch the 20 teams compete!
The Mechanical Engineering department recognized its outstanding student leaders at the annual Leadership Awards Lunch on March 29, 2018.
Dr. Sheldon Green (Department Head) and Dr. Boris Stoeber (Associate Head, Teaching) presented the awards to the students.
“The Department admires and appreciates the dedication you bring to serving your student team or group and indeed the broader engineering community, ” Dr. Green told the recipients, adding the quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
The Mechanical Engineering Student Leadership Awards are given to undergraduate and graduate students who have continually excelled in being effective leaders among their peers and in their communities.
This year’s recipients were:
Anthony Buonassisi
Yu-Ting Cheng
James Cronkite
Daniel Granger
Blake Henderson
Wilson Hsu
Jason Hu
Lok Hin Hui
Wei Ian Koh
Amara Kraft
Kyle Marquis
Annie Paige Ngo
Diana Nino
Cole Paterson
Diego Pinto
Parisa Sarmadi
Tynan Stack
Khashina Tonks-Turcott
Raymond Yu
Please join us in congratulating our student leaders!
Walter Merida, MECH professor, Director of the Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) and Interim Associate Dean of Research and Industrial Partnerships was interviewed by the Globe and Mail about the future of hydrogen fuel-cell cars.
Read the full article here.
The spring MECH 2 Competition took place on Wednesday, April 18, with 20 teams of second-year mechanical engineering students competing in a SpaceX design challenge. Teams designed remote-controlled landing pads that could be used to transport a rocket booster back to shore.
The competition took place in a 60-foot pool, with teams competing head to head.
Their efforts were recorded by several media outlets, including Xinhuanet, and Breakfast Television (segment starts at the 2:25 mark).
Speaker: Dr. Hsueh-Fen Juan, Professor, Department of Life Science, Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University, Editor Board of Scientific Reports (Nature Research) Vice Chairman, Taiwan Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Society
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 1, 2018 from 11:00am to 12:00pm
Location: CEME 1203
Title: Systems Biology for Target and Drug Discovery
Abstract:
Precision medicine is a medical model with the idea that molecular information improves the precision with which patients are categorized and treated. Systems biology, one of the applications of precision medicine, aims to analyze the molecular expression level of an individual patient and further for targeted therapy. In this talk, I will represent how to find out drug targets and drugs in lung and breast cancers as well as neuroblastoma using systems biology approach. Here, we integrated not only proteome but also various gene expression datasets to identify potential drug targets. A natural language processing method, Platform-Independent Latent Dirichlet Allocation (PLIDA), was used for reducing cross-platform effect. We further analyzed one billion data of Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS), a project by National Institute of Health (NIH), which comprised tens of thousands of perturbing agents in multiple cell lines. From the analysis results, we found several key genes and drugs with the potential for cancer therapy. We demonstrated the candidate drugs suppressed cancer cell proliferation in cell model and reduced tumor size and increased survival in mouse model. In summary, we identified the promising drugs that may recurrently target these pivotal genes for precision medicine.
Please join us for a technical seminar with with Dr. J.N. Reddy.
Event Details:
Speaker: Dr. J.N. Reddy, Distinguished Professor, Advanced Computational Mechanics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University
Topic Area: Nonlocal And Non-Classical Mechanics Theories And Computational Approaches
Date: Thursday, April 26, 2018
Time: 3:45 pm
Location: Chemcial and Biological Building Room 102
Biography:
Dr. Reddy, the Oscar S Wyatt Endowed Chair Professor, Distinguished Professor, and Regents Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, is a ISI highly-cited researcher, author of 21 textbooks and over 600 journal papers, and a leader in the applied and computational mechanics field for more than 40 years.
His pioneering works on the development of shear deformation theories (that bear his name in the literature as the Reddy third-order plate theory and the Reddy layerwise theory) have had a major impact and have led to new research developments and applications. Some of his ideas on shear deformation theories and penalty finite element models of fluid flows have been implemented into commercial finite element computer programs like ABAQUS, NISA, and HyperXtrude.
His earlier research focused primarily on mathematics of finite elements, variational principles of mechanics, shear deformation and layerwise theories of laminated composite plates and shells, analysis of bimodular materials, modeling of geological and geophysical phenomena, penalty finite elements for flows of viscous incompressible fluids, least-squares finite element models of fluid flows and solid continua. In recent years, Reddy’s research deals with 7- and 12-parameter shell theories, nonlocal and non-classical continuum mechanics problems, and problems involving couple stresses, surface stress effects, discrete fracture and flow, micropolar cohesive damage, and continuum plasticity of metals from considerations of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.
Dr. Reddy earned many honors and awards. Recent honors and awards include: 2016 Prager Medal, Society of Engineering Science, 2016 Thomson Reuters IP and Science’s Web of Science Highly Cited Researchers – Most Influential Minds, and the 2016 ASME Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the 2017 John von Neumann Medal from the US Association of Computational Mechanics, and the 2018 Theodore von Karman Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is a member US National Academy of Engineering and foreign fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Brazilian National Academy of Engineering.
The abstract of his seminar is presented below:
Abstract
Structural continuum theories require a proper treatment of the kinematic, kinetic, and constitutive issues accounting for possible sources of non-local and non-classical continuum mechanics concepts and solving associated boundary value problems. There is a wide range of theories, from higher gradient to truly nonlocal. These include, for example, strain gradient theories, couple stress theories, Eringen’s stress gradient theories, and micropolar theories (the micropolar theory of elasticity includes an independent microrotation), and thermodynamically consistent structural theories. In this lecture, an overview of the speaker’ recent research on strain gradient, stress gradient, couple stress, micropolar, and thermodynamically consistent theories in developing the governing equations of beams, plates, and sandwich structures will be presented and their computational approaches will be discussed. In addition, a graph-based finite element framework (GraFEA) suitable for the study of damage in brittle materials will be discussed.
Please see the image below for more information:
