On behalf of Dean Heather Sheardown, we are very pleased to announce the following appointments in the Faculty of Engineering. Please join us in welcoming our new faculty and post-doctoral fellows, and congratulating those with new leadership appointments.
New Faculty Appointments
Department of Civil Engineering
Ousmane Ahmat Hisseine will join the department of civil engineering as a tenure-track assistant professor on July 1, 2022. Ousmane obtained his BSc and MSc in civil engineering at the University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) where he also served as a full-time lecturer. He obtained his PhD in civil engineering from the University of Sherbrooke as a Vanier Scholar. Prior to joining McMaster, he was a lecturer at the University of Sherbrooke and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Laval University’s Laboratory of Nano- and Micromechanics. He works on material-oriented integrated design of concrete structures with a particular focus on novel solutions in cement and concrete composites to support infrastructure durability, sustainability, and resilience. Having received training and certification in the Pedagogy of Higher Education, Hisseine has also keen interest in Engineering Education, particularly in active-pedagogies, innovation in higher education, curricular reforms, and accreditation of academic programs.
During his academic endeavour at the University of Sherbrooke, Hisseine was actively engaged in community service where he was the general secretary then the president of ACI Sherbrooke. In this role, he worked with his team to place the University of Sherbrooke as an Excellent ACI University—a distinction offered to only a limited number of ACI local chapters worldwide. Part of McMaster University’s Black Academic excellence cohort, and in his new roles at McMaster University, he is keen to develop collaborations in research, teaching, and community service to complement existing resources and achieve greater synergistic output.
Adedapo (Dapo) Awolayo will join the department of civil engineering as a tenure-track assistant professor on July 1, 2022. For over 10 years, he has worked in energy and environmental research and industry in various roles as a research scientist, reservoir engineer, and research engineer. Awolayo has over 25 publications in refereed journals and conferences. He was one of 11 recipients of the most prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the University of Calgary in 2017 and the first chemical and petroleum engineering student to combine that with the Killam Doctoral Memorial Scholarship. His research interests include geo-energy (carbon/hydrogen) storage, contaminant transport, reservoir engineering and simulation, fluid transport in porous media, reactive transport modeling, geochemistry and geomechanics, analytical and numerical modeling, compositional simulation, naturally fractured reservoirs, numerical optimization, data analytics and machine learning, and geothermal systems. He is also part of McMaster University’s Black Academic excellence cohort.
Department of Computing and Software
Denise Geiskkovitch will join the department of computing and software as a tenure-track assistant professor, and as the Barber-Gennum Endowed Chair in Information Technology on July 1, 2022. Prior to joining McMaster, Geiskkovitch was a postdoctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University, following a PhD in computer science and psychology at the University of Manitoba and a master’s in human-computer interaction at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research area is in human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction, exploring how we can utilize unique and unconventional robot behaviours (e.g. errors) to elicit desired outcomes, such as mitigating trust and obedience, in people.
Stephen Kelly will join the department of computing and software as a tenure-track assistant professor on July 1, 2022. He received his PhD in computer science from Dalhousie University and completed an NSERC post-doctoral fellowship at the BEACON Center for the study of Evolution in Action at Michigan State University. Kelly’s work focuses on genetic programming in predictive control environments, with a particular interest in how emergent forms of memory and hierarchy allow digital evolution to build programs in dynamic, partially-observable, and multi-task environments. His work is published in international journals and conference proceedings, and has won best paper awards at EuroGP 2017 and GECCO 2017, and a 2018 Silver “Humie” Award for Human-Competitive Results Produced by Genetic and Evolutionary Computation.
Prior to studying computer science, Kelly completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His interdisciplinary research-creation practice explores bio-inspired computing as raw material for storytelling, activism, and public engagement. The results are mechatronic art/science hybrids that have been exhibited at major international venues such as LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre (Gijón, Spain), MUTEK Festival of Digital Creativity and Electronic Music (Montreal, Canada), Nuit Blanche (Paris, France), and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Onaizah Onaizah will join the department of computing and software as a tenure-track assistant professor on September 1, 2022. Onaizah received her BSc in physics from the University of Toronto in 2013, her MSc in Medical Biophysics from Western University in 2015, and her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2019. Prior to joining McMaster, she was a research fellow in surgical robotics at the University of Leeds working in the STORM Lab under the direction of Pietro Valdastri. She was the recipient of the NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2020 and was featured as one of nine women to watch from the University of Toronto Engineering’s class of 2020. Her research interests include small-scale and soft robots incorporating both fabrication and control strategies.
Todor Stoyanov will join the department of computing and software as a tenured associate professor on July 1, 2022. Stoyanov holds a PhD in Computer Science from Orebro University, Sweden (2012), as well as MSc and BSc degrees in smart systems and electrical engineering and computer science from Jacobs University Bremen, Germany (2008 and 2006). He has served as the head of the Autonomous Mobile Manipulation lab at Orebro University. His primary research interests lie in autonomy for mobile manipulation robots, with a focus on perception algorithms and motion synthesis for manipulation. He has a background in 3D perception, registration, and mapping. His current research focuses on applying machine learning techniques to problems in robotics, with a focus on online robot learning.
Department of Engineering Physics
Gitanjali Kolhatkar will join the department of engineering physics as a tenure-track assistant professor. She holds a BSc and an MSc in Physics from the University of Ottawa (2008 and 2010), and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sherbrooke (2014). She conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (2015-2019). In 2019, she was an invited professor at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, where she gave lectures in the micro- and nanotechnology graduate program, in addition to conducting research. From 2019-2022, she was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of Kiel, Germany. Her research interests and core expertise include structure–function relations in a variety of materials for applications in photovoltaics, memory devices, smart sensors, and artificial synapses.
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Christopher Morton will join the department of mechanical engineering as a tenured associate professor. Prior to his appointment at McMaster, Chris held a position as an associate professor and associate Head for graduate studies at University of Calgary (2015-2022). He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in mechatronics engineering (2008), and received his MSc (2010) and PhD (2014) from University of Waterloo with a specialization in experimental fluid mechanics. During his PhD, Morton was a visiting scholar at TU Delft in The Netherlands. His current research interests are in flow induced vibrations, fluid structure interactions, machine learning in experimental fluid mechanics, sensor-based flow estimation, and flow control. Morton’s research group is developing diagnostic techniques to better understand the complex nature of turbulent flows, as well as active and passive methods of flow control. He has published 75+ articles in refereed journal and conference proceedings, holds several patents, and has received multiple awards for teaching excellence, research excellence, and graduate education while at the University of Calgary.
Keena Trowell will join the department of mechanical engineering on as a tenure-track assistant professor on July 1, 2022. She earned her PhD in mechanical engineering at McGill University. Her doctoral research looked at metal-water reactions to produce hydrogen-on-demand. In addition to publishing several papers on the topic, she hold a patent on high-temperature and supercritical metal-water reactions. Keena is looking forward to building on her past work and pursuing her other research interests which include sustainable energy carriers, clean energy storage, and energy systems.
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Scott Chen will join the department of electrical and computer engineering as an assistant professor on a contractually limited appointment. Chen received his PhD (2015) from University of Waterloo with the research focus of transdermal vapour biomedical sensors with specialized polymeric sensing materials. He continued as an industry-supported MITAC post-doctoral fellow until the end of 2017, while also serving as a lecturer at University of Waterloo until April 2018. Chen has worked as an embedded system engineer at Equustek Solutions in Vancouver, a sensor system engineer at Sober Steering Sensors, and a technical project manager at Thalmic Labs / North / Google. He joined Conestoga College from August 2019 to August 2022 as the program coordinator for both the department of electronics systems engineering and the department of cyber systems engineering.
Recent changes to faculty appointments
Shelir Ebrahimi will begin her appointment as a teaching-track assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering effective July 1, 2022. Ebrahimi initially joined the department and the Experiential Learning Office as an assistant professor on a contractually limited appointment on July 1, 2019. Ebrahimi is a UBC graduate and a former NSERC postdoctoral fellow in the field of chemical-environmental engineering. Her research has focused on developing new physical, chemical, and biological methods for water and wastewater treatment. She has also worked on the investigation of the presence and removal of microplastics in drinking water treatment plants. Ebrahii dedicates herself to engineering education. During her PhD she was awarded two prestigious TA awards and a scholarship in teaching in higher education.
Matthew Minnick will begin his appointment as a teaching-track assistant professor in the department of engineering physics effective July 1, 2022. Minnick initially joined the department as an assistant professor on a contractually limited appointment on May 1, 2017. His research area focuses on micro-robotic flight and he is particularly interested in engineering education. Minnick is also the Chair of the Hamilton-Burlington Chapter of the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO).
Maureen Lagos began his tenure-track appointment in the department of materials science and engineering as an associate professor on April 1, 2022. He initially joined the department as an associate professor on the special-track on November 1, 2020 and is a member of the Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy (CCEM). By harnessing the power of electron spectroscopy and imaging techniques, he investigates the phonon (thermal) and electronic behavior of advanced nanomaterials, with emphasis on nanodevice heat transport and nano-photonics applications. He is the recipient of several international awards and grants, including the Microscopy and Microanalysis postdoctoral scholar award (2018) and the NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement (2019). He has also participated as an invited speaker in several international conferences and served as a referee for international top journals.
Mostafa Soliman will begin his appointment as a teaching-track assistant professor in the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology on July 1, 2022. He initially joined the school as an assistant professor on a contractually limited appointment on August 1, 2016 in the Automation Engineering Technology program. His areas of specialization are engineering design and Industry 4.0.
New Academic Leadership Appointments
Colin McDonald has been appointed as the acting co-director (Engineering), Integrated Biomedical Engineering and Health Sciences (iBioMed/iBEHS) program.
Vince Leung has been appointed as the acting associate director (Undergraduate), Integrated Biomedical Engineering and Health Sciences (iBioMed/iBEHS) program.
Andrew Gadsden, associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering, and Tom Doyle, associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering have been appointed as a Engineering Leadership Fellow, commencing July 1, 2022 for a one-year term. Both Gadsden and Doyle will be working with John Preston, Associate Dean, Research, Innovation and External Relations. Gadsden’s focus will be on commercialization and innovation in support of start-ups and Doyle’s projects will be at the intersection of space research and human-AI partnership in biomedical systems.
New Adjunct Appointments
Monika Emelko was appointed as an adjunct professor in the department of civil engineering effective July 1, 2021 for a three-year term.
Brian Karney was appointed as an adjunct professor in the department of civil engineering effective May 1, 2022 for a term of three years and four months.
Vimy Henderson has been appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the department of civil engineering effective July 1, 2022 for a three-year term.
Victor Bandur has been appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the department of computing and software effective July 1, 2022 for a three-year term.
Simon Puglisi has been appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the department of computing and software effective July 1, 2022 for a three-year term.
Mohamed Yasser Abdelsalam was appointed as an adjunct professor in the department of mechanical engineering effective August 1, 2021 for a five-year term.
Uday Despande has been appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering effective July 1, 2022 for a three-year term.
Abul Fazal Arif has been appointed as an adjunct professor in the department of mechanical engineering effective July 1, 2022 for a five-year term.
Dariush Firouzi has been appointed as an adjunct professor in the department of mechanical engineering effective July 1, 2022 for a five-year term.
Marwan Sati was appointed as an industry professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering effective August 1, 2021 for a five-year term.
Janie Wilson was appointed as an adjunct professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering effective August 1, 2021 for a five-year term.
Jason Dowd was appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology effective November 1, 2021 for a five-year term.
Tim Fielding was appointed as an industry professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering effective January 1, 2022 for a four-year term.
Huan-Hsuan (Leo) Hsu was appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering effective January 1, 2022 for a four-year term.
Allison Yeh was appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering effective January 1, 2022 for a four-year term.
Mohamed Mostafa was appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology effective April 1, 2022 for a five-year term.
New Associate Member Appointments
Dylan Kobsar, from the department of kinesiology, has been appointed as an associate member in the department of computing and software for a three-year term, effective July 1, 2022.
Ashirbani Saha, from the department of surgery – oncology, has been appointed as an associate member in the department of computing and software for a three-year term, effective July 1, 2022.
Sesha Srinivasan, from the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology, has been appointed as an associate member in the department of engineering physics for a five-year term, commencing July 1, 2022.
Moein Mehrtash, from the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology, has been appointed as an associate member in the department of mechanical engineering for a five-year term, commencing July 1, 2022.
David Latulippe, from the department of chemical engineering, was appointed as an associate member in the School of Biomedical Engineering for a term of five years and two months, effective May 1, 2022.
Daipayan Guha, from the department of surgery – neurosurgery, was appointed as an associate member in the School of Biomedical Engineering for a term of five years and three months, effective April 1, 2022.
Alex Adronov, from the department of chemistry & chemical biology, was appointed as an associate member in the School of Biomedical Engineering for a term of four years and six months, effective January 1, 2022.
Dylan Kobsar, from the department of kinesiology, was appointed as an associate member in the School of Biomedical Engineering for a term of 18 months, effective January 1, 2022.
Mark Larche, from the department of medicine, was appointed as an associate member in the School of Biomedical Engineering for a term of four years, effective January 1, 2022.
Ashirbani Saha, from the department of surgery – oncology, was appointed as an associate member in the School of Biomedical Engineering for a term of two years and six months, effective January 1, 2022.
New Visiting Faculty Appointments
Jay Lui was appointed as a visiting professor in the department of chemical engineering. He arrived on March 1, 2022 and will be visiting at McMaster for 18 months.
Nihat Kabay was appointed as a visiting professor in the department of civil engineering effective July 25, 2022 for a one-year term.
Mohammad Reza Toroghinejad is expected to arrive on September 1, 2022 as a visiting professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering for a one-year term.
Hamid-Reza Pourreza has been appointed as a visiting professor in the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology for a one-year term, commencing July 1, 2022.
Post-doctoral Fellow Appointments
Mohamed Bakr welcomed Mahmoud Maghrabi to the department of electrical and computer engineering on July 1, 2021.
Mehdi Narimani welcomed Negar Noroozi to the department of electrical and computer engineering on December 15, 2021.
Younggy Kim welcomed Hui Guo to the department of civil engineering on December 31, 2021.
Jim Cotton welcomed Marin Vratonjic to the department of mechanical engineering on December 31, 2021.
Saeid Habibi welcomed Kimia Ghalkani to the department of mechanical engineering on January 17, 2022.
C-Q Xu welcomed Oksana Kutova and Sundeep Singh to the department of engineering physics on April 1, 2022 and May 1, 2022 respectively.
Drew Higgins welcomed Jiatang Chen and Diwakar Kashyap to the department of chemical engineering on April 1 and Richard Marques De Silva on May 1, 2022.
Charles De Lannoy welcomed Yichen Wu and El-Sayed Ahmed to the department of chemical engineering on April 4 and 11, 2022 respectively.
Saeid Habibi welcomed Kazi Bhadon to the department of mechanical engineering on April 4, 2022.
Babak Nahid-Mobarakeh welcomed Peyman Haghgooei to the eepartment of electrical and computer engineering on May 1, 2022.
Ali Emadi welcomed Xiaolei Bian to the department of mechanical engineering on May 2, 2022.
Ravi Selvaganapathy welcomed Islam Hassan and Ria George to the department of mechanical engineering on May 2 and June 20, 2022 respectively.
Stephen Veldhuis welcomed Qianxi He to the department of mechanical engineering on May 2, 2022. Veldhuis will welcome Azizur Rahman on September 1, 2022.
Hatem Zurob welcomed Shahryar Asqardoust to the department of materials science and engineering on May 2, 2022.
Richard Paige welcomed Faezeh Siavashi and Horacio Rodriguez to the department of computing and software on May 2, 2022.
Dave Novog welcomed Maria Zamora and Javier Mantecon to the department of engineering physics on May 1, 2022 and July 1, 2022 respectively.
Sesha Srinivasan welcomed Manmeet Kaur to the W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology on May 1, 2022, and Akhtar Bayat and Jesse Dondapati on July 1, 2022.
Mo Elbestawi welcomed Mostafa Yakout and Eskandar Fereiduni to the department of mechanical engineering on May 1 and 27, 2022 respectively.
Andy Knights welcomed Ranjan Das to the department of engineering physics on June 1, 2022.
Steve Hranilovic welcomed Rishu Raj to the department of electrical and computer engineering on June 1, 2022.
Zeinab Hosseini-Doust welcomed Lei Tian to the department of chemical engineering on June 20, 2022.
Joe McDermid welcomed Kazi Madmudu Bhadhon to the department of materials science and engineering on June 27, 2022.
Yang welcomed Zhao Zhang to the department of civil engineering on July 1, 2022.
Xiaolin Wu welcomed Xi Zhang to the department of electrical and computer engineering on July 1, 2022.
Gianluigi Botton will welcome Sixu Deng to the department of materials science and engineering on July 4, 2022.
Amin Rajabzadeh will welcome Payam Setoodeh to the W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology on July 18, 2022.
