McMaster Engineering appoints 5 new faculty members, 2 research directors, 2 endowed chairs, 4 adjunct faculty members, 4 visiting faculty members, and many more postdoctoral fellows.
New Faculty Appointments
Department of Civil Engineering
Moncef L. Nehdi joined the Department of Civil Engineering on January 1, 2022 as a tenured Professor and the new Department Chair. He joins us from Western University in London, Ontario. Moncef is the Founder and Director of NCS Inc., and previously was Technical Director for Imasco Minerals Inc. and Technical Manager for both BCS and Modern Technology Laboratories. He also served as Associate Director for Environmental Research Western. He is the recipient of many awards including several best paper awards and other recognitions.
Moncef, with more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, was listed among the world’s most cited civil engineers by Elsevier and the Shanghai Global Ranking of Academic Subjects and in the Stanford University ranking. Moncef’s research focuses on the sustainability and resilience of civil infrastructure, computational intelligence modeling, and innovative materials for construction and energy storage. He has great interest in university governance, experiential learning, and in equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization in higher education.
Department of Computing and Software
Sebastien Mosser joined the Department of Computing and Software as a tenured Associate Professor on January 1, 2022. Most recently, Sebastien was a tenured Category III Professor of Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), equivalent to a tenured Associate Professor at McMaster. He is the Deputy Director for Software Engineering of the Computer Science and Software Engineering BSc program and Deputy Director of the Software Engineering M.Eng program at UQAM.
His research interests are related to software engineering, and more specifically, software composition. He has dedicated his research efforts to understanding how software composition works and how it can be applied to various application domains. His work aims to address the scalability of the software composition paradigm by addressing ultra-large-scale systems. His research, done in collaboration with the Luxembourg-based start-up company DataThings, has been commercialized in the company’s GreyCat data analytics toolset to develop customized operational decision-making tools.
Yingying Wang joined the Department of Computing and Software as an Assistant Professor, tenure-track on January 1, 2022. Yingying completed a PhD in Computer Science at the University of California, Davis in 2017. Her thesis work focused on realistic character animation through the use of low level motion features. During her PhD studies she interned at Disney Research, helping to develop a patented method of character animation that realistically automates coordination of gestures of characters that are carrying on a conversation while walking.
After completing her PhD, she joined Snap Inc., the makers of SnapChat, as a Research Engineer working on the application of machine learning to image processing and animation. Most recently, she was an industrial researcher at Snap Inc. working in the field of Character Animation for Augmented Reality(AR), Virtual Reality(VR), Vision, Human-Computer Interaction(HCI), Gaming, Entertainment and Robotics applications.
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Andrew Gadsden joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as a tenured Associate Professor on January 1, 2022. Andrew earned his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and Management (Business) at McMaster University and then completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in the area of estimation theory with applications to mechatronics and aerospace systems. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Mechatronics and Hybrid Technology (Hamilton, Ontario), and then joined industry as a Project Manager (Apotex Inc., Toronto). Andrew was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for two years prior to joining the University of Guelph where he is currently an Associate Professor.
At a high-level, Andrew and his research team at the Intelligent Control and Estimation (ICE) laboratory are developing new control and estimation methods for intelligent mechatronic systems that enable robustness to disturbances and uncertainties while providing accurate and stable system operation. He has a diverse research program with applications ranging from developing an intelligent orchard system that predicts apple yields for farmers to an autonomous robotic system for NASA. Andrew is an elected Fellow of ASME, a Senior Member of IEEE, a Professional Engineer of Ontario, and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He is the recipient of many engineering research and teaching awards.
Keena Trowell will join the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor, tenure-track on July 1, 2022. Keena is currently a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at McGill University and is expecting to complete her degree in the spring of 2022. Her research is in alternative fuels for decarbonizing energy systems. Keena has numerous honours and awards and is a recipient of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. She holds two undergraduate degrees from Concordia University: a Bachelor of Fine Arts obtained in 2001 and a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) obtained in 2014.
Research Directors
Ayse Turak was appointed as the Director of the Centre of Emerging Device Technologies (CEDT) effective July 1, 2021.
Joey Kish was appointed as the Director of the GM Centre for Automotive Control Consortium (CAMC) effective July 1, 2021.
Endowed Chairs
Denise Geiskkovitch has been appointed as the Barber-Gennum Endowed Chair in Information Technology effective July 1, 2022. Denise will be joining the Department of Computing and Software on July 1, 2022.
Michael Tait has been reappointed as the Joe Ng-JNE Consulting Endowed Chair in Design, Construction & Management of Infrastructure Renewal effective January 1, 2022 for a term of five-years and six months.
New Adjunct Appointments
Sonia Hassini has been appointed as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering effective September 1, 2021 for a three-year appointment.
Christopher Power has been appointed as an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Computing and Software effective July 1, 2021 for a three-year term. Christopher is an Associate Professor in the School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the University of Prince Edward Island, with expertise in the areas of HCI, accessibility and computer games.
Edward Sykes has been appointed as an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Computing and Software effective July 1, 2021 for a three-year term. Edward is a Professor and Director of the Centre for Mobile Health at Sheridan College. He is co-principal investigator with Richard Paige on an ORF-RE grant on mobile health. His collaborations at McMaster will focus on the Centre for Mobile Health, joint publications, and greater expertise in mobile health applications.
Venkat Venkataramanan has been appointed as an Industry Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering effective August 1, 2021 for a five-year term.
Visiting Faculty Appointments
Ahmed Eldyasti is a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering as of October 15, 2021.
Toshiharu Arai is a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Engineering Physics as of January 1, 2022.
Zahra Moradi is a Visiting Scholar in the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology as of October 1, 2021.
Hamid-Reza Pourreza is a Visiting Professor in the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology as of February 1, 2022.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Department of Chemical Engineering
Charles de Lannoy welcomed Recep Kaya and Mohamed Amin Halali to the Department of Chemical Engineering in August 2021.
Drew Higgins welcomed Xiaoxuan Yang to the Department of Chemical Engineering in September 2021.
Michael Thompson welcomed Karimipourfard Pedram to the Department of Chemical Engineering on October 1, 2021.
Li Xi welcomed Jumiati Wu and Samaneh Khanlari to the Department of Chemical Engineering on November 1, 2021.
Boyang Zhang welcomed Benjamin Fook Lun Lai to the Department of Chemical Engineering on December 1, 2021.
Todd Hoare welcomed Ikenna Ezenwajiaku to the Department of Chemical Engineering on December 6, 2021.
Department of Civil Engineering
Paulin Coulibaly welcomed Gamal Eldeeb and Pedram Darbandsari to the Department of Civil Engineering on September 7, 2021.
Wael El-Dakhakhni welcomed May Haggag to the Department of Civil Engineering on October 12, 2021.
Department of Computing and Software
Richard Paige welcomed Khouloud Gaaloul to the Department of Computing and Software on October 1, 2021.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ali Emadi welcomed Dianxun Xiao and Sumedh Dhale to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on September 7, 2021. He also welcomed Prathap Reddy Bhimireddy to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on August 16, 2021.
Michael Noseworthy welcomed Bhanu Sharma to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on September 7, 2021.
Mehdi Narimani welcomed Bahrami Ahoora and Negar Noroozi to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in September and December, respectively.
Natalia Nikolova welcomed Meng Yang the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on November 1, 2021.
Tim Davidson welcomed Cai Wen the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on November 1, 2021.
Babak Nahid-Mobarakeh welcomed Gaoliang Fang the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering on November 22, 2021.
Department of Engineering Physics
Jonathan Bradley welcomed Henry Frankis to the Department of Engineering Physics on September 7, 2021.
Leyla Soleymani welcomed Siba Moussa and Harmanjeet Kaur to the Department of Engineering Physics in September and November, respectively.
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Ravi Selvaganapathy welcomed Md Farhad Ismail to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on October 1, 2021.
Stephen Veldhuis welcomed Chowdhury Shariful to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on October 4, 2021.
Saeid Habibi welcomed Marin Messing to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on October 12, 2021.
Tohid Didar welcomed Amin Valiei to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on October 25, 2021.
Mo Elbestawi welcomed Eskandar Fereiduni to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on November 29, 2021.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Gu Xu welcomed Taoran Wang to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering on September 13, 2021.
Nabil Bassim welcomed Ramya Cuduvally Manohar to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering on October 1, 2021.
Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology
Fei Geng welcomed Saeed Mohammadi to the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology on September 1, 2021.
Gail Krantzberg welcomed Haijuan Yang to the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology on September 1, 2021.
Seshasai Srinivasan and Amin Reza Rajabzadeh welcomed Hoda Mozaffari and Poushal Das to the to the Walter G. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology in September and November 2021, respectively.
