News archive for November 2010

An Art Poster (pictured below) submitted by Dr. Hoi Dick Ng and his colleagues to the American Physical Society's 28th Annual Gallery of Fluid Motion competition (Division of Fluid Dynamics) was recently selected as one of the winning entries to the Gallery of Fluid Motion Album out of approximately 75 posters from all over the world.

More than  2,000 conference delegates witnessed the winning poster, which was selected as a winner by panel committee that based its decision on the poster's artistic value, scientific content, and originality.

On top of being selected, the group was also awarded one of the three "Milton van Dyke awards." According to another Miton van Dyke award recipient from Viginia Tech., "the Gallery of Fluid Motion, organized by the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, is arguably the most prestigious visualization competition in fluid mechanics."

The group's photo images will be published in a special issue of Physics of fluids - Album of Fluid Motion and will be permanently displayed on the APS-DFD gallery of fluid motion website. Their poster will be showcased again in the annual march APS meeting 2011.

Alongside Dr. Ng, the following Concordia students and alumni were also in attendance at the Conference: Mohamed Fayed (postdoc), Rocco Portaro (Undegraduate), Amy-Lee Gunter (Undegraduate), Hamid Ait Abderrahmane (postdoc). Reports Dr. Ng, "we were very excited about this award!"

For undergraduate students from the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science involved in the Society of Automotive Engineers, as well as for students preparing their final-year Capstone designs, working as a team to produce a project on time and within given constraints is an extremely important part of the learning process. Luckily, there are software solutions that can provide them with guidance and structure along the way. Luckier still, one Montreal-based company was willing to give them this software--valued at more than $239,000--for free.

Normally a haven for students between classes, the Hall Building's 8th floor was transformed into a swank reception area in celebration of this gift. Members of Concordia's student body gathered alongside faculty members and officials to welcome representatives from Mecanica Solutions Inc., in honour of that company's major donation.

Suzanne Bélanger, the Faculty's Principal Director of Development, acted as the event's Master of Ceremonies, and opened with praise for Mecanica Solutions, which has been providing engineering services to the aerospace, automotive and AEC industries for nearly 30 years. "As a global supplier of product lifecycle management--or PLM--solutions and technologies aimed at enhancing business processes," Bélanger noted, "Mecanica offers a full range of PLM solutions and on-site support to help businesses manage innovation throughout their product lifecycles."

Concordia's President, Judith Woodsworth, then said a few words, expressing fond memories of her own time in the Hall Building as a faculty member in the translation department. She noted that although her background was about "as far from engineering as you can get," the two disciplines were very similar when it came to the "shared belief that students have to learn practical skills to prepare them for the real world"--a belief she said was evidenced by the hard work of the students present at the event.

Morty Smolash then took to the podium on behalf of Mecanica. As General Manager of the company's 360 Enterprise Software, he provided an insider's perspective on what the software would mean for students in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science. Smolash joked that "sparks are going to fly" due to the collaboration between Mecanica and Concordia and also singled out his colleagues Dan Brisson, Cameron McKay and Sébastien Marcille for helping to establish a solid partnership between Mecanica and Concordia. Alex Habrich, president and CEO of Mecanica Solutions, was also present at the event and echoed Smolash's statements, noting that, "through this major donation of our cutting-edge 360 Enterprise Software solution, we are pleased to contribute to the future success of both the Concordia SAE team and the Capstone Engineering Design projects."

Robin Drew, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science added a final note of thanks to Mecanica, explaining that he had seen the donated software in action and knew that it would be a valuable asset to countless students in the Faculty. "All in all," said the Dean, "this is a great contribution to Concordia, and a great donation."

The Concordia Chapter of Engineers without Borders (EWB) is made up of a keen group of students from Concordia's Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science. Under the leadership of Chapter president, Jad Saleh, the group organized a special Fair-Trade-focused wine & cheese event. In attendance were students from across the Faculty as well as professors and officials from around Concordia.

As the evening's Master of Ceremonies, Saleh took to the podium once the crowd had had the chance to mingle and sample the Fair Trade wine and chocolates thoughtfully provided by EWB. Saleh opened the evening with a warm welcome and spoke a bit about the history of Engineers without Borders before describing the real reason they had decided to throw a wine and cheese: to make the case for Concordia to become Canada's first Fair-Trade Certified university.

Following Saleh's impassioned speech, Robin Drew, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, praised Saleh's hard work and lent his support to the Fair Trade cause, saying "hopefully we'll have some fair trade coffee in the Faculty soon."

Judith Woodsworth, President of Concordia University, then echoed the Dean's sentiments, smiling widely as she recalled the Fair Trade coffee and chocolate given to her by EWB alongside their official pitch to have Concordia become Fair-Trade Certified. While she was not yet in a position to confirm that the University would be able to participate in the certification program, she gave the EWB hope in stating "we have an open mind."

Guest speaker and Concordia alumnus Eric St-Pierre then took to the podium. He spoke about his firsthand experiences documenting the Fair Trade movement in third world countries. His vivid photographs were on display around the room, providing the perfect backdrop for the evening.

Boris Martin, Team Leader - Agriculture & Micro-Enterprise, Burkina Faso, then represented the EWB's head office. He praised the Concordia chapter's outreach work not only in Africa but also locally, noting especially that the Chapter had given presentations to nearly 1,000 students in the Montreal area.

The speeches wrapped up with a special gift to the guest speakers from the Concordia Chapter of the EWB: signed copies of St-Pierre's beautiful book of photos, Fair Trade: A Human Journey. They were also presented with special bottles of Fair Trade Wine that was bottled and branded by the EWB executive especially for the occasion.

Attendees continued the conversation over more fair trade snacks and discussions of whether Concordia would indeed become Canada's first Fair Trade Certified university... The event took place on November 22, 2010, at Concordia University's Engineering and Visual Arts Integrated Building, 1515 Ste. Catherine Street W.

The Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science has done it yet again: under the fantastic leadership of Caroline Clayton and Olga Soares, faculty and staff members banded together to bake and eat cakes and cookies for a great cause: Concordia's 2010 Centraide campaign. With a total of $1,215.33 raised, this was the most successful bake sale yet for the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science.

With a large percentage of students from Concordia's Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science hailing from the Middle East, recruitment outreach programs such as the Middle East Education Initiative (MEEI) help the Faculty to maintain its ties to these countries that have come to see Concordia as go-to institution for tertiary education. Designed to facilitate meetings between Canadian representatives of educational institutions and potential students, the MEEI (which is organized by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada) is made up of recruitment-focused events that include fairs, school visits, networking receptions and market briefings.


Concordia's Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science was one of 16 participating Canadian institutions, which included universities from across the country. The Faculty's representatives were: Lata Narayanan, Associate Dean of Academic Programs; Christopher Trueman, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs; and Dalia Radwan, Advisor with Student Academic Services.

The three were pleased to take part in the initiative, which helped the Faculty to maintain its already positive contacts with the academic counsellors in the schools that were visited in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. They focused on international schools within these countries, because the dual citizenship of the bulk of their students makes the transition to studying at Concordia that much easier.


Radwan, whose role within the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science sees her dealing directly with current and future students on a day-to-day basis, notes that she was "impressed to learn that the academic programs and cultural experiences offered at Concordia University are recognized and respected around the Middle East."  She is looking forward to welcoming more academically driven and dynamic students from the region to the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science.

During the trip, Trueman noted that "many young engineers working in industry in Egypt would like to come to Concordia for a masters or doctoral program." Now back at the office after his time abroad, Trueman recalls being "astonished" during the Cairo education fair "at the large number of young people interested in coming to Montreal to study at Concordia, both for undergraduate students and for graduate programs." Not only did Trueman see great interest in Concordia's engineering courses, particularly in the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering, he also saw that there was tremendous interest in all the faculties: in the MBA program in the John Molson School of Business, in biology, chemistry, physics and psychology in Arts and Science.


For Narayanan, it was "very interesting to talk to young, motivated, and articulate high school students who are planning to go abroad for their undergraduate studies." She also found it "encouraging to learn that Montreal and Concordia were very well-known in the schools we went to--many school counsellors told us that their students were especially interested in Concordia."

Faculty officials say they intend to continue encourage this interest abroad by taking part in this government initiative in the years to come. They hope to expand their travels to include countries such as the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia in their efforts to promote Concordia's Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science in the Middle East.

The 9th annual Recognition Ceremony of the Concordia Institute of Aerospace Design and Innovation was held at Concordia's Engineering and Visual Arts Pavilion on November 12, 2010. Present for the cocktail, speeches, and awards ceremony were past and present CIADI students, as well as professors, university representatives--including Provost David Graham, and industry leaders.



After the crowd had had the chance to mingle over cocktails and canapés, Robin Drew, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, shared some words of welcome. He spoke of the excellent partnerships CIADI had forged within Montreal's aerospace industry and mentioned the high quality learning experience CIADI students receive through their hands-on internships. Dean Drew highlighted the presence of Bob Fews, the Faculty's new Aerospace Special Advisor, who has made great inroads during his first months in the faculty and is helping Concordia to become a North American centre for excellence in aerospace industry under the CIADI umbrella. Dean Drew also mentioned that the Concordia Center for Composites has recently been working on a major Industrial Research Chair in automated composite manufacture, which will have a direct impact on CIADI. This groundbreaking project involves significant aerospace companies like Bell Helicopter, Boeing, and Pratt and Whitney--just to name a few. Dean Drew was especially pleased to mention that the cornerstone of this Chair will be an automated composite manufacturing cell, which, when fully commissioned in mid-2011, will become a unique research facility at Concordia.

Marius Paraschivoiu, Director of CIADI, then echoed Dean Drew's positive outlook while delivering a speech that looked back on an excellent year of progress for the Institute. Paraschivoiu outlined CIADI's 2009-10 academic year, which saw 68 projects undertaken by its student members, including 20 industrial projects to students from the Master of Engineering in Aerospace program. Looking ahead to 2011, Paraschivoiu described how CIADI will expand to include professors from across the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science. He also mentioned the renovations that are currently underway to build more offices in the administrative area of the 12th floor of the EV Building, which is set to become the centre of aerospace training and research at Concordia University.

It was, of course, the Institute's students, who were front and centre for the Recognition Awards. CIADI's president, Raîssa El-Haddad, took to the podium alongside Vice President Karim Sarhan. Together, they outlined the recent achievements of CIADI students, especially with regards to the past year's CIADI Global project. This special internship program was established in 2007 to expose participating students to the various obstacles and challenges faced by aerospace companies on a global level. In the 2009-10 academic year, CIADI sent five students to Europe, where they were given an invaluable opportunity to see other parts of the world while acting as ambassadors for Concordia.

Once the speeches had wrapped up, attendees stayed to chat about the bright future of the Concordia Institute of Aerospace Design and Innovation, while speculating about what exciting announcements would be shared next year, when CIADI celebrates its first decade of achievements.

by Karen Herland - this article originally appeared in the Concordia Journal

This year's Governor General Gold Medal goes to PhD recipient Ramin Motamedi. His extraordinary work in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering put him at the head -- not just of his class -- but of all Concordia graduate students at this fall's convocation.

Every year, the Office of Graduate Studies circulates the names of about 80 graduate students whose dissertations were deemed excellent or outstanding. Each Faculty determines which two of their eligible students should be selected and a committee of representatives from all four Faculties makes the final choice.

"When I saw he was on the list of eligible students, I wanted to recommend him because of both the completeness of his thesis, and the usefulness of this research," says Motamedi's supervisor, Associate Professor Paula Wood-Adams.

Motamedi's research project, Microcantilever-based Rheology of Liquids, developed a methodology to determine properties of minute amounts of higher viscosity fluids. Motamedi took five years to complete his research, which required major modifications to the atomic force microscope (AFM) in Wood-Adams's Laboratory for the Physics of Advanced Materials.

His research has just recently been published in the Journal of Rheology. Wood-Adams is sure that his methodology will have wide applications, especially where the liquid to be analyzed is only available in minute amounts. For instance, with biological fluids. By developing a systematic and extensive set of data on such fluids, researchers might be able to synthetically produce biological liquids for use in medical interventions.

The AFM is essentially a blind microscope. While most microscopes use lenses and magnification to capture images, the AFM allows researchers to analyze the exterior of any material, natural or synthetic, through virtual touch. The AFM's tiny sensors tap the material and relay information on how hard, elastic, smooth or reactive its surface might be under various conditions.

Motamedi's challenge was that liquids don't really have surfaces.

He describes the research project that Wood-Adams proposed as the most intriguing among the ones he was presented when applying to doctoral programs in Canada. Wood-Adams had seen similar research dealing with gases, but no one had attempted to work with liquids more viscous than water.

His system modified the AFM to actually plunge the sensor into the liquid, measuring its properties while moving through, instead of resting on, the material.

Motamedi, whose background is in fluid mechanics, had to figure out how to adapt the equipment, purchased with Canadian Foundation for Innovation funds shortly before he started his research, for studying liquids. His entire project was really a matter of perseverance.

"It was so difficult at the beginning," recalls Wood-Adams. "The system was hard to modify and it took a lot of courage."

To properly assess the movements of the sensor in the liquid, Motamedi also had to become proficient at solid mechanics, a field in which he had limited experience during his previous academic work. He also studied rheology, a science that deals with the reactions of complex materials when force is applied. "Think of a tube of toothpaste; it's solid, and becomes liquid when you apply pressure," explains Motamedi. He also developed ways to collect and measure data with his modified equipment, and to learn more about data processing.

Wood-Adams is impressed with the breadth of Motamedi's research. "People who are good in one area are generally are not very good at the other."

Motamedi takes his multi-faceted approach in stride, "it is not very easy to find a subject that deals with only one science," he says. "You have to combine them, which means learning another field."

To accept his medal, he flew in from Calgary, where he's already using his newly acquired knowledge of reology in the oil industry. Potential drill sites are flushed out using mud, heavy enough to clear out smaller rocks and other debris. Motamedi's expertise helps determine how that process should occur, examining the properties of the mud and the force required, and the most efficient way to get the desired result. Although Calgary is colder than Montreal, and a great deal colder than the Iran of his childhood, using his knowledge to bring about practical change in industry is exactly where he wants to be.

While researchers from Concordia's Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science have long attracted significant funding from government institutions like the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, 2010 was a year of particular success that saw faculty members secure an unprecedented six Discovery Accelerator Supplement grants from the governmental funding agency. While it was no surprise that Concordia counted several recipients among its fold, the eyebrow-raising aspect of this news comes by way of recently-revealed statistics: of all the universities in Canada, Concordia ranked first among recipients in engineering and computer science.

Robin Drew, Dean of Concordia's Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, says with pride that "with six Discovery Accelerator Supplements, our Faculty beat out such notables as McGill with only two, Polytechnique with four and Waterloo with just two. Even when it comes to our competitors at other comprehensive universities, we were ahead of the pack: Simon Fraser only received one award, the University of Victoria had two, and York didn't receive any. I'm very proud of our winning faculty members and hope this is a sign of things to come."

This prestigious program provides substantial and timely additional resources to accelerate progress and maximize the impact of outstanding research programs like those of the grant recipients, who were:

• Ali Dolatabadi, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
• Ibrahim Hassan, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
• Osama Moselhi, Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering
• Catherine Mulligan, Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering
• Sofiene Tahar, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Amr Youssef, Concordia Institute for Information System Engineering

Each award represents $120,000 over three years, and is given in order to help propel the research activities towards increased productivity. Recipients of the highest quality are selected during the annual Discovery Grants Competition by the NSERC evaluation committees. The DAS are a new component of the Discovery Grants Program and aim to provide substantial and timely additional resources to accelerate progress and maximize the impact of outstanding research programs.

On Monday, November 1, 2010 students from Concordia's Faculties of Engineering & Computer and Fine Arts headed over to Salle Sir Willfrid Pelletier at Montreal's Place des Arts for the fall convocation ceremony.



After the official delegates--including Concordia's President, Dr. Judith Woodsworth and Provost & Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dr. David Graham--were ushered in by a traditional Scottish bag-piper, the graduands and audience were led in singing O Canada, then paused for a moment of reflection with Reverend Ellie Hummel, Concordia's Chaplain.

It was then time for the conferring of the honorary degree, presented to renowned Montreal jazz musician, Vic Vogel. After a detailed introduction from Andrew Homzy, Professor of Music, Vogel took the microphone for less than a minute, advising the gathered students,  "never lose your ability to be amused." He then claimed to be better at playing then speaking and performed a short piano piece at the grand piano, receiving a standing ovation from delegates on stage and in the audience. Dr. Woodsworth summed up the sentiment in the room with a simple statement: "it's a great thrill for us to hear you play."

Then it was time for the focus of the day's event: the presentation of degrees, diplomas, and graduate certificates to graduands from both faculties. Engineering has a strong showing at the ceremony, with a total of 252 degrees awarded: 23 doctoral, 138 masters, and 8 graduate certificates/diplomas, and 83 bachelors. Engineering students remained in the spotlight as the ceremony wrapped up: the recipient of the Governor General's Gold Medal (awarded annually to the most outstanding graduate student) was Ramin Motamedi , a PhD candidate from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. After he was presented with his medal, Valedictorian Dima Mohammed Alhadid, a PhD student from the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, took to the stage to share some words of inspiration with her peers.

The event wrapped up with an inspirational speech from the President and much appreciative cheering from the audience. A warm congratulations to all our graduates! If you missed the ceremony, be sure to check out the online video.

Zaid Al-Khatib is delighted to announce that his Capstone 490 project team has been selected showcase their award-winning project at Unmanned Systems Canada's 8th National Conference, held November 2 through 5, right here in Montreal.

The team, which also includes Hasan Ghazi Ak-Khakani, Jaime Yu, and Samer Kombarji, developed their project as part of the final-year Capstone class. Over the course of two semesters, the four students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) worked together to build what they called a "Qx4 hovering robotic platform"--a robotic helicopter that could fly autonomously inside of buildings.

The project won the first place prize during ECE's 2010 Capstone awards, presented last spring. It was also the winner of the MTT Alive video competition--an international competition organized by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society--that featured short videos generated by students describing their wireless systems-oriented design projects.

The group is very pleased that their project continues to garner attention, and they are happy to have been selected to take part in the conference. They extend special thanks to Dr. Amir Aghdam, their supervisor, for referring the project to Unmanned Systems Canada.

Related links:
http://www.unmannedsystems.ca/content.php?doc=124
http://www.capstone490.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBc1_4Jcl9o