Building on success in the new year
Hello alumni and friends,
Happy New Year! I hope 2011 treated you well – it was a very exciting and productive year for Western Engineering.
We welcomed a number of new faculty members to Western Engineering, including:
- Girma Bitsuamlak, Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, who will be working in wind engineering
- Louis Ferreira, Assistant Professor, Mechanical & Materials Engineering, who is jointly appointed with the Department of Surgery and has research and teaching interests in mechatronics
- Abouzar Sadrekarimi, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, a specialist in geotechnical engineering
- Charles Xu, Associate Professor, Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, who holds the NSERC FPInnovation Industrial Research Chair in forest biorefining
- Mohammad Zadeh, Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, working in the area of power engineering
Our first-year undergraduate class included the largest number of students we have seen in several years (419) with an entrance average of 87%.
These students are already proving to be innovative leaders and active members of the Western community, participating in various student clubs, groups and teams.
Our graduate numbers continue to be some of the highest across campus with nearly 590 students enrolled in MESc, MEng, and PhD level programs.
As a group, we are continuing to build on 45 years of wind expertise at Western with faculty expertise, groups and projects including the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory, Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes and the new Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment (WindEEE) Dome – the world’s first hexagonal wind tunnel. We held an alumni event in Toronto on November 2nd, 2011 where we highlighted the history and future of wind engineering at Western.
With escalating concerns about climate change and the need for green technologies, Western Engineering is focusing efforts on building a sustainable future with specializations in water engineering, environmental remediation, nanotechnology, natural disasters mitigation and management, power systems, biofuels and alternative energy systems. Research groups such as ICFAR, in the area of chemicals and fuels from alternative resources, and RESTORE, in the area of groundwater remediation, are contributing to providing sustainable solutions to complex problems.
Our faculty, staff and students continuously work towards building a better world.
In the next five to ten years we look forward to expanding our work in this regard, creating unique facilities to house our leading-edge research at locations such as the Advanced Manufacturing Park, where we already have developed plans for WindEEE and the joint Fraunhofer Project Center for Composites Research @ Western - focusing on the development of lightweight composites for the transportation and building materials sectors. Western is also a partner with the City of London and Trojan UV in building the London node of the Southern Ontario Water Consortium, a leading edge wastewater test facility that will allow new technologies to be tested at full scale.
In order to be successful in any of these areas we must connect Western Engineering with the world and bring the world to Western. Our impact in strategically important areas must be at an international level to maintain our abilities to recruit the best students and faculty members from around the globe.
We are focusing our efforts on bringing the best international undergraduate and graduate students to Western Engineering and promoting more faculty visits by prominent international academics and industry leaders.
Our undergraduate students currently have opportunities to explore the world with our WE Go Global certificate program, Civil Engineering with International Development program and International Exchanges. Interested students can also participate in summer placements with Engineers Without Borders.
We also encourage, and support, our current faculty members to pursue international exchanges and research collaborations with institutions around the world.
As always, I welcome your suggestions and ideas. I enjoy hearing from you about your recent accomplishments and newest endeavours. Please e-mail me anytime at WEDean@eng.uwo.ca
Best regards,
Andrew N. Hrymak
Dean, Western Engineering
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Contact
.: Allison Stevenson
Spencer Engineering Building, Room 2074
T: .519.850.2917
F: 519.661.3808
contactwe@eng.uwo.ca
