Dr. Sepideh Pakpour, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UBCO.
School of Engineering receives $1.65M grant for interdisciplinary projects engaging students and industry
Imagine a world where the clothing we wear is crafted with both human comfort and environmental sustainability in mind from the outset of the design process. Or a world where our health-care settings have been equipped and furnished to support all aspects of patients’ physical and psychological comfort.
Dr. Sepideh Pakpour, Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at UBC Okanagan, along with her co-PIs (principal investigators) across the campus, have been awarded $1.65M toward their research in product design for human comfort to help make those goals a reality.
The funding, announced today, was made available through the NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) Program.
NSERC CREATE grants are designed to support training of highly qualified students and postdoctoral fellows from Canada and abroad through the development of innovative training programs that:
- encourage collaborative and integrative approaches, and address significant scientific challenges associated with Canada’s research priorities;
- facilitate the transition of new researchers from trainees to productive employees in the Canadian workforce.
At UBC Okanagan, the funding will allow Dr. Pakpour and a multi-disciplinary team of researchers to engage more than 80 students in research projects involving over 20 industry partners over the next six years.
“These projects will empower students, from undergraduate to their doctoral studies, to re-think the design process altogether. It’s about incorporating human comfort – which encapsulates all aspects of physical, physiological and psychological support – into product design from the very beginning of the process.”
Dr. Pakpour is working with fellow UBCO researchers in engineering, health sciences, computer science and psychology. Her industry partners span a diverse array of sectors, from clothing manufacturers to biomedical companies. Together, they can make leaps toward a future world with safer, comfort-enhanced products, says Dr. Pakpour.
“We are training and building talent for the future of this field, for industry and society. We are no longer living in an era where each discipline can, or should, work solo in the design process. These projects are examples of interdisciplinary teams, seamlessly working together to train the next generation of researchers and solve real-world problems facing diverse users.”
Under Dr. Pakpour’s leadership, the first cohort of students will join the research teams this September. They expect to engage at least 12 undergraduate and 68 graduate students over the next six years. “It’s very exciting we will be able to provide opportunities for this many students here in Canada in such an emerging and untraditional field. It will be very impactful, I am confident” said Dr. Pakpour. “We are grateful to NSERC for this funding which amplifies our research capacity not just within the School of Engineering but across disciplines on campus.”
Dr. Pakpour’s fundamental research interest and contributions fall into two categories: (a) better comprehending forces and factors forming Healthy Buildings and (b) human microbiome and human health. Under these categories, her research has continuously focused on translating basic microbiome discoveries into applications ranging from bioengineering and biomaterials. She has also co-led research on using magnetic levitation to detect airborne viruses. Earlier this year, Dr. Pakpour was awarded a UBC Killam Faculty Research Fellowship Prize.