Recently, the School of Engineering at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia welcomed students from Vernon Community School to participate in a STEM Fair with select participants given the opportunity to have their projects incubated in a UBC Okanagan research lab.

According to School of Engineering Director, Mina Hoorfar, “this initiative was focused on bringing other aspects of university life and education to high school students in the valley.”

The initiative is an expansion on the community connection between UBC’s Okanagan campus and area high schools.  Every March, UBC Okanagan hosts School District 23’s science fair.

“Our (Advanced Control and Intelligent Systems) lab does cutting-edge research in the hi-tech sector” says professor of engineering Homayoun Najjaran “and part of that responsibility is to pass along knowledge to others at all levels of education, including the high school students.”

The STEM program has been so well-received that it will be expanded in 2018 to include participants from additional schools in the Okanagan.

Click on the following links to learn about the initiative and some of the projects:

STEM Fair at the School of Engineering at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia

Learning About Diet with the Help of the School of Engineering

Mina Hoorfar, professor and director at the School of Engineering, and her research team assists students from Vernon Community School in incubating their diet analysis STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) project in the Advanced Thermo-Fluidic Laboratory at UBC’s Okanagan campus.

Local Students Learn About Applied Eletro-Magnetics

Inside the lab of Loïc Markley, students from Vernon Community School take their levitating magnet to new levels through the inaugural School of Engineering’s STEM fair initiative.

High School Student Fuels Her Interest in Biomedical Engineering

Using 3D modelling software, a student from Vernon Community School teams up with Ernest Goh, an instructor at UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering, to build functional in-sole prototypes.

 STEM Fair Project Parks Itself

The Advanced Control Intelligent Systems Laboratory played host to the STEM fair project of two students from Vernon Community School.  The students built and programmed a self-driving car with guidance from Engineering Professor Homayoun Najjaran and his research team.

Using microwave pre-treatment combined with anaerobic digestion on wastewater by-products, researchers at UBC Okanagan’s Bioreactor Technology Group are aiming to effectively remove micro-pollutants (antimicrobial triclosan) commonly found in soaps and disinfectants that end up in wastewater treatment plants.

Visiting International Research Student, Gökçe Kor Bıçakcı, along with UBC PhD candidate Tim Abbott conducted the research.  Bıçakcı is a PhD candidate at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Environmental Engineering Department and co-supervised by Cigdem Eskicioglu, an associate professor with UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering and Dr. Emine Çokgör of ITU.  “The work that our researchers have completed isn’t solely focused on removing the pollutants,” says Eskicioglu, “it also looks at ways to harness the by-products of the process to recover enhanced energy and cleaner fertilizer from waste sludge in smaller, more compact digesters.”

The research has been recognized by the German Water Partnership (GWP), a German-Turkish collaboration that includes private and public organizations in the water sector.  In making the announcement, the GWP states that the research will provide “a concrete solution to a challenge in the operation and optimization of water and wastewater treatment plants and their infrastructure within the next 5 years.”

“We’re fortunate to have wonderful partnerships with other international institutions that allow us to share our expertise, our people and our resources; and make a global impact” explains Eskicioglu.

Bıçakcı, Abbott and Eskicioglu continue to collaborate on additional papers generated from their results.

The research was conducted with municipal sludge obtained from Westside Regional Treatment Plant by the Regional District of Central Okanagan.

UBC Okanagan Researcher Appointed as new Associate Director of the Clean Energy Research Centre

Clean Energy Research Centre, which encompasses research from across the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses of the University of British Columbia, has appointed Kasun Hewage as its newest associate director.  Professor Hewage is program coordinator for the civil engineering program at the Okanagan campus of UBC and co-lead of the Project Life Cycle Management Laboratory.

“This appointment means a lot,” says Hewage “not only is it recognition of my research and leadership but it is also a reaffirmation of the research synergies between UBC’s Point Grey and Okanagan campuses.”

Hewage’s role will include shaping and broadening the Centre’s breadth of research.  The Centre hosts world-leading researchers who strive to provide safe, widespread and equitable access to sustainable energy.  The interdisciplinary Centre brings together innovators from a variety of fields including applied science, science and business; who work collaborative with industry, academia and all levels of government both local and international.

The Centre includes many other School of Engineering researchers.