The applied sciences – architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, nursing, and planning – change society's conception of what is possible as a matter of course. Applied scientists make dreams real, turn ideas into practice. We embody the interface between present and future.
A community of diverse disciplines on campuses in two cities, we recognize the promise inherent in our differences. We are at our best when faced with problems considered by most to be impossible to solve, for it is there that our varied approaches, practice cultures, and discipline-specific languages, combined, become our greatest strength.
We are a Faculty of leaders. We take the initiative. We are defined by our integrity, excellence, innovative mindset, and passionate spirit of engagement. We are ideally positioned to address some of the greatest challenges of our time. From nurses and engineers working in First Nations communities and in Africa improving healthcare, to architects, landscape architects and community planners improving the built environment, our graduate students enlist their skills and networks to truly make a difference. As part of one of the world’s premier universities, it is not just our vision to educate the next generation of leaders, it is our responsibility.
Innovation and its application is our passion in the Faculty of Applied Science. We take pride in our ability to transfer knowledge and contribute to economic growth through research and entrepreneurship.
Mission
To create and apply knowledge and to educate globally responsible professionals empowered to effect enduring, positive change for society.
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Research Centres
Applied Science participates in a number of research centres and laboratories at UBC, some of which are inter-faculty collaborations and others of which are within Applied Science and involve inter-departmental collaborations.
Architecture and Landscape Architecture
- Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP)
- Design Centre for Sustainability
- The James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments
Community & Regional Planning
Engineering
- Advanced Materials & Process Engineering Laboratory (AMPEL)
- Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC)
- Institute for Computing, Information & Cognitive Systems (ICICS)
- Michael Smith Laboratories
- Pulp & Paper Centre (PPC)
Nursing
Research Highlights
Through leadership and the relentless charge to improve professional practice, Applied Science researchers – often in interdisciplinary and pan-professional collaborations – advance knowledge, policies and technologies, and solve the global challenges facing society. In any specific year, over 100 leading companies partner with UBC APSC to advance their research agendas.
The UBC Applied Science research enterprise helps drive the reputation of one of the top research-intensive universities in the world. Our researchers claim the spotlight in the global arena in the following research clusters:
Schools / Departments
The Faculty of Applied Science houses:
Graduate Degree Programs
Research Supervisors in Faculty
| Name | Academic Unit(s) | Research Interests |
|---|---|---|
| Cheung, Karen | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Biotechnology, MEMS and BioMEMS, Microtechnology, Lab-on-a-Chip, Microfluidics, neural implants, biomedical engineering, Biomedical microsystems for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, dielectric spectroscopy for flow cytometry, implantable polymer-based microelectrode arrays, integrated cell culture systems |
| Chiao, Mu | Department of Mechanical Engineering | MEMS, Micro Sensors, Micro Actuators, BioMEMS, Nanotechnology, Bioengineering, Electronic Packaging, Nanoscience, Energy sources for micro-electro-mechanical systems |
| Chrostowski, Lukas | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Optics and Photonics, Micro and Nanoelectronics, Nanotechnologies, Manufacturing Processes, silicon photonics, biosensors, biophotonics, quantum computing, optoelectronics, photonics, optics, semiconductor lasers |
| Cockcroft, Steven | Department of Materials Engineering | Clean Energy Research, Physical phenomena in non-ferrous casting, hot tearing, Optimization of industrial casting processes, Mathematical modeling |
| Condon, Patrick Michael | School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture | Sustainable urban design, landscape architecture, sustainable communities |
| Cretu, Edmond | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Clean Energy,Microsystems, adaptive MEMS, micro-instrumentation, nonlinear signal processing, BioMEMS ultrasound imaging |
| Cripton, Peter | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Trauma / Injuries, Cranio-Encephalic and Spinal Cord Trauma, Mechanical Systems, spinal cord injury, neurotrauma, traumatic brain injury, biomechanics, injury prevention, hip fracture, spine biomechanics |
| Croft, Elizabeth | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Robotics, human-robot interaction, mechatronics |
| Currie, Leanne | School of Nursing | Nursing, Health Care Technologies, Health Information Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Technologies, Decision Making, Computer Architecture, Software Development, Biomedical and Health Informatics, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, Human Computer Interaction and Design |
| Dahinten, Susan | School of Nursing | Social determinants and processes of child development, identification, intervention and the prevention of developmental problems |
| Dahmen, Joseph | School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture | technical methods and cultural effects of resource use at the scales of architecture and territory. |
| De Silva, Clarence Wilfred | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Robotics |
| Dixon, David | Department of Materials Engineering | Fixed-bed leaching |
| Dreisinger, David | Department of Materials Engineering | Hydrometallurgy industry, iron, copper |
| Dumont, Guy A | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | biomedical engineering; automatic drug delivery; mobile health; global health; anesthesia; physiological monitoring;, Adaptive control, predictive control, control of distributed parameters systems, advanced process control, applications of wavelet analysis, biomedical applications of control, pulp and paper process control |
| Dunbar, W Scott | Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering | Bacterial replication controls, bacteriophage, phage |
| Dunford, William | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Electrical power conversion, electric vehicles, alternative enery and sustainable development, DC systems with load and battery management., Clean Energy, power conversion, ranging from utility to microelectronic applications |
| Elfring, Gwynn | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Theoretical Fluid Mechanics, Complex Fluids, Cell Biomechanics, Capillary Phenomena, Applied Mathematics |
| Ellis, Naoko | Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering | Chemical Processes, CO2 capture and utilization, Multiphase systems, Thermochemical conversion of biomass, Interdisciplinary teaching and learning |
| Elmo, Davide | Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering | rock mechanics and rock engineering design; advanced numerical modelling of block cave mining and discrete fracture networks, interaction between surface and underground mining, numerical simulations of the mechanical behaviour of hard rock pillars, slope stability analysis, applications of synthetic rock mass modelling and discrete fracture network modelling. |
| Englezos, Peter | Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering | Clathrate (gas) hydrate science, engineering and novel applications , Clathrates-applications: natural gas storage & transport, CO2 capture & storage, water treatment), Thermodynamics of fluids and super-hydrophobic surfaces,, Novel materials from forest bio-resources, High-value papermaking |
| Fannin, R Jonathan | Department of Civil Engineering | Shear wave velocity for the detection of fines loss in soils, internal erosion in earth dams, seepage-induced instability in gap-graded soils, grain shape and the strength of sands, filtration compatibility of woven and nonwoven geotextiles, pullout resistance of geogrids in static and dynamic loading, debris flow travel distance on steep mountainous terrain, slope stability in engineering practice |
| Fedorova, Alexandra | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | design of system software: the software that manages the hardware and decides how to allocate its resources to applications; building better performance tools. |
| Fels, S Sidney | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Human computer interaction, human 3D biomechanical modeling, speech synthesis, medical applications of modeling, computer vision, interactive arts and music |
| Feng, Hsi-Yung | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), Geometric Modeling, Multi-Axis CNC Machining, Machining Simulation, 3D Laser Scanning, 3D Printing |
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Graduate Student Profiles
Alumni on Success
Recent Thesis Submissions
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DropBack : continuous pruning during deep neural network training (Electrical and Computer Engineering - MASC)
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Transformer-enhanced high-performance voltage-controlled oscillators (Electrical and Computer Engineering - MASC)
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Robust control of miniaturized optical image stabilizers for mobile phone cameras (Mechanical Engineering - MASC)
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Position control of a floating offshore wind turbine system using aerodynamic force (Mechanical Engineering - MASC)
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Assessment of using a Tesla expander to harvest waste heat from a photovoltaic panel for residential applications (Mechanical Engineering - MASC)
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Cold flow simulation of gas flare auxiliary air (Mechanical Engineering - MASC)
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A fully-integrated complementary metal-oxide semiconductor receiver with avalanche photodetector (Electrical and Computer Engineering - MASC)
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Biological stability for vacuum UV advanced oxidation treatment of surface water (Chemical and Biological Engineering - MASC)
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Development of a quantitative risk analysis approach to evaluate the economic performance of an industrial-scale biorefinery (Chemical and Biological Engineering - PHD)
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Particle impingement onto a moving substrate (Mechanical Engineering - MASC)
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Development of nanofibrous target materials for short-lived isotope production (Materials Engineering - MSC)
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Dynamic behavior of fluid film bearings, applications in the flexible rotor instability analysis (Mechanical Engineering - PHD)
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Drying and co-pelletization of microalgae with sawdust (Chemical and Biological Engineering - PHD)
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Effect of electrolyte concentration in process water on flocculation (Mining Engineering - MASC)
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Displacement flow of miscible fluids with density and viscosity contrast (Mechanical Engineering - PHD)
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Cellulose nanocrystals aqueous suspensions as water-based lubricants (Mechanical Engineering - MASC)
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Impact of humidity, temperature, and particulate fouling on membrane-based energy exchangers (Mechanical Engineering - PHD)
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Analysis of data-at-rest security In smartphones (Electrical and Computer Engineering - PHD)
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Elastohydrodynamic interactions at small scales (Mechanical Engineering - PHD)
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Analysis and design of mimo heterogeneous cellular networks (Electrical and Computer Engineering - PHD)
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Electrochemical evaluation and modulation of surface wettability (Chemical and Biological Engineering - MASC)
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Seismic design and performance evaluation of dual-fused h-frame system (Civil Engineering - MASC)
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Interactive visual analytics for BIM compliance assessment and design decision-making (Civil Engineering - MASC)
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Automatic translucency detection of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) via deep learning methods (Electrical and Computer Engineering - MASC)
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An FPGA overlay architecture supporting software-like compile times during on-chip debug of high-level synthesis designs (Electrical and Computer Engineering - MASC)
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Exploring equitably high quality cancer survivorship care (Nursing - PHD)
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Effects of ground motion duration on the seismic performance and collapse capacity of timber structures (Civil Engineering - PHD)