Mirza Sarwar
Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD)
Transparent and Flexible Tactile Interface for Human Computer Interaction
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)
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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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mooney, Patrick | School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture | sustainable development; urban biological diversity; environmental restoration; wetland restoration; therapeutic landscapes; sustainable development; urban biological diversity; urban ecosystems; environmental management in urban planning; birds in urban environments; habitat management; Japanese gardens; habitats, Sustainable landscape planning, ecological restoration, design studio, evironmental issues |
| Nagamune, Ryozo | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Control System, Servo-Control, Mechatronics, control engineering, robust control, modeling, wind turbine control, solar themal system control, automotive engine control, optimization |
| Nasiopoulos, Panos | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Interactive multimedia (eg, iDTV, DVD), video broadcasting and streaming, multimedia middleware, video indexing and retrieval, digital video watermarking, next generation video and audio processing and compression |
| Neumann, Oliver | School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture | Digital Fabrication, Concepts of Context, Wood Construction, Contemporary Architecture Discourse, Digital technology in the building process, contemporary fabrication technologies |
| Nojeh, Alireza | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Nanostructures (esp based on carbon nanotubes), controlled nanofabrication, electron emission phenomena, electron microscopy, modeling and simulation of nanoscale systems |
| Oliffe, John | School of Nursing | Suicide prevention, depression, smoking, mental health and illness, men's health, prostate cancer, masculinity, fathers, incarcertion, support groups |
| Ollivier-Gooch, Carl | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Numerical Analysis, Fluid Mechanics, Computer Sciences and Mathematical Tools, Algorithm Development for Computational Fluid Dynamics , Error and Stability Analysis for Unstructured Mesh Methods, Unstructured Mesh Generation, Applied Aerodynamics |
| Olson, James | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Application of Physics and Fluid Mechanics to Problems Associated with the Pulp and Paper Industry, Mechanical Energy Reduction in Mechanical Pulping |
| Ordonez, Martin | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Energy systems, renewable energy, wind power, solar power, battery systems, fuel cells, electric vehicles, smart grid. |
| Pattabiraman, Karthik | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Software Reliability, Computer Security, Fault-tolerant computing, Software Security, Computer System Reliability, Computer Failures, Safety-critical computer systems, software failures, software faults, hardware faults, hardware failures |
| Pawlik, Marek | Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering | Surface chemistry, Adsorption of polymers and surfactants, Process water and reagent chemistry, rheology of mineral suspensions, interparticle and interfacial phenomena |
| Phani, Srikantha | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Dynamics of multiscale materials, structures and devices, Applied Mechanics, Micromechanics |
| Phinney, Alison | School of Nursing | Capacities of older people for successfully coping with the functional consequences of aging and disease |
| Ponga de la Torre, Mauricio | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Spallation in Metals; Sub-linear scaling methods for calculating crystal defects using DFT; |
| Poole, Warren | Department of Materials Engineering | Advanced aluminum alloys, High strengths, high formable steels, Metal matrix composites, Microstructure/property models |
| Poursartip, Anoush | Department of Materials Engineering | Polymer matrix composite materials |
| Ripeanu, Matei | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Computer Systems, Distributed Systems, High Performance Computing, Storage Systems, Data Analytics , Graph Analytics , Social Networks |
| Rodney, Patricia | School of Nursing | Healthcare ethics; Nursing ethics; Nursing workplaces; Healthcare equity; Ethics and policy; Moral distress and moral climate |
| Roecker, Inge | School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture | Social Equity, sustainable forms of urban habitation, social and cultural entities, urban living and communities, comtemporary programming, cultural context, sustainable building |
| Roehr, Daniel | School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture | Sustainable communities, sustainable design, materials and construction, landscape architecture, integration of living roofs as holitstic system for stormwater management |
| Rogak, Steven | Department of Mechanical Engineering | Aerosols (their properties, strategies to minimize their creation and reducing aerosol concentrations where people spend most of their time |
| Rohling, Robert | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering | Medical Imaging, Medical Information Systems, Robotics, Interventional Ultrasound, 3D Imaging, Spatial Compounding, Robotic System Calibration, Elastography, BioMEMS, Biomedical Engineering, Medical imaging and information systems, robetics, ultrasound imaging in 2D and 3D, biomedical technologies |
| Rubin, Julia | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering | Computer Systems, Software (Tools), Computer Science and Statistics, security and privacy in mobile applications, energy-efficiency in mobile and cloud software, compositional and collaborative software development, microservice-based applications |
| Rysanek, Adam | School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture | Environmental Systems |
| Saewyc, Elizabeth | School of Nursing | Homeless or street involved youth, sexual minority youth, sexual exploitation of youth, discrimination, trauma and resilience., Youth health issues, stigma, violence, trauma, adolescent health, protective factors, sexual minority, homeless, immigrant, indigenous |
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Graduate Student Profiles
Alumni on Success
Recent Thesis Submissions
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Investigating the causes of software technical debt at the architectural level (Electrical and Computer Engineering - MASC)
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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)