Capstone Perspectives: IoT sensor to improve learning and focus in classrooms, 2022 Capstone Faculty Award Winner!

Join us in congratulating ECE undergraduates Mitchell, Matthew, Lam, Valentine, and Larry for their accomplishment in receiving one of this year’s Faculty Awards at the 2022 Capstone Design and Innovation Day! We were able to connect with the team to ask about their work together on the capstone team, their excitement about their chosen project, and some of the challenges they were able to overcome together!

Which company did you work with?

We worked with Airtame, a company that builds wireless screen sharing devices for school and business settings headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.

What would be the “elevator pitch” for your project (i.e., what is your innovation, what problem does it solve, etc.)?

Studies have shown that environmental conditions such as CO₂, temperature and humidity exceeding certain thresholds can have a negative impact on the effective learning of students in classrooms. Our project lets the teacher know when the classroom conditions are becoming unfavourable to learning, and nudges them towards making changes to the classroom to help students learn more effectively.

What inspired you to pursue this particular project?

The project was well presented by the clients from the start of the project. This project also seemed like a good opportunity to work through and complete a proof of concept design from start to finish while involving multiple facets of electrical and computer engineering.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while working on your project?

The biggest challenge we faced was integrating our teams’ work together into one functioning unit. We split ourselves up into teams to satisfy hardware, firmware and user application requirements, and when it came time to consolidate our teams’ work into one working unit, we realized we had many slight inconsistencies to debug which took more time than we had anticipated.

What excited you the most about your project?

The experience of working with a group of bright and driven students in a simulated professional capacity!

What is the most interesting/surprising thing you learned while working on your project?

One surprising thing we learned throughout the project was just how much part availability can fluctuate. We would spend a considerable amount of time designing PCB revisions to a specific footprint for certain components, only to find months later when we wanted to make a second order that the part was no longer in stock and would not be for the foreseeable future. For this reason we selected several backup components that would satisfy the requirements of the project.

Capstone Perspectives: Hardware & Software biofeedback for Physiotherapy, 2022 Capstone Faculty Award Winner!

Join us in congratulating ECE undergraduates Warren, Stephanie, Gabriel, Hugh, and Jaiden for their accomplishment in receiving one of this year’s Faculty Awards at the 2022 Capstone Design and Innovation Day! We were able to connect with the team to ask about their work together on the capstone team, their excitement about their chosen project, and some of the challenges they were able to overcome together!

Which community partner did you work with?

The UBC Tendon Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation research group.

What would be the “elevator pitch” for your project (i.e., what is your innovation, what problem does it solve, etc.)?

PhysViz is an exercise-based telerehabilitation system. The package includes a Bluetooth-enabled load sensor and mobile application for providing biofeedback to patients, and a clinician-facing web portal for monitoring patients and updating exercise prescriptions.

The client’s system relied on an expensive dynamometer, so we developed a low-cost and scalable proprietary load sensor device from scratch. On the software side, in addition to user experience improvements requested by our client, we introduced exercise session tracking, self-assessment questionnaires, and direct messaging capabilities to the existing mobile app and web portal architectures.

What inspired you to pursue this particular project?

On a technical level, we pursued this project because we were interested in its hardware and software approach to assisting physiotherapy. Many current physiotherapy technologies are cumbersome, expensive, and often out of reach for most physiotherapy clinics creating a gap between the research realm and physiotherapists treating everyday clients. Given our diverse engineering backgrounds, we felt it was a good opportunity to address this biomedical issue through the generation of a novel and more accessible technology.

A number of us have also had experience struggling with rehabilitation either directly or through affected loved ones; those of us were eager to address a very relevant matter in our personal lives.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while working on your project?

With no load cell suppliers or printed circuit board fabricators in Canada, we had to outsource many of our hardware components overseas. International shipping incurred significant fees and several months in lead times, compounded by the global chip shortage and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affecting supply chains worldwide.

We mitigated this by prototyping and testing in parallel with the lengthy delivery periods, using the aforementioned commercial dynamometer as a reference for our final design’s expected performance. By carefully managing our time and individual member expertise, we delivered a functional prototype on schedule.

What excited you the most about your project?

Besides exercising the skills and knowledge we gained during our studies, this project challenged us in fields and aspects of engineering less familiar to us.

Our hardware sub-team engaged in a supply chain throughout our printed circuit board sourcing and manufacturing process, load cell testing and calibration efforts, and mechanical design iterations. Lacking any prior practical knowledge in frontend and backend development at first, our software sub-team was also virtually thrown into the deep end; self-studying mobile and web app architectures turned out to be a stimulating experience, however.

This year in capstone has been an exciting learning opportunity overall.

What is the most interesting/surprising thing you learned while working on your project?

It was interesting to put our previous internships and personal hardware and software project experiences into practice to develop a fully functional prototype for our client. Sourcing components was surprisingly difficult; we didn’t expect to take almost two months of searching before finally coming across an s-type load cell fitting our client’s form factor constraints and performance specifications.

What does the future hold for your project?

Although remote physiotherapy is not a new idea, PhysViz is a novel concept never before seen on the market.

PhysViz still has a ways to go before it is fit for wide-scale clinical use. For one, a rechargeable battery circuit could elevate the load sensor device’s efficiency and ease of use. The mobile and web apps could also use better backend security, and gamification features would help to maintain active patient engagement.

We look forward to seeing how far our client and their future capstone teams take PhysViz.

Capstone Perspectives: Monitoring Nature with AI Automatic Change Detection, 2022 Capstone Faculty Award Winner!

Join us in congratulating ECE undergraduates Ege Berk, John, Yan, Kerem, and Lemuel for their accomplishment in receiving one of this year’s Faculty Awards at the 2022 Capstone Design and Innovation Day! We were able to connect with the team to ask about their work together on the capstone team, their excitement about their chosen project, and some of the challenges they were able to overcome together!

Which community partner did you work with?

We had the opportunity to work with Korotu Technology; an innovative sustainable finance technology startup based in Toronto founded by Sean and Agata Rudd.

What would be the “elevator pitch” for your project (i.e., what is your innovation, what problem does it solve, etc.)?

The impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss are becoming more and more severe after billions of trees are lost every year due to deforestation. Immediate action is required to prevent further prohibited deforestation, and we believe that our easy-to-use nature monitoring mobile application, which tracks and visualizes deforestation changes in any area of interest, provides access to the general public to engage and be accountable in protecting nature while calling people to action in our attempt to mitigate deforestation.

What inspired you to pursue this particular project?

The project combines our interest in nature and sustainability alongside our passion in using engineering principles and technical skillset to tackle real-world problems. As climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss are some of the most critical problems we are facing today, we unite as a team and collaborate with Korotu technology to develop a mobile application that will call people to action against these serious issues.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while working on your project?

Designing the system-level architecture and training a decent machine learning model were the most challenging parts.

What excited you the most about your project?

When we were able to develop a classification algorithm and display the classified images on our front-end in an interactive way, we knew that the app would be useful for the general public. The deforestation changes between different years were evident and easy to see for the end-user, and the change metrics were simple and easy to understand. We were really excited as a team to see the app developing closer to an end-product and because we realize that the app has a lot of potential for real-life use cases, we believe that our mobile application can be beneficial to call people to action against climate change.

What is the most interesting/surprising thing you learned while working on your project?

We found a devastating amount of tree loss in Collingwood, Ontario from 2013 to 2021 after classifying the corresponding satellite images. This change was not as easy to notice by looking at the raw satellite images.

What does the future hold for your project?

Currently, our application supports only one type of nature change detection: deforestation. In the future, other natural changes such as glacier loss or erosion could also be integrated into our app, making it a one-stop application for nature change monitoring.

The application will also be integrated into Korotu Technology’s existing products and will potentially be used to attract new investors and raise awareness about current nature issues.

Dr Sudip Shekhar Wins Schmidt Polymaths Science Award!

We are very excited to announce that Dr. Sudip Shekhar, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awarded the Schmidt Polymaths Science award and is the first Canadian to do so! The Schmidt Polymaths Award is presented to ten recipients with remarkable research track-records and includes a grant to further fund their work. Each recipient is awarded US $500,000 annually for a period of up to 5 years, a total of up to US $2.5 million. This grant is intended to allow the exploration of potentially breakthrough ideas that may not otherwise receive adequate funding.

Dr. Shekhar plans to use the funding from the Schmidt Polymath Award to research circuit techniques to shrink the photonic microchip biosensor technology to a portable, disposable size. These biosensors have the potential to provide inexpensive, robust point-of-care biomedical testing, and improve accessibility to medical testing for remote communities and emergency services. This technology can also be used at drive through testing centers, drug stores, and at home. According to Dr. Shekhar, “Point-of-use diagnostics is a complex multidisciplinary research field, but I believe it is an area primed for the microchip revolution. Our scientific mission with this award will be to build disposable credit-card-sized test kits that give rich, multiplexed, quantitative data for viruses, cardiac, and neurological ailments.”

ECE has had the opportunity to interview Dr. Shekhar on his award and the future impacts of his work. We welcome you to read on to hear from Dr. Shekhar!

Dr. Shekhar, congratulations on winning the Schmidt Science Polymath Award! What does winning this award mean to you?

The Schmidt Science Polymath award is unique since it is meant to recognize prior path breaking successes in conducting multidisciplinary research. The award provides unrestricted gift funds to enable a pivot towards high-risk, high-reward research that may not be easy to fund from other sources if the research does not fit the mold. This recognition humbles me, and I am very excited to dream big and pursue research that could one day make significant changes to our society.

Can you give us a brief summary of your research so far and how the research development process has been? Any difficulties that were overcome, breakthroughs, etc.?

My research is at the junction of circuits and communication systems, photonics, physics, quantum mechanics, signal processing, computing, and machine learning. Each of them is a vast field, and I am obviously not an expert in all of them. Therefore, to conduct impactful research, our group spends considerable effort in understanding the big picture to pick meaningful problems to solve. This also requires fostering collaborations with colleagues at UBC and around the world and companies with a research bent. Once we understand and speak somewhat of a similar language, the partnerships are extremely rewarding. But at the same time, multidisciplinary research is challenging and takes time.

When you think back to when you started the multidisciplinary research that contributed to the award, why did you start in those areas in the first place?

I will give an example of silicon photonic systems, which require an understanding of photonic devices and their interplay and cointegration with electronic circuits. The pace of technology development in electronic integrated circuits has slowed considerably due to the laws of physics. This was evident in 2010 itself, when I was working as a Research Scientist at Intel Labs. At the same time, another technology leveraging the same silicon platform but incorporating photonics on the chip promised much higher speed, fueled by the speed of light. I started investigating silicon photonics and its cointegration with electronics – at Intel from 2010-2013, and then at UBC, and my group has had considerable success in shaping the industry roadmap. Silicon photonics also promises to enable entirely new applications in communications, computing, autonomous driving, and sensing, and my group is working in some of those areas.

What research are you planning to pursue as a Schmidt Polymath, and why will it be important in the years to come?

This Polymath award will enable a research pivot to work to democratize and decentralize medicine using silicon electronic-photonic integrated circuits. While commercial-grade platforms today offer quantitative gold-standard tests for nucleic acid and protein biomarkers, they require centralized laboratory analysis, trained technicians, long time-to-result, and expensive equipment. On the other hand, current rapid, low-cost assays like lateral-flow strips (e.g., pregnancy tests) tend to be qualitative and low-sensitivity. Biomarker testing cannot be ubiquitous until it reliably gives accurate, rapid, and cost-effective diagnoses in a user-friendly format.

Microchips can be built in the billions and cost pennies at such volume. Photonic microchips are highly sensitive biosensors to detect biomarkers, and the technology has already been proven commercially. Although the chips cost very little, the standard commercial-grade measurement equipment costs tens of thousands of dollars, sits on a lab bench, and discards most of the data due to its inherent architectural limitations.

Point-of-use diagnostics is a complex multidisciplinary research field, but I believe it is an area primed for the microchip revolution. We would utilize the Polymath award funding to research circuit techniques to shrink the equipment to a portable, disposable, inexpensive testing kit device. We already have a fantastic, multidisciplinary team with colleagues from ECE (Chrostowski, Mirabbasi, Jaeger), SBME (Cheung, Grist), Physics & QMI (Young), Pathology and Lab Medicine (Wellington), and have made early breakthroughs to realize such a vision.

What future impacts do you feel this research can have?

Our scientific mission with this award will be to build disposable credit-card-sized test kits that give rich, multiplexed, quantitative data for viruses, and cardiac and neurological ailments. If costing <$10, such kits will be a game-changing technology for isolated communities (e.g., rural territories) without centralized testing facilities, emergency services, drive-through testing, drug stores, and, in the long run, for at-home use.

Is there anything else that you would like the people reading this interview to know about your work and your research team?

We eagerly seek collaborative opportunities from experts in biomedical sample preparation, assay development, scalable microfluidics, point-of-care and point-of-use diagnostic applications. We are also looking to recruit several undergraduates, graduates, and postdoctoral fellows to help us with our ambitious goals.

This year, you won the Killam Teaching Prize at UBC, and now have been chosen as the first Canadian Schmidt Science Polymath. What is your secret?

I have always believed that a good research leader ought to be good in teaching. And conducting cutting-edge research helps in bringing a unique perspective to the classroom too.

Dr. Sudip Shekhar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. For more information on Dr. Shekhar and his research, visit his UBC ECE faculty page at https://ece.ubc.ca/Sudip-Shekhar/ or the Schmidt Futures announcement page for this year’s Schmidt Science Polymaths award: https://www.schmidtfutures.com/schmidt-futures-announces-recipients-of-schmidt-science-polymaths-award/

EmergeNeed Wins Treehacks 2022: How an ECE Master’s Student is Shaping the Future of Medical Diagnosis

Shreya Verma is a Master of Applied Science student in the UBC Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who has worked with the UBC Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver General Hospital to develop algorithms to detect skin cancer in its early stages. After being diagnosed herself with a potentially fatal tumor, and her recovery from her diagnosis, Shreya was inspired to pursue a research career in the field of early medical diagnosis. Shreya is also passionate about biomedical AI and is currently developing a deep learning algorithm to detect sepsis in infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. As part of the team, Shreya’s project EmergeNeed has won the Treehacks 2022 Covid Challenge and Sponsor’s Challenge, which we were excited to connect with her about to learn more about her story.

Read on to learn more about EmergeNeed, Shreya’s experience in our ECE department, and some great advice from her for any students currently looking for help or facing difficulties or mental health concerns in their programs.

Can you tell me a bit about EmergeNeed?

EmergeNeed addresses three main areas of healthcare improvement. To begin, there is no easy way for an individual to know how crowded a hospital will be at a given time. Especially in the current pandemic environment, users would benefit from information such as crowd level and estimated travel times to different hospitals near them. Knowing this information would help them avoid unnecessary crowds and the risk of COVID19 exposure, receiving faster medical attention and an enhanced treatment experience. Additionally, such a system allows hospital staff to operate more effectively and begin triaging earlier since they will receive a heads-up about incoming (non-ambulance) patients before they arrive.

Moreover, online information is often unreliable, and specific demographics may not have access to a primary care provider to ask for advice during an emergency. Our interface allows users to access on-call tele-network services specific to their symptoms easily and therefore receive advice about options such as monitoring at home, urgent care, or an emergency hospital.

Finally, not knowing what to expect contributes to the elevated stress levels surrounding an emergency. Having an app service that encourages users to actively engage in health monitoring and providing tips about what to expect and how to prepare in an emergency will make users better equipped to handle these situations when they occur. Our dashboard offers tools such as a check-in journal to log their mood gratitudes and vent about frustrations. The entries are sent for sentiment analysis to help monitor mental states and offer support. Additionally, the dashboard allows providers to assign goals to patients and monitor progress. For example, taking antibiotics every day for 1 week or not smoking. Furthermore, the user can track upcoming medical appointments and access key medical data quickly such as their COVID19 vaccination card, immunization forms, and health insurance.

What inspired you to create EmergeNeed?

“Emergency” + “Need” = “EmergeNeed”

Imagine a pleasant warm Autumn evening, and you are all ready to have Thanksgiving dinner with your family. You are having a lovely time, but suddenly you notice a batch of red welts, swollen lips, and an itchy throat. Worried and scared, you rush to the hospital just to realize that you will have to wait for another three hours to see a doctor due to the excess crowd. This is exactly what inspired us to create EmergeNeed.

Now imagine that you could quickly talk to a medical professional who could recommend going to urgent care instead to treat your allergic reaction. Or, if you were recommended to seek emergency hospital care, you could see the estimated wait times at different hospitals before you left. Such a system would allow you to get advice from a medical professional quickly, save time waiting for treatment, and decrease your risk of COVID exposure by allowing you to avoid large crowds

How do you feel about having EmergeNeed win Treehacks’ 2022 Covid Challenge and Sponsor’s Challenge?

I had applied to be a part of TreeHacks 3 years ago and I was not selected. So this year to be not only selected but also to win the challenge feels surreal! Sounds cliché, but I am glad I didn’t give up. From team building to presenting my project to 50+ people, it was a great experience. It was a bummer that I could not attend it in-person, but I definitely will next year! A friend of mine told me during grad school small wins are important and this win came at the time I needed it the most.

Why did you choose to study at ECE?

I was diagnosed with a potentially fatal tumor which majorly impacted me physically and mentally. However, it also led me to the brilliant acknowledgment that timely and good quality treatment had saved my life. It was at that moment that I decided to study and explore the field concerning early diagnosis of medical irregularities,playing my role as a mindful engineer by contributing to saving lives. This led to me to apply for the Visiting International Research Student position offered by UBC. I worked with the Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver General Hospital to develop algorithms to detect skin cancer in its early stages. My time here made me realize that there is no better place than the ECE department at UBC to work towards my goals.

How does your career path and graduate experience connect to your current position?

I was always fascinated with Biomedical AI. Currently, I am currently a part of Dr. Guy Dumont’s research team at BC Children’s Hospital. My team and I are working on the estimation of respiratory rate and heart rate of infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit using RGBD data. I have learnt alot about my field by taking exceptional courses offered by professors at UBC, such as Advanced Machine Learning, Trustworthy Machine Learning, and Deep Learning in Digital Media, to name a few.

What advice do you have for students who may be struggling or feel as though they are not doing enough?

Just three words – Hang in there. I started my Masters during COVID in September 2020. I didn’t know anybody and was too shy to reach out to other students over Zoom. I felt I was not doing well in terms of academics, research, basically just letting everyone down. On top of that, living in such an expensive place as Vancouver is stressful, especially when you are an international student. I am sharing this so that I can let my peers or even incoming grad students know that it is okay to feel that you are not enough and that everyone goes through this phase. I have always relied on UBC Applied Science counseling services when I feel overwhelmed (https://students.engineering.ubc.ca/health-and-wellness/). Another thing that helped me is being a part of the ECEGSA. I met so many fellow grad students and also organized fun activities like skiing at Grouse mountain, coffee socials, and a board game night! I truly believe “One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide” and that is what I am striving for.

What are you looking forward to in the future?

I am right now working towards finishing up my Masters. With that I am also preparing for job interviews (so A LOT of Leetcode). I am very inspired by a fellow graduate student that made it to Forbes 30 under 30, and that is what I am working towards!

What are some of your favorite activities to help you unwind while you’re working or studying?

I am an outdoor person! I am out hiking or skiing every other weekend! I love playing basketball, so I am also found on the court very often.

ECE Professor wins 2022 IEEE Cyril Veinott Electromechanical Energy Conversion Award!

Dr. Juri Jatskevich, a UBC professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has won the 2022 IEEE PES Cyril Veinott Electromechanical Energy Conversion Award! This award is given to those who have made outstanding contributions to the field of electromechanical energy conversion, and is administered by the IEEE PES Awards Committee. Dr Jatskevich is recognized for his contributions to electrical machine models for transient simulations of electromechanical energy conversion in power systems.

Dr. Jatskevich received his Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Ukrainian National Agricultural University, and completed both his Master’s and Doctorate at Purdue University. He has chaired the IEEE CAS Power Systems & Power Electronic Circuits Technical Committee and is an editor of a number of IEEE publications. His research areas in the ECE department with his students include power and energy grids, power electronic systems, electrical machines and drives, and advanced modeling and simulation. He is part of the UBC Electric Power and Energy Systems group, whose work is focused on developing models and software for the analysis of electromagnetic transients in power systems and power electronic circuits.

To learn more about Dr. Juri Jatskevich, please visit his faculty page and researcher profile.

ECE PhD Student Wins IEEE ICC 2022 Best Paper Award

Zihuan Wang, a PhD student in UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering, received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Dalian University of Technology (DLUT), Dalian, China, in 2017 and 2020, respectively. Zihuan has several awards to her name, including the National Scholarship of DLUT, a UBC Four Year Fellowship, a Mitacs Accelerate Fellowship, and a Graduate Support Initiative (GSI) Award from the ECE Department. Most recently though, Zihuan won the Best Paper Award at the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Communications!

We are excited to share an interview with Zihuan below, where we connected with her about the award, her research focusing on machine learning applications in wireless systems and integrated sensing, and her future plans!

Congratulations on winning the IEEE ICC 2022 Best Paper Award! How do you feel about receiving this award?

It is wonderful to receive this award! I feel very encouraged by this acknowledgement and recognition of my work. It motivates me and strengthens my confidence in continuing my research in this area. And I am greatly thankful to my supervisor Prof. Vincent Wong who has suggested this research topic to me and provides me continual support and helpful guidance.

What topic are you researching for your PhD and what is it that excites you about this topic?

My research areas include the applications of machine learning techniques in wireless networks. In particular, I developed a deep neural network for traffic prediction in wireless networks and I tested its performance using a real-world collected dataset. I felt very excited when I first saw the greater performance improvement of my proposed approach than the other schemes, and realized how my research work can help the real-world wireless systems.

What has your career path looked like so far? How did you end up at ECE, and why did you choose our department?

I obtained my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in China. After that, I applied for the Ph.D study in UBC ECE. I would like to become a researcher in wireless communications in the future. To gain a wider and deeper vision in research, UBC ECE is a perfect choice for me because of its advanced resources. Also, I was interested in Prof. Vincent Wong’s research areas, and looking forward to joining his research lab.

Where do you hope you’ll be in 5 years?

I hope at that time I am still passionate about researching wireless communications. I hope to become a researcher who can contribute to the development of wireless networks.

What do you like to do outside of work/research and what makes these activities enjoyable for you?

I really love the beautiful environment in Vancouver. Outside of work, I usually go hiking. I feel relaxed during hiking, and it is a lot of fun to explore new places in nature when going on a hike. I also love watching movies, as I can see various worlds, feel different emotions, and learn new things.

For any inquiries, Zihuan can be contacted at zihuanwang@ece.ubc.ca

Meet ECE’s 2022 3-Minute Thesis Winners!

We are excited to introduce you to the winners of ECE’s departmental heat last term, and share a snapshot into their research and their experiences so far in ECE! Congratulations to Ivelina Daiss, Hooman Vaseli, and Jonas Welsch on their successful presentations!

3MT (3-Minute Thesis), is a competition held throughout UBC where graduate students are challenged to present their research in just three minutes to a non-specialist audience! Individual departments hold their own heats to determine which students from the department will go on to compete in the UBC-wide competition. Ivelina, Hooman, and Jonas were our ECE winners this year.

We connected with Ivelina and Hooman about their experiences in ECE and in the 3MT competition, where they shared their favorite parts about their programs as well as some tips for their younger selves!

What is the topic of your research?

Ivelina: I am part of the Earthquake Early Warning for the Smart City using 5G (EEW-SC) project. The project belongs to the I2Sim group headed by Dr. Jose Marti in the ECE Department and Dr. Carlos Ventura in the Department of Civil Engineering. We are designing a modern earthquake early warning application and working with Rogers Communications to verify its deployment for Vancouver. My thesis is related to providing an IoT solution for the EEW-SC application. I worked on setting up and testing a network of sensors for collecting seismic data during an earthquake.

Hooman: Broadly, I am researching machine learning and deep learning methods for medical imaging applications. Specifically, in my lab, RCL (Robotics and Control Lab), our group focuses on ultrasound images of the heart (called echo) and prostate to automate the analysis of such data and assist the clinicians. My target is to improve the stroke risk assessment through the use of deep-learning-based analysis of heart ultrasound images. So, I’d like to say I’m specializing in broken hearts! 😉

What inspired you to study this topic?

Ivelina: I feel that my work on this project is a great way to contribute to the well-being of the society I live in. In my undergraduate studies at UBC, I was introduced to Dr. Marti’s extensive expertise in systems and disaster response and management and I really wanted to join his team. In addition, working with industry partners, in particular with Rogers Communications, provided me with an experience few graduate students are able to have.

Hooman: I was first inspired to pursue a biomedical specialization during my undergraduate degree at UBC because, from my childhood, I remember how in the Star Wars universe the technology was so advanced that prosthetic arms and legs could let the user feel and control them as if they were real limbs. I got into the field of machine learning for medical imaging thanks to my current supervisor (Prof. Purang Abolmaesumi) who introduced me to the field when he offered me my first co-op job at RCL after finishing my 2nd year of undergrad at UBC. Working in such a cutting-edge field using real data to have an impact was so satisfying that I decided to continue my graduate studies as a Ph.D. student in the same lab. In 2020 when I started my Ph.D., I got to know about all the ongoing projects in RCL, and this specific project to improve stroke risk assessment by analyzing echo data seemed to me as one of the most impactful projects, especially because stroke is the 2nd leading cause of death worldwide. And honestly, this has been one of the most persistent reasons that have been driving me to do research in the field.

If you could go back in time and meet yourself at the start of your degree, what advice would you give yourself?

Ivelina: I would advise myself to take as many courses as I can. I advise future graduate students to benefit as much as possible from the extensive course offering in ECE. There are many graduate level courses with instructors who are on the cutting edge of research. Taking advantage of the knowledge they communicate is one of the best ways to gain the most from your graduate experience.

Hooman: Take it easy Hooman! Focus more on the tasks at hand rather than thinking of all the things you can do over several years at the same time so you don’t get overwhelmed. Also, celebrate every achievement you get, no matter how small. You’ll get refueled and morale boosts that you’ll need in the difficult path of research.

What made you want to participate in the 3MT competition? What was your favourite part of the experience?

Ivelina: My initial motivation to participate was to spread awareness of the Earthquake Early Warning for the Smart City using 5G project. I also felt that the preparation for the competition would help me to set in perspective what is important to communicate in my thesis. My favourite part was the preparation for the competition. I found that the Department of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies offers extensive resources for our 3MT preparation, and I benefited a lot from the coaching sessions they offered.

Hooman: Other than the prize money, it felt really good to get a platform and present my work to people whom I had not known previously and get acknowledgment for all my efforts. Also, presenting to such an audience was well outside of my comfort zone which by itself is very rewarding. My favorite part was getting to know about all the other cool projects and their researchers in the community and making new friends.

What are you hoping to work on in the future/after your program is over?

Ivelina: I would like to apply my skills and knowledge in a way that benefits society. Working on projects in the IoT space for Smart Cities and Smart Energy and supporting new generation communications networks aligns with my perspective that our quality of life can be improved through conscientious application of technology.

Hooman: I am aiming to work in the industry after graduation, but I really hope what I’d be doing is impactful for the greater good of society rather than just making more profit for the companies. Because for me, nothing can be more satisfying than knowing what I work on makes a real difference in the world.

What non-academic experience has made your time at UBC memorable so far?

Ivelina: The people I have met, both during my undergraduate and graduate time at UBC, have made the greatest impact in my life. I am grateful for the relationships I have built with my undergraduate friends and my current colleagues. I continue to draw inspiration from them and I am so proud to see them succeed.

Hooman: Honestly, the pandemic and remote work made it really hard to get the full experience of UBC. Thankfully, I was here during my undergrad and campus has started reopening. Based on my undergrad experience and what I plan to do in the future, I’d say all the events that I’ve attended and will attend, especially the UBC signature events like Storm the Wall and the Day of the Longboat, are what make my UBC experience memorable.

Congratulations again for all your hard work Ivelina, Hooman, and Jonas!

To anyone interested in taking part in future 3MT heats, stay tuned for our call for participants early next year for the 2023 3MT Competition!

Ivelina is a student in ECE’s MASc program. To connect with her about her 3MT experience, her research, or her MASc program, Ivelina is happy to connect via LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ivelinadaiss

Hooman is a student in ECE’s PhD program. To connect with him about his 3MT experience, his research, or his PhD program, Hooman is happy to connect via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hoomanvaseli

Alumni Perspectives – Sebastian Zhou, SoC Global Routing Techniques

Sebastian Zhou is a PhD alumni from our UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering department and part of UBC’s System-on-a-Chip Research Lab.

Sebastian’s PhD research focused on the optimization of System-on-a-Chip global routing techniques, and he has worked on projects developing routability-driven routing strategies. Prior to becoming a doctoral student, Sebastian worked as a Research and Development Engineer at Blackcomb Design Automation, where he designed and developed algorithms to improve hardware repairability. He has also worked as a Research and Development Technical Intern at Synopsys Inc. Sebastian was part of the PrimeTime team, helping to develop one of the best timing signoff solutions in the industry.

Sebastian joins us in an interview where he shares how he became interested in System-on-a-Chip and what excites him about his work, suggestions he would give to his younger self, as well as his talents for go-karting!

Your work mainly focuses on System on a Chip (SoC) global routing techniques. How did you get started studying this topic?

It was the start of the second year of my PhD program- I had just finished all my coursework and felt every bit of myself ready to dive into the world of research. I started working part-time at a local Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company in Vancouver. During this period, I realized that there are so many real-world problems waiting to be optimized, and there is so much room for improvement in SoC global routing. Therefore, it was at that moment I decided to dedicate my Ph.D. life to it.

Why is it important to study SoC? What future impacts could this research have?

Studying how to design better SoCs is very crucial for improving our everyday lives. Let’s think about the things that we can’t live without nowadays like cellphones and computers. They all have chips in them. Even the microwave has chips. I would argue that SoC is the foundation that supports modern human civilization. My research finds ways to accelerate the SoC production while ensuring chips are as powerful as they can be, so that (hopefully) people may get their hands on new iPhones even more frequently.

What aspects of this research did you find most exciting?

During my research, I have developed an encoding/decoding algorithm that bridges the gap between academic and industrial data formats. This algorithm enables me to work on the real chips. So, when I first saw the positive results from my experiments that my work brings to the “real world products,” I felt excited, as if I had changed the world. Of course, this conceit didn’t last long as I recovered my rationality after a good night’s sleep.

If you could go back in time and meet yourself at the start of your Ph.D., what is some advice you would give your past self?

Be more prepared, both mentally and physically. Doing a Ph.D. is nothing like doing a master’s or bachelor’s program. You will encounter hardships that no one has experienced, which means you have no one to talk to when you are down. You will face failures that you have to spend night after night solving, which means you don’t get to sleep. And even if you are in bed, you can’t sleep at all – so just be prepared. However, there are many online mental health resources that helped me throughout my degree.

You also work as a Professional Development TA Facilitator for the Faculty of Applied Science. Why is student learning important to you?

Having a good student learning atmosphere is definitely essential. I’ve been there since I was a first-time TA. I didn’t know what a TA should do, or how I should do it. I felt helpless. Although it didn’t take long to get on the right track, the experience wasn’t actually pleasant for both the students and me. I don’t want the same thing to happen to others. Therefore as a senior, I became a TA facilitator to get new TAs ready by sharing my own experience and real teaching scenarios.

Getting a Ph.D. can get pretty intense, what are your favourite things to do to unwind?

I find myself adventurous when it comes to off-work life. To get away from intensive work, I love to do intensive sports. I drive the go-kart regularly, and I am relatively competitive in this sport. By ‘relatively’ I mean I am usually the best in every day drop-in racings, and I get into the top 10 weekly rankings. However, when it comes to the prized competition and things are getting very serious with my studies, I become just a participant rather than a competitor. Now that I have graduated, maybe it’s time for me to get that trophy!

Where do you hope you’ll be in 5 years?

In 5 years, I hope that I am still working in this field, either in academia or industry. I want to proudly say to the world that some product has my work embedded in it, and that it has been benefiting the world in many aspects.

Congratulations, 2022 Graduates!

Dear Class of 2022,

Congratulations on completing your program and being a member of the ECE graduating class of 2022! This is a wonderful accomplishment, and we are proud to be your staff and faculty that have worked with you throughout your degrees. It means a lot to us that you have achieved this milestone.

To celebrate this accomplishment, we invite you to attend our graduation brunch on June 1st at 11:00 in the Kaiser Atrium. At the event we will be excited to see you and provide you with an ECE gift to remember your program by. We invite you to stay in touch with us wherever life takes you after graduation, and we are always happy to welcome you back to meet other students, attend our social events, or simply to say hello.

Again, congratulations, and all the best in the next stage after graduation!

– Steve Wilton

On behalf of your ECE Department

Sign your name and send a message to your graduating class on the 2022 virtual yearbook!

ECE Graduation 2022 Yearbook

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