Big Ideas for a Changing World

McMaster Civil Engineering and School of Earth, Environment & Society Professor, Paulin Coulibaly talks about managing flood risk in Canada, working with Global Water Futures and advocating for EDI at McMaster.

Coulibaly leads FloodNet, a nation-wide research network funded by NSERC to enhance flood forecasting and management capacity in Canada.

Coulibaly is also affiliated with the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health and is developing a more advanced hydrologic modelling tool in Canada as part of the Global Water Futures project.

Coulibaly is part of the African Caribbean Faculty Association at McMaster (ACFAM), a group that advocates for EDI at McMaster.

ACFAM has a mentorship program for black graduate students and researchers and are now putting together a mentorship document for new Black faculty hires as part of an initiative launched this past November, to appoint up to twelve emerging and established Black academics and scholars in each Faculty.

In Part 2 of this conversation, we reflect on more lessons learned in virtual teaching and learning, and McMaster's Provost Susan Tighe answers the question that's on all our minds: Will we return to campus this fall, and how?

Joining John Preston, Associate Dean for Research & External Relations are Ishwar K. Puri, McMaster’s Dean of Engineering; and Susan Tighe, McMaster’s Provost and Vice-President, Academic, and also a member of the Faculty of Engineering.

Produced by Jessie Park. Edited by Dan Kim.

Follow @mcmastereng on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for more updates.

In the first episode of 2021, we reflect on the biggest lessons McMaster Engineering learned in 2020 in online teaching and learning.

Joining John Preston, Associate Dean for Research & External Relations are Ishwar K. Puri, McMaster’s Dean of Engineering; and Susan Tighe, McMaster’s Provost and Vice-President, Academic, and also a member of the Faculty of Engineering.  

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we discuss what the future of engineering education holds, and our Provost answers the question that’s on all our minds: will we return to campus in the fall, and how?

Produced by Jessie Park. Edited by Dan Kim.

Follow @mcmastereng on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for more updates.

What’s the best cloth mask for the public to use? How can PPE be made to be more sustainable? Can imperfect use of imperfect masks still reduce COVID-19 spread?

Four experts from McMaster’s Centre of Excellence in Protective Equipment and Materials (CEPEM) answer frequently asked questions about cloth masks, and how they’re working with industry partners to improve the next generation of PPE in Canada:

CEPEM is Canada’s first and only research hub dedicated to developing, testing and validating PPE, from improving cloth masks for the general public to rethinking the design of PPE for healthcare workers.

Visit clothmasks.ca for up-to-date information on the most effective cloth masks for public use, mask cleaning and more. This website is co-led by Catherine Clase and Juan Jesus Carrero from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

What if eye drops and injections used to treat eye diseases could be made to last longer in the eye, improving patient outcomes and reducing visits to the doctor? What if this drug delivery method could be applied to the lung, potentially improving outcomes for COVID-19 patients?

In Episode 8, hear how McMaster engineers at the Sheardown Lab are doing just that.

Guests:

Heather Sheardown, a professor in Chemical Engineering and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Opthalmic Biomaterials

Fran Lasowski, the executive director for the C20/20 Innovation Hub and PhD graduate in Chemical Engineering

What are the challenges and advantages of e-learning? How will innovation culture shift? How can we make the most of the transformations to education that were required by the pandemic, but may carry on into the future?

In this episode, we play back a virtual panel discussion led by John Preston during this year's Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC) Industry Forum.

Special thanks to our panelists for their insights, and GEDC and Petrus for organizing the GEDC Industry Forum in partnership with McMaster Engineering.

Guests:

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @mcmastereng. Read more at www.eng.mcmaster.ca/news.

Hear how the McMaster Manufacturing Research Institute (MMRI) and Hamilton-based packaging company, Whitebird, teamed up to swiftly produce face shields for thousands of Canadian frontline workers since the start of the pandemic. 

Guests: 

Simon Oomen-Hurst, MMRI’s program manager

Peter Tamminga, Whitebird’s operations manager

Interviewed by: John Preston

Produced by: Jessie Park

Edited by: Dan Kim

What if we could create digital twins of cities and test how different re-opening scenarios will affect the city's population and infrastructure systems? Using network science, machine learning, systems analysis and optimization, McMaster researchers have created CityDNA, a technology that can do just that. They recently received funding from McMaster's COVID-19 Fund to use this technology to inform McMaster's re-opening plans.

GUESTS:

Wael El-Dakhakhni, professor in civil engineering and the McMaster School of Computational Science and Engineering.

Zoe Li, assistant professor in civil engineering.

Interviewed by: John Preston

Produced by: Jessie Park

Edited by: Dan Kim

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @mcmastereng. Read more at www.eng.mcmaster.ca/news.

Last year, a team of McMaster researchers made headlines with their invention which allows vaccines to be stored safely and affordably for weeks at a time at temperatures up to 40C.

Now, Carlos Filipe, co-author of the research paper is part of a five-person startup company called Elarex Inc. bringing this technology to market, opening the doors for life-saving anti-viral vaccines to reach remote and impoverished parts of the world. He is also the chair of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University.

Research Engineer Sahar Esmaeili Samani also shares her journey from graduate student to starting her work with Elarex in March 2020, right when the pandemic hit. 

Interviewed by: John Preston

Produced by: Jessie Park

Edited by: Jin Lee and Dan Kim

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @mcmastereng. Read more at www.eng.mcmaster.ca/news.

What if frequently touched surfaces like food packaging, door handles and bus railings could be coated with a plastic that repels bacteria and viruses?

McMaster engineers Leyla Soleymani and Tohid Didar, the lead creators of a self-cleaning plastic wrap called Repel Wrap, are working towards making this technology widely available. After confirming its effectiveness against viruses similar in structure to COVID-19, the team of engineers and health scientists are now testing the surface with the COVID-19 virus.

Guests:

Leyla Soleymani, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Miniaturized Biomedical Devices, Department of Engineering Physics 

Tohid Didar, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and the McMaster School of Biomedical Engineering

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @mcmastereng. Read more at https://www.eng.mcmaster.ca/news.