Mechanical, Automotive & Materials Engineering

Peter Frise is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation in style.

The UWindsor professor of mechanical, automotive and materials engineering and head of the AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence has received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal recognizing his outstanding contribution to Canada’s manufacturing and automotive sectors. The Canadian government created the medal to mark significant achievements in celebration of the jubilee year.

The west African state of Ghana has a booming lumber industry that produces a troublesome waste product – sawdust.

“They have to burn it just to get rid of it all,” says Muhammad Ahsan Pasha. “But what if it could be turned into fuel?”

Pasha leads a group of fourth-year mechanical engineering students working to make that dream come true. His team – Emma Ayieko, Vipandeep Benipal and Sukhjit Sandhu – presented the progress on their capstone project, designing a generator powered by biogas from sawdust, as part of a daylong series Friday.

A degree completion program allowing engineering students from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to finish their educations in Windsor represents a great collaborative partnership, says Saint Mary’s dean of science, Steven Smith.

“It will give our students a much broader range of options than they already have,” he said Tuesday. “Windsor has incredible programs with fantastic faculty and facilities.”

Certain people may be genetically predisposed to suffering negative side effects of living near wind turbines, according to an engineering professor studying the problem.