Humber College President’s Awards 2020

Research Excellence Award

About the Award

The Research Excellence Award is designed to recognize full-time faculty and staff members who have made significant contributions to the growth of Humber’s research programs, and may include contributions such as:

• involvement of students as research assistants. Ideally, research participation will enable students to apply concepts they are learning in their program(s) and develop industry-relevant skill sets;

• impact the researcher’s field or industry (e.g., patents) and Humber students and/or curriculum;

• explore and/or improve emerging trends and technologies benefitting the industry and the institution; and

• foster community development through social innovation.

Maryam Davoudpour, PhD., Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology

2020 President’s Awards Recipient, Research Excellence Award

Humber value/s: Innovation, Health and Well-Being

Maryam is a successful researcher and a passionate professor. She is a Professor of Electronics at FAST since 2016. She brings extensive industrial and academic experience and research knowledge. Maryam is the Chair of IEEE WIE Toronto Section and Vice-Chair of IEEE Toronto Section. She successfully secured the IEEE Toronto Section scholarship for Humber (one of the exclusive scholarship recipients). Maryam’s field of expertise spans IoT, context-aware systems, Petri Nets, AI, nonlinear modelling & simulation, digital signal processing (DSP), knowledgebased expert systems and ontology.

She received the New Frontiers in Research Fund–Exploration Award in 2019 for $250,000, as co-applicant, in collaboration with the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. This unique opportunity provides a new research activity for Humber to participate in one of the most demanding topics in health technology today.

It is an honour to receive this award and to be recognized by Humber College for my achievements and contributions. I am extremely proud and grateful. Like many other faculty and researchers at Humber, I deeply believe in uplifting the value of humanity. This award is very special to me and I am passionate to further contribute to this research project and to impact change that will have positive health benefits towards the betterment of human life.”

Smart Garments: AI Therapy for Your Muscles

In Canada, 230,000 individuals are admitted annually to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) due to critical illness, and up to 50% will develop a condition known as ICU Acquired Weakness (ICUAW).

Muscle inactivity and unloading as a result of continual bedrest, sedation and at times paralysis required for treatment of the unstable patient result in inadvertent muscle injury. ICUAW increases ICU mortality, and weakness can be permanent, resulting in life-long physical disability, thereby increasing health resource utilization and health care costs (up to $3.5 million/person 1-year post-ICU discharge). There is no effective therapy to prevent or treat ICUAW.

The objective is to create novel smart textile garments (leg stockings and arm sleeves), enabling automated, sustained neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) therapy to prevent ICUAW. If solved, this challenge — requiring coordination of expertise from engineering, industrial design, physical therapy, and medicine—will enable an ICU therapist to easily and quickly apply, coordinate, and optimize individualized NMES therapy to all patients in the ICU. Full or partial prevention of ICUAW will decrease ICU mortality, mitigate subsequent physical disability, enabling return to work and continued independent living, and decrease health resource utilization and health care costs post ICU discharge.

Dennis Kappen, PhD., Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology

Humber value/s: Innovation, EDI, Health & Well-Being

Dennis’ field of expertise spans computer science, gamification research and design, industrial and user interaction and brand experience design. He has been the recipient of several awards. The most recent: Co-recipient of the President’s Extra Mile Award in 2020 for organizing an online platform, due to Covid-19, for the Industrial Design show. Assisted by fellow professor Catherine Chong, Dennis used this platform to enable students to present their theses virtually, which was a considerable success, incorporating industry engagement, resulting in job opportunities for the participating students.

ORI has been extremely supportive in connecting subject-matter experts from multiple disciplines, corporate partners and students with the common goal of creating new knowledge and nurturing human capital.”

The motivation, according to Dennis, behind any research should be about nuanced problem definitions, understanding the problem and designing based on evidence.

Here is a short overview of the PhD research that Dennis conducted, a collaborative endeavour that required research ethics application approvals from both Humber College and Ontario Tech University (UOIT). Dennis accords thanks to the massive support he received from Humber, including the utilization of resources like the Live Labs and the cross-discipline between the Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology and Faculty of Media & Creative Arts to materialize the triumphant result emerging from what he calls ‘organized chaos’.

Technology Facilitates Physical Activity Through Gamification: A Thematic Analysis of an 8-Week Study

Dennis informs, “Our paper studied the usage of gamification elements over an 8-week period in the context of older adults’ physical activity (PA). Thematic Analysis of the interview data showed distinct variations in emergent themes for three groups, indicating that gamification elements can be customized to participants for the 50+ age group and tailored to suit their current health conditions and prevalent barriers, thus facilitating adaptive engagement in PA. The emergent themes, motivational affordances and design guidelines are valuable for researchers and designers of PA technology and will help to advance the development of gamified PA technology for older adults.”

Research helps us understand the fundamental human values which serve as a starting point to define evidencebased strategies for improving human lifestyle through design.”

Dennis Kappen, PhD., Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology