Scholarship Profile

Graduate student researchers play a significant role in the research projects that CITO – A Division of OCE Inc. supports. Working under the guidance of the lead researcher, graduate students frequently make a considerable impact on the success of a research project.

CITO has created several vehicles to highlight excellence among CITO-supported graduate student researchers, including:

The annual Student Research Excellence Scholarship. Scholarship awards totalling $30,000 have been presented to six students this year.
The winners for best poster at CITO’s annual conference

These scholarship and poster award winners profiled here are among the finest graduate student researchers working in Ontario today:
Research Excellence Scholarships
CITO awards Research Excellence Scholarships in recognition of exceptional graduate students whose CITO-supported research has created new knowledge, technology or advancement in their field of study.
Candidates for this award are nominated by their professor with submissions reviewed by an independent panel. Each nomination is evaluated on the quality of the research, the student’s impact on the CITO project, that quality of the student’s collaboration with industry, and the commercialization potential of the research.

Name: Svetlana Kiritchenko
University: University of Ottawa
Supervising Professor: Dr. Stan Matwin (co-supervisor Dr. F. Famili NRC IIT)
Potential Application Area: Internet applications, email classification
Supported Through: CITO Project Round: 6.1
Project Title: Information Extraction

Profile in Excellence

Ms. Svetlana Kiritchenko, PhD candidate in the School of Information Technology and Engineering at the University of Ottawa, is researching a technology that will improve email management software. AmikaNow! partnered with Ms. Kiritchenko, Dr. Matwin, and CITO to develop the document filtering artificial intelligence technology that is predicted to fill an opening in the IT industry that still remains mostly unexplored. “The project’s goal is to improve the commercial mail management software produced by AmikaNow! by embedding a Machine Learning technology that learns accurate classification models in the presence of category hierarchies and temporal attributes. Ms. Kiritchenko earned her M.A.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Moscow State University and is a recipient of the Government of Ontario-AmikaNow! graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology.

Name: Mahmoud Taherzadeh
University: University of Waterloo
Supervising Professor: Dr. Amir K. Khandani
Potential Application Area: Next-generation wireless systems (4G)
Supported Through: CITO Project Round: 6.1
Project Title: MIMO OFDM for 4th generation wireless systems
Additional Authors: Dr. H. Nikopour, postdoctoral fellow, Coding and Signal Transmission Laboratory

Profile in Excellence

Mr. Mahmoud Taherzadeh, who is currently working towards his PhD. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Waterloo, in association with Nortel Networks, has developed a novel space-time transmission scheme for the open-loop MIMO-OFDM systems suitable for next generation mobile systems. Nortel Networks consequently filed a patent for Mr Taherzadeh’s work. Mr. Taherzadeh earned his B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Iran. Mr. Taherzadeh is the recipient of several awards including the Certificate of Achievement from Nortel Networks in 2004, five Faculty of Engineering Awards from the University of Waterloo between 2002-2004, and a gold medal in the Iranian Mathematics Olympiad in 1995.

Name: Guoli Li
University: University of Toronto
Supervising Professor: Dr. Hans-Arno Jacobsen
Potential Application Area: Computing systems
Supported Through: CITO Project Round: 6.1
Project Title: Federated Publish/Subscribe with Content-Based Routing for Business Process Execution over Service Grids

Profile in Excellence

Ms. Guoli Li, a research assistant and Computer Science PhD. candidate at the University of Toronto, is researching “distributed content-based publish/subscribe for process execution over service grids.” Business partner Cybermation Inc. is interested in Ms. Li’s research to the extent that negotiations for two patents and an exclusive license are in progress. Ms. Li is a contributor to at least five separate project demonstrations at the University of Toronto, CITO showcases, and at the partner’s facility. Ms Li first earned her B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. in Computer Science at the Xi’An Jiaotong University in Xi’An, Shaanxi, China. Ms Li moved to Canada in 2003 to earn and M.A.Sc from the University of Toronto.

Name: Rong Chai
University: McMaster University
Supervising Professor: Dr. Kon Max Wong
Potential Application Area: Wireless communications
Supported Through: Champion of Innovation Round 1
Project Title: Solitons for Multiplexing in Data Communications

Profile in Excellence

Ms. Rong Chai, a PhD. candidate in Electrical Engineering at McMaster University, and a teaching assistant in the same department since 2004, is also a research assistant at the university to study a soliton multiplexing communication system. “In this project, we propose to employ solitons in a multiplexing scheme because of their various desirable properties for communications such as their mutual interference, their time-bandwidth efficiency, their relative ease to generate, as well as their robustness to noise,” says Dr. Wong. Ms. Chai’s research areas of interest include data communication and signal processing; waveform design and soliton communication; and wireless communication networks including radio resources management, access control and routing protocols.

Name: Bruce Tsuji
University: Carleton University
Supervising Professor: Dr. Gitte Lindgaard
Potential Application Area: Alternative aids for the visual impaired
Supported Through: CITO Student Internship
Project Title: Out of the Desktop

Profile in Excellence

Mr. Bruce Tsuji, who earned his B.Sc. in Experimental Psychology and his M.A.Sc. in Cognitive Psychology, is working towards his PhD. in Human Oriented Technology at Carleton University. He is pioneering technology that essentially allows people with visual disabilities to function in a world of sight through sound. A prototype technology based on the research allows a camera cell phone user to capture the image of text, receives the image at a server with “optical character recognition (OCR) and text-to-speech software.” The system then sends a simulated speech equivalent back to the cell phone, allowing the user to listen to the content. Mr. Tsuji, with an extensive background in product management, marketing, and business development, brings experience from Cognos Incorporated, Mitel Networks Corporation, and The Lanigan Group to his education.

Name: Saeid Nourian
University: University of Ottawa
Supervising Professor: Dr. Nicolas D. Georganas
Potential Application Area: Virtual Reality
Supported Through: CITO Project Round 6.1
Project Title: HAVENLI: Haptic Virtual Environments with Natural Laws Object Modeling

Profile in Excellence

Mr. Saeid Nourian, Computer Science PhD. candidate at the University of Ottawa, is studying and experimenting with methods of representing laws of physics within a software model used in virtual environments. Mr. Nourian’s research in 3D virtual reality has applications spanning surgery training and gaming. “The university is currently in the process of patenting Mr. Nourian’s design of extensible physics engine and it is expected that partnership with related VR industries will begin soon,” says Dr. Georganas. Mr. Nourian has a Master’s degree in Computer Science as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering, both from the University of Ottawa.

Name: Burton Ma
University: Queen’s University
Supervising Professor: Dr. Randy Ellis
Potential Application Area: Image-guided surgery
Supported Through: CITO Project Round: Champions of Innovation
Project Title: MRI-Guided Surgical Systems

Profile in Excellence

Mr. Burton Ma, Computing Science PhD. Candidate at Queens’ University, is a research assistant participating in several research projects concerning computer-assisted and orthopedic surgery. Mr. Ma’s previous work on registration “has been incorporated into a commercial image-guided surgery system by iGO Technologies, Inc.,” says Dr. Ellis, who is developing an after-market system using computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Mr. Ma, a recipient of the Howard Staveley Teaching Award for the best instructor in the School of Computing in 2001, earned his M.A.Sc. and B.A. in Computing Science from Queen’s University, as well as his B.Sc.H in Engineering Physics.