Dr. Wachowiak earns research award
Dr. Mark Wachowiak, associate professor in computer science and mathematics, is the kind of person who is always ready to lend a hand, especially if it involves interdisciplinary computational science. The recipient of the 2017 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research is involved in many interdisciplinary, multi-institution collaborative research projects, as a team lead and co-researcher, both within, and external to, Nipissing University. Within Nipissing, Dr. Wachowiak has collaborated with the School of Physical and Health Education, Geography, Business, Economics, Psychology and Classical Studies.
With Nipissing’s biomechanics researchers, he has developed, implemented, and applied advanced computational, imaging, and signal processing methods to facilitate deeper insights into physiological phenomena. His work has resulted in many journal and conference papers and has provided valuable training to many computer science undergraduates.
He has also maintained a fruitful collaboration with the Department of Geography. He led the development of theGeoVisage web system to provide real-time data presentation and analysis tools and visualization to northern Ontario farmers. Several students gained valuable software engineering and interdisciplinary experience working on this project. He has also developed and implemented visual analytics techniques for other geospatial services such as the Chief Commanda II Lake Monitoring project and the Lake Nipissing Buoy Data Analysis component of theIntegrative Watershed Research Centre.
Other geospatial research includes computational intelligence for determining leaf health, advanced wavelet methods, sensitivity analysis of agricultural runoff measurements, and First-Nations water quality.
Dr. Wachowiak was also a co-applicant on a successful grant for modelling innovation management processes with colleagues from the School of Business.
With the Department of Classics, he has developed a geospatial web-based system to help teach geography of the ancient world.
Externally, Dr. Wachowiak and Nipissing colleagues work with researchers at the Université de Moncton on physiological and biomechanics projects. Working with the Military Electronics and Communications Museum in Kingston, Dr. Wachowiak and his students developed an interactive virtual world visualization for the centenary celebrations of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. He also has research collaborations with faculty at the Technical University in Ostrava, Czech Republic, focusing on data analysis and visual analytics.
Dr. Wachowiak was awarded a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant in 2011 for work on applied global optimization. This research focused on employing optimization to solve difficult and computationally intensive problems in biomedicine, geospatial applications, and signal processing. He has applied for renewed NSERC funding in 2017.
The award includes a $1,500 prize. Dr. Wachowiak’s name will be engraved on a commemorative plaque with the names of past recipients of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research.
The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research was established to recognize and celebrate the value and importance of research conducted by Nipissing University faculty.