Academic Director
Professor Gerd Grau, PhD, PEng,
Dr. Gerd Grau is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and a graduate faculty member in Mechanical Engineering at York University. He received his BA and MEng degrees in Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 2011 and his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. At York University, he is the Director of the Electronics Additive Manufacturing Lab (E-AM). His research in printed electronics and additive manufacturing is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Mitacs, and industry collaboration. He has extensive experience in microfabrication, especially of printed, large-area, and flexible microelectronic devices such as transistors and sensors. His expertise spans the study of fundamental printing physics, the optimization of material properties through process innovations, and the integration of device process flows. Grau’s lab focuses on the integration of electronics in 3D structures such as 3D printed objects and carbon fiber composites. His lab studies different methods to print electronic materials as well as optical methods including photonic sintering and laser-induced graphene (LIG). He uses machine learning to overcome some of the limitations traditionally encountered in microfabrication. He serves the research community on conference committees such as the Electronic Materials Conference (EMC) and IEEE International Conference on Flexible, Printable Sensors and Systems (FLEPS) and as a Guest Editor for IOP Flexible and Printed Electronics.
As the Director of the newly opened York Microfabrication Facility (YMF), Prof. Grau’s goal is to establish and grow YMF as a key facility for microfabrication research in the GTA and beyond. He strives to expand YMF’s user base on the York campus as well as for external academic and industrial users.
Laboratory Manager
Dr. Shane Guo, PhD, P.Eng, PMP
Dr. Guo has a B.Eng. in Electronic Engineering from Dalian University of Technology China and M.Sc in IC Design from Imperial College London. He pursued his research in MEMS and microfluidics and received a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from Queen’s University Kingston. Dr. Guo joined FlowJEM – a Toronto based microfluidics and microfabrication company as the recipient of NSERC Industrial R&D Fellowship (IRDF). In FlowJEM, he began work for the development of commercial microfluidic products and focused on new microfabrication techniques and methods. He led a few major projects for low-cost, fast turnaround and complex microfluidic devices for biomedical applications. Some products were used by world renowned research groups from MIT and Stanford, and appeared in papers published in top scientific journals such as Nature and Cell. At that time, he also showed great entrepreneurship as he successfully helped FlowJEM from startup stage to revenue stage with a revenue increase by 10 times over the 4 years at FlowJEM. In 2018 he joined York University as a lab manager to establish the first microfabrication facility on campus.
Advisory Committee
Professor Regina Lee, PhD, P.Eng
Founder of YMF
Dr. Regina Lee is a Professor at the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, Canada. Prof. Lee received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2000. Prof. Lee’s research interests center on nanosatellite technology development. It has been a focus of Prof. Lee’s research to develop a series of space technologies that will lead to scientific nanosatellite missions. Currently, she’s investigating several areas including MEMS based attitude sensors and actuators to incorporate their low-grade characteristics; and optical payloads including a star tracker for Resident Space Object (RSO) detection, identification and characterization with light curve analysis.
Professor Pouya Rezai, PhD, PEng, FCSME, FEIC
Dr. Pouya Rezai is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University and a researcher in the field of microfluidics and Lab-on-Chips (LoC). Currently, he is the director of the Advanced Center for Microfluidic Technology and Engineering (ACµTE). He also serves as the founding Graduate Program Director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at York University and the bulletin Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME).
Dr. Rezai’s independent research at York University has resulted in substantial external funding, training of highly qualified personnel, filing of patents, and publication of book chapters, articles in top-tier journals, and peer-reviewed papers in prestigious international conferences. The research of Dr. Rezai and his group has been recognized by awards and recognitions including multiple internal awards as well as cover article and interview at Soft Matter and Lab-on-a-Chip journals. He has been invited to multiple scientific events nationally and internationally including delivering a lecture on microfluidics annually at the University of Toronto and an invited speaker talk in the 3rd Microfluidics Congress in San Francisco, USA in summer 2018. He has developed multiple collaborations with scientists and engineers in industry and academia including two ongoing international collaborations with investigators in China and Kuwait.
Laboratory Assistant
