News > Queen's School of Computing

“Data Queens” Brings Home 1st Place Trophy from the FinTech Hackathon in China!

Congratulations to our team from Queen’s School of Computing, who won first place in the international Chengdu80 FinTech Hackathon, held at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) in China!

Xiaomin Cheng, Adam Clarkes, Chloe Houvardas, Vinicius Porfirio Purgato, Nolan Ling, and Amr Zaki and their team the “Data Queens” travelled 30+ hours from Kingston to Chengdu to attend the competition, joined by Wendy Powley and Dr. Yuanzhu Chen.

The competing teams were asked to produce a prototype to solve problems arising from autonomous vehicles for a hypothesized insurance company. After 80 hours of design and development, Data Queens placed #1 and received the event’s Trailblazer’s Award and CN¥40,000 (about 7,800 CAD) of prize money.

Congratulations to all the winners, and special thank you to Yuanzhu Chen and Wendy Powley for supporting our team throughout the competition!

“Data Queens” was among the 8 invited teams of students from Canada, United States, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China Mainland, representing over 20 countries.

The teams were asked to produce a prototype to solve problems arising from autonomous vehicles for a hypothesized insurance company.

We thank the host university SWUFE for keeping the students engaged with various sightseeing and team-building activities throughout the week. Our students return with the trophy, new friendships, and unforgettable memories.

Welcome home, and Go Queen’s!

Dr. Lee Jones Presents Hand-Spinning E-Textiles at Tier A SIGCHI

Dr. Lee Jones from iStudio Lab presented her innovative research on Hand-Spinning E-Textiles at the TierA Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) conference, held at IT-Universitetet in Copenhagen, Denmark. This research explores the intersection of traditional hand-spinning techniques and emerging e-textile crafting, providing a fresh perspective on the possibilities of interactive textiles.

The project aims to understand how hand spinners can combine local materials with conductive fibers to create their own custom interactive textiles.

Through a two-part study involving interviews with 32 hand spinners and workshops with six participants from a local spinning guild, the team gathered insights into the challenges and opportunities of blending hand-spun and e-textile techniques. The research highlights the need for better tools and information to support these DIY practices, empowering makers to craft functional and aesthetically rich e-textile projects.

This work not only expands the boundaries of material crafting in the HCI field, but also opens new doors for design innovation.

We invite you to explore the full open-access paper here and extend our congratulations to Dr. Lee Jones, Dr. Sara Nabil, and the iStudio Lab team for their contribution to this exciting field of study.

iStudio Lab High School Interns Present Innovative Fabric-Lego Project at Tier A SIGCHI

Queen’s School of Computing is pleased to announce that high school students Sama Moustafa and Jannah Sultan, who are doing their internship under the mentorship of Dr. Sara Nabil and the iStudio Lab team, presented their Fabric-Lego project at the prestigious Tier A Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) at IT-Universitetet, Denmark.

This project introduces a unique fabrication method that integrates 3D printing with traditional garment-making techniques to address the challenges of medical braces and assistive wearables.

The Fabric-Lego method empowers users to personalize their medical wearables, such as arm slings and finger splints, by incorporating customizable, Lego-like blocks into fabric designs. This approach not only enhances the aesthetic appeal of wearables but also supports personal expression, helping to reduce the psychological and social impacts often associated with assistive devices. The team presented three functional prototypes during the conference: a customizable arm sling cover, a finger splint cover, and a T-shirt with integrated blocks.

This project underscores the potential for technology to improve user experiences in the healthcare field. We encourage everyone to explore the full paper, which is available here.
Congratulations to Dr. Nabil, the iStudio Lab team, and our talented interns Sama and Jannah for this remarkable achievement!

Queen’s School of Computing Students Win Best Challenge Paper at the 2024 AIware Conference

Queen’s School of Computing is thrilled to announce that a team from the GOAL Lab has been awarded the Best Challenge Paper at the prestigious 2024 AIware Conference, held in Brazil in conjunction with the 2024 International Conference on Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE).

Their paper, titled “Automated Scheduling for Thematic Coherence in Conferences,” highlights innovative research that bridges the fields of Operations Research and Natural Language Processing.

This project, led by Ph.D. student Mahzabeen Emu, with contributions from Tasnim Ahmed and Dr. Salimur Choudhury, tackles the complexities of thematic scheduling in conferences. The practical applications of this research, particularly in the context of healthcare scheduling, underscore the real-world impact of their work.

By optimizing scheduling, hospitals can better allocate resources, improve patient care, and reduce wait times, leading to more efficient and effective healthcare delivery.

This recognition exemplifies the collaborative spirit and interdisciplinary approach that Queen’s School of Computing fosters.

We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Mahzabeen, Tasnim, and Dr. Choudhury for this accomplishment!

QSC Researchers Celebrate Successes In Recent Round of Government Funding

Earlier this month, the Government of Canada announced the results of the latest round of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)’s Discovery Grants. The Discovery Grants program supports excellent research in natural sciences and engineering and is Canada’s largest government research funding program of its kind. Three Queen’s School of Computing researchers have received support from NSERC in the current cycle.

This news follows a number of earlier successful funding announcements from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC).

We congratulate our faculty on the recognition and support of the federal research funding programs:

Dr. Kai Salomaa

NSERC Discovery Grant Program, in support of the project Descriptional complexity and applications of formal languages and automata.

Dr. Yuan Tian and Dr. Bram Adams

NSERC Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) Program, in support of the project An experimental platform to comparatively evaluate large pre-trained models on SE tasks.

Dr. Hesham Elsawy and Dr. Salimur Choudhury

Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) John R. Evans Leadership Fund (JELF) Program, in support of the project Diverse, perceptive, and intelligent wireless infrastructure for 6G and beyond.

Dr. Gabor Fichtinger

National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Ideation Fund, in support of the project Open-source implementation and evaluation of low-cost hand- and finger-tracking technology for fine motor skill assessment.

Dr. Ting Hu

National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Collaborative Science, Technology, and Innovation Program, in support of a project in partnership with the University of Ottawa, The digital mouse – a digital twin of behavioral indices of neurodegeneration and associated metabolic determinants for explainable in silico therapy design.

Dr. Amber Simpson is Among Team of Collaborators Behind the New Biomanufacturing Hub Network

Queen’s School of Computing researcher Amber Simpson is part of a larger multi-institute team lead by University of Toronto to receive $19 Million Federal Funding for BioHubNet.

Biomanufacturing Hub Network (BioHubNet) is a talent development program among four research programs in the Canadian Hub for Health Intelligence and Innovation in Infectious Diseases (HI3) that has received a total of $72 million in federal funding. This major investment from the Canada Biomedical Research Fund (CBRF) was announced on May 6, 2024 to address the severe shortage of industry-ready highly qualified personnel (HQP) in the biomanufacturing sector.

BioHubNet is a collaborative research project, comprised by a scientific team of researchers from leading Canadian Universities and hospitals.

These researchers will leverage their 26 industry and training partners, which include multinational and homegrown biotechnology companies. With nearly $19 million from CBRF, BioHubNet will work closely with these partners to develop a range of training programs that provide experiential and topical training to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and biotechnology professionals.

According to the Government of Canada, these CBRF-BRIF investments are aimed at “growing a robust, competitive, domestic biomanufacturing and life sciences sector ensures that Canada has access to critical vaccines, therapeutics and other life-saving medicines.”

New Opportunities for Research Internships

The School has a long tradition of encouraging industry collaboration through graduate and undergraduate internships. This summer, a number of QSC researchers were able to secure new funding for their students to take advantage of industry partnerships.

Dr. Bram Adams was recently awarded a Mitacs Accelerate Grant with Ubisoft Montreal, in support of the project: RevMate: Towards an optimized review process in AAA game development.

Dr. Salimur Choudhury was awarded funding from the Mitacs Accelerate program for three projects:

Streamlining Medical Administration: Developing an AI Solution for Automating Medical Form Processing in Canada, with industry partner WaiveTheWait Inc.
Data Driven Efficient Surgery Scheduling Systems, with industry partner Sifio Health
Global Talent Streamlining: Leveraging AI for Strategic Immigration Solutions in the Canadian Labour Market, with industry partner Greenberg Hameed Professional Corporation

Mitacs Accelerate is the primary research internship program in Canada that funds work integrated learning for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. These collaborations improve the level of research excellence of our graduate students by letting them practice their theoretical skills in real-life business applications.

In addition to securing opportunities for his own students, Dr. Bram Adams will be accepting an internship through the Mitacs Globalink Research Award Program, in support of the project Development of computational methods for heart surgery planning.

The Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Program offers funding for international senior undergraduate students from select countries and universities to perform research in Canada.

2024 CREATE Table Top Challenge

Every year, students from the Med-i CREATE training program collaboration between Queen’s and Western University participate in a three-week table-top challenge. Organized by Perk Lab members Rebecca Hisey and Elizabeth Klosa, the 2024 competition offered students an opportunity to apply their academic expertise to challenge current real-world issues in the field of biomedical informatics.

The challenge put to the test the students’ technical and teamworking skills, as teams collaborated to complete tasks such as tool detection and workflow recognition of a central line insertion.

Congratulations to the 2024 Med-i CREATE Table Top Challenge Winners:

1st place: Mohamed Harmanani, Hemangini Patel, Rina Khan, Faranak Akbarifar and Dashti Ali

2nd place: Paul Wilson, Dharsan Ravindran, Jennifer Tsang, Sarah Nassar and Maha Kesibi

3rd place: Ramtin Mojtahedi, Katherine Williams, Vivian Nguyen, Joshua Bierbrier and Tyler Elliott

Ramtin Mojtahedi Was Recognized Through Three Major Awards

The School congratulates Pd.D. student Ramtin Mojtahedi on his recent string of successes in major Queen’s University awards!

Earlier this spring, Ramtin was listed among the 2024 Champions for Mental Health.

The Champions for Mental Health project is a respected university-wide initiative that recognizes instructors and staff members who play strong roles in supporting and advancing student mental health. The nomination letters for this award mentioned Ramtin’s efforts to help students through offering monthly peer support sessions, setting up a virtual help desk during exams and high-stress periods, and developing a set of interactive workshops that taught students effective stress management techniques.

These sentiments were echoed during the 2024 School Award Ceremony on June 20, where Ramtin was presented with the School of Computing Ian A. Macleod Award. This award is granted to the graduate student who made the greatest contribution to the intellectual and social spirit of the School of Computing during the preceding academic year. Ramtin was awarded this honour for his role in the GCS Buddy Program, which helps new students adjust to University life by pairing them with senior grad student mentors. The award committee also highlighted Ramtin’s other impactful projects, such as establishing private and anonymous feedback channels for students and fostering interdisciplinary research collaborations.

The following week, Ramtin was selected as a recipient of the 2024 School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (SGSPA) Award in Leadership, Innovation, and Community Engagement. This award recognizes exceptional graduate students who are making a meaningful difference in the world while also demonstrating the highest standards of academic excellence. The award winners are selected to show demonstrable impact across a variety of areas to both Queen’s and the broader community.

Ramtin is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Simpson Lab, focusing on developing supervised and semi-supervised deep learning methods, particularly for vision transformers on segmentation tasks. He is a member of the NSERC Medi-CREATE Program and a pillar of the graduate student community through his work as Ph.D. Officer for the GSC.

2024 Convocation and School Award Ceremony

On June 20th we all gathered together to celebrate the 2024 Queen’s School of Computing Convocation and Award Ceremony! This new cohort of QSC alumni is the largest to date and boasts some exceptionally accomplished graduates.

The School was honoured to congratulate all the 2024 graduates and their loved ones on this special milestone, and celebrate the recipients of the following annual awards:

School of Computing Staff Distinguished Service Award

The purpose of the Award is to recognize a staff member for outstanding service to the School of Computing.

Winner: Debby Robertson

Debby Robertson received many nominations for her outstanding work as the Graduate Program Administrator. Debby Robertson has been an invaluable resource for graduate students, as well as staff and faculty, within the School of Computing over her decades of service.

An overwhelming number of students from the Graduate Computing Society mentioned in their nominations that she consistently goes above and beyond to provide personalized support and assistance, whether it’s offering academic guidance, emotional support, or advocacy for accommodations. Her empathetic approach and proactive efforts have helped create a supportive and inclusive environment for graduate students, even in the face of unprecedented challenges and changes.

The award was presented by Wendy Powley (right), a long-standing friend of Debby’s

School of Computing Student Distinguished Service Award

The purpose of the Award is to recognize a student who contributed to the School of Computing with recognized service while maintaining excellent academic performance and research contributions.

Winner: Victoria Armstrong

Victoria is a 3^rd year PhD student, a long standing member and current president of GCS, and a leader and liaison in a number of initiatives that support our graduate community. One of the most recent examples of her work is the collaboration between GCS and the Fresh Food Box program, an initiative where any member of the Queen’s community can sponsor fresh food boxes of groceries for our graduate students. Victoria is a mentor through the A&S mentorship program, a long standing member of orientation committee, and a highly ranked TA. Her work ethic and empathy have helped her build an incredibly strong community here in the school of computing. Victoria currently works in both the iStudio and the MuLab, focusing her research on exploring human interaction with AI.

The award was presented by one of Victoria’s supervisors Dr. Christian Muise (right)

School of Computing Ian A. Macleod Award

Established by friends, colleagues, and students in memory of Professor Ian A. Macleod, who was a member of the Department of Computing and Information Science (our School of Computing), from its inception in 1969 until 1995. To commemorate his belief in the importance of a strong departmental spirit, the award is granted to the graduate student who made the greatest contribution to the intellectual and social spirit of the School of Computing during the preceding academic year.

Winner: Ramtin Mojtahedi

Ramtin received this nomination for his work towards a better environment for all aspiring grad students. In his role in GCS, he created initiatives to make the grad student community more welcoming, inclusive, and conducive to intellectual growth.
As a PhD officer, he has been instrumental in the GCS Buddy Program, which helps new students adjust to University life by pairing them with senior grad student mentors. He has initiated several impactful projects, including establishing private and anonymous feedback channels for students and fostering interdisciplinary research collaborations.

Ramtin (left) accepting the award from Dr. Hossam Hassanein, School Director

School of Computing Research Award

The purpose of the Award is to recognize outstanding research contributions made by a School of Computing postdoctoral fellow or other researcher affiliated with the School. The criteria used are quantity and quality of publications, patents, and commercial products. The research contributions should be the result of work that the researcher performed while working in the School of Computing.

Winner: Mohammad Hamghalam

Dr. Mohammad Hamghalam is an experienced postdoctoral researcher specializing in the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare. He has been the lead author of numerous papers in the past year, while remaining eager to help graduate students with their projects. Mohammad is part of the Simpson lab, lead by Dr. Amber Simpson, and has led all of the lab’s image segmentation work, collaborating with colleagues from St Michael’s Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute.

In Dr. Hamghalam’s absence, his lab mate Ramtin Mojtahedi accepted the award on his behalf

School of Computing PhD Research Achievement Award

The purpose of the Award is to recognize a PhD student who achieved significant research results: quantity and quality of publications, patents, and commercial products.

Winner: Mahzabeen Emu

Mahzabeen Emu is an exceptional PhD Candidate at QSC. Her research focuses on designing groundbreaking quantum algorithms for combinatorial problems within the expansive realm of the internet of everything domain. She has showcased her work by publishing papers in two prestigious IEEE journals with impact factors exceeding 6, along with presenting at four top-tier networks conferences. Her academic prowess has earned her the esteemed Vanier scholarship and multiple OGS international awards. Her excellence in academic and research achievements during her master’s studies led her to receive the Governor General Gold Medal from Lakehead University.

Suprevisors Salimur Choudhury and Kai Salomaa presenting Mahzabeen with the award

School of Computing PhD Research Achievement Award

Runner-up: Ahmad Nagib Abdalla

Ahmad Nagib Abdalla is a distinguished Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Hossam Hassanein at the Queen’s Telecommunications Research Lab.
In 2023/24 Ahmad was the first author of 2 IEEE Transactions, 2 conference and 1 magazine paper. He contributed to an NSERC strategic project in collaboration with Ericsson Canada.
Ahmad Co-founded and co-hosted a panel discussion series that invites Queen’s TRL alumni to give his lab colleagues insights about working in both academia and industry.

Ahmad (left) with supervisor Dr. Hossam Hassanein

School of Computing MSc Distinguished Thesis Award

The School of Computing distinguishes a few MSc theses every year as exemplary. The designation reflects the research quality and writeup. Each year one of these is selected as the Distinguished MSc Thesis.

Winner: Dominic Phillips

Dominic wins this award for his thesis project titled “Security Risk-based Dynamic Platoon Formation Using Reinforcement Learning”, under the supervision of Dr. Mohammad Zulkernine.

The thesis forms game models for an autonomous vehicle for acting as both defending and attacking player. The game helps improve the security of autonomous and connected vehicles. The thesis work has been published as a full paper in a premier IEEE Reliability Society conference where it received the best paper award. According the reviewing committee, “The thesis presents high-quality research contributions which enrich the knowledge in the related field of study and yield substantial impact on the practical area of application.”

School of Computing Howard Stavely Teaching Award

Howard Staveley started working at Queen’s University in 1966. He became an adjunct instructor for the department of Computing and Information Science (our School of Computing) in 1982 and continued teaching until the winter term of 1996. He also held the position of Manager of Information Systems in Computing Services from 1982 until 1996. Howard passed away in 1996 at the age of 52, in the midst of a successful career. He has been sorely missed by his many friends at Queen’s. In 1997 an annual teaching award was created in his memory.

Winner: Dr. Randy Ellis

The winner of the award was selected by an anonymous poll of undergraduate computing students, organized by the Queen’s University Computing Students Association (or COMPSA).
Some of the anonymous feedback from students mentioned the following:

“Brilliant teacher, engaging classes, course structure is extremely conducive to learning.”
“Teaches his courses with passion and delivers a course far better than a standard computing course.”
“Prof. Ellis has a passion for teaching which comes across in both his live lectures and recorded videos. He is clearly not only invested in his work, but also in continuing to become a better teacher. He provided the students of CISC 371 with great opportunities like our Data Analysis Challenge, and even hosted a class party. He truly embodies all aspects of the Howard Staveley Award.”

Marketing Director of COMPSA, Grace Anyu Sun, presented the award on behalf of the undergraduate student body

School of Computing Excellence in Teaching Assistance Award

The purpose of the award is to recognize excellence in teaching assistance (a.k.a. The Best TA) in an undergraduate course at the School of Computing.

Winner: Katherine Williams

Katherine received a strong nomination from Dr. Christian Muise (instructor) who stated how instrumental Katherine was for coordinating the team of 14 Tas for his course. One of the TAs who worked with her submitted a nomination providing further points about how helpful Katherine was to the other TAs: she prepared marking schemes for assignments/quizzes, ran the weekly TA meetings and was thoughtful in resolving difficult cases where the TAs were not sure how to assign the grades.

Katherine’s long-standing colleague Ronny Eliezer Rochwerg accepted the award on her behalf