DR. Mariano Arriaga of Mohawk College

Over recent years, Colleges across Canada have significantly expanded their capabilities and expertise to support industry and expose students to real-life challenges before graduation. This trend has resulted in more companies engaging colleges to help solve their current challenges and identify future skilled employees. Mohawk College ranks in the top 10 Research Colleges in the country with different applied research centres with diverse expertise including additive manufacturing, digital health, industrial IoT, and energy to name a few.

At Mohawk’s Energy and Power Innovation Centre (EPIC), we work closely with a diverse range of industry partners – large companies and SMEs – to de-risk technology adoption, complement their in-house expertise, support product development, or validate their products. The IEEE Kitchener Waterloo Section AGM talk aims to inform about the ways we engage companies develop applied research projects; the opportunities, challenges and lessons learned of academic/applied research and industry collaboration, and highlight the experiences of students, industry and researchers in the process. The talk also aims to promote discussion around bridging the gap between applied research and existing industry challenges.

Biography:

As General Manager of the Energy and Power Innovation Centre, Mariano’s role is to support the staff, students and industry partners engaged in applied research projects. Mariano holds a Ph.D in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, along with a M.Sc. in Renewable Energy from University of Zaragoza and a MA.Sc in Industrial Systems from University of Regina. Since joining IDEAWORKS, Mariano has worked with dozens of companies on projects as diverse as a Heat Recovery System Automation and Optimization to Testing and Validation of a Health Monitoring and Predictive Diagnostics System for Electric Motors.  Mariano has also worked with First Nation communities for several years and continues to collaborate in energy projects; the latest project being a partnership with the Independent First Nations Alliance in a Natural Resources Canada funded project.

Mariano’s industrial experience includes working as a field engineer for the oil/gas industry in exploration fields in northern Canada, as Senior Project Engineer in the automotive industry, and as a renewable energy researcher and consultant in different countries. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario and an IEEE member.​

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