Niagara College’s Research & Innovation division is being featured on a national website that brings the vast research being done in colleges and universities across Canada to the public. 5minofscience.com hosts a database of short videos of researchers talking about their work.
“Our objective is to break the wall between public research and industry,” explains Kasole Nyembo, a former economist at the Government of Canada, who came up with the idea of documenting the research happening in academia following a trip to the Congo. There he saw university researchers finding modern solutions to grow cassava, while farmers across from the school were unaware of these innovations and still using traditional planting methods.
He saw the need to connect researchers to industry and created 5minofscience to do just that. Nyembo says his mission is to give the scientific community their own platform to “explain in their own words their discoveries and their potential impact.”
At Niagara College, those researchers featured in their own videos include:
Ana Cristina Vega-Lugo, PhD, Senior Food Scientist at the Canadian Food & Wine Institute Innovation Centre. She describes how the food and beverage industry is helped through research and services at the Technology Access Centre (TAC) in Niagara-on-the-Lake. NC is only one of two colleges in Canada with two TACs – the other is at the Walker Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre.
Gord Maretzki is an Engineer and Research Lead at the TAC at the Walker Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre. He discusses the three main technologies his team employ for both applied research projects and technical services: reverse engineering, additive manufacturing and 3D modelling and analysis.
Mike Duncan, PhD, is the NSERC Industrial Research Chair for Colleges in Precision Agriculture and Environmental Technologies. Duncan and his team at R&I continue to develop tools and processes to support and leverage technologies for the modern Canadian farm business to prosper.
James Marks is a Faculty Research Lead for the R&I division, mainly for the Digital Media & Web Solutions portfolio. He guides students in applied research involving the Internet of Things as well as assisting businesses with the design, creation and implementation of various technology applications.
