September 4, 2008

My Visiting Fellowship at UET Peshawar is coming to an end and it has been an enlightening experience to work with Pakistani colleagues and to help supervise graduate students within the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

This visit has been very fruitful and an International Linkage was established with both UET Peshawar and the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering and Technology. This linkage will allow graduatePeshawar research team students from these two universities to apply for funding to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan so that they can spend 6 months to 1 year to undertake experimental research at the University of Calgary. A Postdoctoral researcher and two PhD students have been chosen to work in my research group and will travel to the University of Calgary in early 2009.

In addition to working on several industrial problems, collaborative research has been initiated with 2 other national research institutes of Pakistan and will also lead to graduate students spending research time in Canada. Furthermore, the possibilities of extending Canadian technology and expertise in the area of surface coatings to the oil and petrochemical industry of Pakistan was discussed with Mr Syed Hussain, Head of Marketing and Strategy, DDFC Group of Companies, Lahore. This is an exciting venture and will undoubtedly result in more research, problem solving and encourage international trade and economic development for Pakistan.