UBC innovation, industry collaboration recognized by NSERC awards

Advances in ultrasound and digital display technologies developed by UBC researchers have been recognized by Canada’s leading science and engineering funding agency with two prestigious awards.

UBC engineering professors Robert Rohling and Septimiu Salcudean received one of this year’s four $200,000 Synergy Awards for Innovation, presented by The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Rohling and Salcudean were honoured along with their industry partner Ultrasonix Medical Corporation for developing new ultrasonic imaging techniques that could improve cancer diagnosis and treatment while reducing the number of biopsies required.

Recent UBC PhD graduate Helge Seetzen and physics professor Lorne Whitehead won this year’s $10,000 NSERC Innovation Challenge Awards grand prize for their High Dynamic Range technology. Seetzen and Whitehead’s invention, which spun-off BrightSide Technologies and was subsequently acquired by Dolby Laboratories, replaces the LCD backlight with a controlled array of Light Emitting Diodes that significantly improves contrast in high definition displays.

For more information, visit http://www.apsc.ubc.ca/news-events/article.php?page=%2F2009%2F10%2Fubc-innovation-industry-collaboration.html.