Our Team
Dr. Jean-François Bousquet
Jean-François is a Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Dalhousie University and Associate Scientific Director of Transforming Climate Action at the Ocean Frontier Institute. He joined Dalhousie in 2013 to found a research lab in underwater communications in close collaboration with industry. Since then, he has been studying how to improve the performance of acoustic communication in time-varying channels. He has also programmed the physical layer on reconfigurable SoCs, developing digital signal processing algorithms to mitigate the effects of the distortive acoustic propagation media. He is particularly interested in enabling underwater networks, using low-power electronics systems. In 2022, his team developed an embedded system to detect harbour porpoises. This technology was deployed in the Bay of Fundy in summer 2022 to prevent the animals from being caught in tidal turbines. He is also currently developing a magneto-inductive communication link enhanced with quantum sensors to cross the air-water boundary.
Dr. Zhizhang (David) Chen
David is a professor and head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Dalhousie. He is recognized for his exceptional contributions as a scholar and educator in computational electromagnetics and RF/microwave engineering. Dr. Chen has published extensively, is a Killam Chair in Wireless Technology and is a Dalhousie Distinguished University Research Professor. His work on time-domain modelling, simulation techniques, and ultra-wide-band applications of electromagnetic signals has enabled seminal advances in radio-frequency and microwave circuits and systems. He receives several national and international awards recognizing his 25 years of distinguished contributions to teaching and research.
Dr. Kamal El-Sankary
Kamal is a Professor and the Director of the Mixed Signal Integrated Circuits Laboratory at Dalhousie, where he has established a robust research program focused on semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) design. With over 15 years of collaboration with Canadian industries and research centers, he has specialized in the development of analog, digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits. Since joining Dalhousie in 2006, he has supervised the graduation of over 40 PhD and MASc students who are currently employed by leading companies across Canada, the U.S. and globally in various sectors of IC design. Notable companies employing his graduates include Advanced Micro Devices, Synopsys, Alphawave Semi, Skyworks Solutions, Ciena and Marvell Technology. Additionally, in the past two years, two of his PhD graduates have secured faculty positions at Canadian and U.S. universities.
Kamal has been awarded over 20 research grants (as PI or co-PI) totaling more than $12 million at Dalhousie University. His recent research activities focus on low-power circuits and systems design, time-domain analog-to-digital converters and signal processing, clock synchronization, power distribution, biomedical circuits, forward error correction, and machine learning integrated circuits.
Email: jbousquet@dal.ca
Email: z.chen@dal.ca
Email: Kamal.El-Sankary@dal.ca