Naghmeh Shafiee is a Ph.D. student of Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology and K.N.Toosi University in Iran. She has extensive experience in software development and is now a machine learning researcher. She works in the ICT Lab, and her research concerns graph representation learning. Within this area, her focus is on spatiotemporal forecasting and its applications on traffic. As a member of the CERC Team, she collaborates with the transportation group.
PhD students
Sanam Dabirian is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. Her doctoral research examines the occupancy modeling for urban building energy modeling. She takes a multidisciplinary approach to her research that encompasses occupant behavior modeling, machine learning techniques, and energy simulations. She also collaborates on a joint project between Concordia University and Natural Resource Canada to extend the urban building energy data. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology and she also holds a master’s degree in architecture.
Natalie Voland is a Ph.D. student of the Individualized Program in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. Natalie has been reinventing the process of real estate development over 25 years - her roots as a social worker allows her to have a unique and purpose driven design centered outlook on development that prioritizes historical protection of civic assets while being forward thinking to use buildings to unite communities and push environmental advocacy. She is an award winning social driven developer and a leader of the Quebec B Corp. Movement where her companies contribute to the protection of the environment, foster social inclusion, while making market driven profit to further the economic development of Montreal.
Hadis Montazeri Nejad is a Ph.D. student in the Mechanical Engineering field of study at Concordia University and part of the CERC team. As a mechanical engineer, Hadis excels in utilizing programming languages and numerical simulation for modeling technologies, including micro-gas turbines and fuel cells. Her Ph.D. thesis focuses on integrating renewable fuel-powered CHP systems in urban environments. Her research interests include the future role of hydrogen in urban energy systems and aerospace. In 2023, she received the RISE professional scholarship, which led her to work as a guest researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology (IPT) in Aachen, Germany. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) provided financial support for her practical training at IPT. Also, she was awarded the FRQNT scholarship and “Sustainability Research Award” for her doctoral studies in the energy section.
Saeed Ranjbar is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He has a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and his Master’s in Renewable Energy Engineering. He has completed publications about solar thermal energy systems, thermal energy storage, district energy system planning, and life cycle assessment. Saeed specializes in urban renewable energy systems, thermal energy storage, demand-side management, and district heating and cooling networks. His research is on developing a framework for optimal automatic design and control of urban renewable energy systems with thermal energy storage.
Jimmy Barco Burgos is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He has a background in mechanical engineer with a strong practical and academic background in designing, manufacturing, and commissioning thermal, mechanical, and fluid systems. He is passionate about the development and improvement of the Bio-energy sector, integrating bi-fuel systems to the transport sector and using poly-generation concepts to achieve the energy transition required to move towards Next-Generation Cities.
Mostafa Saad is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He holds two post-secondary degrees specializing in energy-efficient buildings. Mostafa is a Fulbright alumnus, as a visiting scholar at Texas A&M University, USA, which allowed him to work with a myriad of research teams and facilities on multiple topics. Besides this he was a part of the PVT-RESyst project that received the German African Innovation Incentive Award. He has broad experience as an instructor for academic courses and professional workshops in environmental design, parametric modelling and building performance simulation.
Sadam Hussain is a Ph.D. student of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2015. He worked as a Packet Switching Core Specialist in ZongXing Telecommunication Equipment in Pakistan from 2015 to 2018. He received his master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Pusan National University Busan, South Korea, in 2020. His research interests include energy management systems, distribution system analysis, and electric vehicle technology.
Rushikesh Padsala is a doctoral student in the Building Engineering program at Concordia University, specializing in geospatial technology. His primary research interests lie in Geodata Management, Urban Digital Twins, and Semantic 3D City Modeling. During his doctoral studies, Rushikesh is actively engaged in exploring the application of urban digital twins for consumption-based carbon accounting within neighborhoods. In addition to his academic pursuits, Rushikesh serves as a researcher in geomatics at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences - HFT Stuttgart in Germany. With over 6 years of professional experience, he has successfully collaborated with clients from India, UAE, Germany, Canada, and the USA. His expertise lies in delivering end-to-end solutions for 2D and 3D geospatial projects across various domains, including urban energy planning, real estate, urban design, transportation, and AEC.
Reiner Braun is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He finished his bachelor studies for building physics at HFT Stuttgart focusing on theoretical building physics and acoustics. He holds a M.Sc. in building restoration from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He is the head of the Smart City Living Lab at Reutlingen University where his research activities are concentrated on the development of energy and mobility concept for regions and cities, IoT networks, data analytics and the development urban data models to characterize the food, energy and water nexus on an urban district level.
Lingshan Li is a Ph.D. student of Geography in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment. She is studying the effects of vegetation and the built environment on urban microclimate in Montreal, using a combination of remote sensing and field-based approaches. She is most interested in the effect of landscape patterns on the intensity of the ecosystem services (urban heat island mitigation, air quality regulation, etc.) provided by urban greening. Her research contributes to the work of the Next Generation Cities cluster, co-supervised by Concordia colleagues and collaborators Ursula Eicker, Carly Ziter and Angela Kross.
Kathryn Kaspar is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. She obtained her B.Eng. in Civil Engineering from McGill University before working on sustainable earthquake reconstruction projects in Nepal from 2015-2016. Upon returning to North America, she obtained her M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of New Hampshire while working in energy planning and policy at the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research is focused on urban-scale energy management for buildings at the microgrid or neighborhood level, with the principal goal of enhancing energy efficiency and user comfort.
Kayhan Alamatsaz is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is familiar with Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Transportation, Optimization, Data Science, Stochastic Optimization and interested in mathematical modelling and programming. He received his M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology and his B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering at Isfahan University of Technology. His current research topic is EV station location planning, which may be involved in the project of the Next-Generation Cities game simulation.
Brice Khodja is a Ph.D. student of the Individualized Program in the Department of Fine Arts. He is pursuing a thesis jointly supervised by Concordia University and EnsAD, Paris. He holds a Master’s Degree of Graphic Design. His work arises where digital arts, data design, material science, and sensory studies meet, and combines responsive materials, video, and soft robotics. He seeks to experiment with the interactive potential of matter to increase the representations and perceptions of data linked with the public environments' quality to enhance the aesthetic relationships between the citizens and their milieu.
Negar Rahimi is a Ph.D. student of the Individualized Program in the Department of Fine Arts. She holds a Bachelor’s of interior architecture and Master’s degree of architecture with specialization in architectural technology. Having researched on smart buildings, parametric design, bionic architecture, and responsible façades, she came up with an interdisciplinary approach to propose a new design method for openings in smart façades, which helps the architects not only find the best daylighting provision solution, but also achieve the energy efficiency for any kinds of buildings.
Abolfazl Rezaei is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He obtained his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology. He specializes in applied mathematics, computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer. He currently studies the hydraulic and thermal behavior of the distribution network in a district heating system, and contributes to energy system planning.
Peter Yefi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Yefi has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, and a Master’s degree in Information Technology at Carnegie Mellon University with a concentration in Software Engineering and Applied Machine Learning. He worked as the CTO at Complete Farmer Limited where he led the product development team to digitize the agriculture value chain. Yefi seeks to research how to enhance communication between proprietary IoT devices through APIs, and manage these devices and their data.
Soroush Samareh Abolhassani is a Ph.D. student of Information Systems Engineering in the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE). He received his Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and his Master's in Building Engineering. He worked as an HVAC engineer at Evonergie from 2018-2019. His research includes applying machine and deep learning algorithms on lidar point cloud data for 3D building reconstruction and roof type classification. He is interested in developing interactive approaches in occupancy behavior analysis and human activities recognition in buildings for developing energy-efficiency.
Mohammad Reza Seyedabadi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He studied general civil engineering for his Bachelor’s and environmental engineering for his Master’s in the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The main focus of his research during his Master’s was the life cycle assessment (LCA) of the building industry, that in his Ph.D. extends to the LCA in Urban Scale considering all city objects ranging from buildings to transportation infrastructure, water distribution systems, and urban greenery.
Fatemeh Izadi is a Ph.D. student of the Individualized Program. With a background in Architecture and Urban design, she is integrating knowledge from the fields of urban ecology, engineering, and design to understand how built and green elements of cities can better promote urban "walkability", with a particular focus on thermal comfort. Fatemeh joined the CERC Team to pursue the same goals: enhance the well-being of communities, protection the environment, and investments in future generations. Her research falls within the Next Generation Cities cluster, and her thesis is titled Towards Comfortable, Walkable and Green Streets: Walkability assessment with the focus on street-level greenery and thermal comfort.
Ahad Farnood is a Ph.D. student of the Individualized Program in engineering. He has an M.Sc. in Urban Design and a bachelor’s in architecture. Ahad’s research interests include urban mobility, active transportation, public spaces, and human behavior. Ahad is studying the urban mobility network and the interaction between urban morphology and public spaces. He came up with an interdisciplinary approach to propose a new method to extend infrastructures for active transportation.
Nasim Rabiei is a Ph.D. Candidate of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. Her research focuses on multi-stage Transit-Oriented Development planning. She received her Master's degree in Architecture from Azad University Central Tehran Branch, Iran; a Master's degree in Urban Design from Tarbiat Modares University, Iran; and a Master's degree in Building Engineering from Concordia University. She obtained Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification and Project Management Professional certification. She is passionate about art, architecture, and sustainable built environment design and planning.
Atiya is a Ph.D. student of Information and Systems Engineering at Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering. She has a Master's degree in Computer Science from Bahria University, Pakistan. She is a versatile software developer having experience in game development, machine learning, data science and full stack web development. As a part of the CERC team, Atiya's main focus is on the research and development of urban platform, and leveraging big data in smart cities.
Alireza Adli is a Ph.D. student of Information and Systems Engineering in the department of Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering. He has a bachelor in Software Engineering and obtained his M.Sc. in Intelligent Computing from Finland Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). He is a former member of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Laboratory of LUT where he studied the application of deep learning methods on computing the color difference. He has an extensive teaching experience covering a wide range of areas from image processing to different programming languages. Alireza is now a machine learning researcher at NGCI.
Erfan Shafiee Roudbari is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Industrial Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology in Iran. Erfan has a professional background in manufacturing industries and construction projects. In addition, he is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP).
Veera Turku is a Ph.D. student of Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies. She received her master’s degree in Administrative Sciences with specialization in the politics of the environment and regions from the Tampere University, Finland, in 2020. As an urban researcher, she is currently studying broader implications of temporary urbanism and local sustainability pathways in a neighbourhood-scale urban living lab. Her research interests are related to new forms of citizen participation in urban planning, agency of citizens in urban sustainability transformation, redevelopment of vacant or underused spaces and insurgent spatial practices.
Shayan Nejadshamsi is a PhD candidate of Information and Systems Engineering at Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Iran. Based on his background in statistics, data analysis, and machine learning, he collaborates with the transportation group of Next-Generation Cities Institute. Currently, he is developing a model for high spatiotemporal resolution city-wide building occupancy estimation using transportation big data. His work also covers Origin-Destination matrix estimation using graph-based deep learning method.
Sikandar Ejaz is a Ph.D. student of Information and Systems Engineering. He did his Master of Science in Computer Science at the University of Engineering & Technology, and bachelor's in Telecommunication & Networks at COMSATS University. He worked as a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, Comsats University, and as a Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, University of Montreal. His research focuses on integrated resource management & optimization of complex smart-building networks. Application areas of interest include Smart Cities & Grids, the Internet of Things, and Transactive Energy.
Hadise Rasoulian is a PhD student specializing in urban sustainable development and neighbourhood resilience. Her research interests include data science, digital twins, and system dynamics. She holds a master's degree in building engineering, where she worked under Dr. Eicker's supervision, focusing on assessing renewable energy systems' reliability and resilience over time using Monte Carlo simulation. Passionate about creating sustainable cities, Hadise investigates various disciplines to understand the complex dynamics between urban systems, climate change, social equity, and the role of data in sustainable development.
Athena Karami Fardian is a PhD student in the Building Engineering Department. She obtained her M.Sc. in Energy Systems Engineering from the University of Tehran in Iran. She has work experience in designing utility size and household solar photovoltaic and with renewable energies association to develop solar photovoltaic powerplants back in her country. Her research is focused on the optimal design and operation (power and benefit sharing strategies) of the renewable energy communities while integrating with storage and Electric Vehicles besides demand side management.
Hossein Jadidi is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering. He has a background in Construction Engineering and Management. He had been focusing on visualizing project progress monitoring to facilitate decision-making. In 2015, he received research assistant scholarships from West Virginia and Texas A&M universities. He also had research experience in risk mitigation of project finance for utility-scale solar PV power plants. Before joining the CERC team, he had been active as a civil engineer and project controller in energy and transportation projects. His research focuses on the viability analysis of clean energy projects and aims to unlock green finance to achieve net-zero targets.
Muhammad Zeeshan Siddique is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering with practical experience in the field of building energy systems. He has worked as an Engineering Consultant with EnergyAE in NSW, Australia, delivering renewable energy solutions through TRNSYS simulations. He has extensive experience as an academic instructor in Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, and HVAC Systems at HITEC University. His research focuses on deploying deep reinforcement learning algorithms to develop occupant-centric control strategies for indoor climate control and smart energy management in buildings.
Masood Shamsaiee is a Ph.D. student in Building Engineering. He holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology. His expertise includes sustainable energy production and management, analysis of occupant behavior in the built environment, and data mining and machine learning analysis methods. He has practical experience as an energy modeler and researcher, having contributed to the development of innovative energy and water systems in the industry. His current research objectives center on the development of robust tools and methods for modeling, analyzing, and improving the efficiency of interactions between occupants and the built environment, encompassing perspectives from individual end-users to urban scales.
Zahra Keshavarz Moraveji is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering at Concordia University. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architectural engineering at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. As an RA, she collaborated with a group of researchers from the University of Tehran on the economic feasibility of constructing zero-emission buildings using photovoltaic panels (PV). Her research at Concordia University focuses on evaluating business models and financing strategies for energy communities, taking into account regulatory frameworks and jurisdictional barriers.
Isra Abo Iqsaysa is a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. She holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering-Power Systems and has prior experience as a teaching assistant and lab technician. She is also a Fulbright Alumni, having earned a master’s degree in Sustainability-Energy Management from Eastern Illinois University and achieving the LEED Green Associate™ certification. Her research interest focuses on energy management at the micro-grid or neighborhood level, power system operation and planning, electric vehicles, demand response, smart grids, renewable energy integration studies, and CO2 reduction.
Bilal Khan is a PhD student in Building Engineering. He obtained a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Pakistan. He started his professional career by commissioning and operating a 30 MW Captive Power Plant, DG Cement Industries Ltd. in Pakistan. He continued his higher education and obtained an M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia in 2020. During his master studies he was given an ERIGrid H2020 European grant and worked at the R&D Technical Research of Finland (VTT Multi-Power Smart Grid Lab). His research interests are in battery storage, demand response, electric vehicles and integration of renewable energy in low voltage electric grids.
Kartikay Sharma is a Ph.D. student at NGCI, Concordia University. Previously he was a research associate at the Center for Advanced Research Building Science and Energy (CARBSE) at CEPT University, where he led the research team in developing a 300 km2 urban building energy model using urban data acquired from UAV photogrammetry. For his academic research, a Post Graduate in Building Energy Performance from CEPT University & a Civil Engineer explored "India's Path to low carbon building stock: Estimating energy savings potential for commercial building stock". He has expertise in whole-building energy simulation, building physics, macro-level energy efficiency and extensive data analysis. His current research area includes data-driven urban building energy stock modelling, optimization of energy simulation work-flow using different simulation software, developing scalable methods for urban data collection & developing urban building energy modelling workflows to promote net zero energy cities worldwide.
LinkedIn
Huthaifa Al-Smadi is a PhD student in Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at Concordia University. He received his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the Hashemite University in Jordan and my Master's degree in Construction Engineering and Management from Concordia University, Canada. With ten years of professional experience in engineering, he is adept and skilled across various phases of engineering operations. His current research focuses on understanding public perceptions and barriers to public transportation usage, aiming to develop strategies to encourage its adoption and highlight its role in environmental sustainability.
Maryam Mirnaghi is a PhD student in Building Engineering. She is a passionate building energy and environmental scientist. Her research interests encompass sustainable solutions for environmental challenges, showcasing her dedication to making a meaningful impact on the world. She is skilled at energy conversion and data mining. Competent with applying data mining for fault detection and diagnosis in HVAC systems
Kotaiba Mokadam is a Ph.D. student in Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He obtained a B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering from Aleppo University and an M.Sc. degree in the same field from American University of Beirut. He applied his expertise across interdisciplinary projects including collaborating with Technische Universität Berlin to conserve and restore cultural heritage sites in Syria. His research focuses on the management of BIM, computer vision, and geospatial data, exploring its potential contribution to energy efficiency & optimization, urban planning, construction process, and beyond.
Andrea Gabaldón is a PhD student in Building Engineering. She graduated with a master's degree in Sustainable Energy Engineering (2018) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (Sweden). She works on energy systems modeling and evaluation of energy system scenarios at district level, including district heating networks (DHN), heat pumps and various renewable energy sources (solar, geothermal, wind, etc.). Her research focuses on decision-making tools and planning tools to support renewable energy communities, as well as strategies to activate citizen involvement in the ongoing energy transition.
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Hayat Ullah is a Ph.D. student at the Next-Generation Cities Institute (NGCI) at Concordia University. His research mainly focuses on renewable energy systems, distributed energy resources (DERs), building energy management systems (BEMS), and microgrids. He completed his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan. After completing his Master’s degree, he joined LUMS as a Research Associate in the Energy Informatics Group (EIG), where he worked for two years. His research focused on solar PV systems, grid integration of renewable energy sources, and smart grids.
Elham Abtahi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Fine Arts in the Individualized Program. She holds a Master’s degree in architecture, which has been working on interdisciplinary research on intelligent shell design with biomaterials and living organisms for buildings. She has different laboratory experiences in her background, such as the green technology lab (GTL) and the Mechatronic lab, where she worked on prototypes with Arduino and programming language. She is currently studying the life cycle of carbon emission and cost assessment of biomaterials in urban areas for her PhD research.
Former PhD students
Shahin Masoumi-Verki was a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). He is specialized in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Turbulence. As a part of the CERC team, Shahin’s focus is on the development of a microscale pollutant dispersion model that accounts for the complexities of an urban area and real-time prediction.
Karl Ritchie was a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. He obtained his Bachelor's and Master's in System Engineering from Université du Québec - ETS in Montreal. He's been employed as a professional software developer since 2016 focusing on data intensive and machine learning systems. His current focus is to explore novel ways to model occupancy patterns using ubiquitous wireless sensing to optimize urban building energy demand.
Jenny Chaverri was a Ph.D. Candidate of Civil Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. Her research is in transportation and sustainable development. She works with transportation demand modeling and economics, gender equality, social and environmental justice, and the SDGs. Jenny holds a Master’s from the University of New Brunswick, Canada, majoring in pavement engineering and road safety. Jenny was the Head of Technical Auditing of the National Road Network of Costa Rica to fight corruption, and a professor at the University of Costa Rica. She has worked as an international consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank in several countries.
Navid Shirzadi was a Ph.D. student of Civil Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. His research is mainly focused on designing integrated energy systems, load dispatching, and energy storage control strategies. He is skilled in mathematical programming using related tools such as GAMS and proficient in using Python programming language for developing Machine Learning and Deep Learning models. His research aims to design and control a renewable energy system for an urban microgrid with the use of artificial intelligence.
Tahereh Malmir was a Ph.D. student of Building Engineering in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering. Her research focuses on the sustainable management of organic waste: energy generation and integration. She has a Master's degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Tehran (2009-2012) and has been active in the waste management field, academically and professionally, since then. She has three goals in life: to be a good human, to be happy, and to be successful. Her dream is to live in a fair world.
Mehdi Shamshirband was a Ph.D. student of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering - Power Systems at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran. His main research interests include Power System Operation and Planning, Electric Vehicles, Demand Response, Smart Grids, Renewable Energy integration studies, and CO2 Reduction. Mehdi has three years of experience in the industry and electrical distribution network by completing various projects, including development and establishment, maintenance, and equipping the electrical distribution networks.