Edmonton-Engineering professor Anastasia Elias has won the 2015 Early Accomplishment Award from the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, in recognition of exceptional accomplishments in the early years of her career.
Just seven years after joining the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Anastasia Elias has made a positive impression on the field of nanotechnology by building a world-class research group devoted to developing new materials for food packaging.
Elias is the co-leader of an interdisciplinary research team developing smart food packaging that senses and alerts retailers and consumers to the presence of pathogens in food products. The research is sponsored by the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency.
She's also conducting leading-edge biomedical engineering research on neural interfaces-devices that can communicate with the nervous system using electrical signals-for use in practical applications such as medical research, mobility restoration following disease or injury, or controlling prosthetics. As a member of the Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions Interdisciplinary Team in Smart Neural Prostheses, Elias is developing mechanically biocompatible devices for stimulation in the spinal cord.
"I'm thrilled to receive this award," Elias said. "There's a lot of feedback in an academic career (regarding grant proposals, manuscripts, etc.), and it's not always positive! It feels great to be positively recognized by APEGA for my work."
Elias earned her degree in engineering physics at the U of A in 2002 and her PhD in 2007. She has authored 24 publications in top-tier journals in her field. She serves on the editorial board of Scientific Reports, a leading journal in interdisciplinary science.
"Time has flown by so quickly since I joined the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering. In a way, an Early Accomplishment Award is a sort of milestone that gives me a chance to reflect on what I've achieved so far in my career, and on where I'm headed."
Academia, she notes, is a highly competitive field and she hopes the award will help her stand out in the future. She says that she has also been fortunate to have strong colleagues and students.
Holding a strong belief that educating the next generation of leaders is critical to improving the quality of life in our province and beyond, Elias volunteers for organizations involved in science and engineering outreach, including the DiscoverE Girls, Engineering and Mentorship GEM Club for elementary school girls and Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science and Technology, which provides high school students the opportunity to work in gender-underrepresented fields. She is a committed teacher and is constantly looking for new methods to engage students and improve learning outcomes.
Elias was one of two Faculty of Engineering professors recognized at this year's APEGA Summit Awards. The other was Department of Mechanical Engineering professor Pierre Mertiny, who won the APEGA Award for Excellence in Education.
--Video and story courtesy APEGA, with files from Richard Cairney