Mechanical Engineering Alumnus Brent King wins the Manning Innovation Award for inventing the SPIDER

Mechanical Engineering alumnus Brent King (B.A.Sc. ’96) has won the $10,000 Manning Innovation Award for inventing the SPIDER, a device that accurately and securely positions a patient's limb during surgery.



The SPIDER Limb Positioner is used for specialized procedures such as rotator cuff repairs or wrist arthroscopy. Not only does the SPIDER improve the surgeon’s ability to do delicate work, it reduces costs in the operating room. The surgeon can reposition the limb in seconds simply by stepping on a foot pedal. Staff who would otherwise need to hold the limb during the surgery are free to perform other tasks.



Brent King is Co-Owner and Vice President of Operations of TENET Medical Engineering, Inc. and conceptualized and developed the SPIDER after joining TENET’s staff of two in 1997.



Further information on Brent King and the SPIDER is located here.



The Department of Mechanical Engineering congratulates Brent on such a prestigious accomplishment.

David Goosen, Dr. James Olson and Dick Kerekes are awarded the Van den Akker prize.

Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student David Goosen, Dr. James Olson and fellow collaborator Dick Kerekes were awarded the Van den Akker prize for advancements in Paper Physics at the Fundamental Research Symposium in Oxford UK. The contribution was for their paper entitled:

Goosen D.R., Olson J.A. and Kerekes R.J. “Role of heterogeneity in compression refining” J. Pulp Paper Sci., 33(2):110-114, 2007

The Johannes A. Van den Akker Prize for Advances in Paper Physics was created by the Institute of Paper Science and Technology at Georgia Tech, and was made possible through the generous donations of the family, friends, and students of Dr. Van den Akker, a former senior research associate and Chairman of the Department of Physics and Mathematics at the Institute of Paper Chemistry (IPC). Dr. Van den Akker was known for his brilliant mind, demand for excellence, and leadership in the field of paper physics for over 40 years.

James Saunders and Malcolm Shields win the Alternative Energy X Competition

In June the UBC Sustainability Office launched a competition for plans to reduce UBC’s carbon footprint- the Alternative Energy X Competition.

James Saunders and Malcolm Shields submitted the following entry which has come joint top from over seventy original submissions.

Congrats to both James Saunders and Malcolm Shields on this accomplishment.

Professor Emerita Martha Salcudean receives Honorary Doctor of Engineering from the University of Waterloo

Professor Emerita Martha Salcudean receives Honorary Doctor of Engineering from the University of Waterloo at June Convocation

On June 13, 2009, UBC Mechanical Engineering Professor Emerita Martha Salcudean received a doctor of engineering degree and addressed convocation at the University of Waterloo. Salcudean is the Weyerhaeuser Industrial Research Chair Emerita in Computational Fluid Dynamics. A member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia, fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering, she has published widely in the area of heat transfer and fluid flow, especially in computational fluid mechanics and the modelling of transport phenomena in industrial processes.