Vassili Karanassios: Energy scavenging to power remote sensors
Taking the lab to the sample becomes possible with miniaturization to reduce power requirements.
Vassili Karanassios is a professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). He is a member of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN), and a co-founder of the university's undergraduate (and graduate) degree programs in Nanotechnology Engineering. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Alberta (Canada), was a Post Doctoral Fellow at McGill University (Canada), a visiting professor in Chemistry (Sheffield, UK) and a visiting professor in Electrical Engineering (hosted by the Center for Advanced Photonics and Electronics) at Cambridge University (UK).
His research interests are in the area of micro- and nano-analysis (e.g., metrology) and in development of miniaturized instruments that can be used on site (i.e., in the field). Parts of such instruments are fabricated on flat, 2D chips while others are 3D-printed. Future miniaturized analytical instruments are envisioned to fit in the palm of one's hand or in a shirt pocket, thus allowing users to take "the lab to the sample." The sample may be a patient (for early diagnosis of disease) and the field may be a health clinic or the environment (e.g., the air we breathe or the water we drink).
Karanassios serves on the program committee of the annual SPIE conference on Advanced Environmental, Chemical, and Biological Sensing Technologies at the Defense, Security and Sensing symposium.
