Dr. Pouya Rezai is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University and a researcher in the field of microfluidics and Lab-on-Chips (LoC). He obtained his BSc in Mechanical Engineering, MSc in Electrical Engineering (Microsystems Technology), and PhD in Mechanical Engineering (Bio-Microfluidics) in Iran, Sweden, and Canada, respectively. He was an NSERC Visiting Fellow at the Public Health Agency of Canada in Guelph, ON for a year before starting his academic career at York University in 2013 as an Assistant Professor. Currently, he is the director of the Advanced Center for Microfluidic Technology and Engineering (ACµTE). He served as the founding Graduate Program Director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at York University (2013-2022). He has also been the bulletin Editor-in-Chief or the Associate Editor of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) in 2016-22. Currently, Dr. Rezai serves as the Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at York University.
Dr. Rezai’s research at York University has resulted in substantial external funding, training of highly qualified personnel, filing of patents, and publication of book chapters, articles in top-tier journals, and peer-reviewed papers in prestigious international conferences. The research of Dr. Rezai and his group has been appraised by awards and recognitions including a 2019 Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Government, a 2021 IW Smith CSME Award, a 2021 President’s Emerging Research Leadership Award, and a 2022 CSME Fellowship; as well as cover articles at Soft Matter, Lab-on-a-Chip, Colloids and Surfaces B, and ACS Omega journals. Dr. Rezai is an Editorial Board member of Nanotechnology for Environmental Eng. journal, an Associate Editor at Frontiers in Lab on a Chip Technologies journal, a Topic Editor of Biosensors and Fluids journals, and a Guest Editor of Micromachines Journal. He has developed collaborations with scientists and engineers in industry and academia in Canada, Germany, UK, Norway, and USA.
Dr. Rezai’s research interest is to expand the fundamental understanding of interactions between fluids and nano- to micro-scale disease biomarkers and environmental contaminants in their micro-habitats using biomimetic microfluidic devices and to employ this knowledge to devise efficient microsystems for facilitating research and development in human health, energy, and environment related applications. His group has developed
(i) Micro-electro-mechanical sensors and actuators to exploit composite functional polymers and nano-structures as transducing materials in LoC devices;
(ii) LoC for quantitative investigation of sensory-motor responses of disease model organisms (e.g. D. melanogaster, C. elegans, and D. rerio) to various physical and chemical cues; and
(iii) Microfluidic platforms for multiplexed sorting and detection of microorganisms and biomarkers in fluidic samples (Point-of-Care and Point-of-Need Sensors).
In the future, Dr. Rezai’s research program will continue to advance multi-scale miniaturized devices for disease investigation and prevention as well as energy exploration with a focus on
(A) Organ-, organoid- and organism-on-a-chip technologies for disease investigation, drug discovery, and tissue engineering.
(B) Field-deployable microfluidic platforms for point-of-care diagnostics (PoCD) of disease biomarkers and point-of-need detection (PoND) of CECs in the environment and critical minerals in mines and battery recycling plants.
Research Interests
- Micro and Nanofabrication
- Micro and Nanofluidics
- Lab-on-Chips and Bio-Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems
- Organisms- and Organs-on-a-Chip for Disease Studies, Drug Discovery, and Tissue Engineering
- Particle and Cell Separation and Sorting for Point-of-Need Sample Preparation and Detection