Posted on May 25: Engineering appoints associate dean for research, external relations
[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/MascherPeteropt.gif” caption=”Peter Mascher”]McMaster's Faculty of Engineering has appointed Peter Mascher its new associate dean of engineering for research and external relations.
In this new position, Mascher will act as a spokesperson and advocate for the Faculty outside of the University. Internally, he is a liaison with the Office of the Vice-President Research and International Affairs and will work with other faculties to identify and initiate large, multi-faculty initiatives to enhance McMaster's research capabilities and reputation.
“The creation of this position signals the Faculty's commitment to maintaining and further enhancing its status as one of the most research-intensive engineering schools in the country,” Mascher says. “It will allow us to aggressively pursue new opportunities and partnerships, both in the academic environment and with industry. Among the most notable are initiatives in the areas of biomedical engineering, micro- and nanosystems, engineering design, energy systems, and environmental engineering and public policy.”
Mascher obtained a PhD in engineering physics from the Technical University Graz, Austria and spent about four years as a post-doctoral fellow and research associate at the University of Winnipeg. He joined McMaster University in 1989 in a position initially funded by the Ontario Centre for Materials Research. He is a professional engineer and a professor in the Department of Engineering Physics, and was chair of the department from 1995 to 2001. In 2001, he was appointed as the inaugural holder of the William Sinclair Chair in Optoelectronics. This chair was established through a donation to the Department of Engineering Physics by William Sinclair, one of the co-founders of JDS-Fitel, now part of JDS-Uniphase.
Mascher has led active research groups involved in the fabrication and characterization of thin films for optoelectronic applications and in the characterization of defects in semiconductors by positron annihilation spectroscopy. His research work is funded by NSERC and several federal and provincial Centres of Excellence, as well as industry. He was formerly program director of the recently established Ontario Photonics Consortium, an ORDCF-supported initiative, centered at McMaster and involving participation of research teams from The University of Western Ontario, the University of Waterloo and Queen's University.
He has authored or co-authored more than 120 publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings, has presented many invited lectures at international conferences, and has graduated 19 PhD and Master's students. He is a member of McMaster's Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research and the Centre for Electrophotonic Materials and Devices, as well as a number of international physics and materials research societies.
