2023-2024 Cohort of Parex Innovation Fellows
Casey Hubert, PhD
Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science
Dr. Casey Hubert grew up in Yellowknife and attended the University of Calgary, completing BSc and PhD degrees in microbiology before doing a post doc in the Biogeochemistry Department at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Germany. Following this he joined the Geosciences Group at Newcastle University in the UK, supported by a Royal Society Research Fellowship, and established an interdisciplinary environmental microbiology research group. Casey returned to the University of Calgary in 2014 where he has held different research chairs, including a UCalgary Research Excellence Chair.
Diwakar Krishnamurthy, PhD
Professor, Department of Electrical and Software Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering
Dr. Diwakar Krishnamurthy is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Software Engineering at the University of Calgary. He has more than two decades of experience in conducting high impact software systems research. He has led many successful collaborations with multiple industry partners and community organizations spanning areas such as big data, machine learning, cloud computing, digital health, multimedia systems, extended reality, and assistive technologies. His research has yielded multiple patents and has been published in top journals and conferences such as the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing.
Houston Peschl, MBA
Associate Professor (Teaching), Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Haskayne School of Business
Houston Peschl, MBA, is an Associate Professor of Teaching at the Haskayne School of Business in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Sustainability. His research focus has been to develop a new signature pedagogy for the 21st century undergraduate student. Specifically, how do we train students who do NOT self-identify as an entrepreneur the valuable skills of Entrepreneurial Thinking. Peschl is currently working with Creative Destruction lab (CDL) as a moderator in the ag-tech stream, and working on a research project to track and embed UN SDG’s into new ventures in CDL. He is also developing new curriculum at the Haskayne School of Business to embed the UN SDG’s into course curriculums.
Chad Saunders, PhD
Associate Professor, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Haskayne School of Business
Dr. Chad Saunders is an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. Chad holds adjunct appointments with the Department of Community Health Sciences and the Department of Medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine, where he is the eHealth Services and Strategy Lead with the healthcare innovation incubator w21c.org. His research interests include the support that entrepreneurs draw upon in starting and scaling their ventures, the ethical decision-making processes that entrepreneurs engage in, and the role of disruptive technology in enabling and constraining ventures within a healthcare context.
Tiago Silva de Silva, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Science and Technology, Federal University of São Paulo
Dr. Tiago Silva de Silva is a professor of computer science at the Federal University of São Paulo. His research has covered various areas, including human-computer interaction, user experience design, software engineering, agile methods, and immersive technologies. The current focus of his work is on immersive environments for smart cities and digital accessibility, combining user experience design, information visualization, and data science approaches with augmented and virtual reality.
Mea Wang, PhD
Professor, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science
Dr. Mea Wang has over 20 years of research experience in the design and development of computing and networking systems, with special interests in multimedia networking, cloud computing, distributed systems, software defined networking, mixed/extended reality, and data science. Throughout her career, Dr. Wang has led many industry projects, resulting in three U.S. patents and four software releases. Her engagement in innovation and entrepreneurship have been recognized with the Faculty of Science Award of Excellence in Community Outreach, the University of Calgary PEAK Scholar award, the University of Calgary Faculty Association’s Community Service Award, and the Order of the University of Calgary.