Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee, for the opportunity to present before you this afternoon. I'll try to keep my introductory comments brief.
My name is Sriram Narasimhan. I'm an associate professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Waterloo. I'm also cross-appointed with the department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering for the University of Waterloo. There, I also hold the title of Canada research chair in smart infrastructure.
I received my Ph.D. in 2005 from Rice University in Houston, Texas. I joined the University of Waterloo shortly thereafter, in 2006. Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, I was employed with American Bureau of Shipping in the risk consulting division, in Houston, Texas. I'm a registered engineer in the province of Ontario.
With regard to a bit about what my students and I are doing in research, the overarching aims of my chair here at Waterloo are to understand issues surrounding infrastructure and to enable condition assessment of critical infrastructure, such as bridges, airport systems, and water distribution networks, primarily through the use of sensors and smart data acquisition systems and hardware. This is so that we can develop strategies to mitigate unanticipated failures in vulnerable and aging infrastructure and develop cost-effective maintenance and capital projects planning.
My research spans across the areas of structural dynamics, condition assessment of vulnerable infrastructure, and structure control. Most of my work in the context of my chair pertains to how best to extract pertinent information regarding the health of infrastructure from measurements acquired from sensors installed on structures and systems. For example, I'm working with my team of students and post-doctoral fellows in developing hydrant-mounted sensors that can effectively determine leaks and other disruptive events within varied water distribution networks. Similarly, we are working towards better understanding what measurements tell us are going to help aging bridges.
I'm partnered with several public and private entities in pursuit of our research goals. We are now witnessing an era of digital transformation, where our ability to measure infrastructure performance during operation using sensors and processors has far surpassed our wildest imagination from just a few decades ago.
The smart communities of the future are ones that will effectively utilize this explosion of technology for the betterment of the life of their citizens. For example, our ability to measure energy demands within a smart community will help us to better balance generation and storage. Our ability to assess the health of aging bridges using sensors will help planners to come up with maintenance and refurbishment plans, taking into account budgetary and manpower constraints. Such technology will also help us identify and repair leaks in water mains before they flood our streets and hospitals.
For us to realize the goal of smart communities, we should overcome the technical gaps and technological gaps to using this technology, specifically how best to infer knowledge from data and through investments that enable the adoption of this technology within communities.
In Canada, we have some unique challenges related to geography and weather constraints. Hence, we cannot expect manual inspections in remote areas to ensure structural integrity. In my role as a witness to this important committee, I can offer my perspective on where and how sensors can transform our lives and better balance budgetary constraints and aging infrastructure needs.
Thank you.