Carolyn Ren

Biography

Carolyn Ren is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering and a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Lab-on-a- Chip technology. She is also the Director of the Waterloo Microfluidics Laboratory and a fellow of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Microfluidics research lab aims to gain a fundamental understanding of microfluidics and nanofluidics and develop chip-based technology for biological, chemical and biomedical diagnosis and analysis. There is a specific focus on the development of design and optimization tools, advanced microfabrication techniques for rapid prototyping, and characterization methodologies for Lab-on-a-Chip or BioChip devices. A typical Lab-on-a-Chip device is a piece of palm-sized glass or plastic plate with a network of microchannels etched onto its surface. It is able to perform integrated chemical and biomedical processes on a single chip by employing electrokinetic methods to transport liquids in microchannels. Both experimental investigation and numerical simulation are practical tools for the research lab’s investigations. Professor Ren’s work is geared at understanding the microfluidic transport phenomena and plays an integral role in microfluidic based devices for multidimensional protein separation and identification—techniques used to diagnose diseases based on the presence of biological markers. The group is also developing microfluidic platforms for cell culture and living cell analysis, which are essential for on-the-spot diagnosis. Professor Ren’s work in Lab-on-a-Chip technology strives to reduce healthcare costs through her innovation in hand-held devices for point-of-care diagnosis.

Research Interest

Lab-on-a-Chip Droplet Microfluidics Computational Fluid Dynamics