Brian Surgenor
Brian Surgenor
Professor
Manufacturing automation, Machine vision for inspection, Pneumatic servosystems, Mechatronics education
Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Smith Engineering
Professor
Manufacturing automation, Machine vision for inspection, Pneumatic servosystems, Mechatronics education
Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Smith Engineering
Date
Tuesday October 13, 2026Are you interested in learning more about the business side of robotics?
ADVENTOR has invited a special guest to talk about his journey to founding a successful robotics company in Canada.

Please welcome Colin Gallacher, President and Co-Founder of Haply Robotics.
Haply is a Canadian engineering company that designs force-feedback haptic devices to help people feel, control, and interact with digital and robotic environments. Colin specializes in the development of technologies to bring the sensation of touch to the robotic, enterprise, and entertainment tools being realized today. His work focuses on advancing human-computer interaction by bridging the gap between physical and digital experiences across robotics, simulation, and immersive technologies.
MASc Student
Mechanical Engineering
Queen's University
Eric Sass is an MASc student at Queen's University, supervised by Dr. Matthew Robertson and Dr. Xian Wang. His research is focused on underwater robots for invasive species control.
MSc, 2024-2026
McGill University
Rafid Saif completed his MSc in Electrical Engineering with the ADVENTOR Program at McGill University, supervised by Dr. Hsiu-Chin Lin, and Dr. Auke Ijspeert. Currently, he is completing his PhD in Robotics and Machine Learning at the University of Toronto.
MASc, 2024-2025
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Queen's University
Evan Rimer is a MASc Graduate from the Interactive Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) lab at Queen's University under the supervision of Dr. Keyvan Hashtrudi-Zaad and Dr. Matthew Robertson. Currently, Evan is working as a Forward Deployed Engineer at Tavily.
MASc Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Queen's University
Yusen Qiu is an MASc student with Offroad Robotics at Queen's University, under the supervision of Dr. Joshua Marshall, Dr. Neil Hoult, and Dr. Joshua Woods.
PhD Student
Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
University of Waterloo
Ellie Luo is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo in the Active and Interactive Robotics Lab, working under the supervision of Dr. Yue Hu. Her research is focused on physically assistive robots for in-home caretaking of older adults.
MSc Student
Electrical Engineering
McGill University
Simon Li is a Master's student at McGill University, working under the supervision of Dr. Hsiu-Chin Lin and Dr. Goldie Nejat.
PhD Candidate
Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
University of Waterloo
Hisham Khalil is a PhD Candidate at the University of Waterloo in the Active and Interactive Robotics Lab, under the supervision of Dr. Yue Hu and Dr. Hsiu-Chin Lin. Hisham also works as a Research Intern at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Tokyo, Japan.
PhD Student
Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
University of Waterloo
Geoffrey Hanks is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo in the Active and Interactive Robotics Lab, working under the supervision of Dr. Yue Hu, and Dr. Daniele Pucci (IIT). His research is focused on tactile and forced based learning and control for robotic manipulators in data limited tasks.