0:05 The Professional Engineers Gold Medal is
0:09 the OPA's highest honor. Awarded only
0:11 when there is an outstanding candidate.
0:13 This award recognizes conscientious
0:15 commitment to public service as [music]
0:18 well as technical excellence and
0:20 outstanding professional leadership. The
0:23 recipient of this year's gold medal is
0:27 Dr. Jing Jiang.
0:30 >> My name is Jing Jang. I'm a professor in
0:31 department electrical and computer
0:32 engineering at Western [music]
0:35 University. I grew up in China in a city
0:37 called Shien. That is where the terra
0:40 cotta warriors are. But I did my
0:44 bachelor in China in electrical
0:47 engineering. I came to Canada landed
0:50 September the 12th 1982 [music] in
0:52 Vancouver. Then I moved to from
0:54 Vancouver went to University of New
0:57 Brunswick and did my master's and my
0:59 doctorate degree. Then interesting
1:01 enough I went to further east to St.
1:04 John's Newfoundland. I taught three
1:06 years in Memorial University and after
1:10 that Thunder Bay Lakehead University
1:13 from 91 I came to London Ontario and
1:15 joined Western University. So I've been
1:19 I've been here for 34 years. I'm from a
1:22 family of engineering professors. My
1:24 father is electrical engineering
1:27 specializing power systems. My mom is a
1:30 chemical engineering and though engineer
1:32 come naturally.
1:35 Nuclear power plant is very comp complex
1:38 system and they have many large pieces
1:41 [music] of equipment but the thing to
1:45 make them to work in organized safe way
1:47 is the instrumentation [music] and
1:50 control. Instrumentation is like human
1:54 sensory systems, eyes and ears is and
1:57 the control is like human muscles and
2:01 [music] making taking actions.
2:04 What I my interest is the research is
2:06 looking at the different aspect of
2:07 instrumentation. [music] How do you
2:09 measure the ones that are difficult to
2:11 measure? how how do you control the ones
2:13 [music] they are difficult to control to
2:16 maintain safe operation efficient
2:19 operation of the plant and uh more
2:22 importantly I think in university is
2:23 we're [music] looking at two aspect new
2:26 technology to improve the operation the
2:29 second is [music] educate future engineers
2:31 engineers
2:34 currently we are looking at advanced
2:37 communication systems applied to nuclear
2:40 power plant for example the 5G G
2:44 technology how to query data and because
2:47 AI need the data to process data to
2:50 achieve the the decisions so how do you
2:52 get the data it's wireless communication
2:54 become very convenient way and we also
2:57 looking at the fiber optic sensors in
2:59 Ontario we are building small modular
3:03 reactor and those reactors [music] is
3:05 very compact in design so we are looking
3:07 at fiber optic sensors which is very
3:09 sensitive which is very small [music] in
3:12 size. We're also looking at integration
3:15 of small modular reactor with renewable
3:18 energy and so [music] provide the local
3:21 distributed power generations. This will
3:24 [music] reduce the carbon footprint for
3:26 power generation.
3:29 I try to work with the other experts
3:31 around the world through organizations
3:35 such as IEA, the international energy
3:37 agency. So we [music] develop some kind
3:40 of guidelines and also working with the
3:44 Canadian nuclear industry experts
3:47 looking at the industrial standards.
3:50 I think the most important moment is
3:52 when I was uh given the opportunity to
3:55 [music] be a union industrial research
3:59 chair in 2003 that's really you know put
4:02 me in a in a in a direction where I can
4:04 start working on the instrumentation
4:07 control for nuclear power plant in
4:08 particular the can do [music] plants
4:11 this opportunity is very treasurous to
4:14 me there are several contributions that
4:17 I'm proud of one is the safety system
4:18 analysis, different [music] techniques.
4:21 We're also looking at the predictive
4:25 safety systems which you it's kind of
4:28 using AI but we use the so-called common
4:30 filters to predict what's going to
4:32 happen in the next milliseconds [music]
4:34 in the future. So this can help improve
4:37 the safety margins
4:39 and recently everybody looking at a
4:43 small modular reactor SMRS. Again we we
4:45 are one of the first in the world to
4:47 build constructing [music] a small
4:49 modular reactor right now in a
4:53 Darlington nuclear power plant site. So
4:56 this really give Canada to lead again as
4:59 a nuclear nation in small modular
5:01 reactor. I think Stanford University
5:03 developed a formula looking at
5:04 researchers impact of their
5:07 contributions. I was also very fortunate
5:11 to be among the uh top 2%. I think it's
5:14 important to work on the problem [music]
5:17 with a practical significance. I think I
5:18 always believe anything [music] we do
5:20 should have at least background
5:23 information to identify what engineering
5:26 problem we try to to solve. Then when we
5:29 spend time effort on those problems we
5:32 will eventually have impact. I was very
5:35 humbled to to be informed that OSby
5:36 award me with the engineering [music]
5:39 gold medal and I just personally feel
5:41 that there are so many other outstanding
5:44 engineers some of them I personally know
5:46 I just feel very lucky I'm the one that
5:48 being chosen
5:50 >> for his lifetime contributions to
5:52 engineering research education and
5:55 industry partnerships benefiting Ontario
5:58 Canada and the world Dr. Jing Xiang is
6:02 welld deserving of the 2025 OPA gold medal.
