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Team
Training highly qualified professionals for the hydroelectric industry
Professors
Sébastien Houde
Ph. D., ing.
Director, Associate professor
Department of mechanical engineering, Université Laval
Professor Houde has more than twenty years of experience as a researcher in hydrodynamics applied to hydraulic turbines, both at Hydro-Québec and Université Laval. His expertise includes numerical and experimental hydrodynamics, vortex flow dynamics, and fluid-structure interactions.
Professors
Yvan Maciel
Ph. D., ing.
Professor
Department of mechanical engineering, Université Laval
Professor Maciel primarily has expertise in fluid dynamics, especially in the turbulence and aerodynamics fields. His research topics are related to engineering problems, especially in the aeronautics, energy, and biomedical fields.
Yves St-Amant
Ph. D., ing.
Department of mechanical engineering Director
Professor
Department of mechanical engineering, Université Laval
Professor St-Amant specializes in vibration dynamics, with a particular focus on experimental measurement and signal analysis. His research involves dynamic systems in general, energy recovery from vibrating structures, structure vibratory behavior, and the use of intelligent materials.
Mathieu Olivier
Ph. D., ing.
Professor
Department of mechanical engineering, Université Laval
Professor Olivier is interested in the numerical simulation of multiphysics problems related to aerodynamics and energy fields, particularly concepts of turbines using elastic or flexible components. He specializes in computational fluid mechanics and fluid-structure interaction.

Frédérick Gosselin
Ph. D., ing.
Professor
Department of mechanical engineering, Polytechnique Montréal
Professor Gosselin’s research interests revolve around instability phenomena and fluid-structure interactions. He has studied various engineering problems such as component vibrations in hydroelectric turbines and water hose instability in a geoengineering project.

Mònica Egusquiza
Ph.D.
Assistant professor
Department of Fluid Mechanics, Polytechnic University of Catalonia
Professor Egusquiza is a researcher at the Centre for Industrial Diagnostics and Fluid Dynamics (CDIF) at UPC. Her work focuses primarily on condition monitoring, vibration analysis, and the identification of complex dynamic phenomena in hydraulic machinery. Her expertise is embedded in applied research projects with a strong industrial and international dimension, related to the optimization and monitoring of energy systems.
Antoine Tahan
Ph.D., ing.
Professor
Department of mechanical engineering, École de technologie supérieure
Professor Tahan is a member of the Products, Processes and Systems Engineering Laboratory (LIPPS) at ÉTS. He specializes in metrology, quality, geometric tolerancing and predictive maintenance, particularly for wind turbines and hydraulic turbines. He also collaborates with Hydro-Québec in the areas of operational modal analysis and the study of the structural behaviour of turbines.
Research professionals and postdoctoral fellows

Jacob Bédard
M.Sc.
Specialist in mechanical design and experimental measurements
Jacob holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Université Laval. He joined the team as a research professional in 2026, bringing expertise in mechanical design and fluid-structure interaction simulation.

Sophie Bélanger-LeBel
Administrative coordinator
Sophie holds a bachelor's degree in International Studies and Modern Languages, as well as a graduate diploma (DESS) in Business Administration. Before joining the team in 2019, she worked in coordination and financial management in the field of rehabilitation and neuroscience research.

Jean-David Buron
Ph. D.
Simulations and data processing coordinator
Jean-David completed his master's and Ph.D. studies in Mechanical Engineering at Université Laval. He joined the team as a research professional in 2023, contributing his experience in flow simulation for hydraulic turbines and in the development of data analysis and processing tools.

Maxime Coulaud
Ph. D.
Experimental measurements coordinator
Maxime holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Université Laval. He joined the team in 2020. As a viable and sustainable source of energy, he believes that improving hydraulic turbines is key for developing future generations.

Araz Rezavand Hesari
Ph. D.
Postdoctoral Fellow in Experimental Measurements
Araz completed his PhD in mechanical engineering at Université Laval, during which he specialized in experimental measurements inside the inter-blade channels of a Francis turbine. Since 2024, he has been working on test bench instrumentation for anomaly detection as a postdoctoral fellow with Heki.
Students
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