Afshin Abrishamkar

Afshin Abrishamkar is a Research Officer at the Medical Devices research center at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) based in Toronto. He holds a position of Assistant Professor, Status Only, at the University of Toronto. He received his B.Sc. from IUT (Iran), during which he spent an exchange period at CEFET-MG (Brazil), and his M.Sc., with distinction, from LUT (Finland). He earned his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich (Switzerland), followed by postdoctoral research at PSL Research University (France) and McMaster University (Canada) prior to joining the NRC. Leveraging his working/studying experiences in six different countries, Afshin has been passionately involved in volunteer activities, dedicating countless hours to improving his community. For instance, Afshin served as a Unit 3 Steward at the local union (CUPE 3906) at McMaster University and was also a Unit 3 Bargaining Team member during negotiations in 2022-2023, where he actively participated in the negotiation meetings between the union and employer, was involved in drafting the collective agreement, and was one of the five decision makers for the negotiations that led to a successful deal. He is currently a stewards-in-waiting, planning to complete the training in October 2024 to become a Steward.