Director General
Medical Devices
Dr. Amaya Arcelus is the Director General of the NRC's Medical Devices Research Centre. She joined the NRC in 2020 as the founding director of the Aging in Place Challenge program, focused on improving the quality of life of older adults and their caregivers through innovation for safe, healthy and socially-connected aging. From 2022 to 2023, she served as chief of staff to the NRC President.
Dr. Arcelus has over 15 years of experience conducting and leading research into medical devices and health applications. She obtained her PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Carleton University, where she earned the Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement for her research into context-aware smart home monitoring of the health and wellness of older adults. She completed 3 years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto's Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab, with a cross appointment at the University Health Network. Her research focused on embedded sensing, biomedical signal processing, autonomous physiological monitoring and assistive devices. Amaya has held postdoctoral fellowships with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council's Healthcare Support through Information Technology Enhancements strategic network and with the Canadian Institute of Health Research's Health Care, Technology and Place program.
Prior to joining the NRC, Dr. Arcelus worked as a scientist for Defence Research and Development Canada and went on to serve as manager of the cyber operations science and technology program.