Xiaoyi Bao

About me

I was born/grew up in: Ottawa, ON

I now live in: Ottawa, ON

I completed my training/education at:  I have education and research training in China, US, Germany and UK for the degree of BSc, MSc, PhD and then Postdoctoral fellow and research fellows.  

What I do at work

As professor of physics, I teach physics courses to undergraduate and graduate students. I also supervise them for research projects. I am also the Canada Research Chair in Fibre Optics and Photonics.

I am a physicist and expert in optical fibers. I discovered that optical cables laid on the seabed picked up noise from tidal waves. I then worked with civil and mechanical engineers to exploit this phenomenon. This led to the development of technology for dynamic stress and temperature monitoring. In essence, we were able to transform optical fibers into “fiber sensors”. These fiber sensors are can detect defects inside structures such as bridges and pipelines.  Check my webpage to learn more about my research and interests.

My career path is

Work hard and never give up. I would say perseverance is the best word to describe the product of many years of effort. I failed many times. Sometimes I exhausted all the possibilities that I could think of, until I found a solution. I was honored to have been a recipient of the 2021 Governor General’s Innovation Award , 2 Canadian Association of Physicists Medals for Outstanding Achievement (2010, 2013), and fellow of Royal Society of Canada (2009).  

I am motivated by

Inventing new tools to solve societal problems is the most rewarding part of my job. Seeing our many year’s efforts and research work being used by people to solve their problems is a great feeling. I like what I am doing!

How I affect people’s lives

Throughout my career, I have dedicated significant research efforts to developing distributed sensors. My work has focused on monitoring stress and temperature along various civil structures. These structures include such things as bridges and pipelines. The goal is to identify invisible cracks and defects before accidents happen. The normal way of monitoring these types of structures is to collect qualitative data. For the most part, this is done through visual inspections.

Distributed sensors collect quantitative data. The advantage of quantitative measurement of something like the strain on the walls of a pipeline is that it can provide data that can be compared to stress tests done in a lab setting. For example, how close is the pressure on the pipe walls to the maximum amount it can bear? Distributed sensors can collect data in an ongoing manner. This gives timely information that can improve the response to an incident. It can also help pinpoint damage due to a natural disaster. It can also give information about long-term deterioration and associated failures before they happen.

In addition to saving governments millions in infrastructure maintenance, our distribute acoustic and strain sensor technology can prevent oils spills, as well as highway, bridge, railway and airplane accidents. Our invention contributes to protecting the environment and saving lives across the world.

Outside of work I

Reading, travel, hiking and cooking.

My advice to others

Follow your heart and try hard to stay with it.