Top row, left to right: Alfred Yu and Professor Natalie Enright Jerger; bottom row, left to right: Benoit Boulet, Susan Doniz and U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip
U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip and Professor Natalie Enright Jerger (ECE) have been elected fellows of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE). Alumni Benoit Boulet (ElecE PhD 9T6), Susan Doniz (IndE 9T3), and Alfred Yu (BME MASc 0T4, PhD 0T7) are also among the CAE’s 54 new fellows. The CAE is a national institution through which individuals who have made outstanding contributions to engineering in Canada provide strategic advice on matters of critical importance to Canada and to Canadians.
“I am honored to be joining this extraordinary group of engineers, which includes more than 50 U of T faculty members providing national leadership in engineering and engineering education,” says Yip. “On behalf of the faculty, congratulations to all the newly elected fellows from the U of T Engineering community.”
Yip has served as Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering since 2019. He previously served as director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and associate vice-president, of international partnerships for U of T.
As Dean, Yip has facilitated unique new programs to help students excel in the university environment and led efforts to enhance diversity and inclusivity throughout the faculty. Yip has also made extensive leadership contributions to CIHR and NSERC and was instrumental in helping to restructure the NSERC-CIHR Collaborative Health Research Projects program.
A leading scholar in the field of single-molecule biophysics, he is developing innovative new tools and techniques for characterizing molecular dynamics and structures. He held a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Imaging from 2000-2010. Yip has received a Premier’s Research Excellence Award as well as a number of teaching awards. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Engineering Institute of Canada.
As the Canada Research Chair in Computer Architecture, Enright Jerger designs new ways of arranging the components of computer processors to optimize performance. Her work helps manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm build faster devices while keeping power usage, device size and cost low, resulting in smarter smartphones and more powerful computers.
Enright Jerger has also led efforts to improve diversity and advance women in the computer architecture field; she chaired the Women in Computer Architecture networking group and was co-chair of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Council on Diversity and Inclusion. Enright Jerger serves as Director of U of T’s Division of Engineering Science. She has developed several new courses and is co-author of the popular textbook On-Chip Networks, used in graduate courses at many leading universities. Enright Jerger is a Distinguished Member of ACM as well as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Engineering Institute of Canada.
Boulet is a research and innovation leader at McGill University, where he is associate vice-president, of innovation and partnerships, and founding director of the McGill Engine, a technological innovation centre. His work to develop an artificial pancreas promises to revolutionize diabetes care and enhance the lives of thousands. In the realm of engineering for sustainability, his research on electric vehicles has helped shape the industry and nurture a skilled workforce. Boulet’s work has garnered international recognition. As a collaborative academic leader, innovator and entrepreneur, he successfully bridges academia and industry to enhance engineering training, research and innovation.
Doniz is the chief information and data analytics officer at The Boeing Company. She leads all aspects of information technology, enterprise security, data and analytics, and has been instrumental in digitally enabling the company. Before joining Boeing in 2020, she was group CIO of Qantas Airways, where she expanded their digital ecosystem, and spent 17 years at Procter & Gamble leading IT and analytics programs as well as an initiative to digitize the company. Doniz is a champion of several networks for women in STEM and for Hispanics in business leadership. In 2022, she was named to Forbes’ CIO Next List and as one of the most influential women in aerospace by Business Insider.
Yu is assistant vice-president (research and international) at the University of Waterloo, and is internationally renowned as an outstanding innovator and leader in next-generation ultrasonics. He is a leader in high-frame-rate ultrasound imaging technology that has transformed clinical ultrasound scanners and cardiovascular diagnostics. His seminal discoveries in therapeutic ultrasound have established the mechanistic basis of ultrasound-mediated drug delivery. Yu’s achievements and impact have been recognized by many prestigious prizes, including the NSERC Steacie Memorial Fellowship, IEEE Ultrasonics Early Career Investigator Award, Frederic Lizzi Award and Ontario Early Researcher Award.
– This story was a part of the article originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on May 13, 2024, by Carolyn Farrell.
