A multidisciplinary team that includes several U of T Engineering professors has been awarded the 2021 Brockhouse Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

The award recognizes outstanding Canadian teams of researchers from different disciplines. In this case, the team combined their knowledge and skills to better understand and address the critical public health issue of air pollution.

“It is very gratifying to see how research ideas that were seeded almost two decades ago have grown into such a supportive and energising collaborative community,” says Professor Greg Evans (ChemE, ISTEP), one of the recipients of the award.

“The research we have done together has led to real benefits. There’s a lot to be proud of.”

In addition to Evans, the award recipients include Professors Arthur Chan (ChemE), Marianne Hatzopoulou (CivMin) and Jim Wallace (MIE) as well as Senior Research Associate Dr. Cheol-Heon Jeong (ChemE).

They also include U of T Professors Miriam Diamond (Earth Sciences, School of the Environment, ChemE), Chung-Wai Chow (Temerty Medicine, UHN), Jeff Brook (Dalla Lana School of Public Health, ChemE) and Scott Weichenthal (Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill) as well as Dr. Robert Healy, Senior Scientist at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment Conservation and Parks.

“Those named on the award are just the tip of the iceberg,” says Evans. “There many others at U of T, in government, in industry and in NGOs or communities across Canada, not to mention more than 100 graduate and undergraduate students. I feel very fortunate to have been able to work with such great people.”

Working out of the Southern Ontario Centre for Atmospheric Aerosol Research (SOCAAR), the team has developed innovative new tools and strategies for studying air pollution and its effects. These include new experimental methods and state-of the art tools, some of which have even revealed pollutants which were previously unrecognized or undetectable.

Together, the team has published 85 papers that integrate expertise from a wide range of fields: atmospheric chemistry, exposure science, vehicle engines, epidemiology, public health, urban design and respirology.

One example is a report released by the team in 2019 that highlights the role of rush-hour traffic and diesel truck emissions as major areas of concern.

“Our research indicated that older ‘heavy emitting’ trucks are making a disproportionate contribution to the exposure of Canadians to traffic-related air pollution,” says Evans.

“We were able to show that removing a small portion of vehicles off the road could offer a substantial benefit. It was very gratifying when the Province of Ontario cited this research as a reason for switching its vehicle emissions testing from cars to trucks.”

Another study used house dust to assess exposure from the 2016 Alberta wildfires that affected residents of Fort McMurray and the nearby Fort McKay First Nation community.

“My group spent two summers vacuuming in homes and analyzing pollutants, while Professor Chow worked with participants and assessed lung health,” says Chan. “We had a great time working together, especially when my engineering students had to learn how to measure lung function.”

The published findings showed that the levels of toxic substances, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, arsenic and heavy metals, were not any higher than in Canadian homes that had not been affected by the fire.

A critical component of the team’s approach has been knowledge translation. Working with a wide range of stakeholders nationally and internationally, the team has made an effort to have their findings support policy development, increase public awareness of air pollution, and develop novel ways to mitigate its effects. One example was a study that examined air quality on commuter trains in the GTA, which highlighted the need for improved air filters.

Going forward, a key area of focus will be the interplay between air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

“The associations between climate change and air pollution are complex, opening up new avenues for research,” says Hatzopoulou. “The pressure on governments to meet climate commitments comes with the additional complexity of reducing air pollution and promoting equity. Solutions need to not only reduce emissions but also enable positive societal outcomes. This is a tremendous challenge for research and policy.”

Despite the challenges ahead, the team members show no signs of losing momentum.

“We’ve seen the potential of this research to reduce preventable illness and mortality, and promote health and wellbeing,” says Evans. “It’s easy to stay motivated when it can benefit so many people in Canada and around the globe.”

“This is a problem that is ever-evolving,” says Chan. “The sources of pollution have changed over the years, from power plants and motor vehicles, to wildfires and even food cooking. People are always interested in what they are breathing in.”

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on November 17, 2021 by Tyler Irving

A long-standing collaboration between researchers at U of T Engineering and Hitachi High-Tech Canada (HTC) has been recognized with a Synergy Award for Innovation from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

The Synergy Awards recognize examples of collaboration that stand as models of effective partnership between industry and colleges or universities. Key principal investigators from U of T Engineering involved in the collaboration include Professors Yu Sun (MIE), Jane Howe (MSE), Tobin Filleter (MIE) and Doug Perovic (MSE). 

The roots of the collaboration stretch back decades. More than 30 years ago, Perovic and HTC established a research partnership to develop advanced electron microscopy techniques.

That partnership strengthened the Ontario Center for the Characterization of Advanced Materials (OCCAM), a unique facility that contains leading-edge equipment for imaging, analyzing and manipulating materials with nanometre-scale precision.

“HTC’s contributions have been critical in turning OCCAM into Canada’s premier tandem electron microscopy/surface characterization research centre,” says Perovic. “At the same time, HTC can draw on the practical challenges that users are trying to address to develop new technologies, instrumentation and procedures. It is very much an intimate two-way partnership that has always superseded typical client-vendor relationships or university-industry collaborations.”

Since 2008, HTC has provided nearly $5 million in direct and indirect support for OCCAM, including two full-time staff engineers. Analysis carried out on OCCAM’s equipment helps researchers from across U of T — as well as from many external companies and organizations — understand the natural world and design better devices, from dental implants to solar cells.

Addressing the challenge of physically manipulating nano-scaled samples under electron microscopy imaging has been a particular focus for Sun.

“Whether you are placing probes on a single transistor in an integrated circuit, or trying to extract and sequence DNA from a specific chromosome, you need to be able to move tools to the target locations and perform precise nanomanipulation,” he says. “At the same time, because you are working in a very small chamber under high vacuum, you’re limited in the space you have to install hardware, and you must effectively handle positioning and sensing drifts due to poor heat dissipation.”

Sun, who is also the Director of the University of Toronto Robotics Institute, worked closely with HTC as he developed the LifeForce nanomanipulation system. It is currently the only robotic tool that is equipped with closed-loop control for operation inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

“Closed loop means that you’re not relying on human manoeuvring. You’re not checking the electron microscope images and then adjusting the nanomanipulators accordingly via joysticks,” says Sun. “Instead, you instruct the robot where you want it to move, and the robot uses its integrated position sensors and electron microscope images as feedback to precisely position itself, inside the high-vacuum chamber of the SEM.”

LifeForce was licensed to HTC and is commercialized worldwide. It can be used in fault analysis of integrated circuits and for mechanical and electrical characterization of nanomaterials such as those used in battery electrodes.

“When I first started working with Professor Sun, I quickly realised that he has only two modes of operation — on and on even more!” says Ian Cotton, a board member and former President at HTC. “His lab is like an Aladdin’s cave of engineering, which led to one of the best product concepts we have ever delivered. The results speak for themselves: an elegant design with flawless execution.”

Chad Ostrander, president of HTC, reinforces the commitment to U of T. “We are eager to continue the partnership with Professor Sun’s group and the OCCAM team, and we look forward to the next series of electron microscopy accessories and techniques.”

The technologies made available by the partnership have led to a large number of scientific and engineering discoveries and publications in high-impact journals. For example, Sun and Filleter’s labs developed a silicon-based micro-tensile testing device for operation inside transmission electron microscopes (TEM).

Using the device, in collaboration with Perovic, Howe, Professor Chandra Veer Singh (MSE) and technical staff of HTC, they conducted the first direct measurement of the tensile strength and fracture behaviour of graphene under TEM imaging. HTC is working with U of T to further develop the micro-tensile testing device into a standard product.

The partnership is about more than hardware and software. Hundreds of highly qualified personnel, from graduate students to professors to research associates, have gained valuable professional experience from the many research projects facilitated by this collaboration, and HTC has hired several U of T Engineering graduates.

Howe embodies this partnership. Before becoming a U of T Engineering faculty member in 2019, she spent 10 years working at HTC.

“I feel very lucky to have been able to move freely between industry and academia,” she says. “I think that both sectors are at their best when they are having open, productive conversations with each other, enabling fundamental discoveries to become technologies that make a real difference in people’s lives.”

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on November 17, 2021 by Tyler Irving

Mechanical, electrical, chemical, civil — any undergraduate student can recite the traditional disciplines of engineering. But increasingly, the leading edge of innovation cuts across these arbitrary divisions, creating new fields such as robotics or artificial intelligence. Professor Dionne Aleman (MIE) wants to help future engineers embrace this change.

“My own research is about applying industrial engineering to the unlikely area of medical and healthcare decision-making,” she says. “Working in multidisciplinary environments requiring specialized knowledge is home to me, and I think engineers have value to add to every industry.”

Aleman was recently appointed U of T Engineering’s Associate Dean, Cross-Disciplinary Programs, succeeding Professor Bryan Karney (CivMin), who held the role for the previous 12 years. Aleman is excited about the impact she can have on the next generation.

“Our engineering students are hungry to learn more and tailor their studies towards their individual interests and career aspirations,” she says. “There is a fast-increasing awareness that engineers are successful in a wide variety of careers broader than what would be traditionally expected from their major.”

U of T Engineering currently offers more than 20 cross-disciplinary programs of study. All these programs are designed to be within easy reach and can be completed by selecting appropriate electives within existing engineering course requirements. Engineering minors require three full credits, while certificates require three half-credits.

Students can choose from a wide range of topics: robotics, bioengineering, artificial intelligence, business, environmental engineering and even music performance. Over the past ten years, the proportion of graduating students completing at least one minor has increased from 19% to 48%, and more than two-thirds of students complete at least one minor or certificate, with many completing more than one.

“Some of our most popular cross-disciplinary programs are the Artificial Intelligence minor, the Robotics & Mechatronics minor and the Engineering Business minor, which is led by our Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education & Practice,” says Aleman.

“These topics are in line with what is popular and hot in the world right now. Every industry is reaching into AI and machine learning to improve design, automation and decision-making, and our students know that and want to be a part of the movement.

“Similarly, robots are becoming more sophisticated and finding more uses, and lots of engineering students have entrepreneurial and management aspirations as well. These programs give them the tools they need to succeed.”

Aleman says that what attracted her to the role was the ability to shape the future of the engineering profession.

“As a researcher, there’s only so much multidisciplinary engineering infusion I can achieve, but in this role, I can open doors for hundreds upon hundreds of engineering students to go out into the world and make it a better place,” she says.

“Cross-disciplinary programs are a perfect way to allow our students to gain knowledge and experience in unique areas that will allow them to start innovative careers immediately.”

In the last decade, U of T Engineering has added six minors and seven certificates. Aleman says that there are even more planned for the coming years.

“My vision is to continue expanding our programs to reach more students and cover topics of growing interest,” she says. “Specifically, we will broaden our scope to include graduate students, and assess our minor and certificate programs with respect to equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) to ensure our programs are accessible to all students.”

“We’re also looking at creating a new certificate in Public Health Engineering, which I think is particularly relevant given our collective experience with COVID-19. And there is much more in the works; stay tuned!”

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on November 15, 2021 by Tyler Irving

A new strategy for capturing and storing CO2 directly from the atmosphere has earned a U of T Engineering team an XPRIZE Carbon Removal Student Award.

The honour comes with US $250,000 in seed funding, which will go toward further development of the team’s technology, and a shot at winning the $50-million grand prize.

“We are beyond excited to be receiving this award,” says Celine Xiao (MIE PhD candidate), who is co-leading Team E-quester along with Shijie Liu (MIE MASc candidate).

“We believed that we were a strong contender with our innovative system design, but we also knew there were a lot of people with brilliant ideas competing for this award. It is such an honour to be recognized as one of the top student teams.”

A four-year global competition, XPRIZE Carbon Removal is funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation. It invites innovators and teams from anywhere on the planet to create and demonstrate solutions that can pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans, and sequester it durably and sustainably.

Team E-quester formed earlier in 2021. In addition to Xiao and Liu, it includes project mentor Yi (Sheldon) Xu (MIE postdoctoral fellow), as well as graduate students Rui Kai (Ray) Miao (MIE PhD candidate) and Colin O’Brien (MIE PhD candidate).

They are advised by Professors David Sinton (MIE) and Ted Sargent (ECE), MIE research associate Christine Gabardo, and alumnus Alex Ip (ECE PhD 1T5), who also serves as the Sargent Group’s Director of Research and Partnerships. Gabardo and Ip are co-founders of CERT Systems, a spin-off company that went to the finals of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE earlier this year. Xiao and Liu were also members of that team.

Together, they are using an innovative electrochemical process to dramatically lower the energy cost of capturing atmospheric CO2.

Scientists and engineers have long known that pumping air through a strongly alkaline solution will cause CO2 to dissolve in the liquid, where it is converted from a gas into dissolved ions known as carbonates. The challenge lies in cost-effectively recovering this dissolved carbon in a form that can be easily sequestered or used as a feedstock for carbon-based chemical products.

Currently, the most common process involves precipitating the carbonates out of solution as a solid salt, then applying high temperatures to convert them back into pure CO2 gas. This gas can be injected underground for long-term storage, or used as a feedstock for commodity chemicals, such as plastics.

Today, widespread application of this process is limited due to the high economic cost per tonne of carbon captured. This in turn is due to its high energy requirements — primarily the heat needed to convert the carbonate back into CO2 gas. It’s been estimated that the energy required for this step alone accounts for approximately two-thirds of the overall energy cost of the process.

Team E-quester has a solution. Their proprietary process uses an electrolyzer, a device that harnesses electricity to power a chemical reaction. In this case, it’s a reaction that converts the dissolved carbonates in the liquid directly into CO2 gas, skipping the intermediate salt step.

“Because we only use electricity in our process, we can be powered entirely by renewables,” says Liu. “We can also operate at ambient temperature and pressure, instead of the high temperatures needed today. We estimate that our carbon footprint is about a thousand times lower than that of the current conventional process.”

To earn the Student Award, the team submitted a report demonstrating that their process is feasible on the lab-bench scale. They share the honour with 17 other student teams from around the world. An additional five teams won student awards for measurement, reporting and verification technologies.

To continue in the competition, they will need to build a prototype and have its carbon-capture rate validated by a third party. They will also need to demonstrate a path by which the technology could be scaled up to the level of thousands of tonnes of CO2 per year.

“Over the next few months, we will focus on prototyping our system to optimize our operation parameters,” says Liu. “Our main goal is to further reduce the energy requirement of the system through catalyst and system design. Additionally, we will plan for the scale up of our system.”

Time is tight: the next step will be the Milestone Prizes, to be awarded in the spring of 2022. Up to 15 teams will receive prizes of up to $1 million each, and continue along the path toward the $50 million grand prize, to be awarded in 2025.

“The team is off to an amazing start,” says Sinton. “This early win is a vote of confidence and some welcome research support, both of which will accelerate the team. I like their chances.”

Asked how the team is staying motivated, Xiao says that the ongoing climate crisis provides all the impetus they need.

“We are already experiencing the effects of rising atmospheric CO2 levels,” she says. “Direct air capture will allow us to return CO2 to the ground, even if it was emitted decades ago. Should we be successful, our technology could be implemented all around the world to help humanity reach carbon neutrality.”

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on November 10, 2021 by Tyler Irving

Developing solutions to address climate change represents a huge opportunity for Ontario – and the University of Toronto can play a key role in helping to lead the way.

That was the message delivered by Professor David Sinton (MIE), during a recent panel discussion held in connection with the release of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s latest policy report on sustainability.

The report, which features U of T’s sustainability actions, calls U of T “a global leader in demonstrating and promoting sustainability.” It highlights the university’s many climate-oriented initiatives – from divesting from fossil fuels in its $4-billion endowment fund, to building green infrastructure and undertaking research into new clean technologies that can help Ontario industries dramatically curb emissions.

Sinton spoke about how U of T is embracing sustainability through research, operations and teaching, including the “living lab” model, and is taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The hope is to inspire other large public and private organizations to do the same.

For example, U of T recently announced plans to make its St. George campus climate-positive by 2050, meaning it will curb more emissions than it emits.

“In our own operations, our own facilities, we’re thinking of how we can do better. How can we reduce our emissions and serve as a living lab?” Sinton told the panel, which included representatives from the Insurance Bureau of Canada, Ontario Power Generation and Enbridge Gas.

Sinton added that he looks forward to leveraging “the intellectual power of all three campuses” – St. George, U of T Mississauga and U of T Scarborough – as U of T strives to play a leadership role in developing climate change solutions to help the world hit net-zero emissions.

To that end, Sinton is the academic lead for the U of T’s new Climate Positive Energy Initiative, which brings together 90 researchers, eight faculties and 28 divisions. The initiative draws on U of T’s wide range of expertise – including experts in science, engineering, social science, economics, business, policy and law – to overcome barriers to reaching net-zero emissions.

“Engineering and technology are important,” Sinton said. “But there are also social elements – the fit with communities, policy and developing solutions that are workable in a democracy.”

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce report argues that climate change should be addressed with solutions that it grouped into four pillars: improving predictability around climate policies; mobilizing clean energy solutions; supporting clean tech; and strengthening climate adaptation.

Ontario “has competitive advantages that it can leverage globally, including its low-carbon energy, world-class colleges and universities, talented workforce, sustainable natural resources, and cleantech sector,” the report states.

The report also highlighted the EaRTH District initiative, which involves five universities and colleges across the eastern GTA and aims to bring a training and innovation hub for green technology to the U of T Scarborough campus.

Sinton noted that evidence of U of T’s focus on sustainability can be found across the university.

“Outside my office window, we’ve dug up our historic campus to install Canada’s largest urban ground source heat pump system,” he said, referring to a massive geoexchange system that’s being built on the St. George campus as part of the Landmark Project.

The geoexhange project involves drilling hundreds of geothermal boreholes some 240 metres below ground. Once completed, the boreholes will store surplus heat generated by nearby mechanical systems in the summer for use in the winter – effectively using the Earth as a thermal battery. It’s estimated the system will reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by 15,000 metric tons per year.

The geoexchange system will also be used for student learning and aims to integrate clean tech technology developed by companies at the university.

One of the companies that is likely to play a part is CERT Systems, which was co-founded by Sinton and converts waste carbon dioxide into valuable commercial products.

In the financial realm, Sinton highlighted the University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation’s (UTAM) commitment to divest from direct fossil-fuel investments in its $4 billion endowment fund over the next 12 months, and from all indirect investments – typically held in pooled or comingled funds – by 2030.

He called it “a major step.”

U of T also recently became the first university in the world to join, via UTAM, the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, a group of institutional investors committed to achieving increasingly demanding targets every five years en route to net-zero emissions.

“We see a tremendous need and urgency – and opportunity – in responding to the climate crisis,” Sinton said.

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on November 9, 2021 by Mariam Matti

Ten outstanding members of the U of T Engineering community were recognized on November 4 at the 2021 Engineering Alumni Network (EAN) Awards.

The virtual awards ceremony celebrated alumni and students for their accomplishments and their contributions to the Skule™ community.

“An engineering education from U of T is terrific preparation for any career, and this year’s award winners showcase the diverse range of paths that our graduates follow,” said Dean Christopher Yip. “Whether they are inventors, founders, executives, athletes, artists, musicians or community volunteers, their ability to think analytically, creatively and globally is changing lives around the world.”

Engineering Alumni Medal

First awarded in 1939, the Engineering Alumni Medal is the highest honour awarded by the Engineering Alumni Association. High achievement is the common thread that links past recipients of this medal. In their diverse careers, these individuals have demonstrated superior accomplishments and have responded with flair and excellence to the challenges they have faced. They are outstanding role models for Engineering students.

Susan Doniz (IndE 9T3) is the chief information officer (CIO) and senior vice president of Information Technology & Data Analytics at The Boeing Company. She leads all aspects of information technology, information security, data and analytics for the world’s largest aerospace company. She also supports the growth of Boeing’s business through IT- and analytics-related revenue-generating programs.

She has been a board member of multiple non-profit organizations including The Women’s College Hospital Foundation, Salvation Army, and Engineers without Borders. She serves as an advisor to the Center for Digital Transformation at the University of California, Irvine and vice chair of the Digital Transformation Advisory Council of the International Air Transport Association. In 2011, she was named one of Canada’s most powerful women by WXN.

Learn more about Susan Doniz (video)

 

2T5 Mid-Career Achievement Award

The Class of 2T5 was the first class in Canada to receive iron rings at The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer. Since 1975, the Class of 2T5 annually presents the 2T5 Mid-career Achievement Award. This award recognizes a graduate (11 to 25 years from undergraduate graduation) who has earned respect within the profession as well as the broader Canadian community.

Tahir Mahmood (MechE 9T6, BME MASc 0T0) is CEO and co-founder of Applied Molecular Transport, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted biological therapeutics for treating immunological, metabolic and other diseases. He is also co-founder of Mindera Health, a skin genomics company.

Previously, Tahir was a management consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and Lake Sherwood Partners, Visiting Investigator at The Scripps Research Institute, and Principal Business Analyst at Amgen. Earlier, he was at Chienna (acquired by OctoPlus) and IsoTis S.A. (acquired by Integra Life Sciences). He is inventor on more than 120 issued and pending patents. Tahir received a BASc in Mechanical Engineering and MSc in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto. He holds a PhD in Chemical & Biomedical Engineering from a collaborative program between the University of Twente (The Netherlands) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Learn more about Tahir Mahmood (video)

Engineering Alumni Network Scholarship

Awarded for the first time in 2019, the EAN Scholarship is presented to a part-time or full-time student in good standing, proceeding to 2nd, 3rd or 4th year in any program in the Faculty. Recipients are selected based on the demonstration of a passion for engineering-related design, creativity and innovation as exhibited by involvement in the Skule™ community through design-related extra-curricular activities, co-curricular involvement and/or entrepreneurial pursuits.

Chetanya Choudhary, MechE 2T1 + PEY

Chetanya is a 4th year mechanical engineering student, concurrently pursuing a business minor from the Rotman School of Management. He is passionate about the intersection of engineering and business, and is committed to increasing the global competitive footprint of Canada’s growing tech sector through supporting domestic technical innovation and entrepreneurship. Currently in the final year of his undergraduate degree, Chetanya serves as a Teaching Assistant in the Engineering Strategies and Practice course – a technical design course where he helps first-year students build foundational engineering competencies in design thinking, problem-solving, communication, and leadership. Following graduation, Chetanya is excited to apply the knowledge he has gained as a student to the engineering profession and to business as he helps support innovation and entrepreneurship.

View the full story and learn about all of the EAN winners on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site. 

On November 12, faculty, staff and students from across U of T Engineering will have the opportunity to learn more about the connections between engineering and Indigenous Peoples.

The talk, titled ‘Indigenous Engineering Design, Ethics, and Role Models‘, will be given by professional engineers John Desjarlais and Matthew Dunn, co-presidents of the Saskatchewan Professional Chapter of the Canadian Indigenous Science and Engineering Society. It is being held as part of the Towards Inclusive Practices Series (TIPS) hosted by U of T’s Engineering Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Action Group.

Writer Tyler Irving connected with Dunn and Desjarlais by email to learn more.

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Can you share a bit about your own background, and how you realized that engineering was for you?

John Desjarlais

I was raised in a rich Nehinaw/Metis culture in a relatively small remote northern Saskatchewan community, Cumberland House, which is situated in the heart of the Saskatchewan River Delta. My surroundings and culture very much influenced where I am today, and my choice of engineering as a profession.

I was naturally interested in mechanics or the physics of the world around me — what made the boats we used faster, why canoes floated, and how to improve on snowmobiles and other things around us.

I was also aware of engineering as a profession since my father had direct experience working with many engineers in a resource development economy. But I didn’t realize it was for me or what it actually was until I spent time working in and around the profession myself, as a radiation/safety/environment technician for Cameco from 2001 to 2006. That is when I learned I wanted to become an engineer.

Matthew Dunn

Growing up I had the childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, and in Grade 9 I heard about the option of aerospace engineering as a career path for the first time.

I had always done well in school, especially in math and the sciences, and engineering seemed like a great option for me. I studied mechanical engineering at university and obtained my undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Saskatchewan.

Life took me down a very different path from aerospace engineering. I ended up working in the mining industry for over six years before switching career paths to working at the University of Saskatchewan for the past seven years in the area of Indigenous inclusion.

How do you approach design and ethics from an Indigenous perspective?

Matthew Dunn

There are many examples of Indigenous engineering design from history that, unfortunately, not everyone is aware of.

Our talk presents a handful of these designs, such as the Travois, a structure for transporting goods, and the Bull Boat, used for river transport.

John Desjarlais

Design and ethics are typically taught from a western and colonial perspective, whereas Indigenous design and ethics demonstrate integration and historical examples of problem-solving using a reciprocity and virtue-based mindset.

Two important Cree concepts are Mino Pimatisiwin and Mino-Pimachisowin, which are the ideas of the good life and the ability to live a good life, respectively. In this case, “good” is a holistic concept inclusive of many more dimensions than just our material world. The concepts are very analogous to teachings of living a good life across other Indigenous language groups as well.

These concepts influence my practice through a deeper relationship with ethics built on a virtue-based or ethics-of-character system. My practice is influenced by my desire to be a good person, which is how I achieve Mino-Pimatisiwin — the good life.

Why is it important for the U of T Engineering community to hear more about these positive connections?

Matthew Dunn

In order to support reconciliation in this country, the engineering profession needs to be proactive about building and maintaining respectful relationships with Indigenous peoples and communities. Learning more about Indigenous engineering design and ethics can be a starting point for discussions that ultimately lead to positive actions in this area.

By highlighting Indigenous engineering role models in this talk, we hope that more Indigenous students will see themselves as engineers. Another outcome that we’d like to see among non-Indigenous students and professionals is the shift from a deficit mindset to an asset mindset when it comes to Indigenous Peoples’ participation in engineering.

John Desjarlais

It is important for everyone to see how engineering is not a western construct, but a global reflection of different groups’ desires to solve problems and create solutions for better societal outcomes.

I hope our talk will inspire ideas of humility and expand on how we see engineering education and design. We hope to increase awareness of Indigenous involvement in engineering, and to help our audience see value in adding Indigenous worldviews to engineering practice.

U of T Engineering faculty, staff and students can register for the talk, which will take place virtually on November 12.

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on November 5, 2021 by Tyler Irving

A new technology developed by researchers at the University of Toronto provides the first step in mimicking the environment of lung airways, using a microfluidic device combined with a novel airflow system. This technology enables scientists and engineers to perform various particle exposure experiments to examine the pathological effect of air pollutants on respiratory health.

This development was recently published in the issue of Advanced Materials Technologies by Siwan Park (BME) and Professor Edmond Young (MIE, BME).

The microfluidic lung airway-on-a-chip, as the authors denoted as E-FLOAT (stands for Extractable Floating Liquid gel-based Organ-on-a-chip for Airway Tissue modelling under airflow), is an easily modifiable system where scientists can grow lung cells in a suspended hydrogel that mimics lung tissue. Airflow can also be modulated in this system to simulate breathing in the human lungs.

“We showed that lung airway tissue can be micro-engineered in the lab, exposed to various environmental conditions including airflow and pollutants, and then be extracted for further interrogation as if it were a real lung tissue sample,” said Professor Edmond Young, corresponding author, and Associate Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering.

In many existing iterations of the technology, cells grown on the microfluidic device are limited to ‘on-chip’ analysis to assess the effect of external stimuli – such as airflow – on the health of the cells. This is suboptimal for analysis. While scientists can remove these cells from the device for post-experimental analysis, this process changes the spatial location of the cells in relationship to the tissue mimicry altogether.

“One of the advantages of E-FLOAT is the ability to extract the biomimetic airway tissue that allows us to develop an in-depth knowledge through a wide array of imaging technologies,” said Siwan Park, the lead researcher on this study and a 5^th year Ph.D. candidate at BME, “We were especially excited to obtain the stunning images of histology sections using the extracted hydrogel. Not only does it look beautiful, we believe that it may also be significant in histological and pathological perspectives. Also, depending on how we design the cell-matrix interactions in E-FLOAT, we may obtain a more physiologically accurate representation of multicellular airway tissue.”

The researchers first developed the microfluidic device by micro-milling and bonding the thermoplastic layers. The device incorporates a special channel geometry for growing lung cells on a suspended gel. Lastly, an airflow system was connected to the device that can generate various flow rates of the warm and humidified air.

To put the device to the test, the researchers successfully delivered airborne particles onto the airway cells via controlled airflow to mimic how air pollutants would interact with lung cells.

The researchers then extracted the entire biological mimic and analyzed particulate and cell interactions using various high-resolution imaging technologies.

“In the future, the plan is to use this technology to study the development of lung diseases like asthma – especially in the presence of air pollution – and to also use it as a preclinical model during drug development. There is obviously a lot more work to be done, but we hope to collaborate with lung researchers and partner with pharma down the road to realize this plan,” said Prof. Young.

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Biomedical Engineering News page on October 27, 2021 by Qin (Bill) Dai

Professors Tobin Filleter and Chul Park receive 2022 CSME Technical Awards

Tobin Filleter and Chul Park are recipients of prestigious 2022 CSME Technical Awards. These awards are presented biannually to CSME members for their outstanding contributions to specific areas of mechanical engineering in Canada.

Professor Filleter was awarded the Solid Mechanics Medal in recognition of exceptional research and innovation contributions to the field of nanomechanics. He is a professor and the Associate Chair of Graduate Studies in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto.

Professor Filleter’s research interests are in nanomechanics of materials. Specific areas of research include nanotribology, mechanics of 2D materials, nanocomposites, and non-destructive testing. He has authored papers in many top international journals including Nature, Nature Materials, Science Advances, and Nature Communications. He is the recipient of several major awards including the Erwin Edward Hart Professorship, CSME I.W. Smith Award, and Ontario Early Researcher Award.

 

Professor Park received the Manufacturing Medal for exceptional research and innovation contributions to the field of plastic foam manufacturing. Dr. Park is a world leader in the development of innovative, cost-effective technologies for the foamed plastics. He has been extensively involved in industrial projects both in consulting and research contracts on various foam processes including microcellular processing, inert gas-injection processing, rotational foam molding, wood-fiber composites, and open-cell foams.

In recognition of his outstanding research achievements, he has received numerous honors and awards in his career including the NSERC Strategic Network Grant, the Julian C Smith Award from the Engineering Institute of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the C.N. Downing Award from the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, the M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers/Society of Manufacturing Engineers and Fellow of the Korean Academy of Science of Technology in 2012.

The awards will be presented in person at the CSME International Congress in June 2022. The winners of the technical awards will also present a plenary lecture at the Congress.

-Published October 25, 2021 by Lynsey Mellon, lynsey@mie.utoronto.ca