In the latest episode of “Tell Me More: Coffee with Chris Yip”, the official podcast of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto. Dean Chris Yip sits down with Eva Lau (IndeE 9T2), MIE alumna and co-founder of Two Small Fish Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the next evolution of computing and its applications.

Eva earned her Bachelor of Applied Science in Industrial Engineering at MIE. Having transformed from an engineering student to a successful investor and mentor in the technology industry, Eva now leverages her experience to help early-stage transformative tech companies achieve internet scale. She was a founding team member of Wattpad as head of community and content for the storytelling platform, she helped the company scale from hundreds to tens of millions of users.

In this episode, Eva talked about how learning human factors in industrial engineering has influenced her career path, the evolution of computer technology, the importance of mentorship, and what makes U of T Engineering unique.

Listen and subscribe to the episode and hear more about the stories and thoughts from Eva!

-Published on May 15, 2024, by Sherry Wang

 

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.

Six members of the U of T Engineering community have been honored by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) and Professional Engineers Ontario with the Ontario Professional Engineers Awards.  These awards recognize engineers in Ontario who have made exceptional contributions to the profession and to society.   

Among them, Paul Acchione (MechE 7T1, MIE MEng 7T6) garnered the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing the engineering profession through long-standing service to OSPE.  Inga Hipsz (MechE 9T4, MIE MASc 9T6) and David Poirier (IndE 8T1) were both awarded the Management Medal for innovative management practices contributing significantly to an engineering achievement.  

“These outstanding engineers demonstrate the range of contributions that our faculty and alumni are making across multiple fields, from founding new companies and managing significant Canadian organizations to serving in leadership roles in the profession and in the community,” says U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip.  

“On behalf of the faculty, my heartfelt congratulations on these well-deserved recognitions.” 

Acchione has more than 50 years of engineering and management experience in the nuclear and fossil power generation industry. He worked with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and its predecessor companies in their fossil and nuclear engineering divisions from 1971-2002 and is now a consultant with Market Intelligence & Data Analysis Corporation.  

During his career at OPG, Acchione held several positions, including design engineer, design engineer specialist, supervising design engineer, project manager and department manager. He received two new technology awards and a product champion award. 

 Acchione’s experience includes the design of automatic control systems and simulation studies of the performance of nuclear and fossil generation plants and their integration with the electrical grid. He has published a dozen technical papers related to his design, simulation and project management experience.  

Acchione has a longstanding interest in energy supply options that can provide Ontario with reliable, safe and sustainable electricity at a competitive price. Recently, he has been focused on the design of retail electricity rates that can make clean surplus electricity available at prices lower than fossil fuels on an energy equivalent basis. Such price plans can accelerate the transition to low-emission electricity. Acchione was the President and Chair of OSPE from 2013-2014 and has served as a member of the OSPE Energy Task Force for a decade. He was elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 2014 and received the OSPE President’s Volunteer Award in 2018. 

In her more than 25-year career, Hipsz has consistently advanced the organizations she leads by building high-performing teams and driving process improvements. After obtaining her undergraduate degree and master of applied science in mechanical engineering from U of T, Hipsz joined Kodak Canada, where she spent nearly a decade leading process improvement initiatives. She was recognized for developing corporate best-in-class practices that were adopted company-wide and for helping shape the lean manufacturing culture within Kodak’s Canadian manufacturing organization.  

In 2005, she joined CSA Group as a project manager developing nuclear standards, leading a series of process improvement initiatives that resulted in a significant increase in industry funding and which became a model for other groups within the organization. This eventually led to the creation of a lean team under her leadership. In 2017, Hipsz was promoted to CSA Group’s global leadership team. In 2018, she was appointed to manage their largest global division as regional vice-president (Americas operations) of testing and certification. By developing a culture of continuous improvement, she significantly elevated the performance of this operation. Most recently, Hipsz was named VP, standards, strategic development.  

Hipsz advocates for the importance of standards to government and industry. She serves as a member of the diversity, equity and inclusion, and environment, social and governance steering committees at CSA Group and acts as a mentor and role model for woman engineers. In addition, she has served the community as an alumni ambassador for U of T and a committee member for girls’ softball associations. 

Poirier is the founder and CEO of The Poirier Group, a boutique management consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations implement and integrate significant change. The firm has worked with major companies across North America to transform their corporate culture and processes. Before starting The Poirier Group in 2005, he had a very successful management career spanning the retail, food distribution, health and life sciences and manufacturing industries. He held senior leadership roles in Loblaw Companies Ltd. and the Hudson’s Bay Company.  

Despite his demanding career, Poirier has always prioritized giving back his time. He has made exceptional contributions to training and mentoring the next generation of industrial and systems engineers and has enabled leading-edge research in these fields by building strong academic-industry partnerships. As an active volunteer with U of T for 25 years, Poirier has chaired both the Dean’s Advisory Board and the Industry Advisory Board for the mechanical and industrial engineering department. He has been a volunteer for Camp One for the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer since the 1990s and served as chair of their executive committee.  

Poirier is a longstanding member of the Council on Industrial & Systems Engineering; he has been its chair since 2014. Poirier was president of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) from 2020-2021 and served on their Board from 2019-2022. He is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and he has received many of IISE’s most prestigious awards, including the Medallion Award and the Outstanding Management 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 10, 2024, by Carolyn Farrell.

 

Competitive wrestler and MIE student, Kirti Saxena (MechE 2T4 + PEY) adds a spot as an alternate for the Paris 2024 Olympic Team to her impressive competitive sports accomplishments. The road to the Olympic Trials took additional perseverance and determination as the Varsity Blues and Team Canada athlete recovered from her second knee surgery while managing an internship with Tesla at the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.

Recent participation in the Canadian Senior National Championship was halted due to illness, but Saxena pushes forward with the Non-Olympic World Team Trials this month. Saxena shares with MIE what drives her successes in competition, her studies, and internship.

 

1) How did you balance training and working for Tesla?

My managers were aware of my training and competition schedules and that I would be able to balance athletics and work. I manage all priority work before leaving for competitions and I am part of a team that is supportive and encouraging toward my athletics. I start each day at 5:30-6:00 am, do an early morning gym session, head into the Gigafactory, and begin wrestling practice after work. A typical day ends at around 8:00 pm. Weekend workouts include something other than wrestling or strength and conditioning to add variety. Recently it’s been a mix of bouldering, soccer, and volleyball. Sundays tend to be my rest, reset, and meal prep days.

2) How was preparing for the Olympic Trials different from your other competitions?

Recovering from knee surgery, I was not at peak physical condition going into the Trials and I had to shift my mindset. I have always envisioned nothing less than winning and that remained but recognizing that I was still in recovery, I included tolerance towards my circumstances as I competed. The goal going into the Olympic Trials was to wrestle well and prove that I was on my way back from injury while transitioning into being a major competitor.

3) When did you have your knee surgery and what was the impact on your training and studies?

Surgery was right before final exams in the winter semester of 2023 and it has taken over a year to recover. My mindset toward my academics also shifted while navigating the physical and mental challenges that come with recovery. Not being able to do normal daily tasks affected my routines, study habits, and lifestyle greatly. I trained insanely hard for a month to be able to get back to a point to take my exams that semester. And even harder to get my body ready for physical impact.

 

4) Who has been your biggest inspiration?

I’m the youngest from a big family and have a number of role models. I would say that right now my biggest inspiration is my sister Rachna. Being a former wrestler and current coach, she represented women of color on the Wrestling Canada board while balancing a full-time job and starting a family.

When you ask me how I balance multiple priorities and work toward exceeding expectations, I am reminded of people, my sister being one of them, who consistently achieve even more. Rachna takes on challenges, listens to all points of view, and acts in a manner to benefit everyone. She is confident and greatly respected within her work environment and the wrestling community. She is also someone who has always supported and believed in me, even with our ten-year difference. I am inspired by my sister’s career path and aim to follow in the same direction.

5) What have you enjoyed the most about your Tesla internship?

Working at Tesla in the Gigafactory has been an unreal experience. The bounds of technology are endless. I appreciate the amount of responsibility allocated to interns as it provides the opportunity to take ownership of tasks and I have learned many skills in my areas of interest. My manager, and mentor, Drupadh gives me projects that he knows I will enjoy and learn from. He makes time for me regularly within his busy schedule, makes sure that my work is high-quality, and guides me through any problems. I appreciate his approach of letting me take the reins on projects so I can navigate issues and learn through my mistakes, while he is always available when needed.

-Published on May 7, 2024, by Kendra Hunter

On April 11, the U of T Engineering Career Centre hosted its sixth annual awards reception recognizing excellence in the Professional Experience Year Co-op Program (PEY Co-op) during the 2022–2023 work term. The event highlighted the outstanding contributions of employers, mentors, students, and staff who have supported the program’s enduring success. 

The PEY Co-op program has prepared U of T Engineering students to contribute meaningfully to top global organizations for more than 40 years. Conceived in the 1970s by Professors Derek McCammond, David Scott, and Ron Venter from the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, the program has since influenced more than 20,000 students across various engineering disciplines.  

Today, PEY Co-op is one of U of T Engineering’s most popular co-curricular offerings, with more than 94% of the first-year class joining over the past four years.  

Facilitated by U of T’s Engineering Career Centre, the PEY Co-op work term offers undergraduate engineering students the opportunity to gain full-time, paid work experience over 12 to 16 months. The program is a degree-long work-integrated learning journey that begins in the first year by preparing students for the recruitment process and work term, which begins after students’ third year of study. 

This year’s awards reception not only celebrated individual successes but also highlighted the lasting impact of the PEY Co-op program on the U of T Engineering community 

“We have many people to credit for the success of the PEY Co-op program. To the organizations that employ our students, thank you for having the foresight to see how engaging with our students benefits your companies and is crucial in developing the next generation of engineering leaders,” says Chris Yip, Dean of U of T Engineering. 

“And congratulations to the exceptional U of T Engineering students who have pursued PEY Co-op. Each of you have made the most of your experience by collaborating with diverse teams and being intentional in acquiring a global perspective. These are the qualities that will enable you to address some of the most complex challenges we face as a society.” 

The ceremony also recognized 11 peer coaches and 12 alumni ambassadors for their crucial contributions to mentoring current students and enhancing the PEY Co-op program. 

See more photos from the event in the awards reception photo gallery. 

Student of the Year 

The PEY Co-op Student of the Year Award recognizes a student who demonstrated excellence in the workplace as an outstanding member of the employer’s team. Employers nominate students for this award.

Barry Bytensky (Year 4 EngSci) 

During his PEY Co-op at The Hospital for Sick Children’s PCIGITI Lab, Bytensky developed a novel simulation platform to explore prospective high-intensity focused ultrasound treatments of retinoblastoma. His promising findings led to several presentations at SickKids research conferences.

Karma Sadhwani (Year 4 ChemE) 

Sadhwani completed her PEY Co-op work term at Scotiabank, where she served as a trade floor technology consultant with the Global Banking & Markets Technology team. In this role, she was involved in managing various high-risk trading applications utilized within the department and actively pursued automation opportunities across different teams on the trade floor. This summer she will return to Scotiabank as a sales & trading rotational analyst. 

 

Employer of the Year 

The PEY Co-op Employer of the Year Award recognizes an exceptional partner organization that hired a PEY Co-op student. Because of the employer, the student or students came away from their PEY Co-op experience with enhanced knowledge, honed interests and a head start on developing as a professional. 

MDA Space

MDA Space received the PEY Co-op Employer of the Year Award for its outstanding dedication to providing enriching professional development opportunities and creating a supportive environment for co-op students during the 2022–2023 work term. They have been a valued PEY Co-op employer since 2013, and have hired and mentored 37 U of T Engineering students to date. 

 

Mentor of the Year  

The PEY Co-op Mentor of the Year Award recognizes an exemplary individual and their commitment to excellence in mentoring. Recipients of this award have played an exceptional role in sharing their wisdom and experiences, nurturing the personal and professional growth of their mentees. Students nominate their managers or supervisors for this award. 

Alice Gao (ECE 1T0, ECE MASc 1T2)

Gao serves as lead engineer at Deep Genomics, a U of T Engineering spinoff founded by Professor Brendan Frey (ECE). During her time at Deep Genomics, Gao has engaged in diverse areas, from building software for machine learning (ML) research to developing models for genome biology and drug discovery. Her passion lies in creating tooling to support reproducible ML research and accelerate the development of genome biology ML models, particularly in an era where training such models demands substantial data and computational resources. 

Adriano Lombardi (IndE 0T0, MIE MEng 1T2)

Lombardi has been a passionate mentor within the PEY Co-op program since 2000. He is an accomplished professional with 23 years of extensive process improvement experience and 16 years of cross-functional leadership across diverse sectors, including financial services, retail and manufacturing. In his most recent role as director of business process re-engineering at Walmart Canada, Adriano collaborated closely with business teams to drive medium to large-scale operational and digitization projects. 

 

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on April 30, 2024, by Yumeng Zhang.

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering recently honored 25 faculty and staff members for their outstanding contributions with teaching, research, and administrative staff awards. These awards recognize exceptional faculty and staff for their leadership, citizenship, innovation, and contributions to U of T Engineering’s teaching, service, and research missions.

“I’m grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge our professors and staff who contribute to making U of T Engineering Canada’s top-ranked school for engineering education and research,” says Christopher Yip, Dean of U of T Engineering.

“My congratulations to all the awardees, and my heartfelt thanks to all our faculty and staff members for their continued excellence.”

Among the recipients, Professor Chi-Guhn Lee and Katie Allison (MASc student) from MIE are awarded the Safwat Zaky Research Leader Award and the Teaching Assistant Award.

Chi-Guhn Lee (MIE) 

Safwat Zaky Research Leader Award  

Recognizing leadership in innovative interdisciplinary and multiple-investigator initiatives that have enhanced the faculty’s research profile. 

Over the past decade, Chi-Guhn Lee has led large-scale research initiatives that have benefited many students and faculty members and significantly raised the profile of U of T Engineering.

He has taken over the leadership of the Centre for Maintenance Optimization and Reliability Engineering (C-MORE), which was founded 30 years ago by Professor Emeritus Andrew Jardine (MIE) but began to stagnate when he retired. Under Lee’s leadership, C-MORE has steadily grown, supporting more diverse research activities and educational opportunities.

Lee was also instrumental in developing U of T’s research partnership with LG, beginning in 2018 when he invited the President of LG CNS to visit the faculty. An official agreement between LG and U of T was signed in 2019, bringing in $3 million. Lee then worked closely with LG CNS to initiate a second funding program, effectively doubling LG’s investment.

In 2023, LG Electronics announced the renewal of their partnership with U of T for another five years.

Lee played an important role in creating an International Doctoral Cluster for the exchange of graduate students with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Under his guidance, the program has facilitated substantial research collaborations and cultivated a vibrant academic community.

Katie Allison (MIE MASc student)

Teaching Assistant Award  

Recognizing a TA who demonstrates excellence in classroom teaching, working with students, and the development of course materials. 

Katie Allison, a mechanical engineering MASc student, has served as a teaching assistant in two foundation year courses in the Division of Engineering Science, ESC101: Praxis I and ESC103: Engineering Mathematics and Computation. This means that students encounter her during their often challenging transition to university.

Allison’s style of teaching and her approach to engaging with students helps them to build confidence in their skills and knowledge as they progress through their first term. Her commitment to students does not end when the course does; she continues to mentor and advise many students in her classes throughout their time at U of T.

Allison also played a key role in the development of ESC204: Praxis III, starting with her involvement on the course development team as a fourth-year EngSci student. Since then, she has taken on various roles in the course, including TA, senior TA, and course instructor. Allison developed a more than 200-page prototyping handbook that serves as a reference for students to extend their learning, as well as hands-on Prototyping Bootcamp materials that she has created and refined through several iterations of the course. As ESC204 has developed, she has been instrumental in collecting feedback and responding to student concerns to improve their experience.

Congratulations to Professor Lee and Allison for their achievements and contributions to the research and teaching of the U of T Engineering!

 

– 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 April 16, 2024, by Carolyn Farrell.