Last month, an Ontario Health official warned that reaching 900 COVID-19 patients in its intensive care units (ICU) could trigger a triage protocol, in which some of the province’s oldest and sickest patients would not receive the highest level of care available. Ontario only narrowly averted this life-or-death scenario.

The pandemic has shone a light on the difficult decisions that must be made in order to manage hospital capacity, quality of care and patient outcomes. Helping to inform these tough calls are health-care optimization experts, such as Professors Timothy Chan (MIE), Canada Research Chair in Novel Optimization and Analytics in Health and Director, Centre for Healthcare Engineering, and Vahid Sarhangian (MIE), Associate Director, Centre for Healthcare Engineering.

Chan and Sarhangian recently spoke to writer Liz Do to share their insights on the ICU capacity issues in Ontario, and how they’re helping to optimize hospital operations during and after the pandemic.

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We’re seeing very high numbers of hospital admissions in Ontario due to the pandemic. Explain the role of optimization modelling in addressing patient flow.

Sarhangian: Hospitals have limited capacity and resources, so broadly speaking the role of modelling and optimization is to help better match the scarce resources with demand, in order to reduce waiting times for access to care and improve patient outcomes.

Chan: Regarding what’s happening right now in ICUs, there will be some hospitals that are in much higher demand. So, the number of patients coming into the hospitals may be more than what they can handle. And then there will be hospitals elsewhere in the province that have the opposite situation. The role of optimization modelling, and what we’ve been doing with some of the province’s decision makers, is to inform patient transfers and help balance the load.

What’s involved in deciding patient transfers, such as who should be transferred and to where?

Chan: Transferring patients from one hospital to another is a very complex process. What we’ve been focusing on is just one piece of the puzzle — we’re analyzing occupancy level projections and hospital resources to see how to best move patients around. But the overall process is much more involved: you must look at how far away you’re moving the patient, the timing and the right care. There’s a lot of care-coordination involved.

Sarhangian: Generally, hospitals operate close to or even sometimes above capacity and are difficult and expensive to staff. COVID-19 has led to an increase in demand for ward and ICU beds and staff. To cope with this increase in demand, the options are to either add more beds and staff, which is expensive and impractical in a short period of time, or reduce the demand from other sources by cancelling elective surgeries.

Transferring patients allows for balancing the occupancy levels across hospitals in the short term but still requires lots of coordination and could potentially affect the health outcomes of the patients being transferred. So, making patient transfer decisions require managing multiple complex trade-offs.

Tell me about your collaboration. How is it helping to improve patient transfers in the province?

Sarhangian: Our work has focused on developing a decision-support tool that leverages data and analytical methods such as queueing theory, simulation and optimization to find patient transfers that minimize the number of days hospitals spend above certain occupancy levels — for example, 95 percent — during a surge of COVID-19 cases.

We’re focusing on this objective because it’s been well-established that high occupancy levels at hospitals can lead to poor outcomes and higher mortality rates for the patients. Our tool only recommends the number of patients to be transferred from one hospital to another. Deciding which patients should be transferred is left to the clinicians.

What is the status of this work? Are you currently working with hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area?

Chan: We’ve been collaborating with clinicians who provide data that we’re using for our modelling, and folks at Ontario Health who are supporting the decision-making process. We’ve presented our work to decision makers who oversee recommending how many patients should move from where to where.

Note that even after COVID-19 passes, this work will be helpful in terms of recovery and addressing all the surgical cases that are backlogged.

Even as experts in your field, do the challenges of COVID-19 and its effect on our health-care system surprise you?

Sarhangian: From a research perspective, it’s been interesting to see how COVID-19 has introduced new and challenging problems related to management of patient flow. Hospital capacity strain is not a new problem though. So, it’s been surprising to see how the pandemic has highlighted its importance and the necessity for new solutions to address it.

Chan: What I find surprising is that at a global level, everyone has become so engaged and has redirected their efforts towards COVID-19. I think it’s helped highlight the existing issues that everyone knew were there, these systemic issues that really need to be fixed. I hope we realize now that we need to implement changes so that when the next pandemic comes, we’re prepared.

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

Sixteen Engineering faculty and staff have been honoured for their outstanding contributions to U of T Engineering with teaching, research, and administrative staff awards.

These awards recognize exceptional faculty and staff members for their leadership, citizenship, innovation and contributions to the Faculty’s teaching, service, and research missions.

“This year it’s especially important for us to celebrate and acknowledge the incredible contributions made by our amazing faculty and staff,” said U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip. “My warmest congratulations to the awardees, and my enormous thanks to all the faculty and staff who have risen to meet the unprecedented challenges we have faced.”

The award recipients from MIE are:

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF AWARDS:

Tomas Bernreiter, Tony Ruberto and Osmond Sargeant

Quality of Student Experience Award for Behind-the-Scenes Staff
Recognizing staff members who have made significant contributions to the quality of student experience in the Faculty through the creation or improvement of programs or services.
This team has worked together for many years to design and maintain engaging labs for Mechanical Engineering (ME) undergrads, and to train TAs to run these labs safely and effectively. In total they have created or helped create more than 100 labs for dozens of courses. The team has always provided an excellent lab experience for students, but they truly went above and beyond during the sudden shift online last year, when they had to quickly reimagine every ME lab in order to provide a comparable experience for students learning remotely. The team successfully moved more than 50 separate labs online, working with each instructor to formulate custom course-by-course plans for virtual labs. They became experts on web-based learning platforms and video recording, creating professionally edited videos for multiple courses and organizing an effort to digitize dozens of labs. All the while, they have continued to support students and instructors on an individual level, providing training and technical support whenever needed. As a result, they have ensured that these labs continue to be a foundational learning tool for ME students.

Gayle Lesmond 

Harpreet Dhariwal Emerging Leader Award

Recognizing a staff member who leads by example in their dedication to the Faculty’s mission and demonstrates potential to assume a more senior leadership role.

Since taking on the role of Undergraduate Program Administrator & Academic Advisor for MIE in 2018, Gayle Lesmond has created a culture of excellence in the MIE undergraduate office. She has spearheaded initiatives to streamline and improve administrative processes, developed an impressive level of knowledge and expertise, and led by example in her above-and-beyond work ethic and professionalism. Under her leadership the undergraduate office has become a more efficient, responsive, and welcoming place, which better serves all members of the MIE community. In addition to her “big picture” efforts to elevate the work of the undergraduate office, Lesmond is also a terrific advisor and mentor to students and consistently advocates for them behind the scenes. She has worked exceptionally hard over the course of this year to help both students and faculty meet the unprecedented challenges presented by the pandemic and to ensure that students continue to have access to all the resources they need to succeed and thrive. In 2020, Lesmond received an MIE Outstanding Staff Award in recognition of her many contributions to the department.

Safwat Zaky Research Leader Award

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

Axel Guenther (MIE, BME), Milica Radisic (ChemE, BME) and Aaron Wheeler (Chemistry, BME)

The Centre for Research and Applications in Fluidic Technologies (CRAFT)

This team of researchers is being recognized for their work over the last few years to create the Centre for Research and Applications in Fluidic Technologies (CRAFT). Working with Teodor Veres, their counterpart at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), the team developed this unique U of T-NRC venture bringing together more than $50M in state-of-the-art microfluidics infrastructure and lab equipment, including a new Device Foundry and Tissue Foundry at U of T, both set to open later this year. In the coming years these facilities, supported by expert staff, will be used by hundreds of trainees and researchers from across U of T Engineering, other Faculties, and other universities in Ontario and beyond. CRAFT will support multidisciplinary teams — including engineers, biologists, physical scientists and clinicians — developing leading-edge microfluidic devices to be manufactured by Canadian industry partners and used by healthcare practitioners in clinical practice. CRAFT aims to strengthen the entire value chain of microfluidic manufacturing in Canada, making U of T a world leader in creating and translating microfluidics-enabled technologies that improve the health of Canadians.

Read the full story by Carolyn Farrell and learn about all of the award recipients on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site. 

Two U of T Engineering professors and three alumni have been honoured by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) and Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) with Ontario Professional Engineers Awards. These awards recognize professional engineers in Ontario who have made outstanding contributions to the profession and to society.   

Professor Baher Abdulhai (CivMin) won the Engineering Excellence medal, recognizing overall excellence in the practice of engineering. Professor Eric Diller (MIE) garnered the Young Engineer Medal, for an early-career engineer who has demonstrated professional excellence as well as service to the community. Alumnus Hugo Blasutta (CivE 7T7, MEng 7T8) received the Management Medal, for innovative management contributing significantly to an engineering achievement. Alumnus Peter Halsall (CivE 7T7) won the Gold Medal, recognizing public service, technical excellence, and outstanding professional leadership.  Alumna Sandra Odendahl (ChemE MASc 9T0) received the Citizenship Award, given to an engineer who has made significant volunteer contributions to the community. 

“These recipients illustrate the amazing depth and breadth of the contributions being made by U of T engineers, spanning research, management, entrepreneurship, professional leadership, and service to the profession and to the community,” said U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip. “On behalf of the Faculty, my warmest congratulations to these outstanding engineering faculty and alumni on this well-deserved recognition.” 

Eric Diller’s research is bringing magnetic wireless small-scale robots from untested concept to application. He has made significant advances in fundamental new capabilities for actuation and control of novel biomedical microdevices and has developed new devices such as miniaturized surgical tools and ‘smart pills’. Along with his academic, clinical and industry partners, he is rapidly progressing towards applying these advances to commercialization.

Diller’s advances in this area have been recognized with multiple awards, including the Ontario Early Researcher Award, the U of T Connaught Innovation Award, the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering’s I.W. Smith Award, and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s Early Career Award. Diller has published 68 peer-reviewed publications in top journals such as Science Robotics, Nature Communications and Advanced Functional Materials, and his papers have been cited around 2700 times. His research has been nominated for six Best Paper Awards at engineering conferences. In addition to research articles, his work has resulted in six patent and provisional patent applications. Diller’s research is frequently featured in the press, including IEEE Spectrum, NBC News, Science News, and The Financial Times. A recent video of his work on the YouTube channel Veritasium has received more than 1.8 million views.

Read the full story by Carolyn Farrell and learn about all of the U of T Engineering winners on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site. 

Eldan Cohen joins MIE as an Assistant Professor after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Previously, he obtained his PhD in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto and has interned at the Fujitsu Laboratories of America and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. His research interests include machine learning, heuristic search, and scalable data mining with applications in automated planning, natural language processing, and software engineering.

 What drew you to MIE at U of T?

There are a few things that drew me to MIE; the world-renowned research, the excellent graduate programs, and the friendly and collaborative environment. The research in applied machine learning that takes place at MIE and the active AI community in Toronto mean there are many opportunities to work and collaborate on innovative AI projects. As a graduate of MIE myself, I know that MIE is a great place to study and conduct research and I look forward to working with the students, faculty, and staff.

Can you tell us about your research?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms play an increasingly important role in our lives, however much is still unknown about the behavior and limitations of these algorithms. My research attempts to gain a deeper understanding of AI and machine learning algorithms by developing models that describe their empirical performance and identify scenarios in which these algorithms may not perform well. Based on these models, we can design more robust algorithms.  In particular, I am interested in studying AI algorithms for solving complex problems with a large number of interacting decisions and have worked on different applications, including automated planning, natural language processing, and software engineering.

What are your goals, as both an educator and a researcher, over the next few years?

As an educator, my goal is to provide students with knowledge and practical skills they need to help them solve real-world problems. As a researcher, my goal is to gain a deeper understanding of widely used AI and machine learning algorithms and to develop more robust and interpretable algorithms.

Do you have any unique hobbies?

Not unique, but during the recent period of working from home I have found baking to be a fun and rewarding hobby.

What is your favourite part about living in Toronto?

I love living in Toronto because it is such a friendly and diverse city. My favorite part of living in Toronto is that there is always something to do, and there is a huge variety of options for food, culture, entertainment, etc.

-Published April 1, 2021 by Lynsey Mellon, lynsey@mie.utoronto.ca

Professor Michael Carter (MIE) is among this year’s recipients of the University of Toronto President’s Impact Award. The award recognizes faculty members whose research has made a significant impact outside of academia.

Recipients receive $10,000 per year for five years to be used toward their research, and become members of the President’s Impact Academy.

Carter is being recognized for his pioneering contributions to the field of health-care engineering. His research and use of industrial engineering principles has led to substantial improvements in the health-care system in Canada and beyond.

Over the past 30 years, Carter has demonstrated the important role industrial engineers play in optimizing health-care systems. His work has been applied to improve government policy and practice in a number of areas, including surgical scheduling, managing scarce resources, and predicting future demand for health-care procedures and practitioners.

As one of the first academics in Canada to dedicate his research and teaching to improving the health-care system, Carter has supervised hundreds of students. More than 130 of his graduates are now working in the health-care sector, many of whom are in leadership roles.

Carter is also the Founding Director of the Centre for Healthcare Engineering (CHE), which launched in 2014 with funding from the Dean’s Strategic Fund. He has developed research partnerships with most hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area as well as provincial and federal governments across Canada.

“The current pandemic has, among other important lessons, underscored how crucial it is to have an optimized health-care system before a crisis strikes,” says Chris Yip, Dean of U of T Engineering. “On behalf of U of T Engineering, I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Professor Michael Carter, whose career-long commitment to health-care engineering has helped to improve the lives of people across the country and around the world. This honour is well deserved.”

-Published March 31, 2021 by Lynsey Mellon, lynsey@mie.utoronto.ca

Engineering can take you places. Just ask Ben Sprenger (Year 4 MIE), who spent two weeks in the summer of 2019 talking to Mongolian nomads about portable solar generators.

“I wanted to apply the skills that I had learned through classes and extracurriculars to solving important global problems,” he says. “I was also really interested in the opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary team with people in other fields, such as Arts & Science students.”

The Mongolian project was coordinated by the Reach Alliance from U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. Working in a team that included fellow U of T students Hannah Rundle (Munk School MGA candidate), Rushay Naik (Health Policy MSc candidate) and Tanvi Shetty (Munk School MGA candidate) Sprenger conducted interviews to understand the impact of the Mongolian government’s 100,000 Solar Ger (Yurt) Electrification Program.

Begun in 2000, the program provided electricity to nomadic families in the form of portable solar home systems. After a decade of operation, it had surpassed its target, reaching more than 70% of nomadic herders across the country. The U of T team wanted to better understand the key innovations that led to the program’s success.

“I will never forget driving through the steppe, not a road to be seen for what felt like a million miles, an endless expanse in front of us completely unmarked by human activity,” says Sprenger. “I loved meeting the local herders, and they welcomed us into their gers. I hope that the information we gathered will be useful for future projects, both in Mongolia and elsewhere.”

The trip wasn’t Sprenger’s only journey abroad during his degree program. As the Team Lead for the University of Toronto Formula Racing Team, he oversaw all aspects of the team’s entry in two international competitions: one in Brooklyn, Mich. and the other in Most, Czech Republic.

“I am an obsessive motorsports fan,” says Sprenger. “The sheer ingenuity and innovation that comes out of the sport is staggering, and its inventions have changed the world more than you could imagine.”

The obsession is more than a hobby. In August 2019 Sprenger moved to Oxfordshire, U.K. to take up a 12-month work placement with Williams Advanced Engineering, one of the world’s 10 Formula One teams. The job was facilitated through U of T Engineering’s Professional Experience Year Co-op Program.

“I wanted to push myself in a very competitive and fast-paced workplace, and learn about the  inner workings of what makes a winner,” he says.

Founded by Williams Grand Prix Engineering, Williams Advanced Engineering was contracted by Panasonic Jaguar Racing to design and build its vehicles for the Formula E championship, the world’s only all-electric racing series.

Sprenger contributed to both the 2020 and 2021 vehicles, and says one of his proudest moments was when the team placed first at the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, held in Mexico City in February 2020. Later, the team would also win the 2021 Diriyah E-Prix, taking the lead in the constructor’s championship.

 

As part of his PEY Co-op internship, Ben Sprenger (Year 4 MIE) worked at Williams Advanced Engineering, designing and creating components for the vehicle that won the 2020 ABB FIA Formula E Championship in Mexico City.

“Seeing all the hard work that everyone on the team did pay off in a race win was inspirational,” says Sprenger. “It was such a thrill seeing the car cross the line on TV, knowing that there were parts that I designed on there.”

Apart from the work itself, Sprenger says that moving to a new continent for a work term was one of the highlights of his degree.

“I was able to travel all around the U.K. and Ireland on weekend trips, and have made great friends with people from across Europe,” he says. “Being away from Canada for a full year has allowed me to grow so much as a person and helped me do things that I never thought I would be able to do.”

Sprenger will be graduating in June 2021, and he’ll soon be jetting off again: he’s secured an internship in California with Tesla, working on battery development.

“Engineering is truly a global discipline,” says Sprenger. “It has become increasingly clear to me that developing an understanding of the unique cultures of the world has become an essential part of the engineering ethos. I’m thankful that UofT has given me the opportunity to explore this at such an early stage in my career.”

It may make you squirm to think about it, but your insides are home to trillions of organisms from hundreds of different species. Scientists are studying this “gut microbiome” as a factor in a range of human health conditions, but current techniques could use some improvement.

“Gut microbes in humans are typically studied using stool samples, which inform about microbes in the colon,” says Professor Eric Diller (MIE). “While colonoscopy could allow for access deeper within the intestines, it is of course highly invasive. This means there is no simple, non-invasive method to sample within the small intestine, which is the most important area of the microbiome to study and observe.”

Diller and his team have a solution: a tiny magnetic capsule about the size of a vitamin pill. When swallowed by a patient, the capsule slowly works its way through the digestive system. When it gets to the desired point, it can be activated by holding a large magnet over the abdomen.

“The magnet opens a trap-door on the capsule, which then closes to tightly seal the sample inside,” says Diller. “The capsule can then be recovered from the stool and sent to a lab for analysis.”

The project is one of seven from across U of T Engineering to receive funding from the Connaught Innovation Awards, The Connaught Innovation Awards recognize and support innovations that have strong socio-economic or commercial potential. A total of 10 research teams from across U of T will share up to $500,000 in funding in this year’s cohort.

Diller and his team will use the funding to create an even smaller capsule that is easier to swallow, as well as to develop a way to track the capsule and enable samples to be taken at a more precise location.

“Tracking will be done using a vest of magnetic field sensors worn by the patient, as well as with ultrasound,” he says. “Along with project co-investigator John Parkinson at SickKids, we have already developed a prototype which we tested in animals, and we found that we could indeed collect samples with our non-invasive method.”

If successful, the tool could be invaluable to researchers as they continue to study the role of gut microbiota in all kinds of health conditions, from irritable bowel syndrome — which affects 226,000 Canadians — to diabetes.

The other six projects funded by this year’s Connaught Innovation Awards are:

• Energy-efficient coded-exposure-pixel cameras for accurate imaging without motion artifacts — Professors Roman Genov (ECE), Andreas Moshovos (ECE) and Kiriakos Kutulakos (Computer Science)
• Computational framework for fast uncertainty quantification and decision analytics — Professor Prasanth Nair (UTIAS)
• 2-ZYME: Two-step biocatalytic conversion of underused biorefinery side-streams to glucaric acid — Professor Emma Master (ChemE)
• Development of an automated system for blastocyst biopsy with minimal invasiveness in IVF clinics — Professor Yu Sun (MIE)
• Process Scale up for a novel method of nickel extraction — Professor Mansoor Barati (MSE)
• Iron fortification of tea — Professor Levente Diosady (ChemE)

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on March 29, 2021 by Tyler Irving

Many buildings in Las Arrugas, Guatemala are supplied with water pipes. The challenge is that most of the time, they are empty. 

“Each house only has about three hours of water being supplied to their faucet, every two days,” says Kejdi Kola (Year 4 ChemE). “Families collect as much water as they can to store until the pipes turn on again.” 

Even that water isn’t entirely trustworthy. Before using it for drinking, cooking or washing, most families boil the water over a wood fire to ensure that bacteria and other potential pathogens are destroyed. 

 Kola and his teammates — including Anton Meier (Year 4 ChemE), Calvin Rieder (Year 4 MechE) and Zhenglin Liu (Year 4 MechE) — aim to create a more sustainable solution. They are designing a water filtration system that could decontaminate the water with less energy input, while remaining simple to use, maintain and repair. 

 The project is part of a fourth-year capstone course at U of T Engineering, and is facilitated by the Centre for Global Engineering. Other project partners include  Students Offering Support and Seeds of Innovation for Sustainable Development (SIDS). 

 “People expect filtration systems to be durable and to provide them with adequate rates of water but if the solution is too expensive or impractical to use, it won’t be feasible,” says Meier. “Addressing the social and cultural differences has been a priority for our team.” 

In February 2020, three of the four team members travelled to Las Arrugas to meet with community members and learn more about the design challenge. 

“The most memorable aspect of the trip was how welcoming the families of Las Arrugas were,” says Kola. “The time we spent building relationships with the community gave us important insights into how we could improve our design.” 

 “The community will never forget these amazing future engineers,” says Noe Caal, who lives in Las Arrugas and was the main community contact for the project. “We are grateful for the love and passion they showed, and I hope that they now have a new perspective of developing countries.” 

 The team decided to site their filtration system at the community school, which serves more than 400 children. 

 “We have settled on a design to be recommended for the school,” says Kola. “We will also include a user guideline and implementation plan, which includes material procurement and assembly instructions. We’re hoping to have a clear roadmap of all the necessary steps that would have to be taken for the installation of our system.” 

Kola says he would highly recommend the experience he’s had for other students. 

“It’s a great chance to learn about different cultures and more about yourself,” he says. “Global development capstone projects are an excellent way to bring all of the skills that you learn throughout your degree together to have a significant positive impact on the world.” 

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on April 21, 2020 by Tyler Irving