When Zoe Petkovic (IndE Year 4) came to U of T Engineering as a first-year, TrackOne student and Varsity Blues track and field pole vaulter, her coaches thought it would be most practical if she moved from the main Engineering residence to one closer to her practice facility.  

“This cut my travel time,” she says. “But being in a different residence meant being away from most of my first-year engineering peers, who were all housed in one place and able to get together for study nights and to work on problem sets together.” 

Athletics and academics are individually extremely demanding pursuits, says Kate Lonergan (MechE 1T7).   

“Students who strive for excellence in both fields require focus and commitment to manage the constantly competing demands on their time and energy,” adds the former Varsity Blues volleyball player.  

Lonergan created Blues Engineering in 2013 to enhance the student-athlete experience by providing an engineering-specific support system.   

“What helped me stay on my feet were the other engineering students I knew from Varsity Blues,” says Lonergan, who is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich.  

“They helped me stay up to date in class and carve out study time within our zero-flexibility schedules. I realized that I was lucky to be part of such a supportive network, but not everyone had the same experience.” 

Blues Engineering is an extension of the offerings available from Varsity Blues’ Academic Support for Athletes Program (ASAP), which provides study spaces and tutoring for students but does not cover engineering-specific courses.  

U of T Engineering’s Vice-Dean Undergraduate office supports the student-run organization with guidance and resources to enable student leaders to achieve their goals. The Faculty also funds group activities, such as the annual welcome night in the fall and varsity luncheon in the winter term. 

“We are a grassroots organization,” says Graeme Aylward (IndE Year 4), a Varsity Blues swimmer and a member of the Blues Engineering leadership team, along with Petkovic, Carter Buck (EngSci Year 3) and Emmet Bravakis (CompE Year 3).   

“Our goal is to bring together engineering students who participate in varsity sports. We are a small group in the U of T Engineering community and must balance the challenging workload of being an engineering student with the time commitment of varsity athletics.” 

“Being a student athlete does offer a broader sense of community,” adds Petkovic. “I really liked meeting people within my sport from so many different backgrounds, studying a variety of disciplines.  

“But having that support system outside of class and practice was really important to me.”  

In the 2022-2023 academic year, there were 84 Varsity Blues student athletes enrolled in U of T Engineering undergraduate programs. Blues Engineering offers these students community and peer tutoring, running weekly study sessions on Sunday nights that are meant to align with first-year midterm schedules but are open to all years. 

With their demanding schedules, student athletes not only have to manage their course work with practices and meets, but they must also prioritize their rest, which is essential for recovery and strength building. This can mean going to bed earlier than their classmates who are up late, studying together.   

“Having this group, where you can come together and study with other engineering students, run different ideas by each other and make sure that you’re actually understanding concepts definitely helps,” says Buck, who is a Varsity Blues swimmer.  

“We are all managing busy schedules that make it hard to fall into the regular community of engineering.” 

Time management is key for student athletes, which is why Buck and his peers rely on calendar tools to manage their schedules and competing commitments.   

“I keep note of when my practice times are, so I know when I have time to do coursework and can make sure that I’m sticking to a consistent sleep schedule, as well — which is hard,” Buck says.   

“Before every term begins, I always make sure to meet up with my academic advisor to choose the Engineering Science cohort that will allow me to make the most practices.  

“A lot of people struggle with time management. But I’ve always been a firm believer that if you really care about something, you will find time to do it,” adds Aylward.

“My advice for any prospective student who is passionate about being an athlete and studying engineering is to do it: come to one of the best schools in the country for academics and athletics, and grow into a strong athlete, student and person here.  

“Being a varsity athlete is probably my favourite thing about my entire U of T experience.”  

As the group looks forward, they hope more engineering student athletes will join their organization and help them grow. 

“Meeting other engineering athletes is a great opportunity to find a group of like-minded individuals who will help you get through all the ups and downs of Skule™ challenges,” says Buck. 

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on January 15, 2024 by Safa Jinje.

Research from Professor Myrtede Alfred highlights racial and ethnic disparities in maternal care at U.S. hospitals in a special issue on healthcare equity just published by The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety (JQPS). Reviewing patient safety incident reports, Professor Alfred and her team examined the systems issues contributing to adverse outcomes and racial/ethnic disparities in maternal care. Differences across racial ethnic groups were statistically evaluated to help healthcare organizations take a systems-based approach to supportable equitable maternal care.

The study, “Investigating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Maternal Care at the System Level Using Patient Safety Incident Reports,” gathered information in 2019 and 2020 from the labour and delivery unit (L&D) and the antepartum and postpartum unit (A&P) at a large academic hospital in the Southeastern United States. The findings showed that Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) patients were disproportionately represented in the incident reports. This included reports of falls, complications of care, infrastructure failures, medical records/patient identification and transfusions.

“This study is among few which have used incident reports specifically to investigate patient care for women and birthing people of colour and identify differences in adverse outcomes,” says lead author Alfred, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering. “In addition to policy level interventions, creating an infrastructure at the local hospital and health system level is a strong step to promptly identify and alleviate racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes.”

Data from the incident reports outlined how NHB patients had higher representation in omission/error in assessment, diagnosis and monitoring incidents, such as missed or delayed lab tests, blood glucose level readings, medication administrations and initiation of breastfeeding/pumping. Delays in diagnosis and treatment are concerning given higher rate of comorbidities, such as diabetes and hypertension, experienced by NHB and Hispanic patients. These incidents can have significant impact on patients’ health, not just in the hospital setting but after discharge.

“Redesigning health systems to provide responsive care for NHB and birthing people of colour is critical to improving equity in outcomes,” says Alfred.  “This includes better supporting the health care teams who monitor and address these concerns during and after birth, measuring outcomes and experiences in a manner that facilitates identification of disparities, and meaningfully engaging with patients and their families.”

Developing a comprehensive framework for equity analyses at the system level and integrating patient safety and health equity efforts are needed to improve racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes. The research acknowledges that many of these challenges are recognized at the national or state level, however, stronger awareness of differences in outcomes at the individual hospital and health systems level is necessary to support safe, patient-centered and equitable maternal care.

-Published January 4, 2024 by Kendra Hunter

Software plays an essential role in our modern systems, across all industries. However, the development, maintenance and management of software constitutes an expensive and laborious part of the process, says Professor Eldan Cohen (MIE). 

Cohen is leading a team of researchers to develop novel, human-centred machine learning algorithms for source code summarization with support from the Connaught New Researcher Award.  

Source code summarization is the process of automatically summarizing a snippet of code into clear and concise language. 

While well-documented source code can significantly reduce the cost of maintenance, manually documenting and summarizing code is tedious and time-consuming, which can also result in poorly documented code.  

These summaries are meant to capture the purpose of code, helping developers understand, maintain and work with the codebase. Code summaries are particularly important in large software development projects and involve both natural language processing techniques and machine learning. 

In recent years, there has been significant research into using artificial intelligence to develop automated source code summarization tools that can generate natural language summaries of code.  

“Yet even state-of-the-art deep learning models are prone to mistakes in prediction, yielding summaries that do not match the provided source code. In such cases, software developers must reject the proposed summary and resort to manually documenting the code,” says Cohen. 

To address this challenge, he recommends developing a human-in-the-loop technique for automated code summarization that considers the developer’s knowledge, preferences, and insight to overcome and learn from model mistakes. He is developing specialized machine learning algorithms designed to overcome limitations of existing approaches that suffer from limited diversity or from lower-quality summaries.  

“We plan on doing this by creating interactive approaches where developers are presented with a small number of diverse and high-quality code summaries to choose from, reducing the risk of generating a single, incorrect summary,” says Cohen.  

Human-in-the-loop code summarization allows developers to actively participate in the process of generating code summaries through machine learning algorithms. This method involves integrating human insights into the automated code summarization workflow.  

The long-term goal of this work is to significantly improve the effectiveness of automatic source code summarization. By developing these human-in-the-loop approaches they hope to incorporate developer input into state-of-the-art deep learning models to improve the quality of generated code summaries. 

The approach is expected to have significant scholarly impact with the potential to catalyze both research and commercial activity on human-in-the-loop automation in software engineering. 

Cohen is one of 49 researchers from across U of T — and one of four from U of T Engineering — supported in the latest round of the Connaught New Researcher Awards, which helps early-career faculty members establish their research program.    

“Students are involved in all stages of this project and are actively involved in developing and evaluating the novel human-in-the-loop techniques for automatic source code summarization,” says Cohen. “The funds from this award will primarily go to supporting their research.”  

The other three projects from U of T Engineering supported by the Connaught New Researcher Awards are:  

• Margaret Chapman (ECE) – Risk-aware, adaptive and scalable algorithms for smart sewer technology in Toronto 
• Christopher Lawson (ChemE) – Engineering untapped anaerobic bacteria for sustainable fuel and chemical production 
• Jay Werber (ChemE) – Ultra-thin bipolar membranes for carbon dioxide removal applications 

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on December 7, 2023 by Selah Katona.

 

The University of Toronto community came together to honour the memories of the 14 women who were killed in the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989 and to acknowledge the ongoing struggle against gender-based violence.

In-person and online, students, faculty, staff, librarians and alumni across the three campuses marked the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women with a memorial, led by the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, that was held at Hart House on Wednesday — the 34th anniversary of the anti-feminist attack that claimed the lives of 14 women and left another 10 women and four men injured.

Students walked across the stage to say the name of each woman killed — Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte — followed by a moment of silence.

Separately, a group of women in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering prepared to unveil a student-led monument outside the Galbraith Building. The installation, led by Rebecca Ing (Year 3 MSE), Kaija Mikes (Year 3 EngSci), Natalia Espinosa-Merlano (Year 4 MechE) and Erika Narimatsu (Year 4 MechE) with the support of more than a dozen volunteers, features 14 figures in a circle with a plaque that explains its meaning.

Ing said the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women is of particular importance to her, as a woman in engineering.

“I see myself reflected in the women we are remembering, as I attend classes that they once learned from,” Ing said. “To remember them and the gender-based violence that took their lives is not an option: it is our responsibility as students to encourage action and awareness to improve inclusion.”

“Every one of you are change-makers and change leaders, because you’re here at the University of Toronto,” Chow said. “You get the best education. You have the confidence — you have the skills — to know what needs to be done. So today, I urge you to make a commitment to put your passion and your intellect into it.”

Marisa Sterling, the assistant dean and director, diversity, inclusion and professionalism at U of T Engineering, said that while positive change has been made in the decades since the tragedy, women in engineering continue to face gender-based violence and harassment, along with other forms of discrimination.

“Until violence against women has been eradicated, we will remember these 14 women and their families and bring awareness for the need for further actions every year,” Sterling said. “The eradication of gender-based violence and all forms of oppression is collective work.”

The event featured a keynote speech by author, performer and somatic sex educator Kai Cheng Thom — titled “Care, Healing, and Justice: Addressing Transmisogyny and Ending Gender-Based Violence for All” — and a musical performance.

Thom urged attendees to hold fast to the ideals of empathy and solidarity amid the rising threat of violence.

“The valley of fear threatens to swallow us whole, but the light of love moves within and between us — if only we let it,” Thom said. “The moment we begin to act as though a better world is possible is the moment that starts to be true.”

Sandy Welsh, vice-provost, students, announced this year’s winners of the Award for Scholarly Achievement in the Area of Gender-Based Violence, which recognizes U of T students for their exceptional commitment to issues of violence against women, girls, transgender and non-binary people.

The undergraduate recipient was Gabrielle Tavazzani, a third-year student specializing in bioethics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, who was recognized for her work and research efforts on providing pro-bono dental care to survivors of gender-based violence.

The graduate winner was Nil Basduraka, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Music. She was honoured for her interdisciplinary research examining media surrounding violence against women in Türkiye.

Wednesday’s hybrid event at Hart House was co-hosted by the Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office; the Community Safety Office; the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Office at U of T Mississauga; the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Office at U of T Scarborough; the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering; Hart House; the Division of People Strategy, Equity, & Culture; the Institutional Equity Office; the Sexual & Gender Diversity Office; and the Sexual Violence Prevention & Support Centre.

Kelly Hannah-Moffat, vice-president, people strategy, equity and culture, underscored the importance of providing opportunities for the community to engage with issues of gender-based violence and how it intersects with prejudices including transphobia and misogyny.

“Ending gender-based violence is possible through widespread, consistent, and ongoing action,” Hannah-Moffat said in a statement. “We can realize this possibility at the University of Toronto, one action at a time.”

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on December 7, 2023 by Adina Bresge.

Researchers in the Autonomous Systems and Biomechatronics Lab (ASBLab) have been developing assistive robots for over 15 years to help older adults perform activities of daily living (ADL) and maintain wellbeing and health to promote aging-in-place. Second-nature tasks such as dressing, eating and caring for ourselves can become more challenging as we age. New technology from the ASBLab is helping manage and restore independence through increased engagement by socially assistive robots.

An open challenge has been a robot’s limited autonomy in assisting with a wide range of ADLs. This then requires additional human assistance in initiating interactions between an older user and the robot when the goal is to have the robot help independently. Professor Goldie Nejat, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Robots for Society, and her ASBLab have developed a novel multi-modal deep learning human activity recognition and classification architecture for socially assistive robots that is capable of autonomously identifying and monitoring ADLs to provide further assistance to older adults. They have also incorporated embedded and wearable sensors to create more intuitive human-robot interactions and create more opportunities for older adults to age-in-place in their homes.

“Our aging population is expected to reach 2.1 billion by 2050,” says Nejat, who is also part of U of T’s Robotics Institute. “We are exploring new ways of integrating technologies to assist older adults and those living with cognitive impairments by increasing the perceptions and behaviours for socially assistive robots to provide individualized person-centred care.”

By adding wearable sensors to clothing and using multi-modal inputs to track ADLs, ASBLab researchers are enabling robots to learn from their environment and be more responsive to a user’s changing needs. Assistive behaviours for dressing, eating and even exercising have been tailored to address any changes that happen during interactions.

“Wearable sensors were designed into clothing to give our socially assistive robot Leia more intuitive prompts when dressing,” says Fraser Robinson, ASBLab researcher and MASc candidate in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering. “Alerts from the sensors inform Leia if a user has put a shirt on inside-out, or has become distracted during dressing. These alerts enable Leia to intelligently guide the user through the next best step.”

Robinson is collaborating with fellow MASc student Zinan Cen (MIE) from both the ASBLab and the Toronto Smart Materials and Structures Lab (TSMART). This research, funded by both AGE-WELL Inc. and NSERC, demonstrates the value of adding wearable sensors to clothing in order to develop further autonomy and intelligence in socially assistive robots.

-Published November 27, 2023 by Kendra Hunter

A team of U of T Engineering researchers, led by Professor Timothy Chan (MIE), is leveraging machine learning to optimize the macronutrient content of pooled human donor milk recipes.  

The researchers introduce their data-driven optimization model in a new paper published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 

Chan and his team worked with Mount Sinai Hospital’s Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank — which provides donor milk to preterm and sick babies who are hospitalized across Ontario — as well as Professor Debbie O’Connor (Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Nutritional Sciences). 

“For a variety of reasons, many hospitalized infants do not have a full supply of mother’s milk. In this instance human donor milk can be lifesaving particularly as it helps to protect preterm infants from necrotizing enterocolitis, a life-threatening bowel disease,” says Dr. Sharon Unger (Temerty Medicine, Nutritional Sciences), a neonatologist and the medical director of the Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank.  

“The new program developed by Dr. Chan helps to ensure that each batch of human donor milk meets the protein and calorie needs of preterm infants.”  

Currently, many milk banks, including Mount Sinai’s, rely on individual decision making when pooling donor milk. This presents a significant challenge in producing a consistent donor milk product that contains sufficient macronutrients for premature and sick babies in neonatal intensive care units.  

“It takes a lot of time to create these recipes without a defined method,” says Chan.  

“While there are studies that show that milk that comes from donors who are early in their postpartum period tends to be more protein rich, our approach provides a good prediction of the actual macronutrient content that will allow milk bank employees to make better pooling decisions.”  

Given that milk banks are often non-profit entities operating on lean budgets, a low-cost alternative to obtaining a consistent, nutrient-balanced product could be useful across the entire sector.   

Devices known as human milk analyzers can be used to measure the exact macronutrient content of each milk sample at a milk bank. However, these devices are costly and require extensive regulatory approval for use, with the result that only half of all milk banks in North America use one. On top of that, analyzing every donation is a costly endeavour that is labour and resource intensive.  

“Our data-driven framework bypasses the need for a device to analyze the donor milk by using an artificial intelligence model to predict the macronutrient content of each donation,” says Rachel Wong (MIE MASc 2T2), a lead researcher of the study.   

“In addition, by using an optimization model to choose which donations to pool together, we can increase the consistency of macronutrient content in the donor milk product.”   

The multi-phased study included a one-year implementation trial at the Rogers Hixon milk bank that was designed to test whether AI-informed models could help to fill the gap.   

In the first phase, researchers collected the necessary data to create a machine learning model to predict the macronutrient content of the pooled recipes, and then designed an optimization model to create the recipes based on macronutrient requirements, that is, the necessary levels of protein and fat.  

The team then created a simulation model to test the method before embarking on an experiment in the milk bank, which took place over 16 months in 2021 and 2022.  

“Since our study was performed in the milk bank during regular operating hours, rather than in a controlled environment, there were a number of unexpected challenges that we had to adapt to,” says Wong.  

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of donations fluctuated based on the provincial restrictions — during the lockdown periods there was an unprecedented increase in the number and volume of donations.  

“We also needed to adapt the AI decisions that had already been proposed to ensure that we abided with the milk bank’s operating protocols.”   

The last phase of the study began by observing the milk bank’s operation for six months and measuring the fat, protein and bacteria levels in the pooled recipes.   

For the following six months, the milk bank used the data-driven optimization framework to create the pooled milk recipes. At the end of the year, the researchers compared the optimized recipes to the previous ones to assess which recipes met the macronutrient targets.   

“We found that our pooled recipes met the bar for protein and fat simultaneously up to 75% more often, without compromising other factors like an increase in bacteria,” says Chan. “And it took us 60% less time to make the recipes.”  

The team’s optimized recipes also have an added benefit for pre-term and sick babies, who have underdeveloped digestive systems that make it especially crucial to ensure that the milk they are consuming isn’t overly rich in protein or fat.  

Chan’s team is currently working towards expanding this research to measure other nutrients in human donor milk to see if their models can optimize them. The research has won INFORMS’s 2023 Pierskalla Best Paper Award and an Excellence in Quality and Safety award from Sinai Health.  

“Our ultimate goal is to show that our tool is applicable to other milk banks,” says Chan. “We would like to design a system that can plug into hospital systems to optimize recipes in a way that is sustainable for milk bank staff.”  

Wong says that the entire team is grateful to all those who have made the project possible.  

“We couldn’t have done this without all of the mothers who donate to the milk bank and the staff who work incredibly hard to provide donor milk to infants across Ontario and beyond,” she says.   

“I hope that this research will provide a framework to help milk banks across North America increase the consistency of macronutrient content in their donor milk product. The eventual end goal would be to see a downstream impact of improved growth and developmental outcomes for the infants that receive this donor milk.”   

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on November 20, 2023 by Safa Jinje.

Lucas Hilden (Year 1, MechE) was a Grade 8 student in the rural town of Falmouth, N.S., when he developed an aid that uses facial recognition technology to help Alzheimer’s patients recognize their loved ones.

Inspired by his grandfather, who suffers from the disease, the project won him a gold medal and innovation award at the Canada-Wide Science Fair that year.

“That experience showed me that the world of STEM is definitely where I belong and where I could make the most impact on society,” says the now-17-year-old, who is one of just 100 students from across Canada to win a coveted 2023 Schulich Leader Scholarship — including 10 now studying at the University of Toronto.

Awarded to incoming undergraduate students who demonstrate exceptional promise and leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and entrepreneurship, the Schulich Leader Scholarships are designed to foster the next generation of global STEM pioneers.

For Hilden, who started three businesses in high school while nurturing his love of STEM and hosting coding camps for children, winning the scholarship reassured him that he was on the right path.

“I read the Schulich Leader Scholarship requirements and thought, ‘Wow.’ If I could write scholarship criteria to describe what I’m good at and what I do, it would literally be this scholarship,” he says. “When I found out I had won it, it felt like an important confirmation that I’m doing what I should be doing.”

The Schulich Leader Scholarships are an investment in Canada’s brightest minds

The Schulich Leader Scholarships were established in 2012 by businessman Seymour Schulich, who credits his success to a scholarship that enabled him to attend McGill University’s first-ever MBA class in 1965.

Valued at $120,000 each for students pursuing engineering programs and $100,000 each for science, technology and mathematics students, the scholarships cover the total cost of an undergraduate education — allowing Schulich Leaders to focus entirely on pursuing their goals.

“Schulich Leaders are extraordinary young people with big dreams, big ideas and unparalleled potential to change the world,” says University of Toronto President Meric Gertler.

“We are incredibly excited to welcome the newest Schulich Leaders to U of T, and we could not be more grateful to Seymour Schulich and the Schulich Foundation for investing in the ambitions of these remarkable students.”

This year, the 10 Schulich Leader Scholarship winners attending U of T come from across Canada — from Nova Scotia to British Columbia — and are pursuing engineering, computer science and actuarial science programs. Their interests range from robotics to artificial intelligence, programming to entrepreneurship in STEM and beyond.

For U of T’s Schulich Leaders, the future starts now

Sandy Welsh, U of T’s Vice Provost, Students, says it’s been inspiring to witness the impact of the Schulich Leader Scholarships on some of Canada’s brightest students year after year.

“These scholarships open doors to unlimited opportunity for some of our country’s most ambitious and brilliant young minds,” she says.

“They not only provide the financial support students need to pursue a U of T education, but they also come with an incredible network of peers, mentors and supporters and offer access to world-class faculty and leading industry experts. We are incredibly grateful to the Schulich Foundation for helping these future STEM leaders start their journeys here at U of T.”

Hilden, who is studying mechanical engineering, isn’t sure yet what his future career will look like, but he knows he wants to combine his interests in business and engineering.

“I’m really interested in the entrepreneurship side of things, and I have big goals for the future,” he says. “There are so many opportunities in the city and at the University to explore the different paths available to me. I’m just getting started.”

Meet the 2023 U of T Engineering Schulich Leaders

Adam Omarali, Engineering Science

 

 

The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering is saddened to announce the passing of Professor Emeritus James (Jim) Fennell Keffer in Toronto on September 29, 2023. A distinguished professor, researcher, teacher and administrator at U of T, Professor Emeritus Keffer made lasting innovations in fluid mechanics and heightened the international research profile of the University of Toronto during his remarkable career.

Born in 1933, Jim pursued his undergraduate mechanical engineering studies at U of T. Maintaining an honours standing while playing football for the Varsity Blues, Jim was also a member of the U of T Hall of Fame team that won the Yates Cup in 1954. After graduating in 1956, Jim joined the research division of Canadian General Electric, which led to his return to U of T for graduate studies. Advised by Professor Doug Baines, Jim obtained his PhD in mechanical engineering in 1962 and then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. On his return to Canada, he joined U of T’s Department of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor.

Jim’s lifetime of research advanced understanding of fluid mechanics with emphasis on two fundamental shear flows: the wake and the jet. He used novel experimental techniques to investigate these basic flows, which are relevant to environmental problems such as pollutant dispersion, smokestack dispersion, and climate effects. Jim and his students developed rigorous theoretical analyses to support their experimental data and to evaluate their validity and limitations, an important contribution to computer models.

Jim had a keen ability to recognize and plan for the future. Through his efforts, he helped the department and university acquire a unique wind tunnel in the 1970s that remains in use to this day. This facility allowed him to perform sophisticated measurements for the first time and contributed to his widely-cited and highly respected work. The quality and significance of his research brought many interested students to his lab. Those under his supervision graduated to become university professors and global industry leaders who continue to contribute to turbulence measurement and analysis.

Jim’s roles at U of T extended far beyond the classroom and his lab, as he undertook several administrative positions. He served as the Director of Graduate Studies for Mechanical Engineering, which led to appointments as the Associate Dean at the School of Graduate Studies, and later as Vice-Provost, Professional Faculties. Before retirement, Jim’s final appointment was as Vice-President, Research and International Relations. In this role, he firmly established a professional service orientation within the portfolio, made major organizational innovations that his successors have built on to increase U of T’s international research profile; and brought the first Cray supercomputer to the campus.

Jim formally retired from U of T in 1999, but continued to pursue research and graduate teaching in the following few years.

For more information about Professor Emeritus Jim Keffer and his family please see: https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/theglobeandmail/name/james-keffer-obituary?id=53244726

U of T will welcome a cohort of competitively selected graduate students from across South Korea to study applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) in January 2024.

Funded by the government of South Korea and administered through U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, the six-month program is designed for students from diverse disciplines in technology, engineering, and the natural and mathematical sciences with ambitions to drive the innovative use of AI in their fields.

At U of T, the students will participate in intensive coursework in Machine Learning (ML) and AI, offered through the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering (MIE), with support from the Centre for Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Engineering (CARTE).

“This partnership builds on the very successful Master of Engineering program offered by the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, with many of our students taking courses in ML/AI; and it represents another engagement with South Korea, as MIE already hosts an international doctoral cluster with KAIST, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,” says Professor Markus Bussmann, MIE Chair.

“We very much look forward to hosting and welcoming the first cohort of Korean students in January.”

Throughout the program, students will have access to customized AI drop-in clinics provided by CARTE, which provides research and training support in AI to external academic and industry partners. Students will also have access to a number of applied AI seminars offered at U of T, AI and ML projects from industry, government and non-profit sectors, as well as a dedicated workspace to facilitate collaborative opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills in the booming AI ecosystem in Toronto.

“This partnership is another example of the influence of the University of Toronto and the CARTE program in AI training,” says Professor Alex Mihailidis (BME), Associate Vice-President International Partnerships at U of T. “Our partnership with South Korea is an important one to our institution, and we are thrilled to be partnering with them to provide this opportunity to their students.”

– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on September 29, 2023 by Somayeh Sadat.