February 7, 2016 – Aaron Persad (EngSci 0T6, MechE PhD 1T4) is one of five U of T Engineering alumni named to the Canadian Space Agency’s shortlist of candidates to become Canada’s next astronaut.

“I felt excited, honored and a bit surprised, since I knew I was competing with very highly qualified colleagues,” said Persad. “While space is big, the space community is small and I am delighted to see that several colleagues are also in the CSA list.”

A postdoctoral fellow currently working in the lab of Professor David Sinton (MIE), Persad is one of 70 people from across Canada under consideration for two upcoming astronaut roles with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Other U of T Engineering alumni on the list include:

• Jesse Koovik Eyer (UTIAS PhD 0T9)
• Francis James Frenzel (UTIAS MASc 1T0)
• Cordell Grant (UTIAS MASc 0T5)
• Najmus Ibrahim (EngSci 0T9, UTIAS MASc 1T3)

Persad’s dream of going to space began at the age of seven, and his pursuit of it accelerated at U of T Engineering. During his undergraduate studies, he completed his Professional Experience Year internship at the CSA, including a flight in a Falcon-20 jet where he got experience the sensation of free-fall for the first time.

“It felt fantastic. I remember my legs had the tendency to float up toward my chest; I had to consciously keep them down,” said Persad.

Persad’s PhD research, supervised by Professor Emeritus Charles Ward (MIE), focused on solving a decades-old mystery about the behaviour of water in microgravity, specifically the shape it takes within a closed container. The seemingly simple question has important implications for life support systems in space.

Read more about Persad’s experiment on the behavior of water in microgravity

The project suffered a major setback when a SpaceX rocket meant to carry his experimental apparatus into orbit exploded in the summer of 2015. Undeterred, Persad created a new apparatus in time for the next launch in the summer of 2016. Last week, NASA astronaut Robert S. Kimbrough performed the experiment aboard the International Space Station. Persad is standing by for the data downlink which will include videos and high-resolution images of the microgravity experiment.

The above video, taken in November 2016, shows Persad bringing his experimental apparatus aboard a Falcon-20 jet to test it in free-fall conditions. Persad plans to compare the behavior of water in jars from this experiment to those from jars now aboard the International Space Station. (Credit: Aaron Persad)

Outside of his research, Persad has been recognized for his teaching excellence and has led a number of educational initiatives, including a company that delivers robotics technology education to young children.

This is Persad’s second attempt to become an astronaut, having applied during CSA’s previous round of recruitment in 2008, when he was a master’s student at U of T Engineering. Since then, Persad has greatly enhanced his technical expertise and aggressively pursued astronautics training through the non-profit organizations Astronauts4Hire and Project PoSSUM.

“I used my previous evaluation as a checklist to prepare for a future call. For example, I was asked questions like ‘Do you have piloting experience?’ or ‘Have you ever taught a post-graduate engineering course?’” said Persad. “For the last eight years, I’ve been working hard to turn every ‘no’ into a ‘yes’.”

A final decision from the current round is expected by June 2017. “I know my family and friends are cheering me on,” said Persad.

January 30, 2017 – Two MIE professors are among four of U of T Engineering’s most outstanding educators honoured with 2016 Faculty Teaching Awards. PhD candidate Mohamed Abdelfattah (ECE) received the Teaching Assistant Award, which recognizes TAs who demonstrate excellence in classroom instruction and in the development of course materials. Professor Matthew Mackay (MIE) garnered the Early Career Teaching Award, for exceptional teaching by a faculty member who has taught at U of T for less than six years. Professor Craig Simmons (MIE, IBBME) received the Faculty Teaching Award, for a teacher who demonstrates outstanding classroom instruction and develops innovative teaching methods. Professor Will Cluett (ChemE) garnered the Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award, recognizing a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in teaching over the course of at least 15 years.

While still very early in his career, Matthew Mackay is already a leader in undergraduate education, serving as Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies for MIE. In this role, he has spearheaded several projects to improve the student experience, including an interdepartmental maker space, twin design and communication curriculum spines, and the modernization of the Mechatronics program. Mackay completely redesigned several of the department’s most difficult and outdated courses, introducing a number of innovations and modernizations. Examples include: custom course readers and binders to replace textbooks and contextualize lectures and labs; a series of custom computer programs which generate practice problems for multiple subjects; a unique 3D printer design project; and optional instruction on practical skills such as soldering and circuit construction/design. His efforts have resulted in significantly higher enrollment and student evaluations for these courses. Mackay received MIE’s Early Career Teaching Award in 2014.

Craig Simmons has led several major efforts to improve the educational experience of our students. As Biomedical Option Chair from 2009-2013, he led a revision of the curriculum in Biomedical Systems Engineering which brought the program on par with the top schools in North America. He also led a successful proposal to establish a NSERC CREATE graduate training program in Microfluidics Applications and Training in Cardiovascular Health (MATCH), and served as its director. Simmons played a key role in the creation of MIE’s Biomedical/Biomechanical stream and helped to create a low -cost microfluidics lab designed for undergraduate teaching. As an instructor, Simmons is constantly seeking to improve his courses. For example, for ‘MIE439: Biomechanics’, he has introduced four new laboratories which use state-of-the-art microfluidic technologies. These labs have been featured in peer reviewed publications. Simmons received the Early Career Teaching Award from both MIE and the Faculty in 2009 and garnered the MIE Teaching Award in 2015.

Dean Cristina Amon speaks with students at the site of the new Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship, a vibrant hub for engineering education, innovation and commercialization by entrepreneurship. (Credit: Roberta Baker)

January 26, 2017 – Professor Cristina Amon (MIE) has been reappointed as Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto for a special third term to June 30, 2019.

In addition, Dean Amon will serve in the role of Provostial Advisor on Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) at the University for the period of July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. In this new role she will be advising Professor Cheryl Regehr, U of T’s vice-president and provost, on matters related to women in STEM at the University and will work with the Vice-Provosts and Divisions to develop strategies for recruitment, retention and professional development.

“With a relentless pursuit of excellence, Dean Amon has taken the country’s premier engineering school to new heights, and will lead the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering through the opening of its vibrant new facility,” said Professor Regehr, chair of the reappointment committee. “We are delighted that she will serve a third term and see the Faculty’s vision for the highly anticipated Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship become reality.”

Under Dean Amon’s direction the Faculty has risen to preeminence among the world’s engineering schools. Central to this achievement is a sustained focus on multidisciplinary education and research collaboration that addresses key global challenges, from improving human life to sustainably meeting our growing energy needs.

Her leadership has been the catalyst in many new cross-Faculty research hubs, such as the Institute for Sustainable Energy,  the TRCHR Transitional Biology and Engineering Program and the Centre for Global Engineering, which bring researchers across the Faculty and University together with like-minded experts from around the world, sparking new ideas, discoveries and innovations. The integrated approach provides rich experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, enabling them to apply strong technical, leadership, communications and design competencies to develop global fluency and address the 21st century’s most pressing challenges.

Widely regarded for her strategic leadership, Dean Amon developed a collaborative vision for the Faculty guided by a comprehensive Academic Plan. To achieve these goals, she built a highly effective academic and administrative leadership team, and established new offices to oversee cross-disciplinary programs, honours and awards, strategic communications, corporate and industry partnerships, and advancement. She has fostered a strong sense of community and pride within U of T Engineering and nurtured a culture of philanthropy at all levels: since the 2011 launch of Boundless: The Campaign for the University of Toronto, the Faculty has surpassed its $200-million goal, including more than $80 million secured for the forthcoming Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Dean Amon has also fostered a rich culture of diversity and inclusivity among U of T Engineering and within the profession: U of T Engineering’s first-year class reached 40.1 per cent women in 2016, the highest proportion in Ontario. This increased the overall proportion of women across all U of T Engineering undergraduate programs to more than 30 per cent. With enhanced recruitment and outreach strategies, the first-year figure has nearly doubled during her tenure, up from 20.2 per cent in 2006. In the same period, the number of women faculty members has more than doubled, from 21 to 55. With these advances, U of T Engineering is driving Engineers Canada toward its ‘30 by 30’ objective: 30 per cent female representation among newly licensed engineers by 2030.

Dean Amon spearheaded the creation of the forthcoming Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CEIE), currently under construction on the University of Toronto’s St. George Campus. The CEIE embodies U of T Engineering’s core values of excellence in collaborative research and experiential education. It will launch a new era for the Faculty by providing flexible, dynamic spaces where students, faculty members and industry partners can meet, build prototypes and exchange ideas that lead to new ventures. With a 500-seat auditorium, Technology Enhanced Active Learning (TEAL) Rooms and fabrication facilities, as well as state-of-the-art sustainability features including solar panels and passive heating, the CEIE will serve as a vibrant hub for engineering education, innovation and commercialization by entrepreneurship. In 2016, the CEIE received an investment of $15 million from the Government of Ontario.

“We know that entrepreneurship is central to a vibrant and resilient economy in Ontario,” said the Honourable Deb Matthews, Deputy Premier and Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development for the Government of Ontario. “U of T Engineering’s excellence in undergraduate and graduate education, and the University’s access guarantee, are making world-class programs accessible to a new generation of innovators who will drive our economy in every sector.”

In addition to her transformational leadership in the Faculty, Dean Amon’s research advances the Faculty’s standing as an international research powerhouse. Her pioneering work has resulted in 16 book chapters, more than 350 refereed articles and numerous keynote lectures worldwide. In 2015 she received the Ontario Professional Engineers Gold Medal and in 2016, the Engineering Institute of Canada’s Sir John Kennedy Medal, the institute’s highest honour. She has been inducted into the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Canada, the Hispanic Engineer Hall of Fame and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and elected Fellow of all the major professional societies in her field.

January 26, 2017 – In many ways, George Klein (MechE 2T8) rivaled Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and other icons in the scope of his inventiveness and impact — certainly in his effect on society. His project areas ranged from aviation, defense systems and nuclear energy to construction safety, communications and space technologies.

At the same time, Klein’s work could be overstated if not placed in the context of his fruitful collaborations and the contributions of others. Many remarkable people not only helped and inspired him, but also applied his inventions to daily practice. Klein’s career and experience is a model for innovation in any field, particularly, health-care engineering.

Born in Hamilton, Ont. in 1904, Klein spent his spare time as a child hanging out at his father’s jewellery store and watch factory where the artistic work of gold and silversmiths ran in parallel to the micro-mechanics of the watch makers. He often referred to it as a gymnasium for creativity and the touchstone for many of the ingenious mechanical devices he later designed and built. Not a great student academically, he nevertheless showed talent in the workshop and earned technical school marks strong enough to gain entry to the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. Here, he learned the benefits of collaboration and the skills that would shape his career.

January 25, 2017 – In cities from coast to coast, condominium towers are being constructed at an unprecedented rate, with 30,000 new units added in 2015 to the Toronto market alone. This is driven both by recent advances in the design, engineering and construction of tall buildings, and a stark increase in demand for these multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs). “More people are moving downtown,” says Professor Marianne Touchie (CivE, MIE). “There’s very limited space, so we need high-density housing options and MURBs provide that.”

With a background in building science, Touchie studies the relationships between energy efficiency and indoor environment quality parameters, such as thermal comfort, in these high-density buildings. In Toronto, one of the largest suppliers of MURBs is Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), which owns 50 million square feet of residential space and houses 110,000 residents. Many of these are older buildings without air conditioning.

“A lot of these buildings rely on ventilation through the building envelope, which is not terribly effective. At the same time, we need to reduce our energy consumption and energy use,” she says. “But reducing energy usage has implications for occupants, and that’s what I’m interested in studying.”

Touchie is currently collaborating with The Atmospheric Fund (formerly the Toronto Atmospheric Fund) on a large research project—one that she has been involved with since her role as their Building Research Manager from 2014 to 2015. She and her colleagues are collecting data on energy consumption, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide concentration in more than 70 apartments spanning seven different TCHC buildings.

“It’s probably the most comprehensive MURB monitoring project in North America, if not the world,” says Touchie.

They are also working with Professor Jeffrey Siegel (CivE), who is examining concentrations of formaldehyde, particulate matter and, through a partnership with Health Canada, radon concentrations. Touchie says that collaborations, such as those with TCHC, The Atmospheric Fund and Siegel, are critical to creating a comprehensive picture of the MURBs she studies. “Buildings are so complex,” says Touchie. “I have training in one particular area, but I’m not an indoor air quality expert. When we make changes from an energy perspective to the ventilation system, or the heating and cooling system, it has an influence on the air quality. Working with other experts, like Professor Siegel, we can gather data on all sides.”

Touchie’s findings with The Atmospheric Fund and TCHC have drawn the interest of Toronto Public Health. The agency is interested in the health impact of extreme heat, and the study has found that these TCHC buildings are often overheated, especially in the summer.

“Extreme heat is a health problem, especially for the most vulnerable populations,” says Sarah Gingrich, a Health Policy Specialist at Toronto Public Health. Very young children, the elderly and people with illnesses or taking certain medications are most at risk. “This work is providing evidence that excessive heat is a problem in older apartment buildings in Toronto. The research is showing that although the temperature cools down at night outside, in these buildings it rises during the day and they stay hot all night long.”

Touchie and her collaborators are finding that a major culprit for the inefficient heating and cooling performance is uncontrolled air leakage. These leaks often occur around windows, doors, exhaust fans and elevator shafts. But inefficiencies aren’t just a building issue: she adds that “because people can do whatever they want in their own homes, like open and close their windows, MURBs combine the complexity of high-rise buildings with the occupant wild card,” which makes managing the indoor environment even trickier.

“The study provides valuable information on Toronto apartment buildings that will help to inform policy development,” says Toronto Public Health’s Gingrich. “It fills a very important gap by providing up-to-date data that highlights some of the challenges in this type of building, and points to potential solutions.”

Next, Touchie hopes to expand her research to newer condos, where data is even scarcer. “They’re going up so quickly, and we really have no information about the quality of the indoor environment or their energy performance,” she says. “I am very curious whether their energy consumption matches the performance level promised at the design stage.”

This story originally appeared on U of T Engineering News.

January 25, 2017 – Interdisciplinary research from U of T Engineering is helping us live longer, healthier lives. These projects from across our Faculty illustrate leading-edge innovations that will improve health care, from planning and prevention to diagnosis and treatment:

Optimizing surgical schedules

Long wait lists for elective surgeries are a major challenge in the Canadian health care system. According to Professor Dionne Aleman (MIE), pictured below, right, the problem may not necessarily be a lack of resources, but rather a result of not using the resources we have as efficiently as we could.

“Hospitals have rules that indicate who gets operated on when, but the schedules that result are sub-optimal,” she said. Aleman and her team are addressing this problem by building mathematical models that can optimize the matches between patients, surgeons and operating rooms to generate the most efficient schedule.

One technique the team uses involves pooling resources. Rather than each hospital maintaining its own waiting list, patients would be treated as a single large waiting list. Patients would be assigned to a given surgeon or operating room to minimize the time when resources are unused. Using mathematical optimization tools, the team has generated schedules that could increase the number of patients treated in a given time period by up to 30 per cent.

Aleman collaborates closely with Dr. David Urbach, a surgeon and senior scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute. Her models are based on data from Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.

“Right now we’re adding workload balancing into our models,” Aleman said. “We want to ensure that all surgeons and hospitals are being used to an equitable level.”

Some hospitals are already using patient pooling on a small scale, and Aleman hopes that her models will help the technique be applied more broadly.

“I like research that has a positive impact on the world,” she said. “In health care it’s very obvious to see how any improvements can have a wide-ranging impact, so it’s a very fulfilling type of work to do.”

Optimizing ambulance distribution and routing

In Toronto, the average response time for ambulances is six minutes. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, the 11th largest city in the world, it’s 60 to 80 minutes. Professor Timothy Chan (MIE) and his team are working to help close this health-services gap.

“Our research has two components: first, optimizing the locations of ambulances throughout the city, and second, routing them to the patients,” said Justin Boutilier, a PhD candidate in Chan’s lab.

In September 2015, Boutilier spent three weeks in Dhaka assessing the current situation. Collaborating with Moinul Hossain, a traffic engineer and professor from the Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Boutilier surveyed patients regarding emergency transportation to hospitals to better understand the current state of the system. He also distributed a GPS-based app to rental car drivers that will track driving speeds and help map traffic patterns in the city.

All this information will be fed into a computer optimization model, which will test out hundreds of possible scenarios before arriving at an ideal distribution of ambulances across the city. The data will also be used to develop an app that provides real-time recommendations to drivers on the fastest route. In a city where it is not the cultural norm to yield to ambulances — and where there is little room to move aside anyway — avoiding busy streets can mean the difference between life and death.

Boutilier and Chan will also evaluate other forms of transportation, such as three-wheeled cabs or rickshaws, in order to address issues with reaching patients in areas without adequate access to ambulance transport, such as slums. They hope their approach can bring significant health benefits for the citizens of developing countries.

“There is a long history of using operations research to improve emergency medical services in North America, but in developing countries many of these ideas are still very new,” Chan said. “I think we can make a big impact there.”

Read more at U of T Engineering News. This article originally appeared in the 2016 issue of Skulematters magazine.

At his lab at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, U of T scientist Craig Simmons works on growing replacement tissue for the pulmonary heart valve. Photo by Caroline Ryan.

January 23, 2017 – Research by MIE professor Craig Simmons at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, supported by a visionary gift from the Rogers family, could one day eliminate the need for infants with heart defects to have more than one surgery.

Craig Simmons recalls having given a presentation not long ago about promising new heart research in children, when a mother came up to him crying. Her tears reflected the stress of being the parent of a child born with a congenital heart defect as well as gratitude that researchers like him were working on better solutions. “That really touched me,” says Simmons, who is scientific director of the translational biology and engineering program at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research. It also motivated him as he continues his work on creating “living tissue” heart valves to replace defective ones in infants.

The Ted Rogers Centre – created through an unprecedented $130-million donation from the Rogers family – brings together more than 30 experts from Sick Kids, University Health Network and the University of Toronto to address heart failure across the lifespan. “We know Ted would have been proud of this bold initiative that will improve heart health for all,” says Loretta Rogers, wife of the late Ted Rogers.

We tend to think of heart disease as a problem in older adults, but children can have heart disease too. One in 100 babies in Canada is born with a congenital heart defect. In a healthy heart, the four valves open and close with every heartbeat, allowing blood to flow only one way. But a malfunctioning valve may leak, preventing a baby from getting enough oxygen-rich blood. This increases the risk for the child of infection, fatigue, fainting, delayed development, heart failure and sudden cardiac death.

The current treatment involves an initial surgery to repair or replace the defective valve in a tiny infant. Further complex operations are often required as the child outgrows the synthetic patch or valve, which are made of fabric, metals or plastics. But Simmons hopes “living tissue” heart valves that grow with the child will eliminate the need for those subsequent surgeries. “The kids would still need that single operation,” Simmons says, “but then they’d never need another.” Nor would they require maintenance medication such as blood thinners or anti-rejection drugs, as the new valve would be made from the baby’s own cells.

Simmons heads a research team focusing on growing replacement tissue for the pulmonary heart valve. The team harvests stem cells from a baby’s umbilical cord – typically discarded after birth – and attaches them to a polyurethane scaffold. Through chemical and mechanical stimulation – sort of like forcing the cells to do bodybuilding – the growing tissue becomes stronger and stiffer. Once implanted, the scaffolding would harmlessly biodegrade. Buoyed by early lab results, the team is now optimizing the processes for future animal testing.

“I’ve met people who as children had congenital heart problems – this past summer, one of them was a student who worked in my lab – and I’ve seen what an emotional burden this can be on children and families,” says Simmons. The costs to the health-care system are also significant.

Read more at U of T Magazine.

Photo by Johnny Guatto

January 23, 2017 – IndE student and U of T MasterCard Foundation scholar Sylvia Mwangi hopes to improve health care in Kenya.

When it comes to demonstrating the transformative power of higher education, it’s hard to find a better example than Sylvia Mwangi. The amount of personal growth the industrial engineering student has experienced while at U of T may be as vast as the distance, both physical and cultural, between Canada and her native home of Kenya. “It’s been a whole change in the trajectory of my life in a very beautiful way,” she says. “By virtue of this scholarship, I can dream much more and my scope of action has been enlarged significantly.”

Improving the quality of health care in Kenya is Mwangi’s dream, and preparing for it at U of T has been enabled by a MasterCard Foundation scholarship. The program helps economically disadvantaged youths from sub-Saharan Africa access higher education so they can give back to their communities. A US$22.5-million donation from the foundation is enabling 67 African students to complete an undergraduate degree at U of T. Mwangi will be part of the first cohort of MasterCard Foundation scholars to graduate this year. She says the benefits are not only a university education, which would have otherwise been unaffordable, but a calibre of training that isn’t available back home.

Mwangi describes her academic journey as eye-opening and challenging, but overall rewarding. One thing that has stood out is the emphasis at U of T on group work. High school students in Kenya, she says, mainly complete assignments on their own, which is ironic because Kenyan society is quite communal. Life in Toronto, on the other hand, is much more individualistic – which sometimes feels isolating, she says. To integrate herself into student life at U of T, she attended  “Dinner with 12 Strangers” events offered by the alumni office; joined U of T Rotaract, a community service club; and served as a student member of the University Affairs Board.

One academic experience that has made a big impact on Mwangi was her internship last summer in Belgium at Procurafrica, a firm that supplies industrial and agricultural products to manufacturers across Africa. Mwangi also travelled to Kenya during her internship to help develop a strategy for doing business in her home country. “I got to interact with leaders in Kenya, learn about the supply chain for industrial products and gain insights to help me navigate my job search,” she says.

Mwangi has acted as a champion for the U of T MasterCard Foundation scholars by mentoring the program’s newest students. As well, since 2015, she has volunteered at the Family Room at SickKids, a second home for families with seriously ill children being treated at the hospital. That volunteering experience, combined with case studies she completed at U of T on improving health-care systems, have motivated her to advance holistic health services in Kenya. “That is what I would like to introduce back at home, where we think about all stakeholders in the health-care system and care for them all.”

Read more at U of T Magazine.

January 9, 2016 – TVO recently interviewed MIE PhD student Justin Kim, to learn more about his engineering passions and his swarming robots research. Swarm robotics is a potentially lifesaving technology, and U of T’s Justin Kim is leading the field. Read it here.

January 4, 2017 – MIE alumna Caroline Cao (IndE PhD 0T2) was recently honoured with a Fulbright US Scholar Fellowship, and hopes to use the grant to introduce the subject of human factors engineering to local academic communities in Vietnam.

The Fulbright program is a flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the US government, aimed at increasing the mutual understanding between US scholars and scholars from other countries. Participants are chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential.

“It is an honour for me to receive this award. I look forward to the opportunity to expand human factors research to other parts of the world,” said Cao, who is a professor at Wright State University and an expert in the field of human factors engineering in medical systems.

Which university will you be going to?

From January to June 2017, I will be at the International University of the Vietnam National Universities in Ho Chi Minh City. I will be introducing the subject of Human Factors Engineering to the local academic community by giving several public lectures.

I will also be working with the faculty of the university’s Department of Biomedical Engineering – the first Biomedical Engineering Department in Vietnam – to develop a new program in Human Factors in Medical Device Design.

What kind of impact do you hope to make as a Fulbright scholar?

In addition to being a cultural and educational ambassador, I hope to promote, to Vietnamese biomedical engineering students, human factors engineering principles and methods for medical device design, and the importance of their application to maintain safe and effective medical technology, and to foster a safer healthcare system world-wide.

What do you look forward to the most?

I am looking forward to learning about how Vietnam, as a developing nation, is training the new generation of engineers and scientists to meet the challenges of a global economy. Personally, I’m looking forward to re-visiting my birth country after 35+ years of absence.

You received your PhD from MIE. Can you tell me about the graduate experience you had here and whether that experience has helped you in your current academic/research endeavours?

I received my PhD from MIE in 2002. Professor Paul Milgram was my supervisor. My graduate experience at U of T Engineering – working with Professor Milgram, the MIE faculty, my fellow grad students in MIE and beyond  –  was transformative and instrumental in helping me choose a direction in my own professional career.  I try to replicate every aspect of it for the graduate students in my past and current institution, Tufts University and Wright State University, respectively. I have even tried to teach my students the correct spelling of “centre,” “metre” and “colour”!