September 1, 2016 —

Seven U of T Engineering faculty members have received the inaugural Percy Edward Hart and Erwin Edward Hart Professorships, enhancing emerging research and education across the Faculty.

The professorships were created by a landmark bequest from the estate of alumnus Erwin Edward Hart (CivE 4T0). The seven professors are all within the first 10 years of their careers and have demonstrated a high level of research excellence and exemplary graduate student mentorship.

“Our inaugural Hart Professors exemplify the richness and diversity of research and education across our Faculty,” said Cristina Amon, dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “They are addressing society’s most relevant challenges, from sustainable energy to human health, while nurturing the next generation of global engineering leaders.”

Professor Tobin Filleter (MIE) – Erwin Edward Hart Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Professor Filleter completed his PhD at McGill University and joined U of T Engineering in 2012. He is an expert on the mechanics of nanomaterials, especially as they relate to friction and wear, which cause premature damage to many mechanical structures. His team studies and tests ultrathin films, lubricants, and coatings that could be used in everything from automobiles to aircraft and even space systems. Some of these systems involve recently-discovered materials, including graphene and graphene oxide. In 2014, Filleter received the I.W. Smith Award from the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering and in 2016, he received an Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.

Read more at U of T Engineering News.

August 31, 2016 — Bloomberg TV made a visit to Professor Goldie Nejat’s Autonomous Systems and Biomechatronics Lab to learn more about building socially-assistive robots to help the elderly as they age. Watch here.

August 22, 2016 – Six U of T Engineering professors have received Early Researcher Awards (ERA) from the Government of Ontario. The ERAs provide critical support that helps promising scientists and engineers in the first five years of their academic careers build their research teams.

“Our stellar early-career professors are already making outstanding contributions to their fields, from sustainability to biomedical engineering,” said Cristina Amon, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “These awards recognize that excellence, and enable them to grow their research programs to address some the world’s most relevant challenges. On behalf of the Faculty, my warmest congratulations to all of them on this well-deserved honour and my thanks to the Government of Ontario for its commitment to nurturing the next generation of engineering research leaders.”

Learn more about the U of T Engineering professors who received the awards:

Read more on U of T Engineering News.

August 11, 2016 – When Professor Timothy Chan (MIE) sits down to watch a game of hockey, baseball or tennis, he isn’t taking a break from his research — he may be hard at work on a new paper. His expertise in sports analytics and decision modelling has been sought out by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) in the hopes that it could provide a competitive edge for amateur athletes.

Professional sports teams have been leveraging statistics to improve team performance for more than a decade. By examining detailed data about how each player performs in various situations, analysts can build computer models that attempt to predict long-term performance. The technique, made famous in the 2011 film Moneyball, empowers teams that can’t afford star players to make smarter use of the resources they do have.

This year, Chan’s research team attracted the attention of the COC as part of its National Sport Federation Enhancement Initiative (NSFEI). NSFEI is a four-year project designed to help Canada’s federations improve their organizational capacity, including business operations, leadership and governance, as well as their ability to effectively recruit young, talented athletes into their sports.

“National Sport Federations in Canada are resource constrained,” says David Patterson, who leads the initiative for the COC. “We see analytics as way to better allocate scarce resources. These benefits could apply both on the field of play and away from competition, where we work hard to attract and retain more Canadians to a lifestyle in sport.”

Chan came to Patterson’s attention in 2013 after he won the best paper award the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. “Sloan is the top conference in the field, so it made sense to approach Dr. Chan as the best among the best in analytics.”

This past spring, Chan travelled to Ottawa and Calgary to deliver two seminars on sports analytics. “We started to work through some areas where we thought analytics could help,” he says. “The idea is that they can narrow down the focus and propose a research project that we could execute.”

Since the seminar, Chan has been working with Tennis Canada to help increase youth participation in the sport. Chan is determining the best locations in Canada to hold winter tennis camps, based on local demand and available indoor facilities. The goal is to make sure that the resource-intensive camps reach the maximum number of potential future Eugenie Bouchards.

Learn more on U of T Engineering News.

August 5, 2016 — When the Canadian and American Olympic boxing teams compete in Rio de Janeiro in August, they may have the upper hand thanks to a wearable technology innovation from a U of T Engineering alumnus.

Both teams have been training using a wrist-mounted sensor that tracks each punch, measuring both speed and intensity. The device was created by Khalil Zahar (MechE MASc 1T4), who is bringing his product to market through his startup company, Hykso.

Hykso’s small sensor uses both accelerometers and gyroscopes to gather data about hand movements, taking samples 1,000 times per second. Combining motion tracking and machine-learning technology, the device then calculates, in real-time, the speed of the punch, and even recognizes the type of punch thrown.

“I started boxing during my first year at U of T and I just fell in love with it,” says Zahar. Soon afterward, he realized that he wanted to improve his own boxing technique, but the tools for doing so were limited. Boxing coaches traditionally measure the number of punches thrown by simply counting them, sometimes with the help of a hand-held mechanical clicker. “That method is subject to human error,” says Zahar. “Plus, you can’t log much other information.”

Zahar began experimenting with off-the-shelf components with the goal of collecting more detailed information about each punch thrown. “With our device, you can differentiate each punch,” he says. “You can dig deeper into the data so that you can improve as a boxer, and you can measure endurance in real-time in order to change your regimen as you go. It can even help in pinpointing an injury.”

As a graduate student, Zahar says, becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t really part of his plan. But he soon realized that to truly make an impact on the sport he had come to love, he would have to create his own company. He took out books on entrepreneurship from the library, and in 2013 joined the Techno program at U of T’s Impact Centre. Founded in 2010, Techno provides mentorship, training and other support to help science and engineering students create technology-based companies.

Since launching in 2013, Hykso — now based in Orange County, California — has generated $360,000 in sales. Zahar’s company was recently accepted into Y Combinator, an American seed accelerator called “the world’s most powerful start-up incubator” by Fast Company magazine. “People consider it the Harvard of startup school,” says Zahar. “We graduated this past March.”

For Zahar, engineering provided a valuable foundation for success in the fast-paced startup world. “My engineering background helped me in a lot of ways. To create this device, I had to explore and validate my hypothesis, and iterate my assumptions, just as I would in research – it’s very scientific, actually,” he says.

Zahar also hopes to keep expanding the use of his device into other sports, as well as sports broadcasting – and even high-intensity workouts like CrossFit. “I want to change the way people train in sports,” he says.

In the meantime, he’ll be watching as the Canadian and American boxing teams use his devices to go for the knockout at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

July 27, 2016 — Collaboration is the key to success of two new professors that are cross-appointed with the Departments of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Civil Engineering. Professors Marianne Touchie (CivE, MIE) and Fae Azhari (MIE, CivE) joined the Faculty at the beginning of July.

Professor Touchie completed a BASc and PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on improving the energy performance and indoor environmental quality of existing buildings to make them more comfortable, healthy and sustainable through comprehensive retrofits.

Professor Azhari holds degrees in Civil Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology and University of British Columbia, Industrial Engineering from UC Berkeley, and Structural Engineering and Mechanics from UC Davis. She specializes in structural health monitoring of engineering systems.

U of T Engineering spoke with the new professors to find out more about their research and what they’re looking forward to at U of T:

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Could you explain the focus of your research?

MT: My research focuses on the question of how we improve the quality of our indoor environment as we strive for greater energy efficiency. Making buildings more comfortable and healthy often comes at an energy cost.

FA: My work focuses on structural health monitoring (SHM) of engineering systems. Similar to the way a doctor would point out when an organ is malfunctioning in a patient’s body during regular check-ups, SHM is able to diagnose and locate any anomalies in an engineering system. Since this diagnosis happens at a very early stage, the remedial procedure will usually be timely and cost effective. My goal is to address some of the gaps in the succession of tasks from sensor development to implementation and decision making.

Why did you choose U of T?

MT: U of T is my alma mater so I am well aware of the significance and impact of the research done here and I am looking forward to collaborating with so many talented colleagues and students in both the lab and the classroom.

FA: Long before pursuing academia, I visited Toronto and the campus here. The historical feel and the intellectual vibe stayed in my mind. I’m so happy to be working here now. My research field is multidisciplinary, and having access to the many great resources, facilities, colleagues and mentors at U of T will be extremely valuable in advancing my research and career.

What are you most looking forward to in your new position?

MT: With a cross appointment between Civil Engineering and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, I’m excited to bring together students from across disciplines.

FA: I like the sense of collegiality at U of T and look forward to effective collaborations with other researchers.

As a new professor, what one piece of advice would you give to new students?

MT: Allow yourself to wrestle with a problem before asking for help. It is effortless to use Google or message someone to find an answer. But this process doesn’t improve your own ability to problem solve, think critically or take your own position on an issue. During your time at U of T you will gain plenty of technical knowledge but transferable skills like problem solving will be of the most valuable after graduation.

FA: At university you are often your own teacher so expect to be treated that way. Try to be proactive and do not be afraid to ask questions.

What do you hope to accomplish in your new position/during your time at U of T Engineering?

MT: Within Civil Engineering, I would like to continue growing the Canadian Centre for Building Excellence (CCBE) with Professors Kim Pressnail and Jeffrey Siegel into a world-renowned research centre for healthy, energy efficient buildings. I would also like to create stronger links through multidisciplinary design courses which will give students an opportunity to tackle today’s important problems with colleagues from a variety of technical backgrounds.

FA: I hope to one day truly ‘profess’ my subject.; to understand the old and new bodies of knowledge in such a way that I can properly judge their significance and place in the grand scheme of things.

July 21, 2016 — Seven U of T engineers have been honoured by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) and Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) with Ontario Professional Engineers Awards. Professor Stewart Aitchison (ECE) received the Research and Development Medal, recognizing engineers who have advanced knowledge in engineering or applied science. Professor Vaughn Betz (ECE), and alumni George Anders (ElecE PhD 8T0) and John Yeow (ElecE 9T7, MASc MIE 0T0, PhD MIE 0T3) received Engineering Excellence Medals, honouring those who have contributed substantially to advancing the engineering profession. Alumni Valerie Davidson (ChemE PhD 8T3) and Ted Maulucci (MechE 8T9) are receiving Citizenship Awards, which recognize engineers who have made significant contributions to society. Alumnus Larry Seeley (ChemE 6T6, MASc 6T8, PhD 7T2) has been chosen to receive the Gold Medal, recognizing public service, technical excellence and outstanding professional leadership. The recipients will be honoured at a gala at the International Centre in Mississauga on November 19, 2016.

“I am delighted that OSPE and PEO have recognized these outstanding U of T engineers for their accomplishments, their leadership and their service to the profession and to the community,” said Dean Cristina Amon. “These prestigious awards are a testament to the wide-ranging and meaningful contributions made by our faculty and alumni in all aspects of engineering and beyond.”

Professor Stewart Aitchison is a world leader in the field of nonlinear optics, particularly the area of spatial optical solitons. His pioneering research has led to the creation of new all-optical devices for signal processing applications, the demonstration of “the world’s fastest switch,” and the development of new types of light sources. Increasingly focused on developing point-of-care technologies, Aitchison has created an HIV monitoring system that can give a test result in 10 to 15 minutes. In 2009 he co-founded ChipCare Corporation to commercialize this technology. Aitchison is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Optical Society of America and the Institute of Physics, and a corresponding fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In 1998 Professor Vaughn Betz co-founded Right Track CAD to commercialize his doctoral research (in partnership with Jonathan Rose (ECE), his PhD supervisor). This startup pioneered a new architecture and design method for a class of programmable computer chips called Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). In 2000, Right Track CAD was acquired by one of its customers, Altera Corporation. Betz held several leadership positions within Altera before joining U of T in 2011. He led the development of Altera’s FPGA chips and was one of the key architects of Altera’s Quartus II Computer-Aided Design System, used daily by tens of thousands of design engineers worldwide. Betz has mentored many young engineers at Altera and U of T, and has established engineering scholarships in Ontario and Manitoba.

George Anders is president of Anders Consulting, a professor at the Technical University of Lodz, and an adjunct professor in ECE. From 1975-2012, he worked with Ontario Hydro and its successor companies on the development of power cable calculation methods and the development and application of advanced techniques in power system analysis and design. Anders is a Canadian representative and co-convener of Working Group 19 of the International Electrotechnical Commission, which develops new computational techniques and new standards for power cable ampacity computations. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and received the 2016 IEEE Halperin Award in Transmission and Distribution.

As Canada Research Chair in Micro and Nanodevices at the University of Waterloo, John Yeow is developing nanodevices and highly selective sensors that will help create new medical instruments for diagnosing and treating disease. He is designing a miniaturized catheter device for in vivo body imaging which could assist in the early detection of diseases such as cancer. Yeow is also developing miniature radiation instruments and sensors for cancer treatment that will allow for a more focused, yet less invasive, delivery of radiation treatment, as well as real-time measurement of the delivered dose. Yeow is a fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and received the Ontario Professional Engineers Young Engineer Award in 2008.

After obtaining her PhD in Chemical Engineering from U of T, Valerie Davidson had a distinguished academic career at the University of Guelph, where she held the NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering from 2003-2011. In this role, she spearheaded the creation of the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering (ONWiE), which includes all schools and faculties of engineering across Ontario. ONWie has created programs such as Go ENG Girl, in which elementary and high school girls visit university campuses to learn about engineering, and Go CODE Girl, which introduces girls to coding and software development. In 2002, Davidson received the Award for the Support of Women in the Engineering Profession from the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (now Engineers Canada).

As Chief Information Officer of Tridel Corporation, Ted Maulucci leverages his high profile to help engineering programs gain access to industry resources and to help researchers form commercialization partnerships. In 2009, Maulucci co-founded One Million Acts of Innovation, which promotes Canadian innovation. In partnership with this group and the Information and Communications Technology Council, he created the “Coach to Career” program to help new Canadians establish their careers. Maulucci is chair of the Entrepreneurs in Residence Committee at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, which helps researchers commercialize healthcare products. Here at U of T, he is a member of the Industry Advisory Board for MIE. Maulucci received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013.

After a stellar 24-year career at Falconbridge, Larry Seeley led the development of Lakefield Research Ltd. into the largest commercial metallurgical research and development organization in the world, then founded Recapture Metals, which recycled metals for use in a number of industries. A champion of education, he has served on the Board of Governors of Cambrian College, Trent University and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and was chair of the Advisory Board for ChemE for five years. Seeley has served as president of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering and the Canadian Metallurgical Society. He is a fellow of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, the Engineering Institute of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and was inducted into the Engineering Hall of Distinction in 2006.

July 27, 2016 — Professor Scott P. Sanner, an international expert in information engineering, joined the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering on April 1, 2016.

Sanner’s research harnesses the power of computers and big data to make decisions faster, and sometimes better, than humans can. His work in hot fields such as machine learning and artificial intelligence can be applied to make cities smarter, including optimizing transit and transport networks, improving energy efficiency of buildings and anticipating surges and dips in demand for services.

Sanner has held prestigious research and teaching roles around the globe. Prior to joining U of T Engineering, he held positions at Oregon State University, National ICT Australia and Australian National University. He completed his undergraduate degree in computer science and electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, his master’s degree at Stanford University and PhD at the University of Toronto, both in computer science.

Writer Liz Do sat down with Sanner to learn more about his research, teaching and hopes for the new role.

 

 

What are you most looking forward to in your new position?

I look forward to working with amazing U of T students and my fellow faculty members to help create the future of smart cities.

Why did you choose to join U of T Engineering?

I earned my PhD here at U of T, and my reasons for coming here as a student are the same reasons I am excited to return as faculty: world-class research achieved by world-class faculty and students. But most importantly, there is something unique about U of T that attracted me back after nine years away: the mutual friendliness and approachability of faculty members and students makes U of T a nurturing place for creativity and innovation that has shaped — and will continue to shape — the global research landscape.

Tell me about your research.

Have you ever waited at a red light or crosswalk signal when there are no other cars around and wondered why? While sensors now collect massive amounts of data on all aspects of urban systems, this data is not exploited to its full potential. High-fidelity predictive models are not learned from this data, nor is it possible to optimize decisions in such complex learned models in real-time. My research aims to develop novel machine learning and optimization methods to make our cities smarter.

How could your research change the modern city?

The impact of learning high-fidelity predictive models of urban systems from vast quantities of sensor data and optimizing these models in real-time is far-reaching: our buildings will use less energy, our traffic will be less congested and pollution can be reduced, while government services will be better able to anticipate our needs before we even approach them.

What difference do you hope to make with your research and teaching in the next five years?

I want to incorporate cutting-edge technologies from my research into the classroom so that students entering the workforce are trained and equipped with the latest advances in their fields. There is no better method to create smarter cities than by equipping students with state-of-the-art skills in smart city technologies and having them transfer these technologies to government and industry as forward-thinking employees.

As a new professor, what one piece of advice would you give to new students?

To paraphrase advice I heard from John Perry at Stanford: take time to explore and determine who you are and what you really care about. It will be much more expensive to have a nervous breakdown in your 50s than to find out who you are while you’re at university.

 

July 18, 2016 — An astronaut holds a glass jar half-full of water in the near-zero gravity of space. How does the water look inside the jar? Does it form a single ball, sit on the bottom of the jar, or cling to its walls? For decades, no one has had definitive answers to these questions — and now U of T Engineering researchers intend to solve the mystery once and for all.

The correct answer isn’t very intuitive, says post-doctoral fellow Aaron Persad (MIE). “You need to solve a series of thermodynamic equations to predict which arrangement is most stable.” He and Professor Emeritus Charles Ward (MIE) have launched an experiment aboard SpaceX CRS-9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, headed for the International Space Station (ISS). There, an astronaut will run the experiment and capture photos and video of their glass jar of purified water.

It may seem like a simple problem, but determining the behaviour of water in space has big implications for designing astronauts’ life-support systems. On July 16, 2013, a clogged filter caused nearly 1.5 litres of water to coat the face and helmet of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano during a spacewalk. The water obscured his vision, hearing and breathing, forcing the crew to abort the operation and get him to safety.

Ward has been trying to solve the mystery of water behaviour in space for almost 20 years. His thermodynamic calculations predicted that in short cylindrical containers, water will stick to the walls leaving a spherical bubble of vapor in the middle. In longer containers, water will tend to pool at both ends of the container leaving a gap of vapor in the middle — Ward called the latter a “double-interface configuration.”

But he had a difficult time defending his predictions. “My peers wouldn’t believe that the double-interface configuration would be stable,” Ward says. “So we had to do an experiment in space.”

Ward had U of T’s glassblowing shop create several glass jars of various sizes that he half-filled with purified water, taking care to vacuum out any air before sealing the jars closed. In 1997, the jars flew to the ISS aboard the space shuttle Columbia, but unfortunately the results were inconclusive.

“We had to make do with the equipment and resources we available to us at the time,” says Ward. The video, shot on an 8mm VHS camera, was pixelated and blurry, which Ward says “left room for doubters to hold on to their doubts.”

In 2008 Persad, then a PhD candidate supervised by Ward, rediscovered the jars during a lab cleanup. Ward urged him to throw them out since they were no longer needed, but Persad hid them instead. He became fascinated by the experiment and started looking for a way to run it again with better equipment that would lead to a more conclusive result.

That opportunity arrived in 2013 in the form of a NASA-funded project called Story Time from Space. The project will see astronauts on the ISS conduct and videotape educational demonstrations, chosen by veteran Canadian astronaut Dr. Bjarni Tryggvason, which can be taught and replicated in classrooms around the world. Tryggvason and Ward had a longstanding debate about the outcome from the 1997 experiment, so Tryggvason invited Ward and Persad to fly it again.

Persad designed an improved apparatus for the experiment, and attached a modified GoPro camera to capture high-resolution images and video that will prove — or disprove — Ward’s theory once and for all.

The results from the space experiments could also have useful applications on Earth. “These days, there is growing interest in nanofluidics, which is all about understanding the behaviour of liquids in channels 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair,” says Persad. “At such tiny scales, the effect of gravity is minimal, so the liquids behave similarly to what we see in space.” As a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Professor David Sinton (MIE), Persad is researching nanofluidics to improve oil recovery processes. He is already seeing evidence of the double-interface configuration at the nano-scale.

With this launch, the stakes are high for Persad — last time the experiment launched aboard SpaceX’s CRS-7 mission, the rocket exploded shortly after lift-off, destroying his work. He stillremembers the shock of learning about the disaster. Undeterred, the very next day he began to rebuild the experiment, producing a new version in just four months. If this version blows up too, he will try again, he says.

Despite all the delays and setbacks, Persad remains optimistic. He believes that the data from the images and videos will be enlightening to both researchers and students alike. “After 20 years, it will be great to finally have an answer,” he says.

June 21, 2016 — Every time a plane touches the ground — whether taking off, landing or taxiing on the runway — the pivotal piece of equipment that ensures the aircraft’s safety, and the safety of its passengers, is the landing gear.

The landing gear relies on many complex and interdependent mechanical components: the retraction-extension mechanism, locking system, tires and ‘shimmy damper’ that controls the lateral vibration on landing all work together to prevent failure on landing.

Professor Kamran Behdinan (MIE) hopes to improve the design. He was recently awarded a $900,000, three-year NSERC Collaborative Research and Development grant to make it happen.

Behdinan and his research group will work alongside SPP Canada Aircraft Inc. and its parent company Sumitomo Precision Products Co. in Japan to develop an integrated computational methodology for the design, testing and development of the next generation of landing gear.

“This is a very unique collaborative research and development project,” said Behdinan, director of the University of Toronto Institute for Multidisciplinary Design & Innovation and the University of Toronto Advanced Research Facility in Lightweight Multifunctional Structures. “The Greater Toronto Area is actually the hub of landing-gear development in the world.”

Three major landing gear companies can be found in Ajax, Oakville and Mississauga, respectively: Messier-Bugatti-Dowty (of Safran Landing Systems), UTC Aerospace Systems and Sumitomo Precision Products. These companies play a large part in the Canadian aircraft industry, accounting for about 20 per cent of its revenue, says Behdinan. He estimates that by 2020, landing gear will become a $5.3-billion industry. “That is why this work that we are doing has enormous impact.”

As a leader in multidisciplinary education at U of T Engineering, Behdinan plans to bring the same level of integrative collaboration to this research project.

“Traditionally, this kind of work is conducted within different groups of disciplines,” he says. “But you cannot fully realize the design without working in a more integrative system — we’ve got to bring everyone together.”

In order to develop landing gear with optimized cost, weight and reduced noise pollution, Behdinan’s group aims to explore the mechanics of landing gear vibration, including shimmy and brake-induced vibration. They will also study noise pollution to find ways to mitigate it.

His group will conduct drop tests at U of T, to validate impact measurements and simulate lateral vibrations of the landing gear when it hits the ground.

“The end goal is to have a fully integrated design and analysis of a platform for the development of a new landing gear that can be used for future aircraft,” said Behdinan. “This is a very exciting project, I am proud that this work will involve the engineering expertise at U of T.”