An interdisciplinary case study from researchers at U of T Engineering and the Department of Geography & Planning demonstrates the challenges that can arise when governments adopt a ‘smart cities’ strategy — and points the way toward possible solutions. 

The study revolved around the city of Coimbatore in India’s Tamil Nadu state. Municipal water there is supplied via an intermittent system, which is turned on and off for each neighbourhood at various times throughout the week or month. 

“More than a billion people around the world get their water intermittently,” says Professor David Meyer (CivMin), who studies these types of systems, including how to effectively model them.  

“For many cities, upgrading to a 24/7 water supply is just not feasible. But one thing they can do as a stop-gap measure is to post the schedule online, so their users can at least plan around the times when they will receive water.” 

This was the case for Coimbatore: in line with the Smart Cities initiative launched by India’s national Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs, the city decided to post its water schedules online. 

“When they started posting the data online in April 2022, it gave us an opportunity to study the impact that open data and digital transparency can have on municipal services,” says Professor Nidhi Subramanyam from the Department of Geography & Planning, co-author along with Meyer of the new study, which is published in Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability. The research was funded by a Catalyst Grant from U of T’s Data Sciences Institute.

“As our study shows, it turned out to be a pretty laborious task, and it just couldn’t be sustained. They stopped posting after just a few months.” 

Meyer says one of the key challenges was the format in which the data was provided, as well as its sheer volume.  

“Each day, city staff would post a 50-page PDF document, a digitized version of the internal paper documents they used to determine the water schedule,” he says. 

“But as a user, you don’t care about most of that: you only want to know when your taps are going to be turned on. To find that, you have to scan through hundreds of rows of text, looking for your street name. And it might be in a different place each time — or it might not be there at all, which would mean that you’re not getting any water that day.” 

Meyer uses the analogy of a rainstorm in a desert to describe the switch. 

“Before this, there was no data at all, like a dry desert with no rain,” he says. 

“And then all of a sudden, you have a torrent of data, like a flood. But that doesn’t make things better; instead, it creates a whole new set of challenges.” 

In the paper, the team outlines simple changes that could have made the data much more useful. For example, posting the data in the form of a machine-readable spreadsheet instead of a PDF would have enabled third-party developers to create an app that automatically sends users a text message when their water is coming on. 

“Why didn’t they do that? To be empathetic to the city workers who we interviewed, a lot of it comes down to resources,” says Subramanyam. 

“The utility didn’t hire anyone to be in charge of the new system, or to think through the best way to do it. Instead, they just added it to the list of tasks that current workers had to do, without increasing their pay or providing incentives. So it’s no surprise that they did it in a way that would be easy, rather than useful.” 

“There’s also an element of ‘silent resistance.’ If you are asked to take on a new project that significantly adds to your workload, but you are not compensated for it, you have a good reason to want the project to fail. And in the end, that’s what happened here.” 

Meyer says that while implementation was not effective in this case, the strategies of digital transparency and open data still have the potential to improve how cities work. He hopes that the team’s work can point the way toward best practices that might enable these tools to better live up to their promise. 

“Right now, there’s no standard for how to do this effectively, so everyone is just kind of making it up as they go along,” he says. 

“What we’re hoping is that by highlighting what didn’t work in this case study, and by suggesting what might have worked better, we can set the stage for a more successful implementation. 

“If more places provide open data that is accurate, timely and accessible, it will do a lot to reduce the uncertainties and stress resulting from inadequate water supply.” 

A new open-access tool created by U of T Engineering researchers provides a systematic way to organize and synthesize knowledge about metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) — a class of materials with applications in drug delivery, catalysis, carbon capture and more. 

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are an exceptionally versatile class of materials, distinguished by their ultra-high surface area and precisely tunable chemistry. Some MOFs have surface areas reaching up to 7,000 m²/g, meaning that a gram of this material contains enough internal surface area to cover a football field. 

This unique structure enables a wide range of promising applications. Some can be used as molecular sieves, separating carbon dioxide from other gases so it can be captured and sequestered. Others grab onto tiny molecules, enabling them to be detected at extremely low concentrations. Still others can help speed up industrially important reactions, or deliver drugs to certain areas of the body. 

The growing importance and transformative potential of MOFs in science and technology is underlined by the fact that they were the subject of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 

But with studies on MOFs accelerating across more than 25 application domains, keeping track of the field’s rapidly growing body of knowledge has proven increasingly challenging — not just for researchers, but also for the AI tools intended to support scientific discovery.

A team led by Professor Mohamad Moosavi in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, and the Vector Institute, has developed a new system to help address that challenge.

Their new tool is named Unifying Chemical Data for MOFs, abbreviated to MOF-ChemUnity. The work has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, one of the most prestigious journals in chemistry; the study was selected for the cover of a recent issue.

“Scientific discovery begins with reading and synthesizing the literature, but this remains one of the most difficult steps to automate,” says Moosavi.   

“MOF-ChemUnity creates a unified foundation that both researchers and AI systems can build on.” 

A structured map of MOF knowledge 

The remarkable tunability of MOFs makes them suitable for a wide range of technologies, but the breadth and diversity of research across disciplines have made the field increasingly complex to navigate. 

MOF-ChemUnity addresses this challenge using a structured and scalable knowledge graph that systematically extracts and links information from MOF research papers, crystal structure repositories and computational materials databases. 

At the core of the system is a multi-agent large language model (LLM) workflow designed to connect chemical names in the literature to the correct crystal structures. This enables synthesis procedures, material properties and potential applications to be represented in a consistent, machine-readable format. 

“A knowledge graph connects pieces of information like a web, linking things, like a MOF, its metal node, synthesis protocol, and adsorption property through their relationships — ‘made from’, ‘synthesized’,  ‘used for’,” says Moosavi. 

 “This lets AI not just store data but understand and reason about how materials, properties and applications are connected — exactly what MOF-ChemUnity enables.”  

Reducing AI hallucination through literature grounding 

The team demonstrated the system’s impact by integrating the knowledge graph with large language models to build a literature-informed AI assistant for MOFs. Unlike standard AI systems, which can produce plausible-sounding but incorrect statements, the literature-informed assistant draws on verified experimental and computational records. 

In blind evaluations performed by MOF experts from multiple institutions, the assistant’s responses were consistently rated as more accurate, interpretable and trustworthy than those produced by baseline LLMs such as GPT-4o. 

“This approach reduces hallucination, which is one of the major obstacles in applying large language models to scientific domains,” Moosavi says. 

“By grounding AI responses in curated and linked literature, we can support more reliable scientific reasoning.”

A foundation for future materials discovery 

The U of T team — Moosavi and his graduate students, Thomas Pruyn and Amro Aswad (both ChemE), who were key contributors to the work — have made the dataset and code openly available on GitHub, aiming to support continued progress in materials science and AI-driven research.

The main funder is the National Research Council of Canada’s Materials for Clean Fuels Challenge Program, and U of T’s Acceleration Consortium and Data Science Institute.  

Moosavi says the project lays groundwork for a broader shift in how scientific knowledge is organized and accessed. 

“This work will help break down silos in scientific research,” Moosavi says.  

“Human researchers are limited by the number of papers they can read, but MOF-ChemUnity takes a first step toward enabling AI systems that can process data across fields.  

“It establishes a new paradigm for literature-informed discovery, and we envision it as the beginning of generalized knowledge systems that can accelerate research across many fields.”

A reception held November 10 at U of T brought together more than 200 people from academia and industry, as well as partners from the Ontario government and First Nations, to explore how collaborations in battery innovation can bring about a cleaner and more prosperous future.

The event was jointly hosted by U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science, the Department of Chemistry, the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Asahi Kasei Corporation, a major producer of battery separators, critical components for lithium-ion batteries.

Attendees were treated to a lecture titled The Future Society Made Possible by Lithium-ion Batteries, given by Professor Akira Yoshino, one of three co-recipients of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of that technology. Yoshino is both a fellow of Asahi Kasei Corporation and a professor at Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan.

Since their invention in the mid-1980s, lithium-ion batteries have become ubiquitous, powering everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles to grid-scale energy storage facilities.

But as Yoshino explained, renewed innovation could enable this technology to serve even more roles in the future:

“In the coming years, I believe we’ll see meaningful progress in several key areas of battery technology – from advances in recycling that better support circularity, to next-generation materials that enhance battery performance across a broad range of applications,” said Yoshino.

“To accelerate these innovations, we must create resilient supply chains. That means responsibly developing new resources and fostering international cooperation. This includes minimizing uncertainty and attracting long-term investments in R&D and manufacturing capacity to support the clean energy transition.”

After the lecture, Yoshino met with U of T researchers working in areas relevant to battery technology. The attendees included experts in materials science, chemistry and power electronics, many of whom are members of world-leading U of T research hubs such as:

• The Acceleration Consortium, which combines material science with the power of artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced computing to rapidly design and test new materials and molecules.
• The Lawson Climate Institute, which will galvanize and accelerate U of T’s capacity to advance the technologies, policies, and incentives needed to make the global transition to net zero.
• The Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control, which promotes research collaborations in these rapidly evolving interdisciplinary fields.

The event also included tours of U of T facilities by representatives from Asahi Kasei Corporation and the Japanese ambassador to Canada. Asahi Kasei recently began work on a new manufacturing facility for battery separators in Port Colborne, Ont.

“We were pleased to team with the University of Toronto for this event and hope it sparks a long-term partnership that drives innovation, supports student and workforce development, and strengthens the battery supply chain, both in Ontario and North America,” said Samuel Mills, President of Asahi Kasei Battery Separator North America.

Dozens of U of T research groups are already pursuing research that builds on Yoshino’s work to advance energy storage solutions. Examples include the following:

• Professor Cristina Amon (MIE) and her team are developing ways to make batteries more resilient to thermal fluctuations.
• Professor Gisele Azimi (ChemE, MSE) and her team are designing more sustainable ways to recover valuable materials from lithium-ion batteries at the end of their productive lives.
• Professor Dwight Seferos (Department of Chemistry) and his team are exploring the potential of organic materials as electrodes and other components in a range of battery technologies.
• Professor Olivier Trescases (ECE) and his team at the University of Toronto Electric Vehicle (UTEV) Research Centre are working with auto manufacturers on advancing a full suite of EV technologies, including power electronics, automotive semiconductors, battery systems and charging infrastructure.
• Professor Alex Voznyy (Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, UTSC) and his team at the Clean Energy Lab are developing new materials for low-cost and scalable energy conversion.

“It was an honour to join the University of Toronto and Asahi Kasei for Dr. Akira Yoshino’s Distinguished Lecture,” said the Honourable Sam Oosterhoff, Ontario’s Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries.

“Ontario’s universities offer world-class research, state-of-the-art facilities, and a highly skilled talent pool to help industry tackle real-world challenges. With its expertise in EVs, advanced batteries, and energy more broadly, the University of Toronto is uniquely positioned to support Ontario’s clean energy future — driving innovation, creating jobs, and strengthening our economy for decades to come.”

For Paige McFarlane (EngSci 2T5, BME PhD student) biomedical engineering was the perfect middle ground between two paths.  

“Where I come from, there’s this idea, you either go into medicine or you go into engineering,” she says. 

“I didn’t want to be a doctor or nurse, but I did want to work in health care, so this seemed like a good way to combine the two.” 

McFarlane, who grew up in Jamaica, came to U of T to pursue an undergrad in Engineering Science. She says her decision to pursue a PhD out of undergrad was in part motivated by receiving the Indigenous and Black Engineering and Technology (IBET) Momentum Fellowship.  

“At first I thought I’d do a master’s and then go for the PhD, but when I got the fellowship that would allow me to do my PhD directly, it was like a door opened and the idea really became possible,” she says. 

As a recipient of the 2025 fellowship, McFarlane will receive financial support, mentorship, training and networking opportunities throughout her PhD. The IBET PhD Project is intended to foster equitable and inclusive research environments to increase the presence of Indigenous and Black academics in STEM. 

She credits IBET with connecting her to two labs working on microfluidics, and is currently completing rotations in both.  

While she is still planning her PhD path, McFarlane is interested in microfluidics as they pertain to point of care. 

“Microfluidics studies how very small amounts of fluids, such as water or blood, flow through tiny channels,” she says.  

“I think of it like tiny plumbing. At the point of care, we’re talking about things like using microfluidics as a quick and easy tool for in-home testing, or diagnostic tests done in the doctor’s office. I think that’s where I’ll focus my research.”  

She is also keeping inclusivity in mind when thinking about her future research, noting the current lack of research around women’s health. 

“When you’re designing your own experiments, you can try and ensure an inclusive sample set for data collection,” she says.

“I’m hoping with my PhD to ensure that whatever research I do, it takes into account different biomarkers or variations that women have. The main thing I’m hoping is that my research ends up in the hands of those it’s intended to help, so that’s why I’m interested in the point-of-care diagnostics.” 

Outside of the lab, McFarlane is taking advantage of all that the IBET program has to offer. Over the summer, she attended a presentation by a previous fellowship recipient, where she got to see the reach of IBET’s community.  

“I’m excited for the mentorship that those who have gone before me can offer as well as the mentorship that I can hopefully give to those after me.” 

“I’m looking forward to IBET’s annual conference as it will be a nice first step and training ground into that kind of environment for presenting research work.” 

She is also partaking in mentorship opportunities by volunteering with U of T’s DISCOVERY program. McFarlane has previously assisted with the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) annual high school conference and spent two summers working for the Engineering Outreach Office in the Blueprint program. 

“That was probably my favourite program I’ve worked with because there were two students I mentored there who I saw on campus studying Engineering the following year,” she says. 

“It’s the best thing ever getting to mentor high school students and then seeing them pursue their dreams.” 

Funding from a Data Sciences Institute (DSI) Doctoral Student Fellowship will help power research into soft tactile-sensing robotic skin.

MIE PhD candidate Arman Arezoomand uses a biomimetic approach in his research, working with sensors that can detect the shape and texture of objects, just as human skin does. As the recipient of the new fellowship, Arezoomand will continue to develop and explore a new application of AI in tactile perception for robots.

“Receiving this fellowship allows me to address the current limitations in artificial tactile perception and develop prosthetic digits equipped with soft sensors that truly replicate the sensitivity of the human fingertip skin,” says Arezoomand.

Beyond prosthetics, the technology developed in Arezoomand’s project holds significant promise for embodied AI, where robots must interact intelligently with dynamic physical environments. In this field, the artificial skin could enable more sophisticated autonomous systems — such as humanoid robots that navigate cluttered spaces or perform intricate tasks like sorting fragile items — by providing real-time feedback on surface textures, pressures and slippage.

Future plans are to integrate the sensor into a prosthetic hand, restoring a sense of touch for upper-limb amputees. An embedded/edge AI within the prosthesis would process the sensor data in real-time, providing the user with tactile feedback.

“Our overarching objective is to develop a sensor that can make a real impact and improve the quality of life for partial hand amputees,” says Arezoomand.

“The goal of restoring tactile sensing in prosthetics has been a powerful motivation to develop a truly useful product to improve balance, motor control and gripping.”

Arezoomand is co-supervised by Professor Fae Azhari (MIE, CivMin) in the Decisionics Lab, and Professor Heather Baltzer, clinician investigator at the Krembil Research Institute, part of the University Health Network, director of the Hand Surgery group at Toronto Western Hospital, and professor at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Arezoomand joined MIE after completing his Master of Science in Mechatronics Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. He says he was drawn to U of T by its reputation as a hub for collaborative, multidisciplinary AI research — a perfect fit for his project.

“The complexity of the project allows us to break it down into smaller pieces for teams with different expertise, from mechanical engineering to medical science,” says Arezoomand.

“I am incredibly grateful to lead such a diverse and innovative effort in replicating the human sense of touch through artificial skin.”

The tactile sensing technology could also improve manufacturing and supply chains by creating more advanced automation systems that can perform delicate assembly tasks and take control of automated storage and retrieval systems in warehouses.

“Big tech companies have initiated research in this context, and they are competing, which shows the importance the tactile sensing challenges,” says Arezoomand.

“The scope and potential application of the research are so widespread, it’s fulfilling for myself and the team to work toward developing a sensor with substantial impact.”

Students from across the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the Faculty of Arts & Science are acquiring industry-ready skills and making meaningful industry connections, thanks to a $1.38 million gift from the Royal Bank of Canada. 

The visionary support will enable students to delve deeper into topics the tech industry is confronting today with the Tech@RBC Insider Series, which features 12 learning sessions over the next three years. The gift will also create two powerful scholarships: the RBC Tech Scholars in AI Engineering and RBC Tech Scholars in Computer Science. Each valued at approximately $25,480, the awards will alleviate financial burden and transform the lives of 30 promising third-year undergraduate students over the next three years. 

“At RBC, we know students are critical to our future, forming the next generation of tech leaders and innovators,” says Martin Wildberger, executive vice-president of innovation & technology at RBC.  

“Our partnership with the University of Toronto is focused on helping motivate and encourage early talent to grow their skills beyond the classroom and learn from RBC’s technology leaders. Canada is home to some of the best and brightest students, and we aim to inspire and empower them to shape the future of technology for all of us.”  

Senior leaders at both faculties reflected on the significance of the gift and expressed gratitude. 

“It’s reassuring to know RBC shares our passion for ensuring brilliant students grow their skills to make an impact,” says Professor Deepa Kundur, chair of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.  

“Thank you for your vision and dedication to empowering the next generation of tech talent right here at the University of Toronto.”  

“We are deeply grateful to RBC for this generous investment in our students and community,” says Professor Eyal de Lara, chair of the Department of Computer Science.  

“By supporting the Tech@RBC Insider Series and new scholarships, this gift will open doors for our students to connect with leading voices in technology while reducing financial barriers to their education. It’s a powerful way to help our students thrive and contribute to the future of innovation.” 

In October, U of T Engineering and Arts & Science students packed the second-floor event space at the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus for the inaugural Tech@RBC Insider session, Cybersecurity: Defend the Digital Fortress. Milos Stojadinovic, senior director of advanced threat operations and distinguished engineer at RBC, kicked off the evening with a behind-the-scenes look at how banks tackle cybersecurity. Following a networking session, workshop participants rolled up their sleeves to tackle hands-on threat modelling and threat response simulation exercises. 

Many students, including Chloe Kentebe (Year 2 CompE), gained valuable insights from the session.

She was drawn to the lecture and workshop by her strong interest in cybersecurity mechanisms, and how they are designed and implemented in the financial space. Last summer, under the supervision of Kundur’s lab, she took on a research project aimed at understanding the cyber-physical security of autonomous vehicles.

She says this experience, as well as navigating her classes, participating in extracurriculars — including contributing to U of T Formula Racing as a deep learning team member — and attending events like the Tech@RBC session, have deepened her interest and broadened her understanding of cybersecurity and safety.

“To ensure the strength and resilience of a system, one needs to have a certain level of technical knowledge surrounding the dynamics of its environment, but it’s even more essential to have a mindset that can consider the unique complexities and edge cases related to the ways that the system can be infiltrated,” she says.

“The art and science of developing innovative and applicable solutions is a skill I commit to continuously improving through my education and extracurriculars.”

Meanwhile, fellow attendee Tuğra Canbaz felt a personal connection to the lecture and workshop.

Canbaz, a Pearson Scholar from Türkiye and first-year student hoping to pursue a double major in computer science and economics, has seen the devastating effects of cybersecurity breaches in his home country.

“I can’t help but be interested in cyber security and regulations surrounding it,” says Canbaz, who is aiming for a career in tech, perhaps in financial technologies or cybersecurity.

“It’s also important to consider potential interactions with AI. Imagine if an AI algorithm was trained on leaked data and how invasive that would be. That’s something I want to work on safeguarding against in the future.”

The Tech@RBC hands-on lecture, workshop and networking session also put him in the proper frame of mind to consider future trajectories.

“I like solving problems creatively and I also like the social aspects of the job — working with people, putting humans at the centre of computer problem solving,” he says. “That’s what inspires me to do more.” 

 

Interested in attending the next Tech@RBC Insider Session, co-hosted by Tech@RBC, the Faculty of Arts & Science and U of T Engineering? 

Mark your calendars and stay tuned for more information about sessions: 

Site reliability engineering: November 26, 2025 

Product ownership: February 3, 2026 

Technical careers: March 19, 2026