Two professors in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering have received grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) worth a combined $3.4 million. The funding supports cutting-edge infrastructure upgrades and equipment needed to accelerate research on advanced electromagnetics and quantum security for smart grids.
Professor George Eleftheriades won $2.6 million for the Centre for Reconfigurable Electromagnetic Surfaces (CERES). The centre will be the Canadian focal point for research into high-frequency electromagnetic wave research, bringing together researchers from a variety of fields to solve problems in the communications, security and medical sectors. A core technology to be developed is a thin, lightweight surface that controls the generation, propagation and scattering of electromagnetic waves.
Professor Hoi-Kwong Lo received $762,660 for a project titled: ‘Smart Grid: Cyber-Physical Operation, Security and Quantum Technology.’ The project aims to make the sophisticated power generation and distribution systems we will reply on in the future smart and secure.
Funding awarded to these projects comes from CFI’s Innovation Fund, which supports promising and innovative directions in research or technology development in areas where Canada is, or has the potential to be, competitive on the global stage.
In addition, each project was awarded funding from the organization’s Infrastructure Operating Fund, which helps cover a portion of the operating and maintenance costs associated with the funded infrastructure.
“We are enormously grateful to CFI for these investments, said Professor Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation. “Ambitious, world-leading science requires powerful infrastructure, and we are fortunate that the Government of Canada recognizes that. It is through projects like these that our researchers will tackle society’s most pressing problems.”
See the complete list of University of Toronto CFI recipients.
With files from Jenny Hall
