When Madhi Ramesh (MSE MEng 2T5) moved to Toronto from India in 2023, she had no previous connections to the city. It wasn’t her first time starting over from scratch. 

“My dad worked in construction; his company designed and built power plants, blast furnaces, mining installations and things like that,” she says. 

“So I was always around engineers, but it also meant that we moved around India constantly, following wherever my dad’s work took him. By the time I graduated from grade 12, I had been to ten different schools. I would just have time to meet people and warm up, and then boom, on to the next place.” 

Ramesh says that the constant moves were hard, but they also taught her creativity. 

“I realized that I could become different versions of myself in each different place,” she says. 

“If I were to stay in the same place, I would have had to be the same person throughout, fearing judgment if I changed something. But the constant movement let me absorb interesting character traits, make little upgrades to my personality, and explore who I could become. 

“So, when the opportunity came to come to Canada, it felt like a natural continuation of that journey where I could continue to push my boundaries ” 

Ramesh completed her undergraduate degree at Anna University’s College of Engineering, Guindy, in Chennai, and says she initially considered becoming a doctor before enrolling in materials science and engineering. 

“I was good at biology, and good at memorizing stuff, but then I realized I’m not great with anything related to blood,” she says. 

“Materials science for me is a bit like biology for non-living things. I saw through my dad’s work the role that material properties play in large-scale infrastructure projects, but at the same time, how often they get overlooked. It felt like a place I could make a difference.” 

At U of T Engineering, Ramesh’s MEng project focused on additive manufacturing, a technology similar to 3D printing, but for metals. Working with Professor Yu Zou (MSE), she developed high-throughput methods to test large numbers of different metal alloys for their applicability to aerospace applications. 

“The technology I used is called directed energy deposition (DED), and it uses lasers to melt together powders made of different materials,” says Ramesh. 

“If we were doing this the conventional way mixing powders by hand, sintering, polishing, it would easily take months just to get through a single round of samples. There’s even a study that estimates it would take about 20 years to test 1000 alloys using traditional methods. 

“But with the high-throughput approach we combine machine learning with the DED system and were able to print over 160 single-track samples and narrow those down to 27 bulk samples. With proper access to equipment, which can sometimes be tightly booked, testing all of those can be done in just a couple of days.” 

In addition to her studies, Ramesh held down several part-time jobs during her time at U of T. One of them was with Tech2U, which offers real-time, personalized technical support for U of T instructors by a trained team of students and experienced technicians.  

“The community there was just so great; we would hang out after the shifts were done, and talk about events and resources around campus and our experiences both at school and as students from different backgrounds,” says Ramesh. 

“I also made a lot of connections by becoming the vice-president of the MSE graduate student association. We ran the most events in an academic year of any department. 

“It was all about giving grad students a reason good enough to leave the lab, and to offer each other support. Being part of that group made me feel less like a scared international student and more like I belonged.” 

Another way that Ramesh built community was to leverage her skills as a photographer, taking pictures at events for Tech2U, the MSE graduate student association and even collaborating with fellow photographers for  Grad Ball, organized by the Graduate Engineering Council of Students (GECos). 

“I got my first camera when I was still in undergrad, which at the time was the most expensive thing that I owned,” says Ramesh 

“I quickly learned that when you have a camera in your hand, people open up more easily. And it’s a bit like meditation: you fade into the background and the story becomes about the person in front of the lens.” 

As she approaches graduation, Ramesh is still not sure what will come next. She has made some connections in the nuclear industry, but she remains interested in aerospace and manufacturing as well. She says that one of the biggest lessons from her time at U of T Engineering is resilience. 

“I did not know I could push so hard,” she says. 

“Even on the days that I did not want to push, I was motivated by this strong desire to get better at doing things that I knew would lead to better outcomes for my project. 

“I also got better at managing my time, at making a schedule and blocking time out intentionally. That way, when something derails, I know I have space to recover — and still get back on track. I think that’s a very important lesson that I learned.”

A startup powered by technology developed at U of T Engineering aims to offer compact and sustainable power solutions for grid resilience and more, using a new fuel cell design.  

Serenity Power was founded in 2023 by a team of U of T Engineering graduates, including Chief Operating Officer Yvonne Liu (ChemE 2T0 + PEY, MIE MEng 2T3) and Chief Executive Officer Aleisha Cerny (MIE MASc 2T3). 

Liu says she first got excited about sustainable energy during her PEY Co-op internship at Toronto Hydro, which she completed after her third year of her undergraduate program. 

“I realized just how much work it takes for the power grid to stand up to challenges such as growing demand and extreme weather,” she says. 

“When I heard about fuel cells, I thought it was a really cool way to provide sustainable, distributed power. This can improve grid resilience and also help remote communities that aren’t connected to the grid.”

U of T Engineering is home leading-edge research in this area. As head of the Fuel Cell Materials and Manufacturing Laboratory, Professor Olivera Kesler (MIE) is one of Canada’s top fuel cell experts.

For many years, Kesler and her team have been working on a particular type of fuel cell known as solid oxide fuel cells, or SOFCs. Among their goals are to lower the cost and improve the durability of SOFCs via new materials and processing techniques, making them more easily scaleable and amenable to mass production.

After completing her undergraduate degree, Liu switched to MIE for her MEng so she could work with Kesler. In fact, it was in a course taught by Kesler that Liu first met Cerny, who at the time was completing her MASc under the supervision of Professor Hani Naguib (MSE, MIE).

Together with Kesler and Yifei Yan (ChemE 1T9, MIE PhD 2T4), who today serves as the company’s chief technology officer, they began to consider how to bring the SOFCs to commercial application.

“There was a lot of interest in fuel cells in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but a lot of that hype was coming from the media, not the scientists,” says Cerny. 

“The technology needed time to catch up to the promises that were being made. Over the past two decades, a lot of advances have been made, including many from people who are looking to use fuel cells to generate clean hydrogen.” 

Like batteries, fuel cells use chemical reactions to produce electricity. But unlike batteries, they are not sealed containers: instead, new fuels are added and waste products removed continuously as they run. 

One potential fuel is hydrogen, which reacts with oxygen inside a fuel cell to produce electricity, with only water as a waste product. Unfortunately, most hydrogen used today is produced from fossil fuels such as natural gas. 

But fuel cells can also be run in reverse, using electricity to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen. In this mode, they can act as a way of storing excess electricity — including from sustainable but intermittent sources such as solar and wind power — in the form of hydrogen. 

One of the advantages of SOFCs over other types of fuel cells is that in addition to hydrogen, SOFCs can run directly on other fuels, such as natural gas. 

“The fuel flexibility is a big advantage, because we don’t yet have a robust hydrogen infrastructure,” says Liu. 

“But there is a lot of natural gas infrastructure, so we can offer SOFCs as a drop-in replacement for natural gas power plants. We can ​seamlessly​ switch to hydrogen​, without any changes, ​when it becomes ​more ​available.” 

Since SOFCs produce electricity directly from chemical reactions, rather than burning the gas to run a turbine, they can also be more efficient than natural gas power plants. Liu says that SOFCs can be up to 60% efficient, compared with only about 45% for a natural gas power plant. 

But this technology still has drawbacks. One is that SOFCs operate at high temperatures, between 600 to 1000 Celsius, which means they take a long time to start up and shut down. They are also larger and bulkier than other types of fuel cells, making them impractical for ​portable, remote or vehicle​​ ​power. 

Finally, the natural gas feed must ​be processed or reformed with steam before it is fed to the fuel cell​; ​hydrocarbons cause​ carbon build-up and block catalyst reaction sites, damaging electrode integrity and hindering performance. 

Using innovations developed by Kesler and her research group, Serenity Power believes they can overcome these limitations.

“Today’s SOFCs use bulky electrodes made of ceramic materials, causing systems to take hours to start up,” says Cerny. 

“Our team created a much thinner electrode with a metal support​, enabling a much faster start-up time​. We also created a carbon-resistant ​composite material​ that protects the electrode from ​carbon fouling​​ ​in the gas feed.” 

By eliminating the need for external fuel processing systems and a water supply, the new SOFC design has the potential to be much more compact than previous versions. 

At present, the team has created a working fuel cell that measures 5 cm x 5 cm; the next step is to ​scale the cell size and ​stack ​35​​ of them ​together to create a complete prototype system that can ​​generate up to 1 kW of power. 

This is about the same amount of power that is produced by small gasoline or diesel generators commonly used to power equipment such as those found in food trucks. In fact, when it is complete, the team plans to work with the Food Truck Association of Canada to demonstrate their new unit at street, music and film festivals. 

Both Cerny and Liu say that their journey from students to entrepreneurs was strongly supported by The Hatchery, a business accelerator based at U of T Engineering. Serenity Power joined the Hatchery’s Nest program in the summer of 2023. 

“It was an intensive four months of pitching and honing our business plan,” says Cerny. “We got great advice from the mentors that they brought on for us, and we started making customer calls. It really showed us that we were onto something real.”

Afterward, the company was invited to join the Hatchery’s Go-To-Market stage. The following April, the Hatchery provided them with $175,500 in non-dilutive funding, enabling the students to transition to employment with their own company after completing their academic duties.

At this stage, the team also had access to the Hatchery First Employee Program, which enables U of T students to work at a startup, leveraging the U of T Work-Study Program. In the summer of 2024, the Hatchery successfully endorsed the team for a Mitacs Entrepreneur Matching Grant.

The company recently completed the Phase-0 Program with HAX by SOSV, a program focused on ​supporting ​hard tech startups​.​​

The team envisions their first product as a replacement for diesel fuel generators, which are commonly used to provide power at oil and gas or mining facilities, or in communities that are not connected to grid power. Eventually, they hope to use their compact SOFC design to power large vehicles such as 16-wheeler transport trucks.  

“Our U of T Engineering experiences, both undergraduate and graduate, helped us get to where we are,” says Liu. 

“PEY Co-op helped us understand the needs of industry, while The Hatchery gave us tremendous support with filing IP and building an advisory board. In general, it was just a really solid foundation that helped us learn how to solve problems and communicate with people. We really appreciate all that now.” 

At the University of Toronto and elsewhere, self-driving labs are promising to dramatically speed up the search for new materials. Now, a new robotic system designed and built by U of T Engineering undergraduate students could help lower the barriers to this kind of research. 

“As these million-dollar tools spin up, we run the risk of freezing out those who want to participate in the scientific process, but who aren’t fortunate enough to be at a top-tier research institution,” says Professor Jason Hattrick-Simpers (MSE), who supervised the project. 

“Our focus was: can we create a self-driving lab that is affordable and could be distributed to as many individuals as possible, so that we can ensure equity in science?” 

Graduating student Kyrylo Kalashnikov (MechE 2T5) started working on the project in the summer after his first year. He ended up continuing work on the project throughout his entire undergraduate degree, and was joined later on by fellow student Robert Hou (Year 3 MechE). 

“The first iteration was actually built out of Lego,” says Kalashnikov. 

“Obviously we had to move on from that for the next three iterations, but we kept the idea of making it modular, with components that can be swapped in or out depending on what you are trying to do.” 

Self-driving labs are an emerging paradigm designed to automate and accelerate the process of searching through large numbers of potential materials to find the ones that are best suited to a given task. 

They rely on computer models and algorithms that can virtually crawl through huge libraries of known or possible materials, identifying those most likely to have the desired properties. 

The best candidates are then synthesized and tested in real life — not by hand, but by sophisticated robotic systems that can run around the clock. The results of those high-throughput tests are then fed back into the model for another iteration, until eventually the system converges on an optimal solution. 

Self-driving labs are central to the mission of U of T’s Acceleration Consortium (AC), a global community dedicated to accelerating scientific discovery with AI and automation. In fact, it was an innovation from one of the AC’s labs that inspired the student project.

“Our focus with this system was on electrochemistry, which is relevant for designing things like new materials that can resist corrosion, or new electrolytes for batteries or fuel cells,” says Hattrick-Simpers, who is a member of the Acceleration Consortium’s scientific leadership team. 

“One of the most expensive components of a system like that is a tool called a potentiostat, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars just by itself. But Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik and his team at the Acceleration Consortium have designed an innovative, low-cost potentiostat, which we were then able to use in our version.” 

The rest of the system the students designed was built from off-the-shelf parts; Kalashnikov estimates its total cost at under $500. The system repurposes a consumer 3-D-printer gantry, adds aquarium-grade pumps for liquid handling, a dual-servo gripper for electrode transfer, and a handful of 3-D-printed brackets and baths.

All of these actions are controlled by custom, open-source software. That software, along with the computer-aided design files, electrical schematics and firmware are posted for free on GitHub. 

“The target audience for something like this is people who are really excited to get into science and engineering, but who don’t have access to expensive tools,” says Kalashnikov. 

“That basically describes me in high school. I remember trying to build my own self-driving car and finding a lot of what I needed in open-source repositories online. It was the only way for me to learn, because I didn’t know anyone else could teach me.  

“Throughout the three years of this project, I just kept thinking that there was somebody else like me out there who might want to learn and build these cool things, and who would benefit from this project. Now, they can do that.” 

For his part, Hattrick-Simpers says that he is integrating the new system as part of a course he teaches: MSE 403/1003 Advanced AI for Self-Driving Labs. But he’s also excited for the larger community to take the idea and run with it. 

“There is a potential that if we can have a couple of these tools floating around in the world, we could create even little ‘internet of scientific things’ around them,” he says. 

“Having these distributed tools and their users interact with one another can help build up a really robust community around self-driving labs, which in turn will drive forward scientific innovation.” 

When it came time for Mitchell Souliere-Lamb (MechE 2T4 + PEY) to apply to university, he thought of his mother and grandmother. 

“That side of my family is Ojibwe, from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory,” says Souliere-Lamb. 

“My grandmother was the first in her family to go to university, and she studied at U of T, as did my mother after her. They made sure I understood how important higher education is.” 

Souliere-Lamb says that he was inspired to choose engineering after attending a hands-on science outreach booth organized by Queen’s University, which he encountered at a powwow. 

He liked that engineering would enable him to pursue some of his favourite subjects, such as math and science, and that it seemed to offer a versatile career path. 

“Not all engineering graduates become engineers, so I felt like I could use it in lots of different ways,” he says. 

Souliere-Lamb wasn’t sure what kind of engineer he wanted to be, so he enrolled in TrackOne, a general first year program that enabled him to explore all the different disciplines. 

He found himself leaning toward mechanical engineering, partly because of an interest in aerospace, but soon discovered a new passion for sustainable energy.  

In the summer after his first year, he worked with Professor Amy Bilton (MIE) at U of T’s Centre for Global Engineering on a project related to sustainable agricultural methods for northern Indigenous communities. 

“Professor Bilton and her team were collaborating on building a greenhouse for Cat Lake First Nation,” says Souliere-Lamb. 

“They had the technical ability to get it built, but my role was more related to helping people understand how the technology worked and how to use it properly.” 

After his third year, Souliere-Lamb started a PEY Co-op placement at Cambium Indigenous Professional Services. There, he worked with several different First Nations on the development of their community energy plans. 

He also supported the First Nation Community Building Retrofit Program, initiated by Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator. 

Outside of this work, Souliere-Lamb says he really felt a personal need to build community among his fellow Indigenous students on campus. 

“At first, I really didn’t know any other Indigenous students in engineering,” he says. 

“There are a lot of cultural clubs within Engineering, but there weren’t any Indigenous ones, because there are so few of us. I realized if it was something I wanted to see happen, I would have to get involved myself.” 

Souliere-Lamb joined the U of T chapter of Engineers Without Borders as the Indigenous Reconciliation co-lead. He also connected with Professor Jason Bazylak (MIE), who is Métis, and through him, other Indigenous students as well. 

“We held a couple of informal sessions, one about beading and one about sharing cultural food,” he says. 

“We also got a group together to attend the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.” 

In his fourth year, Souliere-Lamb created U of T’s first local chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, serving as its president. 

“Again, it was hard to get enough people together, but I wanted to create the club because I wanted to increase our visibility on campus, to inspire and open opportunities for other Indigenous students who would like to become engineers,” he says. 

This past April, Souliere-Lamb and another student, Connor Isaac (Year 3 MechE), participated in First Nations Launch, a rocket competition organized by NASA’s Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium. 

“We got a kit and an engine, and we had to assemble them into a rocket, which we got to launch near Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin,” says Souliere-Lamb. 

“Our rocket reached 2,115 feet, which was pretty close to our target of  2,200 feet. It was great to meet up with Indigenous engineering students from all over the U.S., as well as two other teams from Canada as well.” 

“Unfortunately, this looks like the last year this competition will be held, as the American government has frozen funding for programs that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.” 

After completing his final exams, Souliere-Lamb travelled with a friend to Peru for several weeks before returning to Toronto in time for Convocation. He says that while he is not yet sure what the future holds for him, his time at U of T Engineering has helped prepare him in lots of different ways. 

“I really enjoyed working with Indigenous communities on their sustainable energy plans, so I hope to continue doing that,” he says. 

“But apart from the research and work experiences I had, I met a lot of great people who were talented and passionate about the same things I am. 

“I was really able to grow my personal and professional network, and I know I’ll be able to continue to draw on that community going forward.” 

Frank Kschischang, a faculty member in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering since 1991, has been appointed to the rank of University Professor. This is the University of Toronto’s highest and most distinguished academic rank, recognizing unusual scholarly achievement and preeminence in a particular field of knowledge. The number of such appointments is limited to 2% of the university’s tenured faculty. 

Kschischang works on problems related to the efficient and reliable digital transmission of information over communications channels with error-inducing noise. He is a world-leading scholar in the theory and practice of error-correcting codes, particularly as they apply to fiber-optic communications.

Kschischang is co-creator of the factor graph, a type of graphical model that is widely used in many areas of science and engineering, such as the decoding of capacity-approaching error-correcting codes, the localization and motion planning of robots, and a variety of machine-learning applications. He is also co-originator of the Koetter-Kschischang subspace codes, which provide a novel approach for reliable information transmission over data networks that employ random linear network coding. In addition, Kschischang co-invented ’staircase codes,’ an important family of error-correcting codes aimed at ultra-high-throughput transmission systems — most notably fiber-optic lines — which have been adopted into various international communication standards.

A leader in his professional community, Kschischang served as president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Information Theory Society in 2010 and Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory from 2014-2016. He received the Society’s Aaron D. Wyner Distinguished Service Award in 2016.

Kschischang is a fellow of the IEEE, the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Canada. His many research awards include the 2010 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award and the 2018 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award. He received the Killam Research Fellowship in 2010 and the Canadian Award in Telecommunications Research in 2012. In 2023, he garnered the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, one of IEEE’s most prestigious honours, “for contributions to the theory and practice of error-correcting codes and optical communications.”

A popular and dedicated teacher, Kschischang led an initiative to revamp the ECE curriculum, resulting in the current flexible curriculum. He has earned several awards for his teaching, including seven departmental teaching awards, the Faculty Teaching Award and the Faculty’s Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award. He received the Faculty Award, for excellence in both teaching and research, from U of T in 2010.

“The impact of Professor Frank Kschischang’s exceptional contributions extend far beyond U of T and his research community,” says U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip.

“Anyone who uses the internet has benefited from his groundbreaking work on error-correcting codes for communications systems. On behalf of the faculty, I congratulate him on this well-deserved recognition.”    

A couple of years into their PhD program, Jay Gordon (CivMin PhD student) found themselves going through a tough time. 

“To get support with my mental health, I realized I needed to connect more with people, to build more community,” they say. 

“I think a lot of queer students in science, engineering, technology and math — the STEM disciplines — go through something like this at one time or another. And so QueerSphere Grad was born.” 

QueerSphere Grad built on the success of QueerSphere, a club started by undergraduate students over a decade ago. 

Both groups aim to get people in STEM disciplines involved in and aware of the LGBTQ+ community, and to make engineering at U of T a more welcoming and inclusive place for all. 

“At first, QueerSphere Grad was just me on Friday nights, assembling a newsletter from various resources that I’d heard of around U of T,” says Gordon. 

“I sent it out to whomever I knew that was queer in the faculty, which was only half a dozen people for the first few months. But slowly, people started asking if they could add their friends. We started a WhatsApp group, and a Discord server, and then started hanging out in person. It was casual stuff at first, like lunches. And we’ve built from there.” 

Today, Gordon’s mailing list has grown to over 70 people across U of T Engineering and other STEM departments across U of T. QueerSphere Grad now has official status alongside the original QueerSphere organization, with more than 500 visitors to its website. 

QueerSphere Grad regularly hosts Trivia Nights, mixers and other events that enable queer people in STEM to build connections with their peers in academia and industry. 

With the support of U of T Engineering’s Diversity, Inclusion and Professionalism Office, members of the club have also travelled to conferences such as Engiqueers Canada. 

More recently, QueerSphere Grad has expanded its work into outreach, with booths at science festivals such as Pride in STEM 2024 and Science Rendezvous 2025 — the latter was dubbed ‘Queeriosity Corner.’

Harshit Gujral, a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science, was one of the participants in the Science Rendezvous event. 

“We did presentations and demonstrations related to climate solutions and air quality — for example, raising awareness of the fact that a third of all children’s asthma cases are caused by traffic emissions,” he says. 

“The latter is the foundation of my doctoral research. For me, building sustainable communities and doing science outreach is as important as doing rigorous science.” 

One of QueerSphere Grad’s most recent initiatives is the creation of a small lending library for its members, which they’ve dubbed the Jay Gordon Library for Queer Fiction. 

“We believe that stories build bridges between people,” says the project’s lead, a U of T Engineering graduate student who prefers to remain anonymous. 

“The hope is that queer people will see themselves represented in these stories, and that allies can learn about our experiences.” 

The student says that while U of T libraries have a good amount of queer fiction, the group wanted to create a low-barrier option as well. 

“Many of the students at U of T are international, and many countries have less progressive approaches to queerness when compared to Canada,” the student says. 

“As such, we felt that many students might feel uncomfortable borrowing queer books when their name will be registered in the university system.” 

The collection already numbers around 40 books, including titles such as Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. Anyone wanting to donate, borrow or exchange a book can email grad@queersphere.skule.ca.

As they near the end of their degree program, Gordon says that being a part of QueerSphere Grad has been one of the most rewarding parts of their U of T experience. 

“One of the things that drew me back into academia in the first place was that I wanted to be in an environment where I could discuss complex ideas with peers, think, be and be seen as a scientist,” they say. 

“At QueerSphere Grad events, we talk about club projects, but sometimes we just talk about scientific ideas, such as how to model sulphur compounds. Talking about science with other bright people, especially from outside your field, is just a cool thing to do. And the fact that we have this shared experience of going through some tough stuff as queer people deepens those conversations with a strong sense of connection.”