Professor Rachel Gregor joined the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (ChemE) in March 2025. She leads the MicroChemEco Lab, which sits at the intersection of chemistry, microbiology and environmental science. Her research focuses on the vast chemical diversity of microbes and their role in shaping ecosystems and global biogeochemical cycles.

Originally from New York City, Gregor moved to Israel after high school and completed both her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She majored in chemistry with a minor in literature, drawn equally to science and the humanities before ultimately choosing the path of chemistry. She completed her PhD in Professor Michael Meijler’s lab, where she explored chemical signaling in bacterial pathogens.

A pivotal moment in her research journey came during a two-month stint at the University of California San Diego in 2015, where she discovered a fascination with microbiome research and metabolomics. Back at Ben-Gurion, she collaborated on a unique project analyzing gut microbiomes from over 100 zoo animals. For her postdoctoral work, Gregor joined Professor Otto Cordero’s lab at MIT to study marine microbial communities and their role in the ocean’s carbon cycle.

We spoke with Gregor to learn more about her journey and what she’s most excited about in her new role.

What drew you to U of T?

At U of T, I feel like I can have my cake and eat it too — it’s a large, international institution with countless opportunities, but at the same time, I’ve found an incredibly supportive and collaborative community in the department and especially in BioZone. The communal nature of BioZone is truly special, and I’m still learning new things about U of T every day.

How did your interest in microbes take root?

If you love chemistry, you should love microbes — they’re brilliant synthetic chemists! I got drawn into the microbial world during my PhD, and my time at UC San Diego introduced me to marine microbiology. I’ll never forget attending a happy hour at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography — watching researchers come straight out of the ocean in wetsuits as the sun set over the Pacific. I thought, “This is it — this is the kind of scientific life I want.”

What are you hoping to accomplish through your research?

Our lab is trying to understand how the chemical diversity of bacteria influences ecosystems. Using high-throughput metabolomics, we map connections between natural products, microbes and the environment. One of our big-picture goals is to engineer microbial communities for applications in health, sustainability and industry. We’re also aiming to create an ecology-based drug discovery pipeline grounded in microbial interactions.

How does your work fit into the department’s broader research goals?

I see my work building on existing strengths in microbial communities, metabolomics and environmental chemistry. I’m excited to add new angles, especially in marine microbiology and drug discovery, and contribute to our collective goal of a more sustainable future.

What do you hope your work will contribute to global challenges?

I believe microbes hold the key to next-generation sustainable technologies and novel therapeutics. Specifically, I hope to help uncover the chemical drivers of microbially-mediated carbon sequestration in oceans and use ecological principles to guide natural product discovery. There’s so much untapped potential in understanding the chemistry of microbial life.

What’s your teaching philosophy?

I want students to understand how chemistry shapes society and our ecosystem. I’m especially passionate about making biology accessible to non-biologists, and chemistry to non-chemists. The future is interdisciplinary, and that’s how I aim to teach.

How will you bring your research into the classroom?

I’d love to offer undergrads hands-on research experiences. I’m inspired by initiatives like the Tiny Earth Project, which gives students the chance to discover antibiotics from local soil samples. Even if we’re not in the field, there’s a treasure trove of real-world data online — chemical, genomic and otherwise — for students to dive into.

What’s something people might not know about you?

I’ve set a personal goal for my first year in Toronto: to try every vegan restaurant in the city. I’m making progress, but the list is long!

 

10 U of T Engineering faculty and staff members have been honoured for their outstanding contributions to the faculty with teaching, research and administrative staff awards. These awards recognize exceptional faculty and staff for their citizenship, leadership and innovation in teaching and research.   

“I’m glad to have this opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous contributions made by our amazing faculty and staff,” says U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip.

“Congratulations to the awardees, and my heartfelt thanks to all our faculty and staff members for their hard work and commitment to the faculty’s teaching and research missions.”

The award recipients are:

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF AWARDS 

Fanny Manousos (MSE) — Agnes Kaneko Citizenship Award 

Recognizing a staff member who has served with distinction and made contributions to the faculty’s mission above and beyond their job description over a long period of time. 

Manousos joined MSE in 1998, immediately demonstrating remarkable leadership during a major administrative transition. Over the past 27 years, in a series of progressively more senior roles, she has revamped the MSE office, recruited, trained and mentored new staff, and provided outstanding support to four department chairs. Manousos has played a key role in managing and coordinating all administrative and financial portfolios in MSE, juggling duties that might be assigned to several staff members in larger departments. Her exceptional work, as well as her continuous support for all MSE’s faculty, staff, and students, has been instrumental in the department’s success and growth.  

Beyond her administrative expertise, Manousos is known for fostering a positive and inclusive work environment. Her approachability, professionalism, and dedication have made her a trusted advisor and mentor to many within the department and beyond. She is always willing to go above and beyond, whether by assisting with complex administrative tasks, resolving challenges efficiently, or ensuring that students and faculty have the resources they need to succeed. Manousos is the keystone of MSE, keeping the department running smoothly for nearly three decades.  

Jennifer Galley (ISTEP) — Harpreet Dhariwal Emerging Leader Award 

Recognizing a staff member who leads by example in their dedication to the faculty’s mission and demonstrates potential to assume a more senior leadership role. 

Galley joined Troost ILead as a leadership education specialist in 2022. Her role has since expanded to experiential leadership specialist for all ISTEP programs. In this role, she supports co-curricular and curricular leadership education by facilitating classroom lectures, leading professional skills programming, offering one-to-one teamwork advising, and serving as an expert resource to faculty and staff. This work requires a considerable amount of relationship building and collaboration, and Galley’s commitment and leadership have fostered trust with students and colleagues alike. As an example, she was able to achieve buy-in and collaborate with two departments who had previously been hesitant about the program.

Galley chaired the steering committee for ISTEP’s flagship co-curricular event, the Clarke Prize Environmental Design Challenge, resulting in an extremely successful day with more than 160 students participating. Above and beyond her student-facing role, Galley has facilitated multiple workshops for industry partners such as Toronto Hydro, Professional Engineers Ontario, and Vale. For Vale, she developed and delivered two modules with instructional videos, which will be a key part of ISTEP’s industry programming going forward.  

Afshin Poraria (ECE) — Catherine Gagne Sustained Excellence in Leadership Award 

Recognizing a staff member who has demonstrated leadership in supporting the faculty’s mission over a sustained period. 

Poraria joined ECE in 1996 as a senior research associate, then became manager of the Energy Systems Lab in 2015. In that role, he established the lab as a showcase teaching and research facility. Most notably, Poraria was instrumental in establishing the DC Microgrid, which made the lab energy self-sufficient and enabled it to house some of the most sophisticated teaching and research equipment in North America. He received the Faculty’s Innovation Award for his work on the DC Microgrid in 2020. 

In 2021, Poraria was appointed director, teaching laboratories for ECE, leading a team of technical staff to manage eight teaching labs across 12 sites. His leadership in this role has been transformational on many levels, from improving the undergraduate student experience, to providing new opportunities for alumni and donors to engage with ECE research, to fostering a culture of collaboration and teamwork among staff. Poraria has not only improved lab infrastructure but has also worked with faculty and staff to develop new lab courses and summer workshops in hardware and software. Recently, he was instrumental in establishing the Keysight Electronics Laboratory, a state-of-the-art facility designed to support undergraduate students in advanced research.  

Irma Berardi (EngSci) — Barbara McCann Quality of Student Experience Award for Frontline Staff
Recognizing a staff member who has made significant contributions to the quality of student experience in the faculty through their outstanding frontline service. 

Berardi is academic advisor for Year 1 and Year 2 international students in EngSci. In this role, she demonstrates an outstanding commitment to improving the overall experience for students transitioning not only to university but to a new country. Berardi has worked to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for these students, many of whom experience culture shock and language barriers to go along with the regular challenges of university life.

Berardi is an invaluable resource for students and a tireless advocate for their well-being. Whether she is addressing academic difficulties, offering wellness support, or helping students access institutional resources, she goes above and beyond to ensure that every student gets the help they need. She sets up routine advising appointments with at-risk students, offers stress management support and ensures that students are building their toolkit to thrive both academically and personally.

Berardi leads the EngSci GEARS Mentor program, in which upper-year students provide guidance and support to first-year and second-year students, and works to improve the program year over year. Her exceptional student service has significantly improved the challenging transition faced by EngSci’s international students.   

 

RESEARCH AND TEACHING AWARDS 

Mohamed Hassan (MIE) — Teaching Assistant Award 

Recognizing a teaching assistant (TA) who demonstrates excellence in classroom teaching, working with students, and the development of course materials. 

Over the past three years Hassan has been a TA for several MIE core second-year and third-year courses. His technical expertise and profound understanding of the course material have established him as an essential resource for his students and his fellow TAs. His ability to guide and support both his peers and his students, while remaining approachable and receptive to feedback, creates an environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute and ask questions.

Hassan has been remarkable in how he takes ownership of the courses he TAs. He developed a new laboratory curriculum for MIE364, in collaboration with the instructors, which integrated leading-edge software tools. Hassan took the lead in coordinating a large team of TAs from MIE304: Introduction to Quality Control and MIE364: Quality Control and Improvement as they joined forces to deliver the unified curriculum effectively. This coordination was particularly challenging, yet he managed it with great skill, ensuring all TAs were well-prepared and consistent in their teaching approach. Always seeking to improve his teaching skills, Hassan participated in the TA Training Program in 2022 and 2023, and in the Prospective Professors in Training program this past year.  

Samantha Unger (BME) — Teaching Assistant Award 

Recognizing a teaching assistant (TA) who demonstrates excellence in classroom teaching, working with students, and the development of course materials. 

A PhD candidate in BME, Unger has served as a TA for ESC180: Introduction to Computer Programming and ESC190: Computer Algorithms and Data Structures, the introductory programming courses in EngSci, since 2020. Unger combines deep understanding of course concepts, enthusiasm for teaching, commitment to students, and exceptional skill in designing course materials. In both her lab and classroom teaching, she is engaging, clear, and thoughtful in her approach to presentation.

Unger’s teaching philosophy emphasizes confidence building and generating curiosity for the material. Given the wide range of prior knowledge among students in ESC180, Unger’s ability to connect with and support all learners has earned her excellent evaluations — she consistently earns perfect scores for both clarity and helpfulness. Student feedback praises her ability to make complex concepts accessible, even for those with no prior programming experience.

Unger has further contributed to the faculty by designing and teaching the course Physiology from the Inside Out for the DEEP Summer Academy last year and serving as a TA for design courses. She received an EngSci Teaching Assistant Award for 2023/2024. 

Salma Emara (ECE) — Early Career Teaching Award  

Recognizing an early career educator who has demonstrated exceptional classroom instruction and teaching methods. 

Emara joined ECE two years ago as an assistant professor, teaching stream. Since then, she has made an indelible mark on the department’s teaching culture, shaping how ECE delivers its core programming courses and ensuring that students develop critical skills for their future careers.

Emara teaches two core undergraduate courses: APS105: Computer Fundamentals, a first-year programming course, and ECE244: Programming Fundamentals, expanding on APS105. Emara has revitalized these courses in important ways, aligning with the department’s emphasis on experiential and project-based learning. She has developed open-source online textbooks for each of these courses, and student feedback frequently cites the clarity of these materials as key to their success.

As students often struggle to see the relevance of programming to other engineering subjects, Emara redesigned the labs in APS105 and ECE244 to focus on real-world problems. She has also enhanced debugging instruction through short videos and live demonstrations and collaborated with her design team to develop a virtual teaching assistant that provides instant course support. Emara has already received two departmental teaching awards, as well as consistently high teaching evaluations.  

Jennifer Farmer (ChemE) — Faculty Teaching Award  

Recognizing a faculty member who demonstrates outstanding classroom instruction and develops innovative teaching methods. 

Farmer is an associate professor, teaching stream and the inaugural associate chair, undergraduate student experience in ChemE. Farmer’s leadership in ChemE’s curriculum modernization project has led to the development of innovative pedagogy and upgraded infrastructure, as well as better integration between courses and between years.

Most notably, she completely redesigned ChemE’s two second-year lab courses to include new chemistry content and engineering concepts, and to create better linkages between the two. Farmer created innovative labs that allow students to bring together knowledge and perspectives from different courses to analyze and develop lab-based approaches to real-world problems through project-based learning.

Her commitment to students goes far beyond the classroom — she serves as a faculty liaison for several student clubs and joins in many extracurricular student-organized events. Farmer’s pedagogical innovations have led to conference presentations and papers in peer-reviewed journals. Her outstanding teaching earned her ChemE’s Diran Basmadjian Teacher of the Year Award for Small Classes in 2018 and 2023 and the Wighton Fellowship, a national award for excellence in laboratory teaching, in 2024.  

Robert Irish (ISTEP) — Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award 

Recognizing a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in teaching over the course of at least 15 years. 

Over his 30-year career at U of T, Irish has made significant contributions to the development of the transdisciplinary competency curriculum in the faculty, particularly in the critical area of engineering communication.

Irish was hired in 1995 to pioneer a program to integrate communication skills into existing engineering courses. Under his leadership, this program developed into the Engineering Communication Program, which now delivers communication instruction across the faculty. Irish also spearheaded the development of new courses that integrated engineering subjects and communication, most notably Engineering Strategies and Practice and Praxis. Such integration of communication across the curriculum has completely reshaped engineering education at U of T.

More recently, his teaching has expanded to include engineering ethics and social impacts of technology. Irish has also contributed beyond U of T as the author/co-author of two widely used books on engineering communication. In 2019, he was awarded the IEEE Professional Communication Society’s Ronald S. Blicq Award for Distinction in Technical Communication Education, recognizing how his work helped take the practice of integrated communication instruction in engineering mainstream. 

Ali Hooshyar (ECE) — Safwat Zaky Research Leader Award  

Recognizing leadership in innovative interdisciplinary and multiple-investigator initiatives that has enhanced the faculty’s research profile. 

As Canada Research Chair in Electric Power Systems, Hooshyar is working to improve the reliability and stability of electrical infrastructure. Hooshyar’s research and leadership have had a transformative impact on the power engineering community at U of T, across Canada, and internationally. He has demonstrated exceptional leadership in interdisciplinary initiatives, collaborations with industry, and major research programs that have significantly enhanced the research profile of the faculty.

Hooshyar played a key role in the establishment of the Grid Modernization Centre (GMC), a cutting-edge facility that brings together researchers from across the University with the goal of decarbonizing power grids and integrating renewable energy sources. Under Hooshyar’s leadership, the GMC has become a hub for collaborative multidisciplinary research, industry partnerships and policy engagement.

Hooshyar has also been instrumental in leading multiple investigator research initiatives that address critical challenges in modern power grids. He recently led a $2M initiative creating a coalition of key utilities — including Hydro One, Toronto Hydro, Hydro Ottawa and Alectra — to develop next-generation grid codes for power distribution networks in Ontario.

Six companies founded or co-founded by University of Toronto luminaries have been named among the World’s Top GreenTech Companies of 2025 by TIME magazine.

The ranking, compiled by Time in partnership with data firm Statista, is based on analysis of the impact, financial strength and innovation of more than 8,000 companies that are helping reverse the impact of human activities on the planet. The 250 companies that placed in the ranking hail from more than 30 countries.

Four of the companies with U of T-affiliated founders placed in the top 100 — headed by AI self-driving trucking startup Waabi, which was ranked in the top 10.

The companies in the list that were founded or co-founded by members of the U of T community are:

• Waabi (9th) — founded by Raquel Urtasun, professor in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, co-founder of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence
• Skeleton Technologies (30th) — co-founded by Anti Perkson (ChemE MASc 9T3), from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• Boston Metal (65th) — co-founded by Donald Sadoway (EngSci 7T2, MIE MASc 7T3, MSE PhD 7T7, Hon LLD 1T3), from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• Li-Cycle (71st) — co-founded by Ajay Kochhar (ChemE 1T3), from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• eLeapPower (211th) — founded by Tony Han (EngSci 1T3, ECE MASc 1T6), from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• Novoloop (250th) — co-founded by Jeanny Yao, honours bachelor of science from U of T Scarborough

 

Read the TIME magazine article

 

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Catch insights from Ajay Kochhar on an earlier podcast episode of Coffee with Chris Yip.

A team of U of T students earned second place overall at a recent international competition held by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI).  

The annual Seismic Design Competition (SDC), organized at the University of California at Berkeley from March 31 to April 3, saw the U of T Seismic Design Team join four other Canadian universities, for a total of 48 teams from institutions around the world.

Each team designs a complex tall building model, made from balsa wood, which is tested on a shaking table simulating an earthquake. They are judged on their oral presentation, summary poster, their model’s architectural design, ability to fit within the design criteria and constraints, analytical prediction of their model performance and response of their model during shaking-table testing.  

The team of 10 attending the event — comprised of nine civil engineering students and one U of T’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design — won first place for best architecture and garnered enough points, along with acknowledgment of their damping device and poster, to rate second place overall. This showing is the best U of T has seen at the SDC, bettering a 2022 first-place architecture award. 

Under the guidance of faculty advisor Professor Constantin Christopoulos (CivMin), and led by co-captains Sacha Morin (Year 3 CivE) and Joyce Zhong (Year 3 CivE), the team constructed their tall building model in Toronto, and then shipped it to California.   

“We are very proud of the U of T Seismic Design Team for this great achievement,” says Christopoulos, recounting the dedication of the team to the tasks and ultimate delivery.

“The students put in a tremendous effort for many months, learning new engineering concepts, developing their designs, building numerical models, getting better at building their structure, running shake-table tests, etc. In addition, they showed great organizational skills in putting together and coordinating a large team, finding donors, organizing their trip and finally representing U of T at UC Berkeley so well!”

Isobel Forrest (Year 3 CivE) recounts the logistics of seeing their entry shipped to the venue successfully.

“We’d shipped the tower to a nearby UPS store and had been notified it had arrived a day early, so we had the perfect time to pick it up on Saturday,” she says.  

“The new shipping method — using a cardboard box rather than a wooden crate — was successful! The tower arrived without any major breaks and the box was light enough for Freddy and Naveen to carry on the 20-minute walk to the hotel.”

The most nerve-racking of tests, the shake table, saw U of T secure success with the stability of its design.

“When it was time for our shake, we were pretty confident our tower would survive both ground motions but were still nervous,” says Forrest. “Of course, our tower survived very well.”

A new partnership between U of T Engineering’s Centre for Healthcare Engineering and the William Osler Health System will focus on how human factors research can help improve clinical practice, both in the Greater Toronto Area and around the world.

The Academic Practice Partnership (APP) — the first of its kind in Ontario — was announced on April 1 at the International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care, held at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto.

On the U of T Engineering side, it will be led by Professor Myrtede Alfred (MIE), whose research focuses on applying approaches from human factors engineering to model and improve clinical systems, including addressing health inequity.

“My research team has always collaborated closely with health professionals, but this partnership will take things to the next level,” says Alfred.

“It’s a great opportunity to translate insights from the lab to clinical practice, and it will keep our outstanding researchers grounded in the practical experiences of front-line health workers. We are looking forward to this rich and fruitful collaboration.”

Alfred is one of several U of T Engineering faculty who are members of the Centre for Healthcare Engineering.

The centre serves as a bridge between academia and the healthcare sector, translating the latest research findings to impact practice and offering educational opportunities for students and practitioners.

The new partnership will create dedicated pathways for student researchers specializing in human factors to gain practical experience within an acute care setting.

It will also help integrate research findings into patient safety and healthcare innovation initiatives, and establish new research opportunities through the Osler Research Institute for Health Innovation.

William Osler Health System serves more than 1.3 million people in Brampton, North Etobicoke, Caledon and surrounding communities — one of the most culturally diverse, fastest growing areas in Ontario.

“Academic Practice Partnerships are critical to advancing research, education and clinical excellence across hospitals and post-secondary institutions,” said Tiziana Rivera, Executive Vice President, Quality, Research and Chief Nursing Executive at William Osler Health System.

“By forging this new collaboration between Osler and the University of Toronto’s Centre for Healthcare Engineering, we are integrating Human Factors knowledge, research and tools into an acute care setting in ways that will meaningfully improve patient safety, clinical efficiency, and health care innovation.”

The first official project Alfred will helm with Osler examines causes of no-show visits in diagnostic imaging. No-shows result in significant financial losses, healthcare provider inefficiency, and negative health outcomes for patients including delayed diagnosis and treatment.

Through this partnership, assessing the root causes of no-shows will provide pertinent insight on how to improve resources to deliver more accessible healthcare.

“Developing human factors capabilities among our students and healthcare professionals is a vital step toward developing safer and more efficient healthcare,” says Alfred.

“The growth of human factors in this domain presents a wealth of opportunities to explore solutions for health care’s challenges, offering distinct advantages for our patients and workforce.”