Note: The Ontario School of Practical Science, established in 1873 by order of Provincial Parliament, became the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1906.
1912: First female graduate from U of T Engineering
Hildegarde E. Scott becomes the first woman to graduate from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, earning a bachelor of applied science degree in analytical and applied chemistry.
1920: First female architect in Canada graduates from U of T Engineering
Esther Marjorie Hill receives an a bachelor of applied science degree in architecture (a discipline at that time linked to engineering) from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, and becomes the first female Architect in Canada. Hill was one of only six women to have been admitted to engineering programs at the University between 1906, when the Faculty was founded, and 1923.
1927: First woman to graduate with an engineering degree from U of T
Elsie Gregory MacGill (1905-1980) is the first woman to graduate from U of T with an engineering degree, and the first Canadian woman to earn a degree in electrical engineering. MacGill’s mother, Helen Gregory, was one of two women to graduate from Trinity College in 1886 and would become a judge and advocate of women’s suffrage. Nicknamed “Queen of the Hurricanes,” MacGill was the world’s first female aircraft designer, and during the Second World War she did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aeronautical industry. In 1938, she became the first woman elected to corporate membership in the Engineering Institute of Canada.
1947: First woman graduates with civil engineering degree
Marcia Lamont Scott is the first female graduate of the Department of Civil Engineering.
1952: First women graduates with mechanical engineering degree
Lois DeGroot and Madeline Hoare are the first female graduates of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. DeGroot would later become a director of Atomic Energy of Canada and of the Scarborough Hospital.
1958: First woman joins the Faculty’s permanent academic staff
Marion Bassett joins the Faculty’s Department of Applied Physics as a lecturer in illumination; she later joined the Department of Electrical Engineering (now The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering). She received tenure in 1973 and retired in 1994.
1964: First woman joins the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry
Mary Jane Phillips becomes a lecturer in catalysis, receiving tenure in 1977 and retiring from the department in 1997.
1967: First woman joins the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science (now Materials Science and Engineering)
Ursula Franklin joins the Faculty, a pioneer in the field of archaeometry, which applies modern materials analysis to archaeology. As a child in Germany during the Second World War, Franklin had survived a forced-labour camp, and later became a tireless champion of pacifism and peace as well as for the rights of girls and women. She received a Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Person’s Case (1929) for advancing the equality of girls and women in Canada. In 2011, Ursula was honoured for her lifelong work in public service with an honorary doctorate from Ryerson University and in 2015 she was named among 17 women who changed the face of physics.
1973: First woman joins the Department of Civil Engineering
Eva Kuhn becomes an assistant professor in Civil Engineering, teaching mechanics and graphics, and remains in the department until her retirement in 2013.
1975: First woman appointed president of the student Engineering Society
Marta Escedi is elected the first female president of the Faculty’s student body, the Engineering Society. She went on to become a lifelong University volunteer, and in the late 1980s served as the first female president of the Engineering Alumni Association.
1984: First female University Professor appointed at U of T
Ursula Franklin (see: 1967) becomes the first woman at U of T to be named University Professor, the University’s highest honour.
1992: First woman joins the Department of Mechanical Engineering (now Mechanical & Industrial Engineering)
Susan McCahan becomes the first female professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her engineering research focused on the thermodynamics of hydrocarbons, particularly in flashing spray and rapidly evaporating systems, and later shifted to engineering education. In 2014 she was appointed Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education at the University of Toronto.
2000: First woman named Division chair
Yu-Ling Cheng, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, becomes the first female chair of this division. Her research interests include global engineering, appropriate technologies, global health, and sanitation for the developing world.
2006: University welcomes Cristina Amon, the Faculty’s first female deanCristina Amon becomes the first female dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, as well as Alumni Professor of Bioengineering in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering. She is a pioneer in the development of Computational Fluid Dynamics. Her research focuses on nanoscale thermal transport in semiconductors, energy systems and bioengineered devices.
2006: First woman appointed as a Faculty vice-deanBrenda McCabe, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, is named Vice-Dean, Graduate. Her areas of expertise include construction in operating facilities, performance benchmarking, and risk modeling and analysis. In 2015, McCabe was honoured with the Joan E. Foley Quality of Student Experience Award.
2007: First woman is named speaker of Faculty Council
Yu-Ling Cheng (see: 2000) becomes the first female speaker of Faculty Council.
2008: First woman appointed as a department chair
Brenda McCabe (see: 2006) becomes the first female chair of the Department of Civil Engineering.
2009: First woman appointed as chair of Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Jean Zu becomes Mechanical and Industrial Engineering’s first female chair. Prof. Zu’s research interests are mechanical vibrations, dynamic analysis, design and mechatronics of various mechanical systems, and vibration-based energy harvesting.
2014–15: U of T Engineering celebrates record number of female first-year students
Women account for 30.6 per cent of first-year students in U of T Engineering programs: a record for the Faculty and a number that surpasses all other Ontario universities.
Learn more about women in engineering at the University of Toronto.
Professors Deepa Kundur, Baochun Li (both ECE) and Yu Sun (MIE) joined an impressive roster of internationally renowned scientists this month when they were officially named Fellows of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
The three professors join 25 faculty members who currently hold the grade of IEEE Fellow.
The grade of Fellow is conferred to those members “whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interests are deemed fitting of the prestigious grade elevation,” according to IEEE’s website.
Professor Deepa Kundur (ECE)
Professor Kundur was elevated with the citation “for contributions to signal processing techniques for multimedia and cyber security.”
Professor Kundur’s research focuses on identifying potential weaknesses in cyber-enabled systems, such as smart energy meters.
“My research career has been multidisciplinary,” said Professor Kundur. “It was rewarding to have a citation that reflects that breadth.”
She said that achieving the rank of IEEE Fellow is a meaningful moment in her career, because it provides an judged by peers, as well as future research directions.
Professor Baochun Li (ECE)
Professor Li was elevated with the citation “for contributions to application-layer network protocols and network coding.”
In 2007, Li proposed a protocol for using network coding to help improve performance, stability and latency of live peer-to-peer streaming—an alternative to the more traditional server-streaming model. When Li made his proposal, network coding was a relatively new technology with roots in information theory, and it hadn’t been directly employed with applications before.
Professor Li’s papers have been cited more than 13,000 times according to Google Scholar.
Professor Yu Sun (MIE, IBBME)
Professor Yu Sun was elevated with the citation “for contributions to micro-nano robotics and device technologies for biomedical, clinical, and precision instrumentation disciplines” through the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS).
Professor Sun’s Advanced Micro and NanoSystems Lab designs and constructs devices and robotic systems for operation at micrometer and nanometer scales. They use these innovative tools to manipulate and characterize cells, molecules, and nanomaterials. They have translated some of their devices and systems to biology labs, hospitals and precision instrumentation industry.
IEEE is the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology and humanity. Its Board of Directors selects fewer than one-tenth of one per cent of its total voting members as Fellows each year, the highest grade of membership available.
University of Toronto Professor Alex Mihailidis from the Institute for Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) has been appointed joint scientific director for Canada’s first national research network in technology and aging.
Launched in December, AGE-WELL (Aging Gracefully across Environments using Technology to Support Wellness, Engagement and Long Life) was created to advance new technologies that improve the well-being of seniors, helping them live independently and safely at home.
The fledgling research network has already received $36.6 million* through the federal government’s Networks of Centres of Excellence program, announced earlier this week during a visit from Minister of State for Seniors Alice Wong.
“AGE-WELL aims to help older Canadians maintain their independence, health and quality of life through practical and affordable technologies that increase their safety and security, support their independent living, and enhance their social participation,” said Mihailidis.
Both Mihailidis and Simon Fraser University Professor Andrew Sixsmith are AGE-WELL’s joint scientific directors. Mihailidis is the Barbara G. Stymiest Chair in Rehabilitation Technology at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute – University Health Network (TRI-UHN) and University of Toronto. Sixsmith is director of SFU’s Gerontology Research Centre and deputy director of the University’s Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences centre.
With a background in mechanical and biomedical engineering, Mihailidis has been leading research in the field of pervasive computing and intelligent systems in health for the past 15 years. He has focused on intelligent home systems for elder care, technology for children with autism and adaptive tools for nurses and clinical applications.
Before starting at AGE-WELL, Mihailidis coordinated the Clinical Engineering Master of Health Science at IBBME—a tri-faculty initiative between the U of T Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the faculties of Medicine and Dentistry.
Through his new endeavour, Mihailidis and his colleagues will harness advanced information and communications technologies, sensor networks and robotics for seniors and their caregivers. In addition to addressing the ethical, policy and regulatory issues associated with new technologies, AGE-WELL researchers will also tackle early stage funding, entrepreneurship training and other commercialization challenges.
Hosted by the TRI-UHN in Toronto, AGE-WELL brings together 26 universities and more than 70 industry and not-for-profit organizations to establish a hub of research and innovation in technology and aging.
“It is an opportunity like we have never had in Canada,” said Mihailidis, “a chance to bring together all of the relevant researchers and stakeholders in the technology and aging community.”
*$36.6 million over five years
Somewhere across a massive water system, a toxic bloom of algae is polluting drinking water. But what’s the fastest way to find it? To U of T Engineering professor Angela Schoellig (UTIAS), the answer is flying drones—an entire swarm designed to zigzag across landscapes and spot environmental hazards.
Schoellig and her pioneering drone development is one of six U of T Engineering research projects that just received, in total, $1,015,159 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
Through CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund, the investment is intended to provide some of the world’s best and brightest scientists and engineers with cutting-edge research infrastructure.
At U of T Engineering, the funding enables groundbreaking research in sustainable energy, secure communications, health care and more. Recipients include:
Joyce Poon (ECE)
Project: Integrated Quantum Photonics for Secure Communications
Funding*: $399,999
Elodie Passeport (ChemE, CivE)
Project: Stable isotope facility for improved understanding of the fate and removal of emerging contaminants in water
Funding*: $200,000
Gisele Azimi (MSE, ChemE)
Project: Extraction, Processing, and Recycling of Strategic Materials
Funding*: $115,214
Amy Bilton (MIE)
Project: Laboratory for Prototyping Energy and Water Systems
Funding*: $100,000
Eric Diller (MIE)
Project: Laboratory for Micro-Robotics Research
Funding*: $100,000
Angela Schoellig (UTIAS)
Project: Indoor/Outdoor Testbed for Aerial and Ground Multi-Robot Research
Funding*: $99,946
Researchers across the University of Toronto received a total of $1,873,485 for eleven different projects. (Read more about other U of T projects.)
“It is wonderful that so many of our researchers will benefit from the support of the Canada Foundation for Innovation through the John R. Evans Leaders Fund,” said Dr. Peter Lewis, interim vice-president of Research and Innovation at U of T. “We can’t wait to learn about the discoveries that will surely arise from the recipients’ research.”
* Maximum CFI contribution
Originally published in the 2014 issue of ANNUM Magazine.
It wakes up next to you, sits by to you at lunch, hits the gym with you after work. Face it—your smartphone is your best friend. But how good is it at keeping your secrets?
Almost two billion people have a computer in their pockets right now. And we use these smartphones for everything: not just talking and texting, but handling our finances, booking travel, mapping our next run and tracking our medications. We’ve taken our lives in our hands—literally.
All this personal information goes pouring into our devices through the apps we install, and floats magically into some hazily defined realm called ‘the cloud’. But what if a little intel gets stolen along the way? Are we sure our apps aren’t spying on us?
Anecdotal evidence, such as the flap about the Facebook Messenger app collecting audio and video recordings without the user’s permission, indicates our phones may be used against us more often than we realise.
“For the average user, the main threat to them is going to be getting fooled into installing some application thinking it’s useful, but it’s doing stuff that they didn’t anticipate,” said computer engineering professor David Lie (ECE), Canada Research Chair in Secure and Reliable Computer Systems. “A lot of people are worried about this, but no one can answer concretely whether it’s happening.”
Professor Lie’s research group has just launched a project with TELUS to find out for sure. He and his students work on software to improve data security and privacy, both on your device and in the cloud. There’s an important distinction to be made between security and privacy, says Professor Lie. Security is like locking a safe—protecting all information from disclosure absolutely, and making sure that information can’t be accessed without authorization. Privacy is a more complex problem, especially given the ubiquity of smartphones: we want to share everything, but only in specific ways, with specific people, at specific times. “The real problem is that people want to share their information, but have no way of understanding what will happen if they do,” says Professor Lie.
Perhaps the worst data to give away is your biometric information—your fingerprints, retina scans or the unique signature of your heartbeat. Professor Dimitrios Hatzinakos (ECE) is a leader in the field of medical biometrics and chair of the Identity, Privacy and Security Institute at the University of Toronto, a collaboration between The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Faculty of Information. His team searches for new biometrics in the many electrical signals emitted by the human body—unique waves radiating from your brain, bouncing off your eardrum, and given off every time your heart beats.
His former PhD student Foteini Agrafioti (ElecE MASc 0T9, PhD 1T1) teamed up with ECE alumnus Karl Martin (ElecE 0T1, MASc 0T3, PhD 1T0) to found Bionym, a startup company based on their research on biometrics and security. Bionym recently released the world’s first wearable authentication system, called Nymi, to much acclaim. Nymi is a bracelet embedded with an electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor that recognizes the unique and unchanging electronic signal of your heart and uses it to identify you to all your registered devices to log you in, eliminating the need for passwords and PINs. Bionym has top-notch security, but if your unencrypted ECG were ever compromised, it’s not as easy to fix as resetting your password.
“You have a finite amount of biometric data,” said Professor Stark Draper (ECE). “You only have 10 fingers, as opposed to an unlimited number of passwords or credit card numbers.”
That’s why Professor Draper and master’s student Adina Goldberg (ECE MASc 1T6) are trying to find the optimal balance between privacy and security in linked biometric systems. Imagine that your apartment complex, gym and office all use biometric data to authenticate your identity. If all three systems store the same information and an imposter hacks your gym account, they’ll also be able to get into your apartment building and office, but they won’t gain new information about you if they do. That’s bad security, but relatively good privacy. Conversely, if each account stores a unique piece of biometric data, it’s harder to gain access to all three, but each time the imposter hacks a new account they gain more of your sensitive data.
“We’ve seen a trade-off between the two,” said Professor Draper. “Tighter security is of interest to the institution that doesn’t want to get broken into, but the individual might think it’s more important to keep more of their biometrics private and it’s OK if someone breaks into the gym. The system designer gets to pick a point on that curve.”
This tension between the individual and the institution was cast in a new light last year, when whistleblower Edward Snowden alerted the world to the U.S. National Security Agency’s habit of mining personal data directly off servers run by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others.
“I think for a lot of people in the field, the Snowden leaks came as no surprise,” said Professor Lie. “When I first started doing this cloud stuff, I got a lot of pushback—the logic was, ‘Why would the cloud provider attack their own customers? It doesn’t make business sense.’ Now we can see that they’re not attacking their customers directly, but the data is still vulnerable.” One of Professor Lie’s projects aims to solve the problem of gaining logs from a multi-tenant server—allowing users to see exactly how their information is being accessed, without violating the privacy of all the other users on the same service.
If you don’t have the savvy to interpret server logs but are keen to protect your privacy, taking a critical look at your apps is a good place to start. Professor Lie, for his part, installed a program on his smartphone to prevent applications from talking to the network unless he explicitly gives them permission—not a solution he recommends for everyone. If he does give permission, he reads the privacy policy first. “But sometimes it’s just an exercise in futility,” he admitted. “Most of them are pretty impenetrable, or vague about what they do with the information they collect.”
So sleep, eat, jog and bank on your smartphone with caution—with friends like these, who needs enemies?
ANNUM Magazine is an annual publication from The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.
Originally published in the Winter 2015 issue of U of T Magazine.
Ashrith Domun (ChemE 1T5), a third-year chemical engineering student, was learning about business plans in an entrepreneurship course when he stumbled across what he reckoned was a good market opportunity: business incentives meant to kickstart the sluggish hydrogen fuel cell industry.
“It seemed like a green light all the way,” he said.
This past March, he pitched his roommate, Stefan Attig, a fourth-year student in environmental studies, on joining forces to apply for a spot at The Entrepreneurship Hatchery, a three-year-old business accelerator run by the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. An engineering science student, Tian Tian (EngSci 1T5), approached Domun and Attig about joining the team and the three put in a pitch. Several months later, they’re working on a plan to operate buses equipped with hydrogen fuel cells. They’re testing the commercial viability of their plan with a proposal for the shuttle bus service between U of T’s Mississauga and St. George campuses.
The Hatchery serves students in the earliest stage of the entrepreneurship “ecosystem” at U of T, offering undergraduate teams that include at least one engineer an opportunity to launch startups, based on a strong idea that solves customers’ problems. Each team is assigned a private-sector mentor and receives help with registering patents and creating a business plan. UTSC has launched a similar earlystage innovation centre, known as The Hub, and, in February, U of T Mississauga will open its own version, I-Cube.
Joseph Orozco, who co-founded the Hatchery, says the program has attracted multidisciplinary teams working on wearable technology, medical applications and software. A few have gone on to commercialize their products. One Hatchery start-up, FuelWear, which makes thermal garments that heat up when you’re feeling cool, has raised $80,000 on a crowdfunding website.
Basic startup advice and feedback are key components of the Hatchery’s program, whose students likely have no business experience. Domun said meetings with other hydrogen entrepreneurs gave his team a feel for the gaps in the Canadian market, validated their assumptions about the industry and provided contacts with potential equipment suppliers. At the Hatchery’s “demo day,” Domun’s team, called Hydron, presented its plan to other students and mentors.
The feedback they got throughout the Hatchery process prompted Hydron’s partners to reorient their game plan. The original idea was to build a hydrogen refuelling infrastructure for the province, but they learned that the sector is dogged by a chicken-and-egg problem: refuelling infrastructure only generates a return if there are vehicles, but no one purchases vehicles because there’s no refuelling infrastructure. With their revised market strategy—running corporate vehicle fleets using fuel cells—they also learned the importance of a compelling sales pitch.
“The Hatchery makes you do things that you don’t think are important,” said Domun. “They forced us to focus on communications a lot.”