Schedule and Events
Convocation day for the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering is Wednesday June 18, 2014. There is a morning ceremony and an afternoon ceremony. See the Office of Convocation website for further details.
Message from the Dean
Message from the Dean: Congratulations Skule Graduates of Spring 2014
Useful Campus Information
Limited parking on campus St. George Campus Map
Watch the Ceremonies Live Online
Can’t attend the ceremonies in person? Watch the live web feed from Convocation Hall.
Photos
Social Media Participation
Use the hashtags #UofTGrad14 and #skule to join us on Twitter or Instagram. Watch @uoftengineering on Convocation Day for your chance to find our photographers and win a T-shirt!
Views of Convocation
Celebrate convocation by experiencing videos and images from past years’ events.
Sarah Casson wasn’t yet in middle school when she discovered a love of robots. Her interest was sparked in 2010 when her mother and other parents in Long Island, New York started up a Saturday morning robotics class at the 10-year-old’s public school.
Four years and a regional FIRST Lego League (FLL) prize later, Casson and her team traveled to the University of Toronto to test their skills and ingenuity at Canada’s first-ever FLL International Open from June 4 to 7.
The competition – hosted by U of T and FIRST Robotics Canada – brought together 1,200 competitors, coaches and family members from around the world. It was the exciting finale of FLL’s 2013-14 season, themed Nature’s Fury, with 72 teams of participants ranging in age from nine to 16 working to master natural disasters with their Lego robots.
Participants from as far away as India, Singapore and Brazil were tasked with three challenges. First, they shared innovative research projects for predicting, preventing or protecting people from disastrous storms, quakes and tidal waves. Then competitors tested their robots’ mettle as they completed missions, such as crossing a flooded waterway to deliver emergency supplies. The third component, called “core values”, had participants completing a teamwork challenge in just five minutes, testing their ability to work collaboratively on the fly.
FIRST, which stands for “inspiration and recognition of science and technology”, is a non-profit organization that aims to inspire students to pursue careers in STEM: science, technology, engineering and math. That mission made the international open a perfect fit for the University of Toronto.
“We were excited to welcome students from all over the world to engage with the University of Toronto and the city itself, and to expose them to the amazing things our own students are doing,” said Micah Stickel, chair of first year in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.
Engineering students from the Faculty’s outreach office wowed FLL participants with a spin in a solar car and hands-on activities that had them investigating polymers, exploring the power of hydraulics and creating a “spy” circuit with batteries, wires and switches.
The event took place in several locations on campus, with competition at Varsity Arena and in a purpose-built tent on Trinity Field, judging at OISE, and the closing ceremonies, fittingly, at Convocation Hall.
“We were absolutely delighted to welcome these brilliant, budding engineers from around the world to the University of Toronto – and we would be very happy to welcome them back in the near future, as U of T students!” said President Meric Gertler. “Ever since we were selected to host the FLL International Open, the university has invested considerable time and resources to help ensure the event was a big success, and it’s been wonderful to hear so many stories bearing that out. Congratulations to all the winners, participants and organizers!”
Dave Ellis, director of FIRST LEGO League in Ontario and one of the key organizers of the event, said the multiculturalism in Toronto and at U of T made venue selection easy. “Toronto was the clear winner for this first-in-Canada international event. And capping it off at Convocation Hall, where thousands of U of T graduates marked the culmination of their experience here, was so fitting. The energy in the room was amazing; everyone came together to cheer on the winners and celebrate their successes.”
Casson’s team took second place in the research project category. While she didn’t take home the top prize, she stands to be part of a future wave of engineering undergrads passionate about making an impact. “I didn’t really know much about robotics until I got involved with the Lego team. It’s really cool.”
Stickel said while he expected to see some impressive robots at the event, he was astounded by the creativity and collaboration of the competitors. “That they came together to solve the same problem in such different ways was really incredible. These young people took their knowledge of math and science and worked as a team to find some outstanding solutions to the challenge they were given. They are exactly the kind of people we need in engineering.”
See their creativity in action:
Genetically engineering algae to produce biofuel. Growing artificial spinal discs in a lab. Using nanotechnology to fight malnutrition. These are just some of the ideas presented at the 16th annual CSChE Ontario-Quebec Biotechnology Meeting on May 15 – 16, 2014, which brought together over 90 graduate students from across Ontario and Quebec to explore the fascinating science at the intersection of biology and chemical engineering.
“Right now is the real golden age of biotechnology,” said keynote speaker and alumnus Phil Dennis (CivE 0T0), who has worked in the biotechnology sector for over 25 years. “With the breakneck speed of technological developments, it’s starting to resemble the computer industry of a few decades ago.” Dennis is senior manager at SiREM, a company born out of research in Professor Elizabeth Edwards’ (ChemE) lab that is an industry leader in bioremediation – the use of bacteria and other microbes to clean up groundwater contaminated with chemicals.
Dennis has seen the development of high throughput genetic sequencing technology suddenly make it possible to look at whole biological systems at the molecular level, raising the possibility of manipulating living systems like never before.
Biotechnology and bioengineering encompass an enormous range of applications, from industrial enzymes and bioenergy to health and medical therapies. What unites students across these disciplines is a desire to improve our environment and our lives. “We need sustainable solutions and biotechnology can provide this, perhaps more than other industries,” said Dennis.
Here are just two of the big ideas presented at the student-run conference, hosted by graduate students from the University of Toronto’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry.
How to turn trash into cash (hint: it’s the bacteria!)
Plastic, plastic everywhere! Thirty-two million tons of it ended up in garbage bins in the USA in 2012 alone, and of that mountain of plastic trash only nine per cent was recycled. PhD student Mahbod Hajighasemi (ChemE) is looking to the tiniest of life forms to help shrink this enormous environmental problem. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could make plastic from renewable materials instead of oil, and then completely recycle it instead of throwing it in the landfill? Bacteria can help us do that,” said Hajighasemi.
Some jurisdictions, like the state of California, have already started using compostable plastic that is made from renewable materials. Called polylactic acid (PLA), it is used to make coffee cups and shopping bags which, once used, are sent to composting facilities where they take several weeks to break down. “The problem is that PLA doesn’t actually decompose very quickly and when it does, it gives off carbon dioxide, an undesirable greenhouse gas,” said Hajighasemi.
Instead of composting the used PLA, Hajighasemi’s idea is to turn to nature’s recyclers – bacteria – to selectively break it down into its original chemical building blocks, which can then be used to make more plastic.
But how do you find bacteria that like to feast on a totally artificial plastic that doesn’t exist in nature?
It turns out that PLA is similar enough to natural polymers such as silk fibres or plant polyesters that there’s likely a bug out there that can break it down. By searching through genomics datasets from a wide range of micro-organisms, Hajighasemi has found some promising candidates among bacteria from cold marine environments and sewage treatment plants that could one day turn old plastic new again.
His hunt for plastic-degrading bacteria is part of a larger movement to look for industrially useful micro-organisms using data generated by the recent explosion in genomics studies. These include genetic information on a huge numbers of natural enzymes with unknown functions. It’s now up to researchers like Hajighasemi to figure out what they do and put their abilities to use.
How to go where you can’t go
How do you deliver a drug to the specific location in the body where it is needed? If you’re working with drugs that repair spinal cord injuries, the answer is “Not very easily.”
Drugs that can stimulate nerve growth and repair spinal cord damage already exist, yet therapeutic treatments remain elusive. “The main problem is how to get the drug to the damaged site,” said PhD student Irja Elliott Donaghue (ChemE/IBBME collaborative program). “The spinal cord is wrapped in a protective barrier that blood and drugs simply can’t cross.”
That means pills or even intravenous drugs won’t work. Injecting drugs with a needle directly to the spinal cord through that protective barrier – a method called catheter infusion – is risky to patients and would have to be repeated many times over weeks or months during the slow healing process.
What’s really needed is a slow-release drug delivery system that could be implanted in a patient once but would steadily release the needed drugs directly to the spinal cord, without the need for repeated injections.
That’s where a nifty bit of engineering by Elliott Donaghue and her colleagues comes in. Working with Professor Molly Shoichet (ChemE and IBBME) and other members of her research group, she has helped developed a gooey hydrogel that can be impregnated with drugs and injected into a patient’s spinal cord to give off a constant dose of medication for an extended time. “What’s neat about this hydrogel is that it’s very soft at cooler temperatures but gets stiffer as it warms up to body temperature,” said Elliott Donaghue.
This means that the fluid gel can easily be injected but firms up once it’s in the patient’s body to create a long-lasting drug source, while remaining flexible enough not to damage the spinal cord. As a bonus, the hydrogel is made of a natural polymer that slowly breaks down in the body and is eventually absorbed, eliminating the need to remove it once treatment is over.
Elliott Donaghue was first to test the method in rats in collaboration with Dr. Charles Tator at Toronto Western Hospital. The team is now working on adjusting drug doses and exploring the use of combinations of drugs to see greater effects.
Think those flat, glassy solar panels on your neighbour’s roof are the pinnacle of solar technology? Think again.
Researchers in the University of Toronto’s Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering have designed and tested a new class of solar-sensitive nanoparticle that outshines what we currently consider state of the art.
This new form of solid, stable light-sensitive nanoparticles, called colloidal quantum dots, could lead to cheaper and more flexible solar cells, as well as better gas sensors, infrared lasers, infrared light emitting diodes and more. The research, led by post-doctoral researcher Zhijun Ning (ECE) and Professor Ted Sargent (ECE), was published this week in Nature Materials
Collecting sunlight using these tiny colloidal quantum dots depends on two types of semiconductors: n-type, which are rich in electrons; and p-type, which are poor in electrons. The problem? When exposed to air, n-type materials bind to oxygen atoms, give up their electrons, and turn into p-type. Ning and colleagues modelled and demonstrated a new colloidal quantum dot n-type material that does not bind oxygen when exposed to air.
Maintaining stable n- and p-type layers simultaneously not only boosts the efficiency of light absorption, it opens up a world of new optoelectronic devices that capitalize on the best properties of both light and electricity. For you and me, this means more sophisticated weather satellites, remote controllers, satellite communication, or pollution detectors.
“This is a material innovation, that’s the first part, and with this new material we can build new device structures,” said Ning. “Iodide is almost a perfect atom for these quantum solar cells to bond with, having both high efficiency and air stability—no one has shown that before.”
Ning’s new hybrid n- and p-type material achieved solar power conversion efficiency up to eight per cent—among the best results reported to date.
But improved performance is just a start for this new quantum-dot-based solar cell architecture. The powerful little dots could be mixed into inks and painted or printed onto thin, flexible surfaces, such as roofing shingles, dramatically lowering the cost and accessibility of solar power for millions of people.
“The field of colloidal quantum dot photovoltaics requires continued improvement in absolute performance, or power conversion efficiency,” said Sargent. “The field has moved fast, and keeps moving fast, but we need to work toward bringing performance to commercially compelling levels.”
This research was conducted in collaboration with Dalhousie University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
8:07 AM: the Gardiner Expressway rumbles with thousands of vehicles driving downtown to work, each with its own combustion engine releasing a barely-visible trail of exhaust into the atmosphere.
Is there a better way to move people around our city? If so, what is it? These are questions that Professor Heather MacLean (CivE) explores in several sustainability-focused courses she’s pioneered at U of T. This week, MacLean was recognized with an Excellence in Education Award for the Promotion of Sustainable Practices by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
CMHC established the Excellence in Education Award in 2003 to honour outstanding educational contributions to sustainable practices. Maclean was selected based on her efforts to integrate sustainable community development concepts into the academic curriculum.
MacLean’s research has focused on evaluating the sustainability of products, processes and engineering projects. She has made key contributions in developing novel methods to examine issues related to transportation, energy and urban systems.
“I teach students broadly about sustainability concepts, and focus on a life cycle approach as it is generally viewed as the foundation for sustainability assessment,” said MacLean. “By examining the life cycle of a product or project, from resource extraction, through manufacture/construction, use and end-of-life, students explore the overall impact of developments, taking into account complex environmental and socio-economic factors. I encourage students to think deeply about infrastructure challenges and to develop unique solutions that will benefit society.”
Maclean has created several innovative courses that promote sustainable practices, including the graduate course “Evaluating Sustainability of Engineering Activities”, the first course in Canada – and among the first worldwide – that focused on introducing and applying sustainability and life cycle evaluation methods.
In 2010, MacLean developed the first undergraduate civil engineering course in Canada – and one of only two in North America – on sustainable energy systems. She also completely revamped an existing undergraduate course, “Engineering Project Management and Finance” to include a module focused on sustainability implications of large-scale infrastructure projects. This is a core course for students within the Engineering Science Infrastructure option.
“Professor Heather MacLean’s initiatives in research, teaching and curriculum development are providing our students with the crucial competencies to meet future sustainability challenges” said Dean Cristina Amon. “I am grateful for her exceptional contributions and delighted that the CMHC has honoured her with this richly-deserved recognition.”
Nausea, vomiting, hair loss – these are just a few of the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy. Although the drugs are designed to kill cancerous cells and save lives, the potent chemicals destroy tissues and can damage the human body.
Professor Molly Shoichet (ChemE, IBBME) is leading a multidisciplinary team of researchers who are developing new ways to administer drugs that target only cancerous tissues, leaving the healthy ones intact. This week, Shoichet received one of the University of Toronto’s most prestigious titles: University Professor. The distinguished rank is given to less than two per cent of tenured faculty, serving to highlight her outstanding contributions to research and teaching.
As a Canada Tier 1 Research Chair in Tissue Engineering, Shoichet’s research tackles a wide scope of medical-related challenges, from healing spinal cord injuries to blindness using stem cell therapy. The impact of her work extends beyond the laboratory, driven in part by her dedication to mentoring, teaching and motivating her students and colleagues.
“Professor Shoichet is an inspirational researcher and passionate innovator in biomedical engineering,” said Dean Cristina Amon. “On behalf of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, I offer my heartfelt congratulations for this richly-deserved recognition. We are all tremendously proud of her commitment to excellence and her pioneering discoveries.”
U of T Engineering’s Sydney Goodfellow spoke with Professor Shoichet about her passion for research and education.
With projects ranging from stem cell therapy to treatment of disease, what sort of impacts do you expect your research to have?
I have always thought that we, in academia, should focus on answering big questions and solving difficult problems. I like to think of our research as the interface of applied chemistry and applied biology. Ultimately, we aim to enhance tissue repair and functional recovery in diseases associated with stroke, spinal cord injury, blindness and breast cancer. We’re able to work in diverse fields due to the strength of our graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, technicians and collaborators.
Your diverse research has received attention around the world. Can you share some of the recent projects you and your team are working on?
Currently we are designing polymers – which are essentially long chains of hundreds or thousands of tiny molecules – for use in biology and medicine. We’re excited about many of our projects, like designing novel ways to deliver therapeutic biomaterials to the spinal cord, brain or eye; creating innovative hydrogels that allow us to grow cells in three-dimensional environments that mimic nature; and, developing new methods for targeted drug delivery in cancer. From our lab at U of T, we have the privilege of collaborating with leading experts locally, as well as those in Canada and around the world.
As a University Professor and leader of a lab that has graduated over 100 researchers in two decades, your dedication to teaching and education is clear. How do you balance the educational and research sides of your career?
Whether it’s for students in the classroom or scientists in the lab, I am fully dedicated to the academic mission of advancing knowledge. I really enjoy bringing research into the classroom and sparking imaginations.
I have received significant support from my colleagues in the Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry [department], which allows me to teach those subjects that I’m most adept at teaching, while providing me with the opportunity to devote meaningful time to research. As a mother of two teenage boys, I’m also blessed with a husband who supports my career aspirations. Balance is something that I strive for everyday.
What motivates you to pursue your research?
I also love the pursuit of knowledge. I love working with the brilliant researchers in my lab, attempting to answer questions together – questions that have long gone unanswered, or even unasked. Discovery is fascinating and wonderful.
I also love learning about companies, their products and how they are making a difference in people’s lives. The raison d’etre of biomedical engineering is the same: I aspire to advance our research knowledge towards new applications in medicine. While I understand that many stars must align for this to come to fruition, this is one of my great passions and a significant motivation.
If you could give yourself as a student a piece of career advice, what would it be?
I encourage students to pursue their dreams. If they spend their lives doing what they love, they will spend more time doing it and thus be more likely to succeed. I have been particularly blessed with opportunities and have worked hard to bring them to fruition.