The design for U of T’s new Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CEIE) was unveiled on Oct. 29.

The landmark CEIE is targeted for opening in late 2016 on the St. George Campus, adjacent to Convocation Hall.

As the conceptual plan shows, the building will move beyond the traditional lecture hall and classroom with unique collaborative learning and hands-on design spaces. These spaces will allow for a variety of configurations to promote dynamic group work as well as formal teacher-student presentations.

The building also features dedicated space for alumni and industry partners to meet with students and collaborate with faculty while at U of T.

“It will, quite simply, provide the environment to nurture the innovator and the creator inside our students and prepare them to lead on a global level,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

“The CEIE brings together the talents of the entire Faculty and the broader University to create the next solutions in Engineering. It provides the space, facilities and collaborative environment to encourage students, researchers, alumni and industry partners to work together to get great ideas off the ground.”

The schematic design from Montgomery Sisam Architects of Toronto and U.K.-based Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios includes the Lee & Margaret Lau Auditorium, a 468-seat interactive space meant to optimize audience engagement.

The CEIE plans also incorporate smart building concepts, which integrates heating, cooling, electrical and communications systems into a single network, providing greater energy efficiency.

A $1-million commitment from the Engineering Society is earmarked for a unique space on the lower level where student club members can socialize, hold events and collaborate on group projects. The Society’s contribution demonstrates undergraduates’ recognition of the importance of this new student space.

“The building will encourage innovative collaboration by bringing together research and educational centres and institutes within a single building that address many of the emerging initiatives within the Faculty,” said Professor Emeritus Ron Venter (MIE), who leads the building’s planning committee.

“These include sustainable energy, infrastructure, water, robotics, design and advanced manufacturing, global engineering opportunities and leadership in technical and social innovation.”

U of T Engineering’s Entrepreneurship Hatchery, for example, will have a home in the new building. The Hatchery fosters undergraduates’ entrepreneurial ventures with the help of mentors, venture capitalists and other professionals.

The University of Toronto Institute for Sustainable Energy will also be housed at the CEIE. The Institute is an inclusive, multidisciplinary initiative designed to bring together researchers, students, and teachers from across the University, together with partners from industry and government. Its goal is to increase energy efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of energy use and conversion.

“The building will help foster the best in entrepreneurial engineering,” said George Myhal (IndE 7T8), Chair of Engineering’s Campaign Executive Committee – whose $5 million gift was among the first in support of the building. “We will see many innovative and exciting solutions emerge from this building,” he added.

Donations announced on Oct. 29 at the design unveiling include significant gifts totalling over $10 million from the Engineering Society, Lee (ElecE 7T7, MEng 8T2) & Margaret Lau, and an anonymous donor.

These donations build on the momentum of previously-announced gifts from Bill (ChemE 6T7) and Kathleen Troost, whose donation will provide space for the Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead); Peter (CivE 6T2) and Jocelyn Allen, and Paul Cadario (CivE 7T3), whose contribution to the Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN) includes support for CGEN in CEIE. The U of T Engineering community has so far secured more than $50 million toward the building.

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Skulematters presents a series of detailed features about the Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CEIE). Find out why the CEIE will inspire a collaborative spirit and entrepreneurship by taking a look at this issue:

Once known as Department Eight: Metallurgical Engineering, the Department of Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) has seen a lot of changes in 100 years.

Today, it can count close to 2,000 alumni, 200 current undergraduate students, 80 graduate students and 17 core faculty members.

But what hasn’t changed is that MSE at U of T continues to be one of the top-ranked materials science and engineering academic departments in the world.

“We are Canada’s premier engineering school and among the very best in the world, due in no small part to the deep-rooted expertise of our MSE faculty and alumni,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “Many of them have made hugely influential contributions in materials science and engineering at national and international levels.”

“I’m confident the next century will see the Department continue to set a standard for world-class research and education in materials science and engineering,” said Department Chair Jun Nogami (EngSci 8T0).

The Department marked its 100th anniversary with a two-day celebration on Oct. 23 and 24, which attracted alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends from around the world. Events celebrating the centennial included invited lectures, laboratory tours, an MSE research poster session, a reception and gala.

Also part of the mix was a leadership panel entitled “Nanotechnology … Revolution or Evolution?” moderated by U of T Materials Science & Engineering Professor Doug Perovic (MMS 8T6, MASc 8T8, PhD 9T0).

The panel included an impressive array of experts from industry and academia who gave a big-picture view of the engineering of small things.

They spoke about how nanotechnology, the science of manipulating atoms and molecules on a very small scale, is essentially about coaxing them into displaying unusual properties.

“Nanotech properties are not fixed. Their properties are engineered from the bottom up,” said Dr. Gino Palumbo (MMS 8T3, MASc 8T5, PhD 8T9), President and CEO of Integran Technologies Inc. As Palumbo pointed out, when people ask him what his company’s materials do, he in turn asks: “What do you want them to do?”

Still, panelists were united in cautioning against expecting nanomaterials to quickly displace existing technology.

“Twenty years is not an unusual amount of time to go from conception to commercialization,” said Michael F. Ashby, Royal Society Research Professor from the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. “This isn’t like writing an app and six months later you can retire,” Ashby added.

Centennial offerings also included a panel moderated by Associate Professor Glenn D. Hibbard (MSE PhD 0T2) entitled “Perspectives from the Last 10 Years,” featuring graduates from the past decade.

In addition, Professor Ashby gave two lectures as part of the annual Winegard Visiting Lectureship Professor Ashby is recognized as the ‘pioneer’ of materials selection and has authored more than 200 papers and books on the topics of materials and design.

In two separate talks, he spoke about sustainable development from a materials perspective, and about why people buy products, focusing on a materials scientist’s view of industrial design.

Successful products depend as much on usability and satisfaction as they do on function, he said.

For more, visit the Department of Materials Science & Engineering website.

View more photos on Flickr

It is with deep regret that we announce the death on October 15, 2013 of Professor Emeritus Ernest Stewart Lee.

E. Stewart Lee, Stewart to his friends, was born in Montreal on June 7, 1934. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Engineering Physics and a Master of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering at McGill University, in 1956 and 1958 respectively. He completed his doctorate in 1965 at University of Toronto under the supervision of Professor Emeritus Gordon R. Slemon (ECE), and was appointed as an Assistant Professor in both Computer Science and Electrical Engineering in 1966.

He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1967. Professor Emeritus Lee spent a sabbatical year as a Visiting Professor at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, England in 1973-74, before becoming a full Professor in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1975.

Professor Emeritus Lee was a dedicated teacher and researcher whose influence on both ECE and Computer Science Departments is still felt today. He was enormously influential in incorporating computer engineering into what had historically been a purely electrical engineering department, and played a crucial role in creating the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) in 1968, uniting computing investigators in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He served as its founding chairman from 1969-73, and again from 1977-80. As a result of its success, it became the Computer Systems Research Institute (CSRI) in 1984, and continued into the 1990s.

Along with his colleague the late Professor Emeritus Peter Boulton (ECE), Professor Emeritus Lee was instrumental in establishing computing facilities, first in Electrical Engineering and then extending to the Faculty, becoming today’s ECF. In addition to creating an extensive computer room in the Sandford Fleming building, they were responsible for the first IBM 360 computer at the University, a Model 44.

Professor Lee’s research covered a wide range of topics in the area of computer software and computer networks, including network architecture, protocols and security.  Perhaps he will be best remembered for his collaboration with Professor Peter Boulton resulting in the invention of Hubnet – a new conceptual structure for a fibre optic network capable of operating at very high speed. A pilot model of Hubnet was built and used in the ECE department for many years, operating at 50 Mbits/sec, at the time the fastest operating network anywhere.

Professor Lee held many important administrative positions at the University, including being a Member of the Governing Council from 1977-81 and the Speaker of the Faculty Council from 1984-88. He was elected as a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, a Fellow of the British Computer Society as well as CGRT. He was awarded an M.A. from Cambridge University, and later accepted an appointment as a Professor at Cambridge University. His many graduate students, from all over the world, became friends and continued to regularly visit both in Canada and abroad.

Throughout his career, Professor Lee was much sought-after as a systems and software consultant, advising such clients as IBM, Marconi-Elliott Computer Systems Ltd., the Department of National Defence, Toronto Credits Ltd., and Metropolitan Toronto’s Ambulance Services and Police Commission, among many others.

Professor Lee had a profound and wide-reaching effect on the ECE community. The sad news of his passing affected many of our professors, and several shared their recollections:

“Upon my return to Toronto in 1965, I first met Stewart Lee. Interestingly enough, we both shared an unusual background—our Ph.D. studies were in the area of magnetics, and then we both drifted into computing, I with a hardware emphasis, and he with a software emphasis. Correspondingly, we quickly became the co-chairs of the newly established Computer Group in EE … Stewart had a natural inclination to think broadly and diversely.”
–K.C. Smith , Emeritus Professor and ECE Chair, 1976-81

“Stew’s foresight had a lasting effect on our department. He was instrumental in bringing software into the Department of Electrical Engineering, and he played a key role in morphing “Electrical Engineering” into “Electrical and Computer Engineering.” It was his efforts that resulted in our department having a lasting great, collaborative relationship with the Department of Computer Science … He was the one who brought me here to Toronto.”
–Michael Stumm (ECE),  Professor

“Stewart taught me Structures and Algorithms as an undergraduate, and I remember how he had this great, sly humour in class that I found truly refreshing. He will be missed.”
–Khoman Phang (ECE),  Professor

Stewart died suddenly at home in Orillia.

A memorial reception will be held at the University of Toronto on Friday, November 29, 2013 from 2:30 to 5 p.m. at The Faculty Club. The address is 41 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario  M5S 1C7.

Flags on campus will be lowered to half-mast that day in honour of Professor Lee.

Obituary in The Globe and Mail

Send a message of condolence through the Mundell Funeral Home

What does it take to earn a gold medal at the North American iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition? For the gold medal-winning team from U of T’s IBBME, it can be summed up in just one word: safety.

This year’s iGEM competition, hosted earlier this month at Hart House, brought 550 students from across North America to compete in one of science’s newest fields: synthetic biology. A panel of judges scored teams on three required components – scientific research, human practices, and safety – of a major, year-long research project.

The U of T team modeled its study on further understanding the ability of E. coli bacteria to form biofilms as a stress response, which allows individual bacteria to become a large, functional unit. But it was the 11-member team’s “foundational advance” component that caught the judges’ attention.

“We decided to go with a new safety standard,” said Adam Komorowski, a third-year Immunology and Molecular Genetics & Microbiology student and outgoing president of the U of T iGEM team.

It was a dimension to the project that evolved from a very personal story: this past July, Komorowski experienced the very real consequences of safety issues in his lab when he had a serious accident. Despite wearing protective safety gear and having diligently practiced safety protocols, Komorowski suffered injuries.

“That sort of shifted our attention,” Komorowski said. “We have all these protocols in place: wear this, do that. We realized that eventually the amount of rules being enforced gets in the way of actually saying, ‘I have something dangerous in my hands’.”

The group devoted a large component of their project on a new safety training package modeled on the kind of training received by lifeguards and paramedics.

“We developed situational exercises where we mock a bunch of situations that could happen in the lab,” Komorowski said.

The units involve role-playing scenarios: one team member takes on the role of the victim in a simulated safety accident while a supervisor evaluates the team’s reactions. In all, the team developed six units, which they made available through the team’s website.

Ultimately, the team was awarded a gold medal for their overall project; however, due to the way teams are scored they will not advance to the world championships.

Nevertheless, the medal was an unexpected validation for the team’s first-ever appearance at a competition. “I’m impressed at how well we did for a team with so little previous experience,” said Boris Dyakov, lab manager for the team.

Fourth-year Chemical Engineering major Michael Yu described the year-long research towards the competition as a real-life learning curve.

“When experiments give few results and progress is slow even into August, there’s nothing you can do except to dig your heels into the science and be that much more disciplined and organized.”

Since its debut at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) just under a decade ago, iGEM has evolved into a renowned international synthetic biology competition.

For the fourth year in a row, nearly 70 girls in their tween years converged at U of T to take part in Go ENG Girl. The event, which took place on October 19, is part of a province-wide, one-day program that gives girls a chance to visit their local university to learn about engineering from women professionals and students.

U of T’s event was organized by Engineering students through the Engineering Student Outreach Office.

“Having an all-girls’ program shows how many girls are interested, and what female students can and are doing in the field, really shows that it’s an option for young girls to consider,” said Maisha Zaman (IndE 1T4 + PEY).

Accompanied by their parents, the girls were introduced to learning opportunities at U of T Engineering, participated in hands-on workshops with U of T Engineering students, and heard from a panel on what it takes to be an engineer.

After introductions, girls and their families were split into teams where they spent the morning creating large frames in the shape of geodesic domes out of rolled-up newspaper. The activity gave Engineering students a chance to instruct participants on the importance of shapes in building design, as well as the value of working as a team.

“This program gives girls exposure to engineering. I think the belief that engineering is a male-dominated profession scares a lot of girls off,” said Zaman. U of T Engineering students who helped at the event were all female.

After the workshop, the girls and their parents attended a panel made up of undergraduate and graduate students where they could ask questions about the U of T Engineering program, what different fields of engineering are like, and what the transition is like between high school and university.

Zaman, who participated in other U of T Engineering outreach events such as DEEP, has been with the Engineering Student Outreach Office since arriving at U of T. She says events such as Go ENG Girl are a great way for U of T Engineering students to demonstrate the skills they’ve learned in their studies. And outreach programs are important for attracting girls to engineering.

“You have to learn how to manage your time wisely,” said Sakina Essajee (CivE 1T4) when one participant asked what the biggest adjustment was for a high school student going into university. “There is no one looking over your shoulder making sure you get things done – that’s a big change.”

Zaman, who also sat on the panel, hopes that the girls at the event come away with at least one key message.

“Engineering opens doors,” she says. That’s something I’ve learned in my personal experience. You can do so much with an engineering degree that people just don’t realize.”

This year, a total of 15 universities across Ontario hosted Go ENG Girl events. In partnership with the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE), Go ENG Girl is part of a provincial program to promote and inspire young girls considering a career in engineering.

The University of Toronto’s Engineering Student Outreach Office (ESOO) seeks to engage youth in STEM. ESOO designs and delivers a host of interactive pre-university programs taught by our undergraduate and graduate students. Outreach programs foster the engagement of pre-university students – particularly among underrepresented communities. The programs also play an important role in enhancing Engineering students’ abilities as teachers.

U of T Engineering students Tarek El Fedawy (IndE 1T3 + PEY), Kazem Kutob (IndE 1T3 + PEY), Layan Kutob (IndE 1T2 + PEY, MEng 1T4) and Alberto Picard-Ami (IndE 1T3 + PEY) recently finished second in the Wharton Consulting Competition.

The win marks the third consecutive year the team placed second, surpassing competitors from universities, including Harvard and Northwestern.

The competition took place at The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the top business schools in North America and the world. This year, the theme of the competition was ‘Global Operating Expense Transformation.’

The challenge: a bank that had to reduce over $1-billion in annual operating expenses over three years. Teams were required to build a strategic plan that would facilitate the creation of a roadmap to deliver operational savings and expense transformation.

The U of T Engineering team proposed a framework and strategies that tackled, assessed and prioritized deficiencies in areas of labour, technology and the bank’s operating model.

Participants were judged by major sponsoring firms including Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Accenture and L.E.K. Consulting. Though first place went to the University of Pennsylvania, U of T has maintained its impressive track record in the contest.

“Being a finalist and placing second, three years in a row, in such a tough competition is an achievement that the team is very proud of,” said El Fedawy. “It is a testament to the quality of education and extracurricular activities at U of T, and how well it has groomed us to solve real-life, complex business problems.”

“On behalf of the Faculty, I congratulate the team on their tremendous success over the past three years,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “Their second place finish demonstrates how our engineering students are developing the skills and experience to make an impact on the world and become tomorrow’s business leaders.”

The Wharton Consulting Conference is organized by the Wharton Undergraduate Consulting Club. Now in its third year, the event has grown to include 18 participating universities from across North America.