Professor Torstein A. Utigard (MSE) was named a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM) at the 50th Anniversary Conference of Metallurgists (COM2011) awards banquet, held in Montréal on October 3. CIM’s Fellowship Program recognizes members who have distinguished themselves through outstanding contributions to the mining, metallurgical, or petroleum industries. Professor Utigard was one of eight fellows inducted this year.

Professor Utigard is the holder of the Gerald R. Heffernan Chair in Materials Processing at the University of Toronto. He has established an international reputation as an outstanding researcher in the science and technology of pyrometallurgical processing of non-ferrous metals. With over 150 publications, 11 patents and three others pending, Professor Utigard has pioneered numerous developments pertaining to the physical chemistry aspects of metals refining. He has supervised close to 40 researchers, played a major role within professional societies and facilitated international collaborations between industry and academia. In the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and through many short courses in industry and various symposia, Professor Utigard has trained numerous undergraduate and graduate students as well as engineers and operators in the areas of mineral processing, thermodynamics, kinetics and extraction of metals. In all of these activities, he has been an ambassador par excellence for the engineering profession.

In the same evening, Professor Utigard was also recognized with the Best Paper Award, Non-Ferrous Pyrometallurgy category, for a paper titled “Fluid Bed Roasting of Nickel-Copper Matte,” published in the Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly (Vol. 49, No.2 pp.lSS-162, 2010).

“I am very happy that Professor Utigard’s many years of sustained excellence in research and teaching is being recognized by the CIM,” says Professor Jun Nogami, Chair of the Department of Materials Science & Engineering. “I hope that all of our faculty members, as well as the generations of alumni that he has taught and advised will join me in congratulating him.”

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) has awarded a five-year, $5 million grant to establish the NSERC Strategic Network in Smart Applications on Virtual Infrastructure (SAVI). The new network, which will be based at the University of Toronto and led by Professor Alberto Leon-Garcia (ECE), will foster innovative application platforms, create new job opportunities in the computing and communications sectors and allow Canadians to share digital information quicker and easier. Professor Leon-Garcia and a team of 15 researchers at nine universities were awarded the grant to advance Canada’s position as an international leader in information technology. Five postdoctoral fellows each year and nearly 50 graduate students will support their efforts.

“We are thankful to NSERC for the support provided to develop this important research network,” said Cristina Amon, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “Under the remarkable leadership of Professor Alberto Leon-Garcia, SAVI will provide the focal point for creating and expanding Canada’s virtual computing and networking infrastructure.”

The new network is also supported by nearly 20 industry and public sector partners, including IBM Canada, MTS Allstream, Telus, Ericsson Canada, Cisco and Juniper, which will provide $3.5-million over five years. Together they will foster growth in the sector by developing a skilled workforce, help Canadian companies grow and create made-in-Canada applications that will encourage businesses to adopt and adapt to the growing use of these platforms. SAVI has developed a unique approach to transfer research into practice with half of the network’s graduate students working on long-term projects while the other half focus on related, but shorter-term projects as interns in industry.

“[SAVI] will help us invest in Canadian projects that will create technological leadership that is invaluable, and strengthen the nation’s information and communications technology base,” said Professor Leon-Garcia, who is also Canada Research Chair in Autonomic Service Architecture. Application platforms include the software and computing and network infrastructure that allow individuals to access applications and to share information and data through a range of devices, from smart phones, to portable computers and cameras. They also help governments and communities support participatory sensing, where individuals and communities can systematically collect and analyze data for use in discovery in areas such as health and wellness, education, or community-sustainable practices.

Current application platforms typically rely on data centres located far away from where they are most used. Professor Leon-Garcia’s team is developing the notion of extended cloud computing that combine distant data centres with a smart edge network located closer to where they are used, reducing latencies when sharing and receiving information, and ensuring responsiveness in time-critical applications.

The aim is to build an extended cloud that will support bandwidth-rich and highly responsive applications for highly mobile users. For example, imagine a Blue Jays game where fans, reporters and pundits are sharing their insight and commentary using a variety of media (videos, audio and pictures). The technology, realizing a surge of data traffic in one area, will automatically allocate computing and network resources to the stadium and surrounding area to increase traffic, computing and storage capabilities, all the while ensuring emergency personnel continue to have their reliable communications. This type of technology will not only provide consumers with more capable apps but will also increase energy efficiency.

The SAVI Network will also develop a national test bed to support experimentation in future Internet protocols and architecture.

The network will also facilitate training opportunities for others in the field and increase graduate students’ interest in the network’s research. An annual design competition for fourth-year students will be launched and the network will introduce an internship program to serve as a bridge in the transfer of technology to industry.

The funding for SAVI was provided through NSERC’s Strategic Network Grants program, which aims to accelerate research in support of the federal government’s science and technology priorities. In announcing today’s funding, NSERC President Suzanne Fortier stated that networks like SAVI, “… exemplify NSERC’s goal of connecting and applying the strength of the academic research system to addressing the opportunities and challenges of building prosperity for our country.”

Details on the announcement are available on NSERC’s website.

Associate Professor Parham Aarabi (ECE) has become a beauty maven with ModiFace, a $30 million virtual makeover business, where users try out cosmetics, wedding gowns and plastic surgery for free online.

Beauty is perhaps an unintuitive market for an engineer to pursue, but as he discovered, it’s not such a bad fit.

Associate Professor Aarabi, who is a Canada Research Chair in Internet Video, Audio and Image Search, was determined to make the ideal visualization tool: one that could take a 2D image and show a 3D effect, like a face lift or lip filler, in real-time. He researched for an intense eight months, meeting more than 100 surgeons.

Two years later, Botox and facial fillers Juvederm and Restylane were using ModiFace. The next year, Oxygen, a lifestyle channel, and Hearst signed on.

A ModiFace app generally works like this: users upload a photo and alter it by applying makeup or administering plastic surgery.

Sounds simple, but there are two technical challenges. The first is facial recognition. An app must be able detect an eye, for example, so makeup isn’t accidentally applied on an eyeball.

Associate Professor Aarabi and his engineers coded a “neural network,” a computer model that works like a simplified human brain, and trained it to identify facial features.

The second challenge is coding graphics that replicate the colour and texture of makeup — glossy, sparkly, matte or otherwise — onscreen. The codes behind facial recognition and colour graphics are the bulk of ModiFace’s patents.

To read the full article, visit the Toronto Star.

Researchers in the University of Toronto’s Department of Materials Science & Engineering have developed the world’s most efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) on plastic. This result enables a flexible form factor, not to mention a less costly, alternative to traditional OLED manufacturing, which currently relies on rigid glass.

The results are reported online in the latest issue of Nature Photonics .

OLEDs provide high-contrast and low-energy displays that are rapidly becoming the dominant technology for advanced electronic screens. They are already used in some cell phone and other smaller-scale applications.

Current state-of-the-art OLEDs are produced using heavy-metal doped glass in order to achieve high efficiency and brightness, which makes them expensive to manufacture, heavy, rigid and fragile.

“For years, the biggest excitement behind OLED technologies has been the potential to effectively produce them on flexible plastic,” says Materials Science & Engineering Professor Zheng-Hong Lu, the Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Organic Optoelectronics.

Using plastic can substantially reduce the cost of production, while providing designers with a more durable and flexible material to use in their products.

The research, which was supervised by Professor Lu and led by PhD Candidates Zhibin Wang and Michael G. Helander, demonstrated the first high-efficiency OLED on plastic. The performance of their device is comparable with the best glass-based OLEDs, while providing the benefits offered by using plastic.

“This discovery, unlocks the full potential of OLEDs, leading the way to energy-efficient, flexible and impact-resistant displays,” says Professor Lu.

Wang and Helander were able to re-construct the high-refractive index property previously limited to heavy metal-doped glass by using a 50-100 nanometre thick layer of tantalum(V) oxide (Ta2O5), an advanced optical thin-film coating material. This advanced coating technique, when applied on flexible plastic, allowed the team to build the highest-efficiency OLED device ever reported with a glass-free design.

The team was recently featured on SPIE.org, the international society for optics and photonics.

Earlier this week, Saint John, N.B., city council was told the parking commission dropped plans to put an epoxy coating on the floors of the new Peel Plaza Parking garage, shaving $350,000 off the structure’s $16.5-million price tag.

The chair of the parking commission said the garage is being built to last 50 years and it doesn’t make sense to spend money trying to make it last any longer.

But according to Professor Doug Hooton (CivE), who provided his expert comment to the CBC, it is possible to build a garage that lasts a century.

Professor Hooton, an expert in concrete durability, contends that there have been many innovations to concrete construction in recent years that allow designers to predict life spans even beyond 100 years.

A well-built and well-maintained structure, such as a bridge, or parking garage can be made to last a century “if you know the type of concrete, and you know how far the steel is in from the surface, and you know what kind of surface coating you have and how long that will last,” he said.

Read the full story at CBC.ca

Eleven alumni from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have been honoured by the University of Toronto with Arbor Awards. The awards, which recognize outstanding voluntary service to U of T, were presented on September 13 at an event hosted at the official residence of University President David Naylor.

“On behalf of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, I would like to extend my deep thanks to our many alumni who offer their time and expertise to benefit our students and support our Faculty,” said Dean Cristina Amon. “We greatly value their contributions, and we can all take pride in the recognition they have received through the Arbor Awards.”

The following alumni were recognized at the annual ceremony:

Ronald Factor, a 1970 graduate of Industrial Engineering, is a member of the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Board of Advisors and a frequent participant in the Department’s annual Ace the Interview event, as well as at student and alumni networking events.

Richard Gleasure is a founding member of the Calgary Skule™ Alumni Chapter and has served as its Secretary since its inception in 2004. Richard was also instrumental in the creation of the Calgary Skule™ Admissions Scholarship Fund, which helps first-year engineering students from Calgary launch their education at U of T.

Michael Hantzsch is a founding member of the Calgary Skule™ Alumni Chapter and has served as its Vice-Chair since its inception in 2004. Mike also helped create the Calgary Skule™ Admissions Scholarship Fund to help first-year engineering students from Calgary launch their education at U of T.

Nancy Hill, a 1981 Civil Engineering graduate, has been a valued volunteer for the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering’s Advancement Office for three years, serving on the Engineering Alumni Association Honours & Awards Committee. She is also a Warden of Camp 1 for the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.

William Kirkpatrick has been Treasurer of the Engineering Business program’s Class of 1953 since he graduated, and he has helped organize a number of class reunions. Bill also helped established the class’s Engineering Award Scholarship, and he encourages class support for the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

Elias Kyriacou is a 1976 Chemical Engineering graduate who works to build stronger relationships between alumni and the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. He is Vice President of the Engineering Alumni Association and sits on its nominations committee, student club funding committee and oversees the student portfolio.

Alvin Mok, who graduated from the Division of Engineering Science in 2003, has continued his involvement with the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. Last year, Alvin established a number of awards for engineering design, and he was chosen to speak at the Faculty’s recent Galbraith Scholar welcoming event.

Gino Palumbo is a dedicated alumnus, volunteer, advocate and ambassador for U of T. As President and CEO of Integran Technologies Inc., a nanotechnology firm that was founded based on research developed in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Gino has championed the U of T brand. He has also participated in student career development workshops and speaker series, and he advises senior administration at U of T on student development and research opportunities.

Alexander Pathy, a 1955 ChemE graduate and collector of rare books and design bindings, is a long-time volunteer with U of T’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. He was on the Friends of Fisher Library Steering Committee from 1985 to 1995, and currently is Co-Chair of the Library Associates Program. In 1998, Alexander endowed a lecture series at the library.

Domenico Pietropaolo has volunteered with the Department of Civil Engineering for more than 25 years, spending weekends and weekday mornings delivering items the department needed for a wide variety of events, including those for recruitment, awards, alumni and industry relations, and student engagement.

John Starkey is a long-time supporter of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering’s civil and mineral engineering programs and is a founding member of the task force to overhaul and redesign the facilities at the Gull Lake Survey Camp for undergraduates.