The prototype sustainable power plant that University of Toronto Professor Olivier Trescases (ECE) is demonstrating doesn’t look like much. A simple black-box battery connected by clips to red and yellow wires that go to a decades-old electricity meter, then by more exposed wiring into something that looks like an exposed computer motherboard, which is itself attached to a low-fi, normal looking stationary bike. It looks like the kind of exercise equipment someone would have in the corner of a wood-panelled basement, attached to the kind of rig your hobbyist uncle might solder together in the garage.

But according to Professor Trescases, this is an independent, freestanding power plant, the unpolished but working model for a fleet of machines that will simultaneously encourage exercise, reduce carbon fuel usage and toxic emissions and educate people, all while saving money at the same time. “I wouldn’t call this high experimental research,” Trescases says. “The aim is more education. The greatest benefit of this is awareness. Essentially we want to equate sweat with electrical energy.”

That equation was enough to win the project a grant of $10,000 at last year’s inaugural Green Innovation Awards presented by the City of Toronto and the Toronto Community Foundation. Electrical Engineering Professor Trescases, Hart House Gym Facilities Manager Chris Lea and Hart House Sustainability Coordinator David Berliner shared the award for their idea to harness the energy people waste using exercise equipment and use it to generate electricity.

“Each bike is an independent power plant,” Trescases says; “each one is individually connected to the grid.” Each bike is also able to connect wirelessly to a laptop computer or wireless mobile device to display real-time information about how much energy it is generating, how much it has generated recently and how much money that translates into.

Read the full article at Yonge Street Media.

Vincent Cheung (ECE) is the owner and founder of Shape Collage, a software program that allows users to create picture collages with just a few clicks of the mouse. When he’s not running a successful business, he’s completing his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Toronto. Over the past year, Mr. Cheung has won a number of entrepreneur contests across North America.

See a selection of photos of Cheung and Shape Collage on The Globe and Mail’s website.

Professor Elizabeth Edwards (ChemE) has been named Director of the BioZone , it was announced on Friday.

“I am grateful for the extraordinary contributions Professor Elizabeth Edwards has already made to BioZone,” said Dean Cristina Amon, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “As BioZone’s founding Director, she brings a distinguished research background, strong leadership, compelling vision and a true spirit of collaboration to this exciting research centre.”

Professor Edwards’ honours include a 2009 Synergy Award for Innovation in the category of partnership with a large company. The award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) honoured outstanding achievements of university-industry collaboration. Professor Edwards’ partnership with Geosyntec Consultants focused on the development of effective techniques for using bacteria to clean up contaminated groundwater sites; she and Geosyntec Consultants were also key partners in the creation of BioZone.

BioZone is a Faculty-wide, multidisciplinary centre for collaborative bioengineering research located in the Wallberg Memorial Building. BioZone began in 2007 as a common research space and was approved as an EDU:C (an educational unit for teaching and/or research) in December 2010 by Faculty Council. Further expansion of BioZone in the Wallberg Memorial Building will be completed by 2012.

BioZone’s research space opened in 2008, and on September 22, 2010 an open house was hosted for the university. Professor Edwards was also a key presenter in the “Hot Topics in Engineering Research” session during U of T Engineering’s Faculty Day on February 25, 2011.

The goal of BioZone is to advance and capitalize on recent developments in biology, particularly in genome science and genome analysis tools. As a centre for information on applied and environmental microbiology, BioZone will focus on urgent societal needs such as energy, environment and health. In addition, its EDU:C status allows BioZone to coordinate a set of graduate courses in bioscience, bioengineering and related disciplines. Its mandate is to “engineer a sustainable future.”

BioZone is comprised of nine research groups led by ChemE Professors Grant Allen, Levente L. Diosady, R. Mahadevan, Emma Master, Alison McGuigan, Alexei Savchenko, Bradley Saville and Alexander Yakunin, along with Professor Edwards. The university-wide BioZone community comprises more than 130 people, including undergraduate and graduate students, research associates as well as administrative and technical staff. They conduct research situated at the interface of biology and engineering, with most groups focusing on understanding enzymes.

The group also works with researchers from other areas at U of T, including medicine, cellular and biomolecular research and biomaterials and biomedical engineering, as well as industry partners such as Tembec (forest products) and Geosyntec Consultants.

As of last fall BioZone had raised $42.6 million, including $6.5 million from U of T for the construction of a new wing on the roof of the Wallberg Memorial Building.

Hana Zalzal (CivE 8T8) managed to turn a teenage love of makeup into a successful Toronto-based cosmetic business that are both the favourites of many Hollywood celebrities and women, generally.

A civil engineer by training, Zalzal worked in various jobs, until she figured she wanted to be her own boss.

“I wanted to do something that would get me excited to get out of bed in the morning,” said Zalzal, 46, who founded CARGO cosmetics in 1996, which includes a professional brand that is used by the film and television industry.

She doesn’t see it as a job, simply a passion. She is happiest, she says, looking at what makeup women are wearing on the subway or spying on women put on makeup in public.

“I joke I’m the makeup whisperer. I listen to makeup artists. I listen to women and I bridge that gap,” Zalzal said.

As a busy mother of three, she often gets ideas for products when she’s with her kids, from a liquid foundation pouch modelled on a Kool-Aid Jammer to a blush and bronzer all-in-one.

Follow the link to read the full article on the Toronto Star website.

U of T honoured nine faculty members – including Engineering Professors Yu Sun and Constantin Christopoulos – with awards in the first-ever Inventor of the Year competition. The ceremony today at Toronto’s MaRS Centre capped a competition that drew 21 entrants from across the university.

“The Inventor of the Year program recognizes the superb contributions U of T scientists make to global society through their inventions,” said Professor Paul Young (CivE), Vice-President (Research). “We have a great story to tell at U of T when it comes to inventions. This event marks the beginning of a new emphasis on telling that story.”

Professor Young thanked all inventors who entered the competition and paid particular thanks to MaRS and MaRS Innovation for their role in partnering with U of T in research commercialization and “bringing our inventions to the world.”

“We are very proud that the University has recognized the achievements of Professor Sun and Professor Christopoulos as researchers, inventors and founders of spin-off companies,” said Dean Cristina Amon, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “These awards confirm the impact of the research being conducted in the Faculty and the outstanding reputation our professors have earned in service of the world community.”

The research group of Professor Sun (MIE), specializes in micro-nano engineering and precision instrumentation. Two of its patents provide complete solutions to automated injection of molecules or sperm into biological cells with direct applications in genetics, drug screening and clinical in-vitro fertilization. Based on these technologies, Marksman Cellject Inc. was established to commercialize solutions (hardware and software) for the clinical and life sciences industry.

Professor Christopoulos (CivE) focuses his research on developing high-performance earthquake-resistant damping devices and systems, especially those that reduce or eliminate damage to structures even under extreme earthquake loading. He is considered one of the world’s leading researchers in the emerging area of new self-centering structural systems. He disclosed five inventions in this area from 2005-2010. He was a founder of a U of T Engineering spinoff company, Cast ConneX, formed in 2007 to commercialize inventions relating to cast steel connectors and energy dissipation systems.

The University’s other award winners were:

• Biomedical and Life Sciences: Scott Tanner, Chemistry; Shana Kelley, Faculties of Pharmacy and Medicine; Andrei Yudin, Chemistry
• Physical Sciences: Geoffrey Ozin, Chemistry
• Information and Computer Technology: Nick Koudas, Computer Science, and co-inventor Nilesh Bansal; Ronald Baecker, Computer Science, and co-inventors Alexander Levy, Aakash Sahney and Kevin Tonon
• Social Sciences and Humanities: V. Kumar Murty, Mathematics

A call for submissions to the 2012 competition will be posted in the autumn of this year.

Jeffrey Skoll (ElecE 8T7), the Montreal-born founding president of Internet auction house eBay, has been named by the CBC as one of Canada’s richest and most powerful Canadians. Skoll has signed the Giving Pledge, promising to donate to charity half of his worth, estimated at $2.4 billion.

The University of Toronto engineering graduate who pumped gas to put himself through school is part of a growing group of billionaires who say they will give away most of their cash to charitable causes.

In 2008, Forbes magazine put the net worth of Skoll, who also founded Participant Media, the company behind films such as An Inconvenient Truth, at $3.6 billion.

Follow the link to read the full article on the CBC website.