Canada’s Association of Geothermal Heating and Cooling (CAGHC) celebrated and recognized the achievements of Professor Emeritus Frank Hooper (MIE), May 4, for his groundbreaking research on ground source heat pump heating and cooling technology.
The award was presented to Professor Hooper at the Faculty Club of the University of Toronto where the association also unveiled Canada’s first national bursary program for post-graduate studies related to geothermal heating and cooling.
His research in experimental residential heat pumps more than 60 years ago paved the way for the use of Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) technology.
Read the full story in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering’s newsletter.
The best medicine for a broken heart, it turns out, might not be time or chocolate or revenge, but a peptide with the unlikely name QHREDGS
Professor Milica Radisic (IBBME/ChemE) is a leader in cardiovascular tissue engineering, the science of building living tissues using cells and biomaterials. She grows heart cells in her lab and then engineers them into heart tissues that beat.
But she — and other tissue engineers — consistently run into trouble when they try to build bigger tissues like hearts.
“One of the key problems with tissue engineering,” she said, “is cell death. Cells die, partly because our cultivation systems are not as perfect as our bodies.” Enter QHREDGS, a peptide that is a small molecule made up of amino acids, which occur naturally in our bodies.
Radisic and collaborators discovered that this particular peptide prevented cell death in two types of cells — cardiomyocytes, which are beating heart cells, and endothelial cells, which line our blood vessels.
She has been awarded the Connaught Fund Innovation Award, which she will use to support the research team’s theory.
Congratulations to alumni Koh Yong Guan (MechE 7T0 MASc 7T2), Anne Sado (IndE 7T7) and Bert Wasmund (ChemE PhD 6T6), who will be awarded honorary degrees from the University of Toronto during this year’s convocations.
U of T awards honorary degrees in recognition of extraordinary achievement and to honour those individuals whose accomplishments are of such generally perceived excellence that they provide, through example, inspiration and leadership to the graduates of the University.
The High Commissioner of Singapore to Canada, Koh Yong Guan is one of the most esteemed public servants in the history of Singapore. Guan joined the Civil Service as a Biomedical Engineer in the Ministry of Health in 1972. He served in the Ministries of Finance, Education and Defence before being appointed Commissioner of Inland Revenue, then Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He was awarded Singapore’s Meritorious Service Medal in 1995 for his significant contributions in modernizing the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore. He now serves as Chair of Singapore’s national pension fund and the Singapore Cancer Sciences Research Institute. Koh will receive his honorary doctorate of laws on June 6 at 2 pm.
An outstanding role model for women in engineering and business, Anne Sado has served as President of George Brown College since 2004, where she spearheaded the creation of a new campus on Toronto’s waterfront. Previously, she had a long and distinguished career at Bell, rising to the position of Senior Vice-President, Business Processes and Operational Effectiveness. Sado has an exemplary record of community service; she has served as President of the YWCA of Metropolitan Toronto, Chair of the Trillium Health Centre, and as a member of the Advisory Boards for the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She will receive her honorary doctorate of laws on June 15 at 10 am.
Bert Wasmund, Executive Director of Hatch Ltd., has had a remarkable career comprising outstanding technical innovation, senior management in a global engineering company, and significant contributions to engineering education. He is credited with transforming the metallurgical industry through a series of innovations that reduced energy consumption and harmful emissions while improving workplace safety and productivity. Wasmund has served on the ChemE Advisory Board and has personally provided significant endowment scholarships for students, as well as championing Hatch’s research partnerships with the University. He will receive an honorary doctorate of engineering on June 15 at 2:30 pm.
“We are delighted that three of our alumni are being honoured by the University for their achievements and contributions to their respective fields,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “These outstanding alumni represent not only the excellence of our graduates, but the many and varied opportunities available to those with an engineering education.”
For a full list of honourees, visit the eBulletin.
Anne Sado was recently mentioned in Metro Newspaper
On April 28, the University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing team revealed their greatly anticipated 2011 competition vehicle, “UT11,” at the Mechanical Engineering Building.
Over the past nine months, the team, which includes five Mechanical Engineering students and a Life Science student, have devoted their time to the realization of this project.
“It’s been many sleepless nights, but it’s been an incredible experience working with people who are extremely dedicated,” said Amanda Santos (MechE 1T3), Team Manager. “And to have the public, our parents and sponsors finally see our baby, it’s really rewarding – we’re really happy with our UT11.”
UT Racing is one of 500 collegiate design teams to compete in the internationally recognized Formula SAE series, which challenges students to develop, manufacture and race an open-wheel, open-cockpit type combustion vehicle each year. With a 14-year team history, including three world championship titles (2003, 2005, 2006), this unveiling marks the beginning of what is to be another formidable and rewarding competition season.
“Our first competition is coming up soon (in Michigan, from May 11–14). We’re quite optimistic. If we continue working hard, as we have been, we should perform very well,” said Michael Bakaic (MechE 1T1 + PEY), Team Captain.
By making design choices that enabled UT11 to be manufactured with little complexity, the team was able to get the car on-track with adequate time to accommodate driver training and vehicle testing. The most influential design choice was the decision to use a steel-tube chassis over the carbon-fibre monocoque design, as seen with UT10.
At Formula SAE competitions, teams competitively present their design innovations, cost analyses, marketing plans and on-track performance, which are then evaluated by a jury of experts from the motorsports, automotive and supplier industries.
There are nine competitions worldwide, of which UT Racing attends two: Formula SAE East (FSAEM), held from May 11–14 at the Michigan International Speedway, and Formula Student Germany, (FSG) held in August at the HockenheimRing.
UT Racing is one of only two Canadian teams to ever compete at FSG. Each year the team competes, they continue to represent the high-calibre education available at the University of Toronto.
Read about the team on the Carpages.ca blog.
Working in pyjamas, avoiding a traffic-filled commute and not having to share a public washroom all seem like pretty good reasons to want to run a business from home.
For 30-year-old entrepreneur Vincent Cheung (ECE PhD candidate) these are just a few of the perks he enjoys running his successful software company, Shape Collage, out of his Toronto home.
Cheung said he thought of the idea after working for Google in Silicon Valley a few summers ago. He took thousands of photos and couldn’t possibly print or post them all. Shape Collage solves that problem by creating collages with several photos in just seconds.
“People have used it in published books, calendars, billboard advertisements — any sort of thing where you would have something printed,” he said.
He said his business runs well from home because it’s completely virtual. People can purchase and download the software from his website, and the best part, Cheung said, is he can do his work from anywhere.
“I can do work here, I can go on a beach somewhere and code and send emails, whatever I need to do,” he said.
To read the full article, visit InsideToronto.com.
When Professor Milos R. Popovic (MIE PhD 9T6) dreams of brilliant control systems, it’s not supercomputers or NASA mission control he’s thinking of, it’s the human brain.
“The brain is the most sophisticated control system anywhere in existence,” says the biomedical engineer and Toronto Rehab senior scientist.
Professor Popovic marvels, in particular, at the phenomenon known as ‘neuroplasticity’ the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt and perform new tasks, even after an injury. And he’s developed a way to make use of this ‘plasticity’ to help stroke and spinal cord injury survivors who have lost key functions, like the ability to grasp, reach or walk.
“With these injuries, the brain is damaged and some of its control mechanisms are gone,” he explains. “Motor or sensory commands cannot be relayed from the brain to the muscles, or from the muscles back to the brain. But the fact is that some of the neuronal cells can be retrained to do new tricks.”
At Toronto Rehab, Dr. Popovic holds the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research. At U of T Engineering, he is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME).
Read the full story in Hospital News