U of T Engineering student Hossam Abdelgawad (CivE) received the Young Researcher of the Year Award 2010 at the International Transport Forum, the leading global mobility summit, held in Leipzig, Germany on May 27. The 27-year-old PhD candidate was recognized for his study of mass evacuations of major cities in the event of a catastrophe.
The paper Abdelgawad delivered, Managing Large-Scale Multimodal Emergency Evacuations, co-authored by U of T Engineering Professor Baher Abdulhai (CivE), addresses a growing concern that large-scale evacuations of urban centres may becomes necessary, especially in light of recent disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the undetonated car bomb on New York’s Time Square on May 1, 2010. “The numerous catastrophes that menace major communities accentuate the need for proper planning for emergency evacuation,” explained Abdelgawad. “My research focuses on coordinating, controlling and optimizing the utilization of the existing transportation network capacity.”
A breakthrough towards efficient evacuation of major emergencies in cities, Abdelgawad’s proposed framework integrates car-based and mass transit based evacuations. Using a large-scale model for the City of Toronto, he successfully tested a simulated evacuation with rapid transit, buses and automobiles. Abdelgawad’s first step was to design a “demand estimation model” to accurately quantify the evacuation demand by calculating the mode of transport (drivers vs. transit users) over time (of day the crisis begins) over space (location). The output was then fed into two optimizing platforms. The first is the “Optimal Spatio-Temporal Evacuation model” (OSTE), which coordinates the evacuation scheduling, route choice and destination choice for vehicular traffic. The second, a new variant of the “Vehicle Routing Problem” (VRP), optimizes routing and scheduling for mass transit. The results of the study concluded that 1.2 million people using cars could be evacuated in close to two hours and that a transit-dependent population of 1.34 million can be efficiently evacuated within two hours.
“We congratulate Hossam Abdelgawad on this exciting award,” said Professor Brenda McCabe, Chair, Department of Civil Engineering. “The fact that his engineering scholarship is being recognized internationally provides further evidence of the strong reputation of our Transportation group and of U of T as a world-class university.”
Added Professor Cristina Amon, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, “His internationally lauded research illustrates the innovative PhD candidates that U of T Engineering counts among our community of scholars. We are tremendously proud.”
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Former Dean and Professor Emeritus Michael E. Charles, FCAE, PEng, has been elected President of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), and started his presidency on June 4, 2010 at the conclusion of the CAE’s Annual General Meeting in Toronto.
The CAE is an independent, self-governing, non-profit organization serving the technological development of Canada by marshaling the knowledge and insights of eminent members of the engineering profession.
“It is an honour and a privilege to serve as President of the Academy,” said Professor Charles. “I will do my best to promote its objectives and at the same time reach out to other organizations which can help us respond to multi-disciplinary challenges, particularly with regard to Canada’s future in energy and the environment.”
Professor Charles has served in positions of leadership in both the public and private sectors. He was elected as a Fellow of the Academy in 1998 and has served on its Board of Directors since 2008.
Professor Charles is an influential figure in engineering, education and academic leadership. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering from 1993 to 2001. He has continued to be active, serving on the Board of the Canadian Institute for Photonic Innovations (CIPI), and undertaking assignments under the auspices of the Council of Ontario Academic Vice-Presidents and the Alberta Ministry of Advanced Education and Technology. A chemical engineer, with a Bachelor of Science (Engineering) from Imperial College, London, United Kingdom and a PhD from the University of Alberta, he worked for the Research Council of Alberta and Imperial Oil before joining the University of Toronto.
His research has focused on novel problems associated with the pipeline transport of complex crude oils and particulate solids which resulted in some sixty-five publications. Having served as a member of the Governing Council of the University of Toronto, on the Boards of three of the Ontario Centres of Excellence, Charles is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Engineering Institute of Canada, and the Chemical Institute of Canada, and is a Senior Fellow of Massey College.
“Professor Charles’ record of professional accomplishment is exemplary, and this latest honour, election as President of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, again affirms his highly-regarded, extensive contributions to scholarship, education and professional cooperation,” said Professor Cristina Amon, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “The prestige and influence of U of T academic leaders is further demonstrated by the fact that we now count two out of the three academy Presidents as our own.”
Professor Catharine Whiteside, Dean of U of T’s Faculty of Medicine and Vice Provost, Relations with Healthcare Institutions, is serving as President of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences for the 2009-2011 term.
The Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE) comprises many of the country’s most accomplished engineers, who are committed to the application of science and engineering principles in the interests of the country and its enterprises. Established in 1987, the CAE is a member of the Council of Canadian Academies along with the Royal Society of Canada (Arts and Science) and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. The CAE is also an active member of the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS), which involves 26 leading countries.
Members of the Academy are nominated and elected by their peers to honorary Fellowships, in view of their distinguished achievements and career-long service to the engineering profession. Fellows of the Academy are committed to ensuring that Canada’s engineering expertise is applied to the benefit of all Canadians, and can be identified by the FCAE after their names.
Announced on June 7 at the High Performance Computing Symposium, a team of researchers from the University of Toronto’s Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering (MIE) performed the largest simulation of bio-jet fuel combustion to date.
These supercomputer simulations will make it possible to identify the optimal mixtures of fuel to reduce soot formation and greenhouse gas emissions. The MIE team, comprised of Professor Murray Thomson (cross-appointed to the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry), postdoctoral fellow Seth Dworkin, and PhD candidate Meghdad Saffaripour, performed their research at SciNet, Canada’s largest supercomputer research and resource centre.
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Green Car Congress
The prestigious life sciences magazine, The Scientist, recently named Assistant Professor Milica Radisic of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) and the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (ChemE) as the “Scientist to Watch” for her research involving engineered cardiac tissue called the “heart patch.”
The idea for the heart patch first came to Radisic while working with rat stem cells as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She applied an electric impulse to an individual cardiomyocyte and marveled at the results. Wondering if the same electric impulse would cause a group of cells to contract like a functioning heart, Radisic devised a system to supply oxygen to engineered cardiac tissue, and then applied electric stimulation. Eight days later, the culture of cells aligned and beat rhythmically like mature cardiac tissue.
Radisic is now applying the patch to cardiomycotes from human embryonic stem cells to make new tissue. She is also studying the patch’s ability to test new drugs and cell lines.
Highly respected by colleagues, Milica Radisic has earned an esteemed reputation as an innovative leader in her field and is known to be a great collaborator. At the age of 33, she has already made significant contributions to biomedical research, while at the same time raising a young family. She describes both her life in the lab and at home as very intense, but complementary.
Second-year Chemical Engineering student David Castelino has been named one of Canada’s Top 20 Under 20™ by Youth in Motion, a national charitable organization that develops and implements dynamic programs for youth.
Castelino was recognized for his development of a thin-film solar tile, which uses solar paint made from organic dyes to convert the sun’s rays into energy.
The development of this new technology began in grade five when Castelino, preparing for his first science fair, became interested in solar energy. Working with a solar kit purchased by his mother, Castelino started to explore how the sun’s rays were captured and made into a usable energy source.
“There has been a lot of focus on solar cells, but the biggest challenge is the cost and the ability to implement them in a wide-scale manner,” Castelino explained. This led him to begin exploring the use of organic solar cells as a less expensive alternative to traditional silicon-based cells, which in addition to being costly are more fragile.
As Castelino prepared for his grade 11 science fair, he focused on developing a more highly efficient organic solar cell that took its inspiration from plants, something he credits to his parents’ love of gardening. He struggled at times with the innovation until he was connected with University of Toronto Chemical Engineering Professor Tim Bender, whose research focuses on organic solar cells. That connection was facilitated by his sister, Rachel Castelino (ChemE 0T7+PEY), who was one of Bender’s students at the time.
In working with Bender, the younger Castelino developed a dye-sensitized solar cell that used natural plant pigments in place of synthesized dyes for converting light energy to electricity. As a result of his innovation, Castelino was able to build a cost-effective solar tile that could easily be manufactured in developing countries.
The invention not only won Castelino his local science fair, but led him to become a member of the 16-person Team Canada at the 2007 Intel International Science Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There he was awarded a patent citation, which is recognition of original work by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for his invention as well as Third Place in the Grand Award for Energy and Transportation.
Having just completed second year, Castelino is in the process of writing an academic article on his invention while exploring the possibility of obtaining a full patent. He is looking ahead to further research in the field through graduate studies.
“We are proud of David’s honour, and we congratulate him and his family,” said Professor Cristina Amon, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “The world faces pressing challenges. David’s achievement demonstrates that U of T engineering students deliver innovative engineering solutions. It’s what engineers do, and what U of T engineers do best.”
This is the second time in the last two years that a student from the U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering has earned this prestigious recognition.
Top 20 Under 20™ is a national youth awards program presented by Youth in Motion, which celebrates and honours Canadians who have demonstrated a significant level of innovation, leadership and achievement but have not yet reached the age of 20.
Professor Emeritus Richard Soberman of the Department of Civil Engineering will present his ideas on how to improve transit in the GTA and across Canada at the 45th annual Canadian Transportation Research Forum in Toronto.
Soberman argues that transit needs to make a cultural shift, one that places customer needs first. In the past 25 years, population growth has far outpaced increases in the use of transit. Without a change in leadership style, says the retired department Chair, making a huge investment in a glitzy new transportation system won’t result in increased use by the public.
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