Professor Aimy Bazylak (MIE) has been elected to the 2020 cohort of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Established in 2014, the College is the country’s first national system of multidisciplinary recognition for the emerging generation of Canadian intellectual leadership.
As the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Thermofluidics for Clean Energy, Bazylak is working to advance fuel cells, electrolyzers and batteries for the production of clean power and energy storage without greenhouse gas emissions. Her research is focused on the use of modelling and real-time imaging to design new materials for high efficiency and performance.
Bazylak is an international leader in understanding the multiphase and microscale transport processes involved with polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers. Her research group is the first in North America to visualize operating polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells using synchrotron X-ray radiography; this work has accelerated the advancement of water and carbon dioxide electrolysis at a pace that would not otherwise have been possible.
Based on the insights gained through her fundamental research, Bazylak has partnered with automotive and energy companies such as Nissan, Volkswagon and Hydrogenics Corp. to develop next-generation fuel cells and electrolyzers for higher efficiency, zero-greenhouse gas emission power and energy storage.
Bazylak served as the Director of the U of T Institute for Sustainable Energy from 2015 to 2018. She is Associate Chair, Research and Energy Systems Option Chair for the Division of Engineering Science and has served on the President’s Committee on the Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainability since 2017. She is a fellow of CSME and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Bazylak’s contributions have earned her several prestigious awards, including the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) I.W. Smith Award, the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, and the Helmholtz International Fellow Award. Most recently, she received U of T‘s McLean Award, which recognizes early-career researchers and supports outstanding research.
“Professor Bazylak has made incredibly innovative contributions to the field of sustainable energy, both in terms of fundamental knowledge and practical impact,” says Chris Yip, Dean of U of T Engineering. “Warmest congratulations to her on being recognized as one of the next generation of world-leading Canadian scholars and for being such an inspiration to our students.”
