Research news

Learn more about the latest discoveries and innovations from the U of T Engineering community. Our researchers are developing new ways of capturing and storing clean energy, medical devices that can save and extend lives, smarter ways to design and build cities and much more.

Professor Vaughn Betz (ECE). (Photo: Jess MacInnis)

Professor Vaughn Betz elected to the National Academy of Inventors

Award recognizes outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on society

PhD candidate Geonhui Lee works on an electrolyzer in the lab of Professor Ted Sargent (ECE). She is the lead author on a new paper in Nature Energy that outlines an electrochemical method for converting captured carbon into useful products, from fuels to plastics. (Photo: Marit Mitchell)

How clean electricity can upgrade the value of captured carbon

Researchers from U of T Engineering have developed a new pathway to convert CO2 captured with liquid amines into higher-value products, from fuel to plastics

Professor Tim Barfoot (UTIAS), seen here at the launch of the Robotics Institute, held in May 2019, has been elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE). (Photo: Liz Do)

Professor Tim Barfoot elected an IEEE Fellow

Honour recognizes outstanding record of accomplishments in visual navigation of mobile robots for a variety of applications

This rendering shows the vision for the Sustainability Lab, a new facility to be constructed on the roof of the Wallberg Building. (Image courtesy Baird Sampson Neuert Architects)

Two new clean-energy hubs in the GTA to boost U of T Engineering sustainability research

Professor Timothy Bender is a key figure in both the Collaboration Centre for Green Energy Research Materials and the Sustainability Lab

University Professor Molly Shoichet has been awarded Canada’s highest honour for science and engineering research. (Photo: NSERC/CRSNG - Sylvie Li)

Molly Shoichet receives Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, Canada’s highest honour for science and engineering research

Shoichet is world renowned for her pioneering research at the intersection of engineering, chemistry and biology

A new set of research collaborations will look at innovative ways to improve the movement of goods across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. (Photo: Markus Spiske via Unsplash)

Smart Freight Centre launches new research collaborations on safer, cleaner and more efficient transport of goods in the GTHA

NSERC Alliance Grant will support 24 research projects over the next four years

Ning Yan and her collaborators in the Low-Carbon Renewable Materials Centre (LCRMC) are developing a new generation of products made from forestry biomass — including currently under-utilized materials such as tree bark. (Photo: Tyler Irving)

The forest biorefinery: Developing a new generation of sustainable plant-based materials and products

Professor Ning Yan and her colleagues are converting tree bark and other forestry byproducts into commodity chemicals and more

A team of researchers from U of T is creating a rapid COVID-19 test that could produce results in just five minutes. From left: Surath Gomis (ECE), Dingran Chang (Pharmacy), Jagotamoy Das (Pharmacy), Hanie Yousefi (Pharmacy), Professor Shana Kelley (Pharmacy), Jenise Chen (Chemistry) and Alam Mahmud (ECE). (Photo: Daria Pervezentsev)

Rapid COVID-19 testing: U of T team ditches cotton swabs for sensing probes

Researchers from U of T Engineering, Pharmacy and Chemistry are creating an antigen COVID-19 test that could give results in just five minutes

A health-care worker from Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami, Fla. with a package of donated Kerra skin cream. (Photo courtesy Quthero, Inc.)

Skin-care product based on U of T Engineering research donated to health-care workers fighting COVID-19

A U of T Engineering spinoff company has donated its entire stock of skin-care product to health-care workers fighting the global pandemic. Several years ago, Professor Milica Radisic (BME, ChemE) and her team developed a peptide-hydrogel biomaterial that prompts skin cells to “crawl” toward one another. The material was initially designed to help close the […]