News

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra

Op-ed on fighting climate change by Prof. David Zingg

April 6, 2021

The contribution of civil aviation to climate change is generally estimated at about five per cent of all human contributions. Roughly two per cent comes from carbon dioxide, while there is considerable scientific uncertainty in the estimates of the other two largest contributors, condensation trails and oxides of nitrogen. Over […]

Prasanth Nair

Prasanth Nair recognized with Connaught Innovation Award

March 30, 2021

Professor Prasanth Nair of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering has received a Connaught Innovation Award to support his computational framework, known as Deep Bayesian Analytics Engine (DBAE). “In collaboration with my graduate student, Trefor Evans, I developed a novel, […]

airplane model showing pressure coefficiency

Prof. David Zingg discusses the future of green air travel with the CBC

March 16, 2021

Read Prof. David Zingg’s approach to making air travel greener. You can also listen to his take on the bigger picture of making flying greener on the What On Earth podcast. Read full article and listen to What on Earth Podcast: Green air travel is still decades away.

close up of covid-19 virus

Physics experiment underscores the value of triple-layer masking

March 8, 2021

An experimental study carried out by an international team of engineers and physicists has added more evidence for the value of triple-layer masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and similar diseases.  “Any form of mask is better than no mask,” says Professor Swetaprovo Chaudhuri (UTIAS), one of the co-authors of a new paper published today in Science […]

PEY Co-op student Erin Richardson standing next to autonomous robot

How a PEY Co-op student is helping develop a new generation of autonomous space robots

March 5, 2021

Erin Richardson (Year 3 EngSci) was in Grade 9 when she decided she wanted to be an astronaut. “We had a science unit on outer space, and I remember being completely fascinated by the vast scale of it all,” she says. “Thinking about how big the universe is, and how we’re […]

Portraits of Lyiope Jibodu, Akira Neckles, Alana Bailey, Dimpho Radebe, Mikhail Burke and Kelly-Marie Melville

Black History Month: Presidents reflect on the impact of National Society of Black Engineers at U of T

February 19, 2021

Kelly-Marie Melville (ChemE 1T2 + PEY) was in her dorm room, just two weeks into her studies at U of T Engineering, when a fellow student Korede Owolabi (CompE 1T5 + PEY) and member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) U of T chapter came knocking on her door. “He gave me a […]

NSBEHacks 2020 team

Toronto’s first-ever Black student-run hackathon returns for third year, going virtual and global

February 1, 2021

This weekend, 300 high school and university students will have 24 hours to code, design, build, network and learn from mentors at NSBEHacks 2021 — an event that aims to equalize the footing of Black and other minority students within science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. “Black-facilitated events like these are […]

Celera 500L airplane

Prof. David Zingg comments on weird-looking sustainable airplane designs

December 10, 2020

As an engineer for the U.S. military, Bill Otto Sr. worked on the Minuteman intercontinental missiles, developed new bodies for torpedoes and was chief scientist on the B-1 bomber avionics study. Then, after becoming a consultant, he shifted his attention to private airplane travel. He wanted a private jet, yet […]

A close-up of covid virus over a background of people

Improved COVID-19 model leverages flow physics of airborne respiratory droplet ‘clouds’

December 8, 2020

After nearly a year of studying COVID-19, scientists are still grappling with fundamental questions — including understanding the dominant modes of transmission and predicting how “superspreading” events arise. A newly improved model produced by engineers and physicists could help. Last summer, Professor Swetaprovo Chaudhuri (UTIAS) and his colleagues developed what […]

Professor Barfoot on a podium

Professor Tim Barfoot elected an IEEE Fellow

November 30, 2020

Professor Tim Barfoot (UTIAS) has been elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Robotics and Automation Society, for contributions to mobile robot navigation. “I am very grateful to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society for this honour,” said Barfoot. “As a kid building my first […]