MIE - newsletter 09

MIE Website Launch
The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering is putting a clean, modern face to our web presence. Today is the first day of the new MIE website, designed and built by Prof. Dionne Aleman with assistance from ECE undergraduate student Eric Lin. The website is organized and formatted to make information-finding easy; nothing is more than a few clicks away. We also recognize the work of standout professors and students on the home page to promote our excellence to our online visitors, including prospective students. The site is modularized and largely database-controlled, thus keeping the site consistent and up-to-date with current content is almost effortless for our staff and administrators.
We hope you will enjoy our new website!

Please email Prof. Aleman if you experience any problems.

Invited Seminar
Title: “Bottom-up” Self-Assembly of Nano-Enabled Flexible MEMS/Electronics

Invited Speaker: Prof. Tianhong Cui, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota

Time: 3:10 - 4:00PM

Date: Friday, Sept. 11, 2009

Location: CCBR Red Room, Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (CCBR)
160 College Street

This talk will present the combination of “bottom-up" layer-by-layer (LbL) nano self-assembly and “top-down” micromanufacturing techniques for MEMS and electronics for biomedical applications. With nano self-assembly and surface micromachining, highly flexible nanoparticle-based cantilever platform for micro sensing and actuation was fabricated successfully. For flexible electronics devices, self-assembled silica nanoparticle thin film acted as the dielectric layer for field-effect transistors. Nanoparticle- and carbon nanotube-based field-effect transistors with embedded self-assembled films as dielectric and active layers were fabricated and characterized successfully as well. These self-assembled field-effect transistors were primarily investigated for high-performance bio-sensing applications. Coffee and cookies will be served and everyone is invited to attend.

Click here for more information.

Seminar Series
Dr. John W.M. Bush, Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a University of Toronto Alumnus, will open the MIE Departmental Seminar Series this fall. He will present a Distinguished Lecture titled, The Fluid Trampoline: Droplets Bouncing on a Soap Film. Coffee and cookies will be served and everyone is welcome to attend.

Best Paper Award
Congratulations to Professor Jean Zu, who has been awarded the Best Paper Award under the category "Applications" at the 5th ASME/IEEE International Conference on Mechatronic and Embedded Systems and Applications, held in San Diago Aug. 30 to Sept. 2. The paper is co-authored by Alireza Hariri and is entitled Design of a Tissue Resonator indenter device for measurement of soft tissue viscoelastic properties using parametric identification.

Small Talks Event
small talks participants

The Small Talks event held on August 27 was the Toronto Microfluidic Foundry's open house. The graduate student-run event consists of 7 small talks (7 slides, 7 minutes) that showcased unique and interesting microfluidic fabrication techniques and applications. The goals of the event were to introduce students new to or interested in microfluidics to useful techniques as well as act as an open venue for people to discuss any issues they may have been having with their work. The 7 talks were complemented by 7 flavours of ice cream and Quorum Technologies generously donated prizes for the top 3 talks.

The Toronto Microfluidics Foundry, directed by Axel Guenther, Craig A. Simmons, and Jonathan V. Rocheleau (IBBME) is a state-of-the-art multi-user facility specializing in the fabrication of polymer-based microdevices for biomedical applications. The facility has dedicated Class 1000 Cleanroom space, capable of aligning multilayer soft lithography and protein spotting. The Foundry is actively used by approximately 15 research groups from the University of Toronto and its associated hospitals.

Click here to visit the facility website.

Ph.D. Final Oral Exam
Becky Hooey, will present The Development and Evaluation of a Model of Time-of-Arrival Uncertainty
Date: Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009
Time: 2:00PM
Location: R.D. Venter Room (MB101), Mining Building, 170 College Street
Exam Committee: Prof. Edgar Acosta (Examination Chair, Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry), Prof. P. Milgram (Supervisor), Prof. G.A. Jamieson, Prof. J.W. Senders and Prof. I. Spence
External Examiner: Prof. Esa Markus Rantanen (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Ph.D. Final Oral Exam

Xinyu Liu, will present Microrobotic Manipulation and characterization of Biological Cells
Date: Sept. 11 , 2009
Time: 9:30AM
Location: Room 303, 63 St. George Street, School of Graduate Studies
Exam Committee: Prof. Bob Abraham (Examination Chair, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics), Prof. Y. Sun (Supervisor), Prof. C. Simmons, Prof. L. You and Prof. G. Nejat
External Examiner: Prof. Tianhong Cui (University of Minnesota)

Welcome New and Returning Graduate Students
BBQ and Social
On Friday, Sept. 11th, AMIGAS is having a BBQ and evening social to help get the new academic year off to a good start. These events are free for MIE grad students, faculty and staff. The BBQ will be in front of the Mechanical Engineering building at 12 pm, and the social will be at the Duke of York (39 Prince Arthur Ave) at 7:30 pm. Snacks will be served at the Duke, and new students will get a free drink.

Graduate Student Orientation
On Sept. 11, AMIGAS is holding the following events as part of the new student orientation:

A campus tour, starting at 11:45 am in front of Mechanical Engineering building
A departmental welcome from Chair Professor Zu and other speakers at 1:15 pm in MB123
A sexual harassment presentation, at 2:00 pm in MB128 (this is mandatory for new students who will be TAs in the upcoming year)
TA training, at 2:20 pm in MB 128 (also mandatory for new TAs)

Volunteers are needed for the following roles and timeslots:

Fruit and Veggie preparation: 10:00 - 11:30AM (2 people)
Setup: 11:00AM - 12:00PM (2 people)
BBQ setup and warm-up: 10:45 - 11:30AM (1 person)
BBQ operation: 11:15AM - 1:00PM (3 people)
Other food maintenance: 11:45AM - 1:00PM (2 people)
Cleanup: 1:00 - 2:00PM (The more people the better)

To contact AMIGAS to volunteer.

Click here for detailed information on these events.

NSERC Workshop for Engineering Students,
Run by the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
Date: Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009
Time: 1:00 - 3:30PM
Location: Mining Building Rm. 128

NSERC Workshop for Engineering Students,
Run by SGS
Date: Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009
Time: 10:00AM - 12:00PM
Location: Medical Sciences Building Rm. 3154

NSERC and OGS Application Deadlines
NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships (PGS/CGS): Monday, Oct. 5, 2009
Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS): Monday, Oct. 12, 2009
NSERC and OGS applications are submitted to the MIE Graduate Studies office, RS214.
Applications for postdoctoral fellowships are submitted directly to NSERC.

Doctoral Thesis Completion Grant for 2009-2010
The Doctoral Thesis Completion Grant is awarded to domestic and international doctoral students who are registered full-time, paying full-time fees, and currently in their 5th or 6th year of study. Students can receive the grant in both their 5th and 6th year of study and need to apply each year.
Click here for information.

To enter 5th/6th year of Doctoral Studies in May 2009: Application deadline is Sept. 30th 2009
To enter 5th/6th year of Doctoral Studies in September 2009: Application deadline is Sept. 30th 2009
To enter 5th/6th year of Doctoral Studies in January 2010: Application deadline is Jan. 30th 2010
Please click here for details.

Registration 2009/2010
Deadline for registration and submission of Enrolment Forms to the MIE Graduate Office is Sept. 11th.
Click here for registration information.
Fall 2009 Graduate Course Schedule is coming soon.
Please check the MIE Graduate website regularly for information.

November 2009 Convocation: M.A.Sc. and M.Eng. Students
M.A.Sc. and M.Eng. students planning to graduate in November 2009 must complete all degree requirements by Sept. 30, 2009. Please send your graduation request to Brenda Fung by Sept. 23, 2009. Click here for details.

November 2009 Convocation: Ph.D. Students
Ph.D. students planning to graduate in November 2009 must complete all degree requirements by October 2, 2009. Click here for details.

Announcement

Early Closure
The MIE Machine Shop will be closed today (Friday, Sept. 4) at 2:00PM, and the Administrative Offices will be closed at 3:00PM for the Labour Day Weekend. We will reopen for regular business hours on Tuesday, September 8th. Thank you and have a safe and happy long weekend!

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