MIE - newsletter 16

Meet and Greet Dinner
meetgreet Over 70 MIE faculty and their spouses gathered at the Messis Restaurant on Friday, October 16. The event provided everyone with the opportunity to connect with new colleagues and reconnect with the ones they already know.

First MIE Faculty and Staff Sporting Event:
Scenic Campus Jog, Followed by FREE Drinks!

For the inaugural MIE sporting event, the sports committee, together with Aimy Bazylak, is organizing a leisurely jog through the UofT downtown campus for MIE faculty and staff. The jog will wind through our lovely campus and take us by many of the beautiful architecturally distinct buildings and provide an opportunity to enjoy the vibrantly changing leaves. The jog will end at a nearby pub, and the department will pay for drinks.

For the more serious runners, there will be a 45 minute route. For the runners who just want a free drink, there will be a shorter 20 minute route.

The jog will take place on Friday, October 30 at 5:00 PM in front of MC134. An email with more details on the exact routes will be sent out next week to the faculty and staff listservs. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Roy Kwon, chair of the sports committee.

Email Contact for Newsletter
In the future, please send all correspondance and entries regarding the MIE Newsletter to newsletter@mie.utoronto.ca.
Thank you.

Funded Research

Professor Axel Guenther has received an OCE Project entitled Life-Organ Microscopy for Drug Development and Microvascular Studies. The co-principle investigator is Professor Steffen-Sebastian Bolz (Department of Physiology), in collaboration with Quorum Technologies (Guelph, ON) and Nanopoint Imaging (Honolulu, HI). The total funding is $83,835 for duration of 12 months.

Funded Research

Professor Olivera Kesler has received a subgrant of $58,000 per year for 5 years, from the NSERC Strategic Network for her work with Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Canada.

The Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Canada NSERC Strategic Network was established as a collaborative network of 17 university researchers and their industrial and government collaborators. The network is led by Professor Viola Birss from the University of Calgary, and the University of Toronto is a participant in the network, with the Fuel Cell Materials and Manufacturing Laboratory being the primary research group from U of T involved in the network.

Professor Kesler is a Theme Leader for one of the 4 network themes, fuel cell fabrication. The overall goal of the network is to facilitate the cleaner use of fuels that are readily available in Canada, such as natural gas and diesel fuel, for the generation of electricity with minimal air pollution and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The Toronto group will focus on the development and understanding of plasma spray fabrication methods to produce planar metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells at low cost and with high durability.

The 4th International Conference on Management and Service Science
Call for Papers

Location: Wuhan, China
Date: August 24-26, 2010
Submission Deadline: February 1, 2010

Please click here for details.

Important Message Regarding NSERC RTI Grant
For those who have submitted an NSERC RTI grant, you should have received an email acknowledgement from NSERC. If you have not received the acknowledgement, please contact
Anna Vanek immediately.

NSERC Discovery Grant Application
Please be reminded that Tuesday, October 27 is the UofT internal due date for NSERC Discovery Grant applications.

Elected Fellow
Congratulations to Professor Hani Naguib, who is now an elected Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) in the UK.

Privacy Technology Research Award
Congratulations to Reza Samavi, a PhD candidate supervised by Professor Toaloglou and Professor Mariano Consens for his receipt of a Privacy Technology Research Award for Reza's submission, titled Designing Privacy Architecture for Personal Health Records (PHRs). The award will be presented by the Ontario Privacy Commission Office on Wednesday, November 4th at the CASCON Conference.

M.A.Sc. Student Receives CMC TEXPO Research Competition and
Exhibition Award
Congratulations to James Chong (M.A.Sc. student), who has received the Micralyne Microsystems Design Award at the CMC TEXPO Research Competition and Exhibition held in Ottawa on October 13 to 14. The award includes a $3000 cash award. James's research is focused on controlling a surface-micromachined repulsive-force driven 2D micromirror to steer a laser beam for vector graphic display. James is co-supervised by Professor R. Ben Mrad and Professor S. He of Ryerson.

2009 Postdoctoral Fellows Orientation
The School of Graduate Studies invites you to the 2009 Postdoctoral Fellows Orientation. Join us at Victoria University on Thursday, October 29th for an evening of information about available services on campus and social networking opportunities. Welcome to the UofT Postdoctoral community!

Please click here for details.
You must register if you plan to attend.

Master Tuition Bursary for 2009-2010
Tuition fee bursaries are awarded to master's students who still have a small amount of work outstanding. These students will have been registered full-time from the beginning of their program and their minimum period of registration (i.e. program length) will have ended by or before either August or December of the current year. Students receiving tuition fee bursaries will not be eligible for fellowships, scholarships and other awards. Essentially the bursary allows the recipient to pay the part-time fee for one term.

Click here for details.

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 the application form, available on the SGS website.

Enter 5th/6th year of Doctoral Studies in January, 2010 - Application deadline: January 30th 2010.

Please click here for details.

Toronto Star Plant Tour
Date: November 12th, 2009
Time: 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Location: Toronto Star Print Plant

Tour Will Satisfy Student Interest In:

Manufactoring Sector;
Quality Control;
Printing Technology;
Mechanical Systems;
Factory Automation;
Optimization;
Real-Life Application of Engineering Knowledge;
And Much More!

Refreshments will be provided.
Transportation will be provided.

Cost for members is FREE ($5.00 deposit, refunded upon boarding bus).
Cost for non-members is $10.00.
Become a member to learn and save more.

Sign up for this event at the MIE Administration Office, MC134.

Job Opportunities

Position: Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Location: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED
Submission Deadline: January 15, 2010

The School of Engineering at the University of California, Merced invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor faculty position in the general area of computational mechanics, beginning July 1, 2010. Candidates with proven expertise in the following areas are especially encouraged to apply: finite-element modeling, optimization, and computational mechanics of solids, fluids and thermal systems. A Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering or a related field, and a demonstrated excellence in research are required.

Click here for more information and to apply.

Announcements

Halloween Coffee Break
pumpkins Next Friday, October 30th, AMIGAS will host a Halloween Coffee Break at 2:00 PM in the MIE graduate common room. In the spirit of Halloween we will have some spooktacular games with great prizes, including a costume contest, a Halloween trivia contest and a pumpkin carving contest!

Please email Craig with your team name (up to 4 people per team) to enter the pumpkin carving contest, taking place in the MIE graduate common room between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM on October 30.

Come out for coffee and Halloween tricks and treats with your friends and co-workers and wear a costume!

Skule Movember! 2009
For the Month of November, the Engineering Society's Community Outreach will be promoting Movember, a fantastic campaign where Skule's bravest gentlemen grow the best moustache they can during the month of November. This moustache is a lone stache, with no beard for backup. All money raised with this campaign goes towards Prostate Cancer Canada for cancer research and the promotion of men's health issues.

Sign Me Up!
If you would like to be one of these moustached crusaders (a MoBro, if you will), or if you are unable to grow a moustache, but would like to support these brave men (I'm looking at you, MoSistas), then go to movember.com and register on the Skule Team. From there, you can send out emails to get your family and friends to sponsor you.

beno I want to Donate!
If you want to support the cause by donating, go to movember.com and click Donate. Then click Donate to a Team, and type Skule in the Find a Team search. You can then pay by Mastercard, Visa, or American Express.

Our Overall Goal: If we raise $20,000 Professor Beno Benhabib has agreed to shave his moustache (which he has been sporting since first year University!!) at Movember 27th Suds!

Professor Dionne Aleman Participating in
200km Bike Ride to Find a Cure for Cancer
Professor Aleman is participating in the The Ride to Conquer Cancer benefiting The Princess Margaret Hospital (one of the top five cancer research centres in the world). The Ride is a bicycle trek from Toronto to Niagara Falls to fight cancer. Funds raised will support breakthrough research, exemplary teaching, and compassionate care at PMH. Please click here if you want to help find a cure for cancer, learn more about why Professor Aleman is doing The Ride, help her reach the minimum fundraising requirement of $2,500, or just ensure that she has the opportunity to have a major wipeout in front of lots of people.

Vacations

Teresa Lai-Ho, Research Accounts: October 1st to 30th
Geoffrey Chow, Financial Administrator: October 26th to 30th

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