The Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering is saddened to announce the passing of Professor Mark Chignell.
Professor Chignell’s life and career took him all over the world. Born in Ongar, Essex, United Kingdom, Chignell initially studied Psychology in New Zealand, completing his BSc at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch in 1977, and his PhD in Psychology at the same institution in 1981. He then taught Psychology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia for two years before moving to the Ohio State University as a Postdoctoral Fellow, while concurrently completing a Master of Science degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering in 1984. From 1984 to 1990 he was an Assistant Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California. He joined U of T Engineering as an Associate Professor in 1990 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2002. This year marks his 35th anniversary with the Faculty.
Bridging the worlds of Psychology and Engineering, Professor Chignell’s research spanned a variety of Human Factors domains, including user interface design, healthcare ergonomics, information management, multimedia, mobile computing, information visualisation, and social computing. Much of Professor Chignell’s more recent research focussed on aging technologies, in particular adaptive interfaces, health care, telecommunications and driving. Since 2015 he was one of the startup leaders and an active member of the AGE-WELL technology and aging network. The innovation and inventions that emerged from his research have contributed greatly to the potential for addressing challenges in e-commerce and healthcare, especially on behalf of older adults. (For more details of Professor Chignell’s contributions in that particular context, please see AGE-WELL’s In Memoriam announcement.)
Professor Chignell published over a hundred journal articles and wrote or co-edited several books. From 2013 to 2017 he was Director of the University of Toronto’s Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) and he also held the Bell University Labs (BUL) Chair in Human-Computer Interaction. He was a visiting scientist at the National University of Singapore from 1989 to 1990, and at Keio University in Japan from 2004 to 2012, as well as at the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies in Toronto.
Professor Chignell also founded two companies to help bring his innovations to the marketplace. His first company, Vocalage Inc. (2003-23) specialized in usability consulting, outsourced research, and software development. In 2016 Professor Chignell founded Centivizer Inc. to design products — including video games — that motivate physical activity, helping to combat functional decline in the aging population. Some of the systems he developed are currently in use in dozens of long-term care, assisted living and community sites in Canada and Japan.
Mark is survived by his wife Sachi, three sons and extended family. He will be missed immensely by the entire U of T community.