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F ALL 2008 WWW . ENGINEERING . UALBERTA . CA
Celebrating a Century of Engineering Excellence
From Humble Paul Tichelaar Robert Ritter Beginnings Going the Distance PhD Pioneer ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:18 AM Page 2 Message from the Dean VISION ne hundred years ago Alberta was in its infancy and required the skills and talents To be one of the largest and Oof engineers to shape the province, tackling everything from ensuring the safety and security of fresh water and crops to the building of roads, sewers and rail lines. most accomplished The University of Alberta’s first engineering professor, William Muir Edwards, set the engineering teaching and standard for our Faculty. Muir Edwards played a crucial role in helping the City of Strathcona to treat its drinking water. Historic records demonstrate that his work was vital research centres, a leader in in ending typhoid outbreaks being spread by poor water treatment. Muir Edwards died in North America. 1918 caring for the sick during the Spanish flu epidemic. It’s a tragic story but also one that describes the calibre of individuals involved in the early days of our engi - neering programs, and their sense of service to society. This ethic has become a hallmark of the Faculty of Engineering. MISSION
This year we celebrate the university’s Centenary, 100 years of engineering To prepare top quality education, and our 20,000th graduate from the Faculty. Our alumni are engineering professionals, unique individuals who have done special things with their lives, having an impact not only on themselves, but also on their families and society. Many to conduct world-leading have seen the strong foundation their education has provided for them and research, and to celebrate have seen the way to support the next generation, empowering us to progress even further. the first-class reputation and outstanding Our alumni have been instrumental in the development of our city, our province, and beyond – helping others around the world to thrive and prosper. accomplishments of alumni.
Today, you only need to chat a few minutes with our students to discover they too possess a real sense of service, a desire to help others. That’s why we’ve seen such demand for new ALUES program areas such as biomedical engineering, where you can see the direct impact of V engineering on the human body. In all of our disciplines, students are saying, “This is the Dedication, integrity, way I would like to make my mark on society and help others.” professionalism, and It is proof that there remains in our Faculty a ‘high nobility’ that was perhaps best excellence in teaching, expressed during our earliest days, when our university and Faculty were being estab - lished. We still find the same sentiments among our faculty, staff and students today – that research, and service to desire to build and strengthen our communities. Together, we have made a difference. the global economy and Together, we continue on the path of service and change. community. Yours truly,
David T. Lynch, PhD, P.Eng. Dean of Engineering
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Table Fall 2008 of Contents
COVER STORY 5 Celebrating a century Alberta, 1908: the threads that weave the Faculty of Engineering into the fabric of our history begin here. The founder of Alberta’s university, Henry Marshall Tory, knows the frontier set - tlements need well-educated men and women capable of breathing life into our province and the University of Alberta opens its doors offering, among other things, an education in engineering.
FEATURES 5 22 Going the Distance 26 Awarding Pride Olympic triathlete Paul Tichelaar There was a time when a new engi - (Electrical ’05) battled his way to neering building on campus didn’t Beijing, training then racing in hostile have women’s warshrooms. Today, a heat and humidity. He comes home growing number of female engineer - not with a medal, but with honour ing students are earning national and pride, and the experience of a recognition for academic excellence. lifetime. And that’s priceless. 28 PhD Pioneer Robert Ritter (MSc Chemical ’54), the Faculty of Engineering’s first PhD student, didn’t want to work at a cookie-cutter job. Instead, he chose to design the cookie cutters, embark - ing on a remarkable, inventive career that has improved lives and changed the world. 32 Perfect Student Continues to Grow Lindsay Leblanc (Engineering Physics 28 ’03) worked hard and earned perfect grades en route to her degree. Since then, she’s earned an A-minus, but 24 From humble beginnings there’s no doubt she’ll handily earn 32 Without professional accreditation the physics PhD she’s pursuing at the for engineers, Alberta in 1908 was University of Toronto. ripe territory for scoundrels who claimed the title but lacked the 34 Continuing a Tradition education. Professional credentials, of Giving DEPARTMENTS regulation, and governance were as Engineers by nature work in essential as the infrastructure our service of society. The Faculty of 31 In Memoriam early engineers built. Engineering’s new planned giving counsel helps our alumni to support 35 Kudos the causes and institutions they’re passionate about.
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EnUogfA ineer Message from Fall 2008 Issue 26 the U of A Engineer is the Faculty Editor of Engineering alumni magazine. It is published three times a year by the Dean's here can be no better time to join the Faculty of Engineering and to take on editor - Office and is distributed to Faculty of Tship of U of A Engineer than during the university’s centenary — and the 100th Engineering alumni, friends, and staff. anniversary of Engineering at the University of Alberta. Dean of Engineering The timing provides a perfect excuse to immerse one’s self in the history and proud traditions of the Faculty, to learn the stories of those who have led the David T. Lynch way in teaching, research, and community service, the impressive achievements (PhD Chemical '82), P.Eng. of our alumni, and the exciting potential of today’s students and researchers. Acting Assistant Dean, As surely as the university and the province sat at the frontier in 1908, we External Relations are at a new kind of frontier today. Our students learn at the side of some of Laurie Shinkaruk the world’s best and brightest — professors who are also renowned researchers External Relations Team — using tools and technologies our founders could never have imagined. Peggy Hansen, Katherine Irwin, The achievements of our alumni — the tremendous impact they’ve had on society — is testament to the student experience in the Faculty of Engineering. Linda Kelly, Nena Jocic-Andrejevic, To my newcomer’s eye, it appears more and more to me that the common Leanne Nickel, Jamie Reid, denominators in all the engineering disciplines are an insatiable curiosity and and Erica Viegas desire to learn, a genuine belief that there are no setbacks – only challenges, and the tenac - Publisher/Managing Editor ity to overcome those challenges. Fine qualities indeed. Richard Cairney I have been working with the University of Alberta for the past seven years — and it is Copy Editor indeed an honour to join the Faculty of Engineering. This issue of U of A Engineer cannot Scott Rollans claim to be a definitive history of our Faculty, but it does provide us with a sense of our past, our present and our future. In my capacity as editor of U of A Engineer , I look for - Art Direction ward to meeting more alumni, learning of your achievements and sharing the your stories. Halkier + Dutton Strategic Design Yours truly, Contributing writers and photographers Blue Fish Studios, Andrea Collins, Caitlin Crawshaw, Aimee Maxfield, April Serink, Richard Cairney Ryan Smith, and Bruce White Editor Send your comments to: Richard Cairney Faculty of Engineering Letter to the Editor E6-050 Engineering Teaching and Learning Complex Welcome in my mailbox anytime University of Alberta Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4 I just received my U of A Engineering Magazine today and had to write you Tel: 780.492.4514 or 1.800.407.8354 and tell you how much I enjoyed the articles. They were all thoughtfully written and topical. Nice going, and thanks for all your hard work. I do Fax: 780.492.0500 look forward to the next one! E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.engineering.ualberta.ca Too bad we missed an issue due to staff shortages, I suppose this is happen - ing everywhere in Alberta these days, since I now have to wait a very long time for my coffee at “Tim’s”. Publications Mail Agreement I found the mix of technical and personal information in each article made No. 40051128 for interesting and informative reading. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Faculty of Engineering, Keep up the good work, and thanks again. University of Alberta E6-050 Engineering Teaching Doug Murdoch and Learning Complex Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4 e-mail: [email protected]
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Celebrating a century of engineering excellence by Richard Cairney
hile scouring the U of A archives for historic photographs of the WFaculty of Engineering we uncovered a letter from William Muir Edwards, one of the first four professors teaching at the University of Alberta. An engineer, Muir Edwards taught applied science and civil engineering—and served his pioneer community. In a letter to the mayor and council of the City of Strathcona (in those days, the south side, where the university was located, was still a separate city), Muir Edwards reports that a new water treatment facility has brought an end to water-borne disease afflicting Strathcona’s residents. “Since the sterilizing plant has been in operation there have been no new cases of typhoid except those coming from houses in which typhoid cases were being nursed,” he writes. The letter, dated January 21, 1911, reflects our province in its infancy, and the commitment to community service that lies at the heart of the Faculty of Engineering and Alberta’s university. Muir Edwards died November 14, 1918—his thirty-ninth birthday. Pembina Hall had been converted to a hospital during the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic. While tending the sick there, Muir Edwards succumbed to the disease. It was no accident that, when it opened in 1908, the University of Alberta began educating engineers. Since then, our professors and alumni have had a profound and lasting impact on every aspect of life in our province. You can read the history of engineering in Alberta—the stories of our engineer - ing alumni and professors—in the roads that criss-cross the Prairie and scale Rocky Mountain passes, in the bridges that span rivers, in the structures that define our communities, even in the comfort and safety of our own homes. In 1908, five University of Alberta students began their engineering education. Today the Faculty of Engineering ranks in size among the top five percent of more than 400 engineering schools in North America, with about 3,800 undergraduate and 1,200 graduate students. Our province prospers and our university achieves beyond the wildest dreams of its founders. Learning alongside professors who are internationally renowned for their research, today’s students, like those before them, will address society’s most pressing needs. They will apply their education and creativity to new challenges in biomedical engineering, nanotechnology, energy and the environment, and information and communications technologies. In doing so they will serve our communities, near and far, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, and blazing new trails for those who will follow them. The following stories recount some of the history of our Faculty, the achievements of our alumni, and the aspirations of our students. Enjoy.
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Celebrating a century of engineering excellence Civil Engineering 99 years of civil engineering
at the U of A by Bruce White s e c i v r e S e v i t a e r C A f o U / s e v i h c r A n o t n o m d E f o y t i C
April 27, 1929 – workers pause during construction of a relief sewer beneath the streets of Edmonton. Fast forward to 2001: Civil Engineering professor Simaan AbouRizk, shown here in a storm relief sewer he acted as consultant on, is awarded the prestigious NSERC Steacie Fellowship for outstanding engineers. AbouRizk holds the NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair in Construction Engineering and Management.
s the University of Alberta cele - four departments in the Faculty of it was housed in borrowed classrooms in a brates its 100th birthday in Engineering. It offers degrees in Petroleum Strathcona public school with four professors 2008, one of the successes it can Engineering, Mining Engineering and three and 45 full- and part-time students. Staff A justly take pride in is being flavours of Civil Engineering: General, were picked by the U of A’s first president, Dr. home to the largest civil engi - Environmental and Biomedical. It also enrols Henry Marshall Tory, a McGill-trained neering school in Canada, and one of the top more graduate students than any other physicist, mathematician and theologian five in North America, with 800 undergradu - department on the U of A campus. from Nova Scotia. Dr. Tory had a career like ate and 400 graduate students. It is difficult today to imagine an institu - no one else in Canadian learning. Before Today’s Department of Civil and tion with humbler beginnings than the arriving at the U of A, he helped to found a Environmental Engineering is the largest of University of Alberta in 1908. In its first year forerunner of the University of British
6 U o fAEngineer Fall 2008 ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:22 AM Page 7 t i m Columbia. During the 1914-18 war, he set up allurgical (1914), electrical (1925), and History of “Khaki University” in England, which chemical (1928). e trained 50,000 Canadian soldiers. After retir - The period between the two world wars Civil ing from the U of A he moved to Ottawa, saw Canadian engineers organize themselves Engineering l i
where he was founding president of the into a self-regulating profession. As a young n National Research Council in 1928 and civil engineering professor, Robert Starr Leigh 1887 Canadian Society for Civil e Carleton University in 1942. Wilson was a key figure in the passing of the Engineering founded. In the U of A’s second year, 1909, five stu - Alberta Engineering Profession Act of 1920 1908 University of Alberta opens dents enrolled in the its new Department of and served as the first registrar of the with 45 students and four profes - Civil and Municipal Engineering. This first Association of Professional Engineers and later sors. class of U of A engineers, who graduated in its president. A specialist in railway construc - 1913, was taught by William Muir Edwards, tion, Wilson was dean of the faculty from 1929 1909 Department of Civil and Municipal Engineering is created. a professor of mathematics and civil engineer - to 1946, a watch consisting of the Great William Muir Edwards is the U of ing who had come west from McGill Depression followed by the Second World War. A’s first engineering professor. University in 1908. During the influenza epi - During the depression, the university bud - demic of 1918, Pembina Hall was pressed into get was slashed by a third, staff salaries were 1913 First graduating class of five engineers. service as an emergency hospital to care for repeatedly cut and the work of the Alberta flu-stricken Edmontonians and Prof. Muir Research Council was suspended. Without 1915 Construction of the Civil Edwards volunteered to help care for patients. adding staff, the number of students in the Engineering Building (South Lab). He contracted the disease and died at age 39. engineering faculty rose from 260 in 1930 to 1918 Prof. Muir Edwards dies, a Another early-round pick for the universi - 300 in 1940. victim of worldwide influenza. ty was an electrical engineer from McGill, Dr. Robert M. Hardy joined the department 1953 Civil Engineering Building Robert William Boyle, a Newfoundlander in 1930 from the universities of Manitoba, completed. who was recruited by Dr. Tory in 1912 to McGill and Michigan and is credited with head the physics department. During the First making the U of A a substantial graduate 1956 U of A establishes Canada’s first graduate program in civil World War instruction in engineering was school for civil engineering. He was a head of engineering. suspended and Dr. Boyle went to Manchester, the department, dean of engineering and England, to work on early versions of sonar, found time to run R.M. Hardy and 1980 Professorship established in construction engineering. s which could detect a submarine submerged Associates Ltd., which consulted on highway e c i v r up to a mile away. Dr. Boyle later became the and airport projects across Canada. 1981 Faculty of Engineering e S e
v introduces co-op study. i first head of the Department of Electrical If one wanted to write a sweeping novel t a e r Engineering, the first Dean of Engineering of life in the middle of the 20th century, one C 1983 Centre for Frontier A f
o and would move on to a distinguished career could find worse models than Leonard Gads. Engineering Research established. U /
s at the National Research Council. He was born in 1907 to wealthy Russian par - e v
i 1994 Establishment of C.W. Carry h
c Another arrival in 1912 was a New ents who fled to China after the revolution. r Chair in Steel Structures. A
n Englander with the magnificent name of His father died and he ended up driving a cab o t n o Ibrahim Folinsbee Morrison, who was recruit - in the Manchurian city of Harbin to support 1995 B.Sc in Civil Environmental m d
E option offered.
f ed from the civil engineering staff at MIT. his family. He came to Canada at the age of o y t i Morrison taught the first soil mechanics course 19 and was an overworked farm labourer in 2002 A $5-million donation from C at a Canadian university and was remembered the Wetaskiwin area for 10 years until he the Hole family, whose construction by early U of A engineering grads as an inspir - saved up enough money to enroll in civil company Lockerbie and Hole ing teacher. He consulted on construction of engineering at the U of A, graduating in traces its roots back to 1898, creates the Hole School of Edmonton’s Rossdale power plant and the 1939. During the Second World War, Gads Construction Engineering. Ghost Dam on the Bow River west of Calgary. taught navigation to Royal Canadian Air In 1919 the U of A enjoyed a record Force and Commonwealth recruits and after 2004 The $65 million Allan P. enrolment of more than 1,000 students, the war served as an interpreter with the Markin/Canadian Natural Resources Limited Natural many of them returning soldiers who had allied occupying force in Berlin. Hardy Resources Engineering Facility served their country in the First World War. brought him back to the U of A to take on a (NREF) opens. The Department of Civil and Municipal teaching load that included surveying, astron - 2007 Engineering remained a modest enterprise, omy, graphics and an orientation course on Civil biomedical option degree introduced. giving out fewer than 10 B.Sc degrees per about the engineering profession. He retired year until the outbreak of the Second World in 1971 as an associate dean. War. New disciplines in engineering were In 1948, petroleum engineering was added added to the U of A calendar: mining & met - as a new discipline in the Faculty, and the dis -
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A leading expert in cold- The 1980s and early 1990s saw many dra - climate engineering, civil engineering professor Dave matic changes. The introduction of a co-op Sego conducts research in a learning program in the Faculty of Engineering cold lab at the Canadian in 1981 gave students two benefits they could - Centre for Frontier Engineering Research. n’t find in a classroom or lab: real-world expe - rience and a regular paycheque. Currently, 45 to 50 per cent of civil engineering students are in the co-op program. Civil engineering students at the end of the 1980s were able to observe the biggest civil construction projects of the period virtually under their feet: the extension of Edmonton’s LRT system across the river to the University station. Regular tours of the various worksites were arranged for the students. Of particular interest was the new bridge named after an s e c i
v early U of A civil engineering grad and former r e S
e city commissioner Dudley B. Menzies. v i t a e
r Completed in 1990 at a modest cost of $13.3 C
A million, the LRT and footbridge were con - f o
U structed of 216 precast concrete girders each 2.5 metres long and held together by 253 km covery of oil near Leduc set the course for post - department members included: Dr. David of high-strength, post-tensioned steel cable. war Alberta. In the 1950s and 1960s, the U of Murray in structural engineering, Drs. Don Without fanfare, and despite an unsuc - A sent numerous civil engineering graduates to Scott and Eisenstein in geotechnical engineer - cessful attempt to impose quotas on foreign major engineering schools in the U.S. and ing, Dr. Nallamuthu Rajaratnam in water students, the department acquired an interna - Great Britain for doctoral studies, including resources and Dr. Daniel Smith in environ - tional flavour. By 1990-91, only 38.8 per cent Illinois, Berkeley, Lehigh and Birmingham. mental engineering. of graduate students in civil engineering were Many returned to join the U of A faculty and The 1980s and early 1990s were a time of from Canada: nearly as many came from became the backbone of the department in the retrenchment. There were fewer students due Asia and one in seven were from Africa. 1970s and 1980s. to quotas and waves of cost-cutting culminat - But the dismal science of economics took Others came to the U of A to escape trou - ing in Premier Ralph Klein’s across-the-board its toll. By 1991, a hiring freeze was imposed, bles in other parts of the world. At least three cutbacks in 1993. The influx of teaching and travel budgets were slashed and even the professors arrived from Czechoslovakia after research talent dried to a trickle. Of the hand - department’s allocation to buy journals was the 1968 uprising, including Stan Tepley ful of staff hired in this period, most went on cut by $10,549. The faculty’s enrollment (who specialized in urban transportation), to successful careers that continue today. quota was ratcheted down. It was decided in Eva Knetting (environmental engineering) Dr. David Sego, who received his PhD 1991 to terminate the mining engineering and Zdenek Eisenstein (tunnelling). from the U of A in 1980, is a world leader in program, which had been a pillar of the engi - The opening of the I.F. Morrison building structures on permafrost. Dr. neering faculty since 1914. However, the Structural Engineering Laboratory in the Simaan M. AbouRizk holds three research mining industry and the Alberta Chamber of 1960s gave the department the ability to test chairs and is a professor in the Construction Resources rallied to deliver funding for pro - large concrete, steel timber and masonry Engineering Management program, which fessorships and save the program. That structures as well as advanced materials. It was established in the department in by Prof. resulted in a series of hires in the mid-1990s, also opened to door to research into ways to S. Peter Dozzi in the 1980s. including Dr. Clayton Deutsch, from assess, repair and extend the lifespan of exist - Dr. Roger Cheng began his engineering Stanford University, who teaches graduate ing structures instead of costly replacement. education in Taiwan and arrived from the courses in geostatics and heads the U of A By the late 1980s, the department could University of Texas in 1984. In 1997 he School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering. claim leadership in several fields of research. became the second holder of the C.W. Carry A reorganization of the faculty in 1996 Dr. James MacGregor was a world-recog - Chair in Steel Structures, which through the brought another major change to Civil nized expert in reinforced concrete structures, generosity of an Edmonton steel fabricator Engineering: the addition of the environ- while Dr. Norbert Morgenstern was a geot - became the first fully endowed chair in the U mental, petroleum and mining units to the echnical engineer with a specialty in slope of A Faculty of Engineering. Dr. Cheng department. A fifth discipline of biomedical stability. Both have retired from the universi - became chair of the Department of Civil and engineering has since been added, across the ty with honorary doctorates. Other leading Environmental Engineering in 2002. Faculty.
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Dr. Cheng wants us to break through our stereotyped In the decade leading up to the University resource engineering. But civil engineers will of Alberta’s centennial, rising prosperity and thinking and put civil become involved with biomedical engineering surging enrolment have enabled the depart - engineers in leadership as well. A bone, after all, is a structural ele - ment to recruit people to branch into new ment. The flow of blood through our bodies positions in all kinds of areas and build on the legacy of previous gen - can be expressed in terms of fluid mechanics. erations. New buildings in the engineering fields; some traditional but The strains on our knees when we run are complex on campus attest to the resurgence others quite surprising. due to friction and wear, so there are struc - of the faculty. Growing enrolments, funding tural engineers who specialize in knee joints. and sponsored research have allowed the Dr. Cheng believes opportunities for Department of Civil and Environmental future civil engineers are greater than ever. Engineering to build on its strengths in geot - petroleum engineers: dealing with wastewater, Their training as problem solvers and ability
echnical and structural engineering and to CO 2 sequestration and producing the gas. to work in multi-disciplinary teams will equip spread into other areas as well. The result is Nanotechnology will have an impact in them for the pressing environmental and a more balanced, well-rounded department, unexpected places, including Alberta’s poplar social challenges of the 21st century: infra - says Chairman Dr. Roger Cheng. forests. Nanotechnology can be applied to structure deficit, water quality, air quality, Civil engineers use new technologies to wood fibre to strengthen it for use in value- greenhouse gas and the building of cities for solve new problems, and old problems, too. added wood products such as engineered joists. the future that are sustainable, healthy and That could mean applying materials created Dr. Cheng wants us to break through our livable. Just as Dr. Tory and Prof. Muir in a nanotechnology lab to the treatment of stereotyped thinking and put civil engineers Edwards had intended. wastewater, or finding ways to extract and in leadership positions in all kinds of fields, (An excellent history of the first 80 years clean water from tailings ponds to reduce the some traditional but others quite surprising. of engineering studies at the U of A can be water consumed in resource extraction. As the In its five-year plan the department focuses found in Dr. George Ford’s 1988 book, Sons gas industry begins to exploit coal bed on infrastructure engineering, and manage - of Martha: University of Alberta Faculty of methane, more challenges arise for civil and ment, cold climate engineering and natural Engineering 1913-1988. ) Notable people in Civil Engineering
Robert William Boyle — Physicist hired by Zdenek Eisenstein — An expert on Norbert R. Morgenstern — Headed the U of A in 1912, an early sonar researcher, tunneling who was voted best teacher in geotechnical program in the 1980s and the first head of the Department of Electrical the Faculty of Engineering for 1992, consulted on dozens of major projects Engineering and the first Dean of Dan Eisenstein consulted on the English around the world. Chair, 1994-97; Engineering. Channel Tunnel. University Professor; honorary doctoral William Muir Edwards — One of the Leonard Gads — A refugee of the Russian degree 2007. original four faculty members at the U of A Revolution who came to Alberta at the age Ibrahim Folinsbee Morrison — Taught the in 1908, Edwards was a professor of of 19. Worked as a farm labourer for 10 first classes in soil mechanics in a Canadian mathematics and civil engineering. He died years to save up enough money to study university and consulted on a number of after selflessly caring for the sick during the engineering at the U of A. He retired in Alberta hydro dam projects in the 1920s influenza epidemic of 1918. 1971 as an associate dean. and 1930s. David Sego — Received PhD from U of A in 1980 and joined the department’s geotechnical program. A leading global expert on cold-climate engineering.
Robert William Boyle William Muir Edwards Leonard Gads Ibrahim Foilnsbee Morrison
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Celebrating a century of engineering excellence Electrical and Computer Engineering eyes onpthre ize by Bruce White
he opening of the Alberta The bureaucrat informed James that he Microelectronics Centre in 1982 had been planning to hand his recommenda - proved a milestone in the devel - tions the next day to Herb Gray, the senior T opment of today’s Department minister in Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet who of Electrical and Computer would make the decision. However, he said, Engineering. It marked a big step in the Gray was suffering from the flu and might department’s evolution from a teaching unit need to delay the decision. to a leader in research. James rushed a 40-page brief to Ottawa The centre quickly became a magnet for and, before long, found himself at the airport researchers and microchip designers from greeting a delegation sent, ostensibly, to eval - across Canada. It served as the launching pad uate the U of A bid. James drove his guests to for a renowned Edmonton microdevice fabri - a downtown hotel, and they sat down in the cation company that now employs more than lounge together for drinks. Over a round of 150 people. And it created a community of beers, the guests admitted that, in reality, they expertise that, two decades later, made it pos - had been sent to break the bad news. While sible for the University of Alberta to become the higher-ups in Industry, Trade and the home of the National Institute for Commerce were impressed with the proposal, Nanotechnology. this wasn’t going to be the U of A’s turn. But the birth of the Alberta James refused to take no for an answer. Microelectronics Centre required political Presentations went ahead the next day, and brinkmanship worthy of a Cold War missile James told faculty members to punch hard and treaty negotiation. In fact, when the federal heavy. They hammered away all day and didn’t Today’s electrical and computer engineering students learn using state-of-the-art technology. government decided in the early 1980s to stop until 6:30. Even then, with the feds plead - invest $1 million each in three research cen - ing for mercy, James didn’t let up. At a banquet tres across Canada, it hadn’t even considered in the Faculty Club, James proposed a toast: in his projects. James had the ear of his MLA, the U of A, recalls Dr. C.R. (Bob) James, chair “To the Alberta Microelectronics Centre.” The Neil Crawford, and other ministers in the of electrical engineering at the time. The U of U of A profs stood and raised their glasses, government of Peter Lougheed, which was A found out about the plan only days before while the visitors sat frozen at their places. eager to diversify the Alberta economy. That an announcement was to be made. James kept the pressure on, lining up a relationship was highlighted in 1983 when James immediately telephoned a senior meeting with Gray and persuading him to Lougheed cut the ribbon on a new lab dedi - research bureaucrat in Ottawa and gave him expand the list to six universities. The U of A cated to CAD/CAM (computer-aided an earful: “Don’t you realize that we have the got $200,000 a year for five years to get into design/computer-aided manufacturing). third-largest electrical engineering department the high-tech business of microelectronics. The Alberta Microelectronics Centre was in the country?” Furthermore, the U of A met Dr. Clarence Capjack, who a decade later quickly followed by other successes. The every criterion the federal industry depart - would chair Computer and Electrical Alberta Laser Institute opened in 1985, build - ment had set for the centres (except perhaps Engineering, believes James succeeded not ing on laser and plasma research begun two an unwritten requirement of being located in only because of his political toughness, but decades earlier by Dr. George Walker. The a riding represented by a Liberal MP). because of his ability to involve other people Alberta Telecommunications Research
10 U o fAEngineer Fall 2008 ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:24 AM Page 11 t i m History of
Electrical e
Engineering l i n
1912 Dr. Robert William Boyle becomes head of the physics e department.
1925 Department of Electrical Engineering is created; Boyle named chair.
1930 CKUA joins first cross- s
e Canada educational radio network. v i h c r
A 1931 Ward Porteous joins the A f
o department; earns its first M.Sc. in U electrical engineering in 1933. Electrical engineering class of 1942. With the Second World War raging, the department taught short courses in radio electronics to hundreds of RCAF personnel. 1941 Department begins to give special courses in electronics for Centre opened the following year, the culmi - seven graduates. He helped build the original naval and air force personnel. nation of years of discussions that had begun CKUA radio transmitter on campus, and 1958 Calgary Power donates a with the concept of a western outpost of the wired CKUA into Canada’s first educational Brown-Boveri Network Analyzer to Bell Northern Research Lab. Any way you radio network. During the Second World War, stimulate utility research. measure it, James was on a winning streak. he conducted classified research into antennas 1964 Dr. G.B. Walker becomes Early days and taught electronics courses for the department head. Canadian military. His teaching career at the Research in electrical engineering at the 1972 Nine faculty members receive University of Alberta traces its roots to the U of A continued into the 1970s. a $638,000 grant for the develop - dawn of the 20th century and the remarkable Between 1939 and 1945, the department ment of laser and plasma physics. ramped up production, graduating about 60 career of R.W. (“Billy”) Boyle. A 1974 C.R. (“Bob”) James becomes Newfoundland native, Boyle excelled at McGill electrical engineers per year by war’s end. department chair. University, where he was the first student to Perhaps more importantly, it taught short courses in radio and electronics to hundreds 1982 Dr. Alberta Microelectronics receive a PhD in physics. In 1912, another Centre is established (now McGill man—Henry Marshall Tory, the found - of Royal Canadian Air Force personnel at a Micralyne Inc.). ing president of the U of A—lured Boyle to time. After the war, enrolment in the depart - ment gradually declined until 1958, when 1985 Alberta Laser Institute is Alberta to head the physics department, which established. offered an electrical engineering course. Calgary Power’s gift of a Brown-Boveri During the First World War, Boyle Network Analyzer gave the U of A a nation - 1986 Alberta Telecommunications al advantage in the field of power research. Research Centre is established worked for the British Admiralty researching (now TRLabs). asdic, an early sonar technology that could That, in turn, attracted students with an detect a submarine under water up to a mile interest in power engineering. 1987 Dr. P.R. Smy becomes chair. Good times in the ’60s away. He became the Dean of the Faculty of 1992 Dr. Clarence Capjack Applied Science in 1921. By 1925 he created Capjack, a 1962 grad who would be the becomes chair. a separate Electrical Engineering department, department chair a generation later, remem - 2002 Electrical and Computer which started out with a dozen third- and bers a department where research, by necessi - Engineering Research Facility fourth-year students each term. Soon after - ty, took a back seat to teaching: “It was (ECERF) opens; boasts the most wards Boyle departed for Ottawa to rejoin different department then, and with a very advanced clean room in any Tory, by then the founding head of the small faculty they taught a great number of Canadian university. National Research Council. students. The teaching loads they had then 2004 Dr. Horacio Jose Marquez One early U of A specialist in electronics were very, very large.” becomes department chair.
and communications was Ward Porteous, a The Beatles were live in black and white 2008 U of A electrical engineers former lab boy in the physics department who on televisions packed with vacuum tubes and biologists demonstrate a went on to receive the U of A’s first Master’s when George Walker became head of the medical laser capable of operating in Electrical Engineering. Porteous joined the department in 1964. Electrical engineering on a single human cell. department staff in 1931, a year when it had had 113 students and 10 staff that year, but
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Electrical and Computer Engineering
the numbers grew quickly. Every university in without decreasing the number of students. pendently ranked as one of the top three North America was expanding rapidly, and Many faculty recruits from the 1960s accept - departments nationally with Waterloo and new institutions such as the University of ed early retirement in 1994–95, and ranks of Toronto. Marquez plans to expand electrical Calgary (est. 1966) were being created for the part-timers grew to 25 sessional instructors, engineering to make the department the first baby boomers. including more than a few who never com - largest in Canada. But Marquez says size isn’t By 1969, Walker had grown his depart - pleted their term. Capjack remembers having his number-one concern. He’s more interested ment to 23 professors and three post-doctoral to plead with a professor emeritus, Keith in adding breadth and depth to the depart - fellows. This influx of newcomers reawak - Stromsmoe, to hurry back and take over a ment to make it one of the best in North ened the department as a research unit. In microcircuit design course after its instructor America. 1972, Walker negotiated a $638,000 devel - bolted. The department also implemented The department has strength in tradition - opment grant for laser and plasma physics. other forms of cutbacks, including reducing al areas of communications, power systems, That helped establish a group in the depart - the number of research groups from 13 to 6. electronics, signal processing, control systems ment (including J. Tulip, H.J.J. Seguin, P.R. Eventually, however, funding began to and electromagnetics. Marquez sees four Smy, A.A. Offenberger and Capjack) that flow back into the engineering faculty, and the principal areas of growth: earned an international reputation for push - department returned to recruitment mode. By 1. Information-Communications ing lasers from the lab into industrial and the mid-1990s, competition for talent was Technology (ICT)—Consisting of com - medical applications. fierce, not only from other academic institu - munications and all its enabling technolo - As research investment increased through tions, but from a booming high-tech sector. gies such as electronics, signal processing the 1980s, students benefited greatly from the Canada’s 60-cent dollar put the U of A at an and software engineering. expertise of their instructors. “It’s not some - even greater disadvantage. Faculty candidates 2. Biomedical engineering—An undergradu - body who has picked up a textbook that’s six were wooed aggressively—met at the airport ate biomedical option in electrical engi - or seven years old,” Capjack explains. and driven around town to check out the real neering created two years ago provides “Students get the material from someone who estate market and schools for the kids. students with an alternative to general sci - is at the leading edge of that world.” A great Among the new hires in this period was ences as a route into medical school. example, he says, is Dr. Fred Vermeulen, a very Dr. Horacio Marquez, an Argentine-born 3. Nanotechnology—A growing ability to good researcher in electromagnetics, a passion - electrical engineer specializing in control sys - manipulate materials at nanoscale is ate and well-liked teacher and, in recent years, tems. Marquez arrived in 1996 from a post- opening great new opportunities for elec - a mentor to a new generation of professors. doctoral position at the University of trical engineers. Microelectromechanical Victoria. Like his predecessors a generation systems (MEMS) are already established earlier, he came to a department that carried in the marketplace. Even smaller and The University of Alberta, in a heavy teaching load at the expense of more complex nanoelectromechanical research. That changed virtually overnight, as systems (NEMS) are on the way. its centennial year, has computers sprouted from every desk and the 4. Energy systems—The focus is shifting Western Canada’s largest Internet evolved from an academic network from traditional power systems to new to a mass-market phenomenon. energy systems such as solar and wind. A computer and electrical The Alberta government-sponsored solar panel, for example, is engineered engineering department, Informatics Circle of Research Excellence from nanomaterials and electronics. (iCORE), established in 1999, endowed a The relatively modest investment Bob independently ranked as number of research chairs and funded IT James secured back in the 1980s has generat - one of the top three research along with Alberta Ingenuity. The ed fantastic payoff. The lineage is direct and federal government sponsored five Canada unmistakable. departments nationally with Research Chairs in the department. New The microelectronics lab evolved into a buildings were planned for the Faculty of well-equipped, ultra-clean nanofabrication Waterloo and Toronto. Engineering—including the Electrical and facility unique in Canada, which continues to Computer Engineering Research Facility that attract researchers from across the country. A opened in 2002. company successfully spun off from the centre Tearing down then rebuilding Marquez became department chair in in 1998, Micralyne Inc., is one of the world’s The era of Walker, James and Smy, from 2004, eight years after arriving. During that largest independent microelectromechanical 1964 to 1992 marked nearly three decades of time, the department had grown from 26 fac - systems (MEMS) foundries. Research in almost uninterrupted growth and progress. ulty members to 52—with a goal to expand MEMS, microfluidics, and thin-film technolo - However, a short, sharp shock followed in the to more than 70 members in coming years. gies, among other areas, contributed to the 1990s. Almost as soon as Capjack took over The University of Alberta, in its centennial decision in 2001 to bring the National as head of the department, he had to find a year, has Western Canada’s largest computer Institute of Nanotechnology to the U of A. way to absorb a 20-per-cent-plus budget cut and electrical engineering department, inde - The Alberta Laser Institute was the fore -
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runner of MPB Lasertech Inc., which provides consortium of five prairie universities. manipulated and analyzed to determine if it laser cutting for Alberta industries. The insti - These ongoing investments also are deliv - contains genes related to cancer. Then, the tute also pioneered medical and other applica - ering real-world technologies. Thin-film coat - tiny throwaway device exports the test results tions for lasers. ings make drill-bits harder and solar cells to a desktop computer in the doctor’s office. The telecommunications centre worked with more efficient at generating electricity. Lab- And we can expect more in the near major telecom industry partners on self-healing on-a-chip devices, already in use, pass a future. It’s amazing what happens when a networks, which route data around communica - patient’s simple blood sample through hard-nosed group of engineers refuses to take tion failures. The centre continues as TRLabs, a microfluidic channels where the DNA is no for an answer. Notable people in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Masoud Ardakani —Currently an assistant Clarence Capjack —Chair of the depart - Mani Vaidyanathan —This year, professor, an Ingenuity New Faculty ment in the turbulent 1990s, Capjack Vaidyanathan, who teaches courses in Member and holder of an iCORE Junior focused on laser and plasma research. circuits, electronics and nanoelectronics, Research Chair in the Wireless Abdulhakem Elezzabi —A present-day became the first recipient of the Provost’s Communications Laboratory (iWCL). example of a leading researcher who also is Award for Early Achievement of Excellence Norman Beaulieu —A leading researcher in an excellent teacher, Elezzabi holds the in Undergraduate Teaching. Vaidyanathan’s wireless communications, Beaulieu is iCORE Canada Research Chair in Ultrafast research interests include carbon nanotubes Research Chair and a NSERC E.W.R. Photonics and Nano-Optics. and nanodevices. Steacie Memorial Fellow. He is the first C.R. (Bob) James —A department chair in Fred Vermeulen —Now a professor electrical engineer to have received the the ’70s and ’80s, James built relationships emeritus, Vermeulen was a renowned and K. Y. Lo Medal from the Engineering with government and industry that laid the impeccably well-prepared communicator in Institute of Canada. foundation for the department’s growth into the classroom. His numerous awards include R.W. Boyle —Hired by Henry Marshall Tory a centre for advanced research. 3M Canada Teaching Fellow, the university’s Rutherford Award for Excellence in in 1912 as head of the physics department, Ward Porteus —The U of A’s first student to Undergraduate Teaching and the Canadian “Billy” Boyle helped develop sonar in the earn a Master’s degree in Electrical Council for Professional Engineers’ Medal First World War, became Dean of the Faculty Engineering, Ward Porteous joined the for Distinction in Engineering Education. of Applied Science in 1921 and created the department staff in 1931. Porteous helped Many of the current generation of faculty Electrical Engineering department in 1925. build the original CKUA radio transmitter look to him fondly as a mentor. Michael Brett —A leader in nanotechnology on campus and conducted classified wartime at the U of A, Brett was instrumental in research. His teaching career at the U of A George Walker — A department chair— the creation of the NanoFab lab, which continued into the 1970s. and builder—who in the 1960s recruited many excellent teachers including develops nanotechnology applications and Peter Smy —A winner of the university’s Vermeulen, James and Smy. Walker steered microdevices. He is an iCORE professor in Rutherford Award for Excellence in the department into new areas such as lasers nanotechnology, holds the Micralyne/ Undergraduate Teaching, Smy was an and plasma research. NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair accomplished researcher in the plasma area and was the 2002 Canada Research Chair and, as department chair, presided over a in Nanoengineered Thin Films. He received period of relative stability. APEGGA’s Excellence in Education Award, the university’s Rutherford award for excellence in teaching, and the 2007 University Cup—the highest honour the U of A can bestow on a member of its academic staff.
J.W. Porteus Norman Beaulieu R.W. Boyle Michael Brett
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Celebrating a century of engineering excellence Chemical and Materials Engineering
Laying the Foundation Engineering the Future by Bruce White and Aimee Maxfield
rom the pioneering oil sands Chemical and Materials Engineering and The Genesis of Chemical and Materials research in the 1920s to the ongo - its earlier incarnations excelled through the Engineering ing work in thermodynamics and decades in diverse disciplines, including the Although Alberta in the 1920s remained surface sciences, U of A engineers following: firmly in the age of coal, it was a decade F of technological transition. The mass have played a huge role in • Oil sands research, as pioneered in the Alberta’s economy. 1920s by Karl A. Clark. production of automobiles created a boom in From year one the mission of the University • Thermodynamics, as explored by Donald road and bridge building, and northern of Alberta was building a prosperous Alberta, B. Robinson, Ding-Yu Peng, Fred Otto Alberta’s bitumen deposits were initially and members of the Department of Chemical and Alan Mather from the 1940s through developed for surfacing roads, rather than for and Materials Engineering have pursued this to the 1960s. fuelling automobiles. goal into the present. The university’s founding • Computer process control, as pioneered Karl A. Clark headed the Mining and president, Dr. Henry Marshall Tory, was a in the 1960s by R.A. Ritter and Metallurgy department for nine years, physicist with a zeal for applied research. Tory Grant Fisher. investigated methods of separating bitumen was authorized to conduct scientific research to Today, the department has an internation - from sand in 1920, and found success on a support development of Alberta’s natural al reputation for cutting-edge research small scale in 1923 and in larger pilot plants resources, and engineering was an early part of and excellence in education. Its specialties built in 1930 and 1949. In retirement, Clark his strategy. lie broadly within energy and natural consulted on the building of Alberta’s first com - The Department of Civil and Municipal resources, surface and interfacial sciences, mercial synthetic oil plant, the Great Canadian Engineering was launched in 1909, followed nano and regenerative medicine, process Oil Sands (now Suncor) in Fort McMurray, in 1920 by the creation of the Department of control and systems engineering, and which began commercial production in 1967. Mining Engineering. The Department of advanced materials. The department commits The U of A hired its first chemical Chemical and Materials Engineering is the substantial resources to education and engineer, E. H. Boomer, in 1925. Boomer laid result of a 1996 merger of the Department of student support and receives an enormous the groundwork for the Department of Chemical Engineering, founded in 1946, amount of funding from industrial partners Chemical Engineering (created in 1946), with elements of the former Department of and various levels of government for its although he died before the department Mining Engineering. research efforts. became a reality.
14 U o fAEngineer Fall 2008 ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:24 AM Page 15 t i m Karl Clark, known as the father of the oil Another prominent figure of the period, sands, first pioneered ways to coax oil from History of Donald B. Robinson, founder of the engineer -
sand during the 1920. Today, professor Murray e Gray, seen here with graduate students Negin ing powerhouse D.B. Robinson and Associates, Chemical and Razavilar and Greg Dechaine, is pioneering was not only a researcher and department Materials l breakthrough technologies for clean oil sands i
energy at the Imperial Oil-Alberta Ingenuity head, but also a teacher beloved by his students n Centre for Oil Sands Innovation. for his ability to make complex material under - Engineering standable. He became world-renowned as co- e Depression and wartime developer (along with Ding-Yu Peng) of the 1946 Department of In 1930, the Department of Mining equation of state used to calculate vapour-liq - Chemical Engineering established. Engineering was renamed “Mining and uid equilibrium of mixtures of hydrocarbons 1948 Dr. G. W. Govier named head Metallurgy.” By the end of the decade, and gases. The Peng-Robinson equation, as it of Chemical Engineering. M & M had the highest enrolment of all the came to be known, is used widely in the petro - 1959 Dr. G. W. Govier becomes engineering disciplines—even in the depths of leum and petrochemical industries, and forms dean of Engineering; Dr. D. B. the Great Depression, there were jobs for an integral part of most modern chemical Robinson becomes head of Chemical Engineering. mining engineers. engineering thermodynamics texts. In 1939, with Canada at war, engineering U of A’s chemical engineers, including 1967 Department of Chemical & talent was in urgent demand. Boomer became Petroleum Engineering installs Grant Fisher, also pioneered computer process one of the first three IBM 1800 an advisor to Canada’s munitions program and control. The purchase of Canada’s real-time, computers in Canada. directed research projects for the Directorate of sensor-based IBM 1800 computer—installed 1972 Dr. D.G. Fisher is named Chemical Warfare and Smoke. In 1943, in the new Chemical Engineering Building in department chair. Boomer became chairman of the Alberta Oil 1967—gave engineering students experience 1975 Dr. F. D. Otto becomes chair and Gas Conservation Board. After the end of on systems that even their potential employers of department. the Second World War he travelled to Europe didn’t yet have. 1976 Dr. D. B. Robinson and to study occupied Germany’s synthetic fuel The 1980s and 90s Dr. D-Y. Peng publish the Peng- industry. He returned to the U of A as the sole Robinson Equation of State. In 1983, the introduction of a co-op professor in the Chemical Engineering program. learning program in Chemical and Materials 1985 Dr. F. D. Otto becomes dean In 1945, enrolment surged, and Mining of Engineering, Dr. S. E. Wanke Engineering transformed the traditional and Metallurgy went through a transforma - becomes department chair. linear student path from high school to tion in both name and numbers. By 1946, the 1986 The Chemical Engineering university to job market. It gave students the Chemical Engineering program was in full program offers an option in opportunity to blend real-world experience computer process control. force, and grads found eager employers in the with academic learning—while earning a oil patch following the discovery of oil near 1990 Dr. M. R. Gray becomes paycheque. For the department, co-op department chair. Leduc in 1947. educationmeant adopting a full three-term The fledgling Department of Chemical 1993 Dr. S. E. Wanke becomes year in place of the more traditional fall- department chair. Engineering responded rapidly to the growth of winter terms. the region’s oil and gas industry. By 1948 it was 1995 Dr. D. T. Lynch, a Chemical In 1986 the world price of oil dropped by Engineering professor, is named hosting a “mud school” for oil drillers, and 46 percent, with significant economic and dean of Engineering. was offering a degree in petroleum engineering. industrial repercussions across Canada. In 1996 Creation of Department of The postwar era Alberta, career opportunities for graduates of Chemical & Materials Engineering Chemical Engineering in the early 1950s Chemical Engineering dropped considerably. with the merger of the chemical and materials programs. was a small department; 12 students graduated In 1992, massive cost-cutting was initiat - in 1953. That elite group found itself in demand, ed throughout provincially funded depart - 2002 Dr. J. F. Forbes named department chair. as the Edmonton area was immersed in its first ments and agencies. The U of A was forced to oil boom. Demand also grew for metallurgists endure a 21-percent grant cut, prompting 2005 Alberta Centre for Surface Engineering and Science opens. with the building of the Sherritt Gordon nickel four Chemical Engineering professors to refinery near Fort Saskatchewan in 1954 and accept offers of early retirement. Sieg Wanke, 2007 Imperial Oil-Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Oil Sands Innovation Premier Steel Mills in Edmonton in 1955. Oil, who chaired the department from 1985 to gas and petrochemicals presented opportunities 1990 and 1993 to 2002, had to balance fewer (COSI) established. for research into practical problems. faculty members with demands for more 2008 Dr. U.T. Sundararaj receives During this period, George W. Govier was research. The department somehow managed national award for excellence in both dean of Engineering and a member of the teaching – the Medal for Distinction to reduce teaching loads, even against the in Engineering Education from Alberta’s Oil and Gas Conservation Board. He pressure of cutbacks. Engineers Canada. later wrote the seminal 1972 textbook, The In 1996, the department began a process Flow of Complex Mixtures in Pipes. of fiscal resurgence. It aggressively sought
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Chemical and Materials Engineering
new funding, particularly from corporate cal, as both disciplines use similar methods to and federal government sources. There was a explore changes on molecular surfaces. pressing industrial need for research to sup - The Present, and Beyond port heavy oil and bitumen production, with A dozen years after its creation, the a second wave of oil sands development on Department of Chemical and Materials the horizon and with corporations scaling Engineering now boasts 614 undergraduate back in-house research and development. students, 227 graduate students, and 54 Syncrude, the Natural Sciences and Department of Chemical and Materials faculty members. The department is among Engineering Research Council of Canada Engineering Chair Dr. Fraser Forbes. the U of A’s leaders in research. Its graduates (NSERC), and Imperial Oil were among the many companies and organizations to fund Electrical and Computer, and Mechanical. The are sought after by industry leaders in chem - new research chairs. These chairs proved School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering ical and materials engineering. very successful—each chair in the depart - moved to the Department of Civil and The Department of Chemical and ment was renewed at the end of its initial Environmental Engineering, but oil sands and Materials Engineering holds eight NSERC five-year term. metallurgy fell under the umbrella of the newly Industrial Research Chairs (Canada’s most In 1996, the Faculty of Engineering was named Department of Chemical and Materials prestigious research program), more than any reorganized into four departments: Chemical Engineering. The combination of materials University of Alberta department and more and Materials, Civil and Environmental, engineering and chemical engineering was logi - than most other major universities in Notable people in Chemical and Materials
E.H. Boomer — Joined the U of A as a lec - sition, semiconductor processing at nanoscale centre named in his honour at the Alberta turer in 1925, advancing to a full professor - dimensions, and electronic materials. Research Council. ship in Physical Chemistry and Chemical Karl A. Clark — Known as the “Father of the Oil Murray Gray — Scientific director of the Engineering by 1943. Boomer was instru - Sands” Clark joined the U of A Department of Imperial Oil-Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Oil mental in the developing what would become Industrial Research as a professor in 1920. He Sands Innovation, Gray is an internationally (in 1946) the Department of Chemical taught in Mining and Metallurgy, becoming head of recognized expert on bitumen upgrading. He Engineering. that department in 1945. holds the NSERC Chair in Oil Sands Robert Burrell — In June 2008, the World Janet Elliott — In 2002, Elliot received the Upgrading and the Canada Research Chair in Union of Wound Healing Societies Congress Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Oil Sands Upgrading. awarded Burrell a lifetime achievement Young Explorer’s Prize, an award given to Steve Kuznicki — Is the Canada Research award for his development of the Acticoat Canada’s top 20 researchers under the age of Chair in Molecular Sieve Nanomaterials, bandage, one of the world’s first commercial 40 in engineering or science. Elliott holds the holds an NSERC Industrial Research Chair in medical applications of nanotechnology. Canada Research Chair in Interfacial New Microporous Molecular Sieves, and has Burrell holds the Canada Research Chair in Thermodynamics. been named Alberta Ingenuity Fund Scholar. Nanostructured Biomaterials. Grant Fisher — Pioneered the area of E.O. Lilge — In 1936, while at work on his mas - Ken Cadien — Is a recent recipient of a process control in automation (along with ter’s thesis on the use of cyanide leaching in recover - Canada Research Chair in Nanofabrication. R.A. Ritter), generating international atten - ing gold from ores found around Lake Athabasca, Prior to joining the University of Alberta, tion and acclaim. He joined the Department Ewald Oscar Lilge joined the Department of Cadien was honoured as an Intel Fellow—one of Chemical Engineering in 1964 and was Mining and Metallurgy. He would go on to head of only 12 in the world—for his stellar techni - chair of the department from 1972 to 1975. the department from 1954 to 1969. cal contributions and deft leadership. His George W. Govier — Was head of the Jacob Masliyah, OC — Was made a Fellow research interests include nanotechnology, department from 1948 to 1959, then dean of of both the Royal Society of Canada (1996) atomic layer deposition, semiconductor pro - Engineering for four years. Govier’s legacy and the Canadian Academy of Engineering cessing at nanoscale dimensions, electronic includes an Order of Canada and a research (2000) in recognition of his research, and materials nanotechnology, atomic layer depo -
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Canada. Faculty members currently holding Dr. Ken Cadien, whose research will affect NSERC chairs include Drs. Murray Gray, silicon technology, micro-electromechanical Steve Kuznicki, Jacob Masliyah, R. Sean systems (MEMS), fuel cell technology, Sanders, Sirish Shah, John Shaw, Zhenghe nanotechnology and much more, Xu, and Anthony Yeung. holds the Canada Research Chair in Today the department focuses on four Nanofabrication. Dr. Robert Burrell holds the Canada Research priority research areas: • ICT (Information Communications Chair in Nanostructured Biomaterials. • Energy and Natural Resources: After nine Technology): Sirish Shah, an internation - decades of research the department ally respected expert in computer process The past 100 years have seen a continu - continues to dominate oil sands research. control, is currently researching the appli - ous succession of new engineering technolo - Jacob Masliyah, Murray Gray, John Shaw, cation of advanced algorithms in moni - gies. As soon as engineers solve one problem, R. Sean Sanders, and Anthony Yeung all toring performance and problem another challenges their ingenuity. New hold NSERC IRCs in the oil sands area. diagnosis in industrial plant automation. industrial processes to reduce environmental • Nanotechnology and Nano-engineering: • Biomedical Engineering: Hasan Uludag is damage are an increasingly urgent priority, as Robert Burrell, Canada Research Chair in at the forefront of this vital research area are the applications of biomedical engineer - Nanostructured Biomaterials, is best with his work in bone regeneration and ing for an aging domestic population. known for his invention of medical dress - remodelling. His focus is on the stimula - As future challenges continue to arise, our ings that use the anti-microbial properties tion of bone repair within specified sites chemical, metallurgical, and materials gradu - of silver to speed healing of burn victims. in the body. ates will continue to lead the world. s Engineering
received a Rutherford Award for Excellence R. Sean Sanders — Holds the NSERC Technical University of Delft (Netherlands), the in Undergraduate Teaching from the Industry Research Chair in Pipeline Institut Francais du Petrole, and the Syncrude University of Alberta in 1997. He holds the Transport Processes. His research interests Research Centre. NSERC Chair in Oil Sands Engineering. include multiphase flows, interparticle and Hasan Uludag — Is a recognized world Dave Mitlin — Is an associate professor of fluid-particle interactions in concentrated leader in developing engineered materials for materials engineering. His research interests slurries, core-annular flow, pipeline condi - regenerative medicine. The Uludag lab is include nanostructured materials, micro- tioning of oil sands, water-assisted heavy oil exploring bone regeneration and remodeling. structure and mechanical properties of thin pipelines, tailings transport and placement, His research interests include biomaterials, films, epitaxy, microelectronic processing, rheology of industrial, non-Newtonian mix - tissue engineering, and drug delivery. tures, centrifugal pump performance, and physical metallurgy, solid-state phase trans - Zhenghe Xu — Holds the Canada Research formations, diffraction and crystallography, pipeline wear. Chair in Mineral Processing and the NSERC- and transmission electron microscopy. Sirish Shah — Is the recipient of the EPCOR-AERI Industrial Research Chair in Fred Otto — As a researcher, Otto focused NSERC-Matrikon-ASRA Industrial Research Advanced Coal Cleaning and Combustion on thermodynamics, mass transfer, and com - Chair in Computer Process Control and win - Technology. putation of separation processes. He was an ner of the NSERC University-Industry Anthony Yeung — Project leader with the effective teacher of mass transfer, air pollu - Synergy Award (2003). Imperial Oil-Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Oil tion, material and energy balances, and reac - John Shaw — Holds the NSERC Industrial Sands Innovation, Yeung is the most recent tor design. Research Chair in Petroleum Thermodynamics recipient of an NSERC Industrial Research Donald B. Robinson — Joined the depart - and has held visiting professorships at the Chair in Non-aqueous Bitumen Extraction. ment in 1948 as an associate professor specializing in thermodynamics, became chair of Chemical Engineering in 1959, and was founding president of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering.
Karl A. Clark E.O. Lilge Jacob Masliyah, OC George W. Govier
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Celebrating a century of engineering excellence Mechanical Engineering Tche hmeachnanigcs oe f by Bruce White
ifty years ago most males by the age of 16 could name virtually Mechanical engineering professor David Checkel has seen as many changes to the every part of a car engine—air fil - university as he has seen changes to cars. ter, carburetor, radiator, distribu - Checkel and Robert Koch are researching F digitally controlled engine valves that tor and the spark plugs. adapt to demands placed on them. But pop the hood of a 2008 model and few of us can identify more than the reservoir for windshield-cleaning fluid. Changes in the design of the automobile are a good indicator of how the mechanical world has evolved in the 50 years since the creation of the University of Alberta’s Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1958. Today’s cars are smaller, lighter, more effi - cient, less polluting, safer and more reliable. The 16-year-olds looking under the hood also changed, points out Dr. Larry Kostiuk, chair of Mechanical Engineering. Fifty years ago, Alberta teenagers, especially those raised on farms, seemed to be born with an oily rag in their hands. They could remove a carburetor, take it apart, find the problem, and then fix and reinstall it. Turning these young men (and a few women) into mechanical engineers was a matter of formalizing in their minds what their hands and eyes already sary of the department and the 100th But more often than not, their hands-on knew—by adding large doses of applied math anniversary of the University of Alberta. experience has been limited to keyboard and and physics. Mechanical Engineering is now the largest mouse. They are finding their place in a Alberta in the ’50s was still very much an single program within the Faculty of world heavily invested in analysis and design, agricultural province. The department’s first Engineering (although not the largest and often too small to touch. Teaching graduate student in 1959, a Vancouver city department). The young men and women mechanical engineering has evolved in this boy named Don Bellow, remembers being going into mechanical engineering are age. Less time is spent on math and physics surprised that the fall term in Alberta didn’t analytical and academically brilliant— and a lot more on the practical side, through begin until September 15, to allow students on average they left high school with grades hands-on instruction, co-op placements and to help with the harvest. of 87 per cent—and much more likely to extra-curricular competitions. Fast-forward to 2008, the 50th anniver - be urban. David Checkel, a mechanical engineering
18 U o fAEngineer Fall 2008 ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:25 AM Page 19 t i m History of
Mechanical e everything from gas plumes to artificial limbs Engineering l to better golf club shafts. The common i thread is that mechanical engineers design, n 1958 Dr. George Ford heads
manufacture and operate machines. They e new Mechanical Engineering also study the engineering economics of Department. machines, their impact on the environment and ways to make them safer to operate. 1959 Department receives approval For its first 50 years the University of from the provincial government. Alberta operated without a mechanical engi - 1960 First graduating class of 19 In a variation on the traditional ribbon cutting neering department, due a cost-saving agree - B.Sc. degrees and one M.Sc. in ceremony, the Mechanical Engineering Building Mechanical Engineering. was opened with a ceremonial cable-cutting. ment with the University of Saskatchewan in the 1920s; chemical engineering was taught 1963 First PhD in Mechanical professor and a car enthusiast, has witnessed in Edmonton and mechanical engineering in Engineering. many of these changes. As a student from Saskatoon. Coronation, Alberta in the 1970s, he studied Dr. George Ford (Civil ’42), founding 1971 Ford becomes dean of Engineering. the combustion reaction that powers piston chairman of the department, taught every engines. As a mechanical engineering profes - engineer who passed through the U of A for 1972 Dr. James S. Kennedy takes sor, he has analyzed exhaust gases, examined 40 years. As department chair and later dean over as chair of the Mechanical battery technology for use in electric and of engineering in the 1970s, he was a builder. Engineering Department. hybrid cars, and researched many other Ford also wrote eloquently about the his - 1972 Mechanical Engineering aspects of automotive technology. tory of U of A Engineering. In his 1988 book Building opens. Checkel, along with colleague Dr. Robert Sons of Martha , he describes how the depart - Koch, is currently working on digitally con - ment of Mechanical Engineering got going in 1975 Dr. D.G. Bellow becomes chair. trolled engine valves that open and close the fall of 1958 using borrowed labs and without a cam. This technology will allow an scrounged equipment for its 21 students. 1981 Mechanical Engineering is engine to power up without a starter motor, Their decision to enroll was a bit of a gamble, first department to launch a co-op program. and to operate on six, four or three cylinders because Dr. Ford had his new department up as conditions demand, tune itself for efficient and running before the provincial bureaucra - 1984 Dr. M. Gary Faulkner highway cruising and instantly kick into cy had gotten around to sanctioning it. becomes chair. high-performance mode when you pull out to Among Ford’s expert scroungers was 1988 Ford publishes The Sons of pass a truck. Bellow, the department’s first graduate stu - Martha , a history of the U of A Of course, there is much more to mechan - dent, first doctoral student and a part-time Faculty of Engineering from 1909 ical engineering than cars. Some machines are lecturer in applied mechanics. He remembers to 1988. bigger than ever (as in Fort McMurray), but Ford frequently handing him government 1990 Dr. J. Douglas Dale becomes the focus these days is on making machines surplus lists, which he would comb through chair of the department. smaller and more elegant, as in micro- and looking for useful equipment that might be nanotechnology. Yet even these small miracles had on the cheap. 1994 Dr. Thomas W. Forest have come to seem routine. People sometimes “As we grew in size,” Ford wrote in his becomes chair of the department. take them—and their inventors—for granted. book, “we took on an aura of affluence. We 1999 Dr. Gary Faulkner becomes “As engineers, we refer to ourselves as could now boil water in many diverse and temporary chair. ‘the silent profession’ because people don’t fancy ways, we acquired wind and water tun - 2000 Dr. J. Douglas Dale becomes really know what we do,” says Dr. Douglas nels with hot and cold running fluids, we acting chair of the department. Dale, who served twice as the department chairman. “You get in your car or into an air - 2002 Dr. Larry Kostiuk becomes plane and nobody knows how this wonderful the chair of the department. machine works. Of course, thousands of peo - 2005 George Ford dies. ple were involved in it, and everyone has their own little contribution.” 2005 Indira Samarasekera, a U of A mechanical engineering students mechanical engineer, becomes president of the U of A. and professors are making discoveries about 2008 The Department of Research into the biomechanics of the human Mechanical Engineering celebrates body—in this case measuring the effect of its 50th anniversary, coinciding with pressure on the jaw—is a hallmark of innova - the U of A’s centennial. tion at the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
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Mechanical Engineering
obtained instruments and gadgets that screeched all levels of noise which we then measured.” Ford and his colleagues built a curriculum focused on the fundamentals of strength of materials, dynamics, fluid mechanics, ther - modynamics and heat transfer, setting a new trend for Canadian universities. Research probed areas of interest to Alberta’s econo - my: resource development, energy conversion and utilization, cold-weather engineering, design, and engineering management. The department was also open to collaborations with other disciplines. Some ideas just set the world on fire. When a textile scientist contacted Dr. Douglas Dale about fire - proof fabrics, a creative collaboration was born, ultimately leading to standard-setting research into By the ’60s, with a growing number of heat-resistant clothing. Here, a mannequin named ‘Harry Burns’ puts garments to the test. students and faculty—now including Bellow, the department’s first PhD—and a growing In 1975, Bellow became the head of the tion—the mechanics of a material’s change inventory of equipment, the department department he’d joined as a graduate student from solid to liquid to vapour. He was lacked only a home on campus. For years, it 17 years earlier. He and Peter Adams, dean of involved with cold weather engineering made do with temporary quarters in the old Engineering, would spark a major transforma - research and with the Alberta Home Heating power plant, in temporary huts next to the tion of the faculty by creating western Canada’s Research Facility in Ellerslie, where he stud - Physics Building and later in the new power first engineering co-op program. Launched in ied moisture problems in wood frame houses. plant south of the Jubilee Auditorium. Mechanical Engineering in 1981, the optional Often, says Dale, the collaborative co-op program combines academic study with process begins with a phone call from a col - well-paid, hands-on engineering work with league in another department, such as a med - [Don Bellow] and Peter Adams, employers. Surprisingly, it proved at first to be ical doctor who has a question related to dean of Engineering, would a hard sell to both faculty and students. fluid mechanics such as why an asthma drug Eras of great growth are often followed inhaler doesn’t work properly. In Dale’s case, spark a major transformation by periods of retrenchment. The government a textile scientist’s call about fireproof fabrics of the faculty by creating of Premier Ralph Klein imposed a 21-per-cent led to standard-setting research into heat- budget cut in the early ’90s. resistant clothing. western Canada’s first Dr. Tom Forest became department head Another collaboration resulted in the engineering co-op program. at the height of the budget cuts. At the same world’s first orthodontics simulator— time, quotas required the department to con - mechanical engineering of the mouth. Project tinue to accept the same number of second- leaders Drs. Jason Carey and Roger Toogood The second power plant had some issues year students. The budgeting process began expect to develop a system that will take data during its commissioning, including flooding. to border on the bizarre. There was no from MRI scans of the jaw and develop a Bellow remembers one trying term, warning money for telephones, for example, so to stay model for each patient. This would reduce students not to switch on the electricity for connected to the outside world the depart - treatment time and the number of follow-up their experiments while standing in a puddle. ment relied on “soft money,” such as rental visits, while reducing the risk of damage. The department next moved to temporary fees charged to other departments for the use space in the new Chemical Engineering of the machine shop. A glider in flight near Chipman, Alberta. Building, opened in 1967, while it worked on When reinvestment came in the late ’90s, Mechanical Engineering professor Dave the design and construction of a home of its reality often lagged behind the lavish official Marsden, whose research included the devel - own—a task that Ford again handed to Bellow. announcements. Typically, Forest notes, the opment of ‘winglets’ seen on aircraft today, set a world record in 1984 for gliding With much of its pipe and ducting funding for five new positions would end up 1,121 kilometres surfing the exposed, to suggest industry, the new black supporting only three, because the plan took currents of a massive Prairie no account of inflation, salary increases and storm from Edmonton building featured large windows to “open the to Winnipeg. building to the world,” recalls Bellows. other costs. It became necessary to cannibal - Opened in 1972 at a cost of $3.2 million, it ize new positions to keep old ones operating. remains one of the notable modern buildings Researchers, then as now, worked inde - on campus. It housed an array of specialized pendently, forming into spontaneous groups labs: wind tunnels, water channels, cold when they discovered they had interests in rooms, vibration lab and computer lab. common. Forest’s specialty was phase transi -
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The department now offers a biomedical ences will also be important emerging themes. come from a startup enterprise with 21 stu - option in mechanical engineering, which will Some feats of mechanical engineering are dents taught by eight staff; today it has 40 fac - graduate its first class in 2010. “The discov - thrilling on a more personal level. Take for ulty members teaching 650 undergraduate, ery of engineering by medicine will have a instance Dave Marsden, whose professional and 200 graduate and doctoral students. He profound effect; we can contribute a lot,” work included ultralight aircraft design using witnessed the replacement of slide rules by says Kostiuk. the department’s wind tunnel. In 1984, handheld calculators, and later by laptop com - In the next 50 years, Kostiuk also expects to Marsden set an enduring world distance record puters. see growth in mechatronics, the convergence of of 1,121 kilometres by gliding on the air cur - But some things haven’t changed in 50 electrical and mechanical engineering. The field rents ahead of a prairie storm all the way from years—such as the laws of thermodynamics employs electrical motors, controllers and sen - Edmonton to Winnipeg in a single June day. and the human desire to design and build sors in the design of robots and to control Who says thermodynamics has to be dull? new and better machines. joints and movement—an area with a huge As for the first graduate student, Bellow left range of industrial and biomedical applica - the department in 1989 to take a senior posi - Hannah Nash provided additional research tions. Kostiuk hopes to soon offer a BSc in tion in facility management for the university. for this article and the accompanying mechatronics. Nanotechnology and surface sci - He retired in 1996. Since 1958 he had seen it chronology. Notable people in Mechanical Engineering
Don Bellow — The first graduate student in Gary Faulkner — A highly respected Larry Kostiuk — An expert in the department of mechanical engineering in teacher, Faulkner conducted pioneering thermodynamics and combustion, and 1958–59, Bellow later would become the research into the mechanics surrounding author of Alberta’s standards on gas flaring, department’s first PhD and first homegrown dental implants. This was an early example Kostiuk is the department’s current chair. professor. His imprint also endures on the of the emerging field of biomechanical He is steering it toward a future in fields Mechanical Engineering Building, which he engineering, which continues to be a fertile that would have seemed incredibly exotic helped to design, and in the co-op education area of research for many in the department, in 1958—biomechanical engineering, program, which as department chair he including David Budney, Jason Carey, nanomaterials and mechatronics. helped to set up in the 1980s. His research Donald Raboud, Roger Toogood and G.S.H. Lock — Working in the late 1960s interests included cold-climate engineering. Walied Moussa. with graduate student David Morris, He left the department in 1989 and retired George Ford — Fifty years ago Ford had Lock developed artificial hearts that were from the university in 1996. a Mechanical Engineering Department up implanted with some success in lab animals. David Checkel — A motorsport enthusiast, and running at the U of A before he was David Wilson — Wrote the book Checkel has studied many aspects of the given permission to do so. As chair of that on the dispersion of stack gases from automobile, including the reaction of fuels, department, and later Dean of Engineering, refineries and petrochemical plants. His exhaust gases, sparkless ignition, and he helped develop the department’s strengths work continues to underpin Alberta’s air battery technology for electric and hybrid in thermodynamics, cold-climate engineer - quality standards. cars. He also advises students entering ing, project management and engineering automotive design competitions. economics. He also was the engineering Douglas Dale — Twice head of the faculty’s in-house historian. department, Dale has high-profile research projects ranging from Alberta Home Heating Research Facility in Ellerslie (begun by R. Gilpin), to testing the fire- resistant properties of fabrics for industrial and military uses.
George Ford Don Bellow David Checkel Larry Kostiuk
U o fAEngineer Fall 2008 21 ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:25 AM Page 22 Going thDe istanc
n August 19, Paul Tichelaar at his peak individual level, rather than sacri - O (Electrical ’05) sweated it out in the ficing his own performance to aid Whitfield. suffocating heat, taking 28th place in Ultimately, the committee asked Tichelaar the men’s triathlon at the Beijing Olympics. to support Whitfield. Tichhelaar reluctantly It was the culmination of a dream that agreed, but eventually the committee and team began to take shape when Tichelaar was a decided that Tichelaar would be allowed to young competitive swimmer, just ten years run his own race. The third Canadian on the old. As he grew older, his interests turned to team, Colin Jenkins, would support Whitfield. competitive cycling and then to triathlons. Training for the sweltering heat and With respectable showings in internation - humidity of Beijing included sessions in a al and world cup competitions, Tichelaar set heat chamber, in order to condition his sights on the Beijing Olympics—but knew Tichelaar’s body for an all-out effort in a hos - he needed to redouble his efforts in order to tile environment. compete at that level. Until recently, he had “The temperature in Beijing can be up in been working full time in Edmonton for the 30s for sure, and with the humidity, that Magna IV Engineering, while also training really does change the way an endurance race and competing. Many of his strongest com - is run,” said Tichelaar during a July interview. petitors, in contrast, make a full-time com - “In normal weather, the limiting factor is how mitment to the sport. Tichelaar needed to much oxygen you can get into your muscles. match them in training if he were to match And in the heat, the limiting factor is how them on the Beijing course. much heat you can dissipate. The idea is to get When Tichelaar approached his employ - your body used to having a core temperature ers, Magna IV gave him a 10-month leave of that is elevated so that when it comes time to absence to pursue his dream. “They were race, the automatic reaction is not to panic. very supportive, and for that, I have such loy - “A lot of training is about teaching alty to them,” he says. your body not to panic, that it isn’t in critical Tichelaar put the time to good use. By June, danger.” he needed to place higher than eighth at a Despite the training, the heat may Vancouver triathlon to automatically win one ultimately have been his undoing. of three Canadian triathlon spots—one was “I suffered in the heat,” he says. “I was in already secured by 2000 gold medalist Simon great shape for the race. I swam well, I was Whitfield, and the other two were vacant. strong on the bike and I pushed hard on the Failing to place above eighth would leave run. I would have liked to have had the race s s
e Tichelaar’s fate in the hands of a Triathlon of my life at the biggest race of my life, but r P
n Canada committee, which would appoint that didn't happen. Even so, I am not at all a i d a
n the two other national competitors. The disappointed.” a C
© committee had been planning to select two Paul Tichelaar represented Canada in the athletes who would commit themselves to men’s triathlon at the Olympics in Beijing. helping Whitfield to the podium rather than “A lot of training is about medal for themselves. Tichelaar sparked a controversy prior to the race when he pub - teaching your body not licly objected to participating in the commit - to panic, that it isn’t in tee’s team-based approach. He argued that he should be given the opportunity to perform critical danger.”
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GOOD sports by Ryan Smith and Richard Cairney
Engineering alumni have left their mark not only in their profession, but also in extracurricular pursuits. Here is a brief – and we mean brief – list of some alumi who have made notable achievements in athletic pursuits.
Matt Baldwin football Golden Bears, were the best winter games (Petroleum '51) Hajash played fullback on ever. To this day, Calgary and Baldwin didn't play for a var - offense and linebacker on the province benefit from the sity team at the U of A, but he defense, rarely substituting legacy of the games in facili - ce out of the game. He was the ties and world-class athletic is known, quite simply, as one the greatest curlers to ever U of A's outstanding athlete training opportunities. of the year in 1947 and went play the game. Baldwin won Bob Brawn the Alberta Curling on to play for the CFL's Calgary Stampeders, includ - (Chemical ’58) A strong cyclist, Tichelaar’s best strategic Championships five times and the Brier Tankard as Canada's ing in the 1949 Grey Cup. Brawn has founded a number move might have been to get in with a break - champion curler three times The Stamps lost 28 – 15 to of vibrant resource compa - away group so he could begin the 10-km run (1954, '57 and '58). He is an the Montreal Alouettes. nies and worked alongside portion of the event earlier. Unfortunately, he inductee of the Edmonton and Edward Lucht his old high school-and uni - couldn’t pull it off. Canadian Sports Halls of (Chemical '54) versity pal Frank King on the Fame, as well as the Canadian Calgary Winter Games “I felt strong on the bike and climbed very Curling Hall of Fame. Lucht dominated as a post Organizing Committee. well, but I was too far back in the peloton player for the Golden Bears Brawn’s business savvy had Murray Cunningham when the small breakaway did get off the basketball team, leading them impact: the Games generated (Civil ‘97) to conference titles in each of front to go with it—I would have liked to an unprecedented total cash Known for his ferocious the four years he played, have been in there. The heat made me more endowment of $150 million. defending and rebounding, including 1952, the U of A's conservative than I would normally have Cunningham anchored the first appearance in a basket - Bill McCaffrey been. Pacing is important on a hot day.” Golden Bears basketball ball national final. At six-foot- (Civil '82) eight, Lucht once scored 88 In the end Whitfield, who had been national championship teams McCaffery was part of the points during a game, a record in 1994 and '95. The six- infamous Dirtshooters, a dropped by a lead group of runners, poured that still stands, more than 50 foot-five power forward and group of athletically talented on the speed and worked his way back into years after he accomplished former league all-star and students from Calgary who the pack and onto the podium for a silver the feat. After Lucht graduat - team MVP is the only U of A dominated the U of A’s intra - athlete in the past 25 years to ed, he starred for a number of medal—providing incredible drama to the mural sports scene during the play both basketball and club teams and also represent - finish. Tichelaar, who calls Whitfield “an mid-1970s. McCaffrey is football during the same sea - ed Canada at the 1956 president and CEO of MEG inspiration,” missed the action. son, a feat he accomplished Melbourne Olympics. Energy Corp., an oil sands “My only regret from the race was that I in the 1995-96 season. Dr. Don Stanley company with a major stake wasn't a little faster. I would have loved to see Cara Denkhaus (Civil '40) in developing the Athabasca the sprint finish live,” he says. “What an oil sands. (Civil '02, Aside from competing in exciting finale for the top four. Simon has M.Sc. Structural ‘04) intramural basketball and Tracy Layton been supremely dedicated to the sport for so Denkhaus only played one swimming, Stanley played (Mechanical '72) long. He’s a deserving two-time medalist and year for the Pandas rugby varsity hockey, football and Fresh out of high school, an inspiration. He pushed himself so hard to team—but what a year. In the soccer during his U of A days. 1999-00 season, the Pandas In particular, he starred on where he had played on every get that medal and is incredibly deserving. I won the first of five consecu - the ice, leading the Western school sports team, Layton am very happy to see him succeed.” tive national titles, with Intercollegiate Championship planned to become a high And, while Tichelaar didn’t succeed in his Denkhaus scoring two tries in Golden Bears in scoring for school physical education goal of a podium finish, he did succeed in get - a 20-3 upset in the final game three consecutive years. He teacher. In a requisite first- also played for Canada at the year volleyball class he ting to the Olympics and giving it his all. over the defending champion Guelph Gryphons. Denkhaus 1949 World Hockey showed enough potential to That, he says, is reward in itself. also earned CIAU Rookie of Championships in Sweden, become a member of the “I’m deeply satisfied with my perfor - the Year honours and the where he was considered the Bears intercollegiate volley - mance. I dedicated as much of my life into the Kathlene Yetman Award, pre - most outstanding player in ball team in 1965. He played the tournament. Stanley went for two years while studying training as I was willing to and I had a result sented annually to the U of A's female Academic All- on to found the company that in the Faculty of Physical that was in line with my level of dedication. Canadian of the Year. later became Stantec, and Education and Recreation, … As cliche as “doing my best” is, that is passed away in 2001. enrolled in a commercial Grayson Michael what the Olympics are about to me, and I’m flight training course in 1967 "Mickey" Hajash Frank King proud of my approach. and a year later entered the (Mining '47) (Chemical '40) Faculty of Engineering. He “What an honour it has been to represent Hajash excelled in hockey, King served as chair of the played on the Bears intercol - my country, province, city, family and softball, basketball and track Calgary Winter Games legiate volleyball team for friends. I would have achieved nothing with - and field, but it was on the Organizing Committee, lead - three more years. In 1975, he out the support I have enjoyed. I hope I have gridiron that he distinguished ing a group that organized and his brother incorporated Layton Bros. Construction done them proud.” himself at the U of A. A the 1988 Winter Olympics. feared competitor for the Insiders say the ’88 Olympics Co. Ltd.
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Downtown Edmonton, early 1900s. As the province grew, the ground was fertile for scoundrels who claimed to be engineers, but lacked the education.
From Humble Beginnings s e v i h c r A
by Ryan Smith n o t n o m d E f o y t i Early in the 20th C
century, Alberta “A lot of projects went really wrong,” he Gilprin, who is researching a book about was the Wild West adds. “Project management was terrible, and the history of engineering in Alberta, says the a lot of money was wasted.” construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway for people who Alberta’s medical professional association (CPR) through Alberta in the late nineteenth formed in 1905, and the legal profession cre - century brought the first significant influx of called themselves ated the Law Society of Alberta in 1907. But engineers to the province. the engineering profession lagged behind, not “The CPR marked an incredible transi - engineers. forming its own association until 1920. tion to locomotion transportation from horse “I think it was easier to form associations drawn carts. A lot of engineers were needed in medicine and law because a lawyer is a to make this happen, and most of them came lawyer, and a doctor is a doctor whatever from Europe—mainly Britain—and the U.S.” t that time there were a lot of field of health you study,” says Gilprin. As the 20th century dawned, the engi - debates about who was and who “It was different for engineers. There was - neers kept coming. “With the development of wasn’t an engineer. Sometimes n’t the same sort of debate going on in the Calgary and Edmonton there were a number “A other professions to try to clarify roles—at of major engineering projects underway, people would show up and say ‘I’m an engineer,’ and the city of Calgary least not to the same degree—as there was in including the creation of street systems, rail - would hire them even though they often had the engineering profession. There was a time way systems, and telephone and electrical no qualifications whatsoever for what they at the turn of the 19th century when anyone systems, among others,” Gilprin says. were doing,” says Dr. John Gilprin, an who operated a machine was considered to “In the period up to 1914 you had rapid Alberta-based historian. be an engineer.” development in the urban regions, so you had
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a real diversity of specialists coming to the Growth in the engineering profession in Alberta, and we’ve considerably reduced province within the engineering profession— Alberta ebbed through the 1930s until the those instances of illegal practice or risk to hydro, mining, civil and mechanical.” end of the Second World War. During this the general public by insisting that there The First World War stifled development period, the association continued it struggle are competent and qualified professionals in Alberta from 1914 to 1918, but rapid to define who was and who wasn’t an engi - who take responsibility for their work,” growth and technical advances began to hap - neer. With the discovery of oil in Alberta, a says Albert Schuld, APEGGA’s deputy pen again almost as soon as the war ended. debate raged over whether or not to consider registrar. A leading Alberta engineer at the time was geologists as engineers. “We were one of the earlier self-governing Frederick Peters, who served as the commis - After the discovery of the Leduc oil field professional associations in Canada, and sioner of irrigation in the federal Department in 1947 sparked a jump in engineering activ - we’ve been successful in ensuring that there of the Interior. Peters had the daunting task ity in the province, the association helped has been a high quality of engineering work of planning all the irrigation projects in establish the petroleum engineering program done in Alberta—everything from the build - Alberta and then ensuring they were done properly. “Peters was one of first examples where a senior bureaucrat held a position not based in The association—which formed as the result of Ottawa. I have the correspondence between the passage of the Engineering Professional Act Peters and the superintendent of irrigation in Ottawa, and you can safely conclude from in the provincial legislature on April 19, 1920— the letters that these two guys did not like one another,” smiles Gilprin. had an initial membership of 69 civil, 20 mining, Spurred by a desire for independence and 10 electrical and 7 mechanical engineers. to regulate the engineering profession in Alberta, Peters spearheaded the foundation of the Association of Professional Engineers. The association—which formed as a result of at the U of A. The association also began to ing of bridges to our telephone and Internet the passage of the Engineering Professional lobby the provincial government on the U of systems, for example.” Act in the provincial legislature on April 19, A’s behalf in order to increase the number of Despite its Wild West beginnings, the s
e 1920s—had an initial membership of 69 civil, positions available for students in the U of A engineering profession in Alberta (with more v i h c
r 20 mining, 10 electrical and 7 mechanical Faculty of Engineering. It also pushed for a than 50,000 members) is now regulated like A n o
t engineers. new building on campus exclusively for the a well-oiled machine, says Neil Windsor, n o
m The University of Alberta played a central Engineering Faculty. APEGGA’s executive director and registrar. d E f
o role in the association from the beginning. In 1955, the association expanded to “The engineering profession in Alberta is y t i
C Intially—and for many years after—the include geologists and geophysicists as pro - currently enjoying a most unusual rate of U of A Senate decided who could join the fessional engineers. This raised complaints by growth due to the high rate of resource devel - association. Also, the association provided both geologists and geophysicists, as they opment in the region, and we do not expect bursaries and awards for U of A engineering wanted to be designated separately. A com - that this will decrease in any dramatic fash - students, a practice it continues today. mittee was formed in 1956 to address the ion in the near future. “Had the U of A not been around to pro - issue, and the association eventually settled “As the largest profession in the province vide the provincial government with an on its modern name: the Association of by far, the APEGGA council feels that we agency to regulate the profession in begin - Professional Engineers, Geologists and have an obligation not only to be an active, ning, it would have delayed the maturity of Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA). state-of-the-art regulator, but also to repre - the association,” Gilprin says. “The U of A Over the decades, as development in the sent the views of our profession and support was an institution the government trusted to oil sands expanded and immigration to the activities of the province and the commu - regulate the profession and act as sort of a Alberta increased, the association also grew— nity at large.” surrogate parent to the association. to 17,000 by 1980, up from 630 in 1950. “We are proud of our history and our “The U of A trains the engineers and then In 1982, the association decided to record, and we see ourselves as leaders not the association takes responsibility that impose a written test for all applicants. In the only in the profession but also in the the engineers maintain certain standards of mid-’90s, the association established manda - overall community,” adds Windsor. “We practice, so the two need one another, and tory reporting of the professional develop - expect that to continue as we mature and grow it has been an ongoing mutually beneficial ment efforts of its members, and raised the in our role.” relationship.” professional service requirement to four In 1930, a new Engineering Act made it years—up from two—before an engineer mandatory for all professional engineers to could claim full membership. become members of the association—and to “Our mandate at APEGGA is to effectively pay annual dues, which at the time were $2. regulate the practice of engineering in
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PRIDE by April Serink s o i d u t S h s i f e u l B
Second-year engineering student Morgan Gwin is the most recent of a growing number of female Faculty of Engineering students to earn the prestigious C.D. Howe Memorial Award.
here was a time, not so long ago, A—racking up prestigious awards and schol - presents two awards to engineering students, when virtually nobody saw a place arships year after year. “When I applied to one female and one male. The award recog - Tfor female engineers. In fact, when different universities across the country, the nizes top marks and community participation the Civil Engineering building potential to apply for so many scholarships among students completing their first year, opened at the U of A in 1960, it lacked really played a huge factor in deciding to and candidates are nominated exclusively by women’s washrooms. Even though a quarter attend U of A instead of Waterloo,” deans of engineering. The foundation was century had passed since the graduation recalls Yuen. established in 1961 to memorialize the Right of Esther Rabkin (Electrical ’35), planners When Yuen won the C.D. Howe Honourable Clarence Decatur Howe, an did not envision a future that included Memorial Award in 1997, for superior acad - engineer who served in the governments of female engineers. emics leadership in her first year, she started Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent. Agnes Yuen (Chemical ’01) experienced a trend. U of A engineering students have “The award sets a standard of excellence University of Alberta before the completion proudly won nine C.D. Howe Awards since for the institution,” says Rebecca Pinto. “It of the new NREF and ETLC buildings. “It then, including every female award since provides a sense of confidence for students was kind of funny,” she recalls, “the big 2005. In addition to Yuen, U of A female that U of A is competitive on a national and boxes in the ladies’ washrooms obviously winners include Katherine Svrcek (Civil ’03), international level.” Morgan Gwin points to covering urinals.” Rebecca Pinto, Alma Ornés Gutiérrez, and the award’s role in encouraging more women Fortunately, times have changed. Women Morgan Gwin. to enter the profession. still represent a minority in engineering, but Each year, the C.D. Howe Memorial Of course, the award also inspires person - they have certainly left their mark at the U of Foundation Engineering Awards Program al pride, says Alma Ornés Gutiérrez.
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“Personally, the award is such a huge honour, especially after arriving to Canada from Venezuela a year earlier and learning to play The U of A’s success with the C.D. Howe Award by new rules in a new country.” The U of A’s success with the C.D. Howe reflects the cornerstone values stressed by Award reflects the cornerstone values stressed President Indira Samarasekera: people and their by President Indira Samarasekera: people and their talents, structure and organization, inte - talents, structure and organization, integrated grated learning, discovery, and citizenship, learning, discovery, and citizenship, and and engagement with communities. A distin - guished engineer and the university’s first engagement with communities. female president, Dr. Samarasekera provides an excellent role model for females in this predominantly male discipline. Dr. Samarasekera knows first-hand the ties include canvassing for the Alberta Kidney improve the experience for others. special challenges of being a female engineer. and the Alberta Heart and Stroke At Syncrude, Yuen works toward ensur - "There weren't very many women in engi - Foundations, organizing and participating in ing sustainability of resources in future devel - neering, certainly in Sri Lanka or California a co-recreational volleyball team for campus opment. The C.D. Howe Award helped or at UBC. But you get used to it. It was dif - intramurals, and volunteering for WISEST convince her that she and other women have ficult at first to make the adjustment.” (Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science essential contributions to make as engineers. The scholarship provides $7,500 CAD and Technology). “In a predominantly male dominated field, per year for the students’ remaining three Gwin, who also volunteers for WISEST there are many days I am the only female years of study. By easing financial stress, the and participates enthusiastically in sports and in a room, but I enjoy the challenge. award helps recipients to maintain their supe - campus intramurals, says that winning the Women’s emotions tend to get involved, rior marks without sacrificing their extracur - C.D. Howe felt different than winning at which makes us unique and creates a differ - ricular activities and volunteer efforts. “Being sports. “You feel proud but totally embar - ent thought process toward solving the recognized with winning the [C.D. Howe rassed, because it’s entirely an individual problems beyond formulas.” Award] encourages students, as it did me, to achievement, whereas I am used to succeed - Yuen trusts her experience and achieve - ments will provide a model for her younger
s have something to aim for in keeping marks ing as a member of a team.” o i d
u Ornés Gutiérrez points out that her vol - sister—who is now pursuing her own engi - t high and not to quit volunteering,” says S h s
i unteering efforts also contributed to her own neering degree at the U of A.
f Yuen. Gwin agrees, noting that her own e u l
B motivation and momentum increased after personal and professional growth. “The vol - Ornés Gutiérrez looked to her parents— winning the award. unteer experience from International House both chemical engineers—as examples for As classes become more challenging over helped shape me best by getting people from her engineering aspirations. “I’ve always the course of the program, maintaining a different cultures to communicate and to live admired my mom who is very hands on as an high grade-point average becomes an increas - harmoniously with each other,” she says. “In engineer, and then my dad is more of a lab ingly tall order. “Third year was really Alberta, I will work with people from all over person as an engineer.” With both extremes tough,” says Yuen, “Although the award the world and need to communicate my in her background, she has chosen a path made the biggest impact coming out of methods.” in the middle, in the civil-environmental field. school I had no loans, so I was able to travel The award has inspired Pinto to give As a personal ambition, Pinto strives to after graduation and then discuss the award’s back even more. “It allows me to get the be a positive role model to children, espe - significance with employers. most out of my university experience and to cially young girls. She particularly enjoys “The significance of the award being a big get involved.” Pinto dedicates several hours tutoring students in math and science. deal occurred to me afterward. No one really a week to Engineers Without Borders as “Giving someone the confidence to accom - cares about marks after school, because it’s well as BADSA (Blood Awareness and plish their goals gives me an amazing feel - the skills you learned that follow you. The Donation Students’ Association), and hopes ing,” she says. Faculty provides and encourages the skills to pursue medicine. The C.D. Howe Award recognizes people beyond methods to solve problems. The Gwin, whose focus is on biomedical at a crucial time of their academic careers— award confirmed people see me as a well- engineering, sees medicine in her future as well, at the completion of their exciting first years, rounded person, not just a slate of extracur - although from a dentistry angle. “I want to with three more years to take their visions ricular activities and high marks.” work to develop the technologies and machines even farther. The U of A’s impressive roster “The award recognizes people who rise required to speed up orthodontic treatment of female recipients proves that the place up to be leaders, and teaches you to get times.” She adds brightly that her experience of women in the profession now extends involved,” agrees Pinto. Her volunteer activi - with braces “going awry” compelled her to far beyond the right to have their own washrooms.
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Robert Ritter didn’t take the path less travelled – he took the path never travelled when he became the Faculty of Engineering’s first PhD student. s o It wasn’t the last time Ritter i d u made a bold move. t S h s i f e u l PhD B
Robert Ritter earned the first PhD in the Faculty Pioneer of Engineering by Ryan Smith
t was 1954, and twenty-two year-old grad - As often happens in the life stories of engineering projects in Western Canada uate Robert Ritter (MSc Chemical ’54) successful people, Ritter decided to follow and beyond. Iwondered what to do next. He knew his his passion. He loved conducting research, The colleagues Ritter met along the way decision would have a huge impact on the so he chose to pursue a PhD. He wrote letters sometimes found him intimidating, at least rest of his life. to the deans of a number of engineering initially. “My first contact with him was as “There was far less info available in the programs across the country—including his student in my second year, and at first I 1950s about career possibilities,” Ritter the Faculty of Engineering at the University was terrified of him,” smiles Dr. Alan recalls. “There was no Internet—there of Alberta, which, unbeknownst to Ritter, Mather, a U of A Faculty of Engineering pro - weren’t even any computers. The only way to had never granted a PhD before. fessor emeritus. get the lowdown on something was to go out A few schools accepted him, but Ritter “He always had a kind of mean and angry and do it. struck a connection with the U of A’s dean at look, but when I got to know him better I “I could have gone into industry, but the the time, Dr. George Govier. found out he was actually a very gentle and prospects back then didn’t appeal to me. I In 1962, Ritter earned the first engineer - helpful person.” didn’t want to work in a quality control lab; ing PhD in U of A history, launching a Perhaps Ritter’s gruff exterior was the that seemed too cookie-cutter and routine. journey that kept him involved for nearly a result of being born into harsh conditions— That just wasn’t me.” half century in some of the most interesting Saskatchewan during the Great Depression.
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But he worked hard, and when he arrived in Ritter created a medical device that improved Edmonton in the mid-1950s he began a successful career doing what engineers do and lengthened the lives of many patients—and best: solving problems. changed the course of his own life forever. Under Govier’s supervision, Ritter published his PhD thesis, a seminal work on the pipeline characteristics of crude oil. maintain the correct pressure and energy for it takes to bring that sort of system into He stayed on as a faculty member at the an optimal flow. general use,” he adds. U of A until 1966, when he left to become For his next notable feat, Ritter created a After two years, in 1976, the business col - the first chair of the Chemical Engineering medical device that improved and lengthened lapsed, and Ritter decided to move into con - program at the brand-new University of the lives of many patients—and changed the tract work. One of his first jobs was to tackle Calgary. He eventually became U of C’s Dean course of his own life forever. In concert with Alberta’s primary environmental challenge: of Engineering. the head of cardiology at the Foothills devising a method to clean up an oil sands But before he left the U of A, Ritter had a Hospital in Calgary, Ritter developed a tailings pond. hand in developing (among other things) the method of extracting oxygen from the atmos - “Technically, I was able to get crap out of world’s first pipeline viscometer, which a phere, and he left his post as dean of the U of the pond, but the cost of doing it was too graduate student created under his supervi - C Faculty of Engineering in 1974 to manu - much. Even if the process was free, the cost of sion. The device measures the viscosity of a facture his invention. handling the material would be uneconomi - liquid as it flows in a pipeline. “It helped people with emphysema and cal. When we realized that, there was no “Before [the viscometer], you needed to cystic fibrosis and those kinds of nasty things sense continuing with it,” he says. take a sample from the line and then take it that make it hard to breathe,” Ritter says. Ritter then took a series of jobs for a com - back to the lab to measure it—and, if you real - The stationary appliance, which Ritter pany called Western Research, a subsidiary of ized then that you needed to change the flow, s
o Bow Valley Industries. For example, he devel - i called the Reox machine, sucked in air and d
u it was already too late,” Mather explains. t
S rejected nitrogen, leaving patients with 95 per - oped a technique to dispose of the PCBs that h
s Today, the instrument has been computer - i f
e cent pure oxygen.“It was a piece of furniture— were used in obsolete transformers. u l
B ized, sending instant measurements to labs to it looked like a TV set. It had a long tube and “Transformers are those cylinders that are a cannula attached to it so you could move about a metre and a half high and a metre in around your house. The main benefit was that diameter behind your house,” Ritter it removed the constant worry you would run explains. “They drop the voltage from 4,000 out of oxygen, as you would with oxygen bot - volts to 110, so you can get the electricity in tles, which were the only other options avail - your house. They used to be filled with an oil able at the time and were fire hazards.” that contained PCBs, which are a wonderful “There were people whose lives were insulator. The problem is, PCBs contain chlo - completely altered,” he adds. “I remember rine, which makes them an environmental one farmer just gave up. He came to the hos - hazard, and they had to get rid of them. pital and didn’t want to see his kids anymore, “There were hundreds and hundreds of [the didn’t want to do anything. But we got him obsolete transformers], and I developed a fur - back to the farm, got him on the machine, nace for getting rid of the PCBs in the way that and when we went out to visit him he was out allowed you to salvage and sell the metal.” on a grass mower mowing his lawn with the Ritter’s next big contract provided a long tube in his nose and a big smile on his history lesson as well as an environmental face. He loved it.” challenge. Ritter built about 100 of the machines, The Canadian military hired Ritter and his business “really blossomed”. to develop a safe way to destroy “a few tons” Sadly, it didn’t last. “They worked well, of lewisite that it had been storing for but the main problem was that they were decades at a base near Suffield in southern built with household parts—vacuum parts— Alberta. “Lewisite is a war chemical, like that weren’t intended for continuous use, mustard gas but about 100 times more and they needed maintenance, which I had toxic,” says Ritter. “It’s a vesicant that to do myself. It became overwhelming, attacks the eyes and skin and destroys every -
Robert Ritter (at right) displays the oxygen especially because people began to depend on thing it touches.” separator he invented. The portable device them totally.” Think that sounds bad? It gets worse. “It’s provided 95 percent pure oxygen for emphysema and cystic fibrosis patients, “I was new to the industrial world a liquid made up of about 35 percent arsenic, allowing them to regain their mobility. and didn’t appreciate how much capital and one little drop the size of a pinhead
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contaminated soil. He built a prototype and People pretend to be interested in venture called it the Lymelox Process. capital, but that’s a myth. They want some - “We could take soil contaminated with thing that’s already proven, and that they PCB, dioxins or any nasty carcinogenic and know they can get an immediate return on reduce them down to parts per billion and investment from it. have no exhaust, not even carbon dioxide, so “Big companies will support researchers nothing, nothing came off in this process,” through grants funding and write it off if it Ritter says. doesn’t work, but, as an individual, if you “The secret of the process was the pre - want to be an inventor you need to invent conditioning of the lime. You would run the Velcro or a safety pin or something like that. soil through an auger and then combine it Something that everyone understands and with another augered feed of lime. “The real you can build a prototype for and get market advantage of it is that it ran at a much lower evaluated. Then you might be able to do it.” Ritter designed a full-scale unit built at the temperature than other incineration process - Ritter worked on the Lymelox project hazardous waste disposal site in Swan Hills, Alberta. The unit (above) was used in the es and consequently didn’t have nasty mater - until 1999, and he considers it his last big decontamination of PCB-laden transformers. ial forming on you, like dioxins. venture. It never succeeded financially, but he Below, Ritter is seen with a pilot model of a process that was used to destroy tons of war “If you ran contaminated soil through the neither regrets it nor is he bitter about the chemicals at Canadian Forces Base Suffield, in process, what would come out on the back way it ended. “I don’t apologize for not southern Alberta. was just original soil and lime carbonate—the being able to raise 50 million. It would be lime absorbed the carbon dioxide.” nice to sit back now and point to a giant would be enough to kill everyone in the However, the “misadventures of company and say I started it, but I can’t say room—very nasty stuff.” Australian National Industries in Europe” that, and that’s okay. The Canadian army had procured the forced them to sell the subsidiary, “When I look back on all the things I chemical from the U.S. Army. The Americans Consolidated Environment Technology, to a worked on—the PCB furnaces, the Reox had developed and refined it throughout the large Australian steel company, which wasn’t machine, the lewisite, the Lymelox—they 20th century as a response to mustard gas, interested in developing the Lymelox process worked. The things that we set out to do, we which the Germans had used in World War I. any further. were able to do, and that’s where the satis - Fortunately, the chemical was never used “The process still hasn’t been matched by faction comes from.” except in tests on animals. Unfortunately, it any other technology, and if the company had In particular, Ritter feels good about the was hard to destroy. survived it might have taken off,” Ritter Reox machines, because they made a direct “Mustard gas was not easy to destroy, but believes. “I tried to keep it going, but I fig - improvement in the lives of “a couple of it was easier to destroy than lewisite because ured it would have taken about $40–50 mil - dozen people.” you could burn the mustard and then get rid lion to pull the first piece of it together, and “Of all the things I’ve done in my profes - of the sulphur dioxide, and they had a tech - you need to be a young man to keep some - sional life, that was the most satisfying.” nology for that,” says Ritter. “But I had to thing like that going. Now in his mid-70s, the U of A’s first develop a process of several steps to get rid of “It’s just very difficult to raise cash for engineering PhD graduate lives just outside of the lewisite. It was a chemical process, and in something like what I was trying to do. Vancouver, in “a big house with some prop - the end it worked pretty well.” erty around it,” which he spends most of his It worked so well that about ten years time repairing and renovating. later, when the Americans wanted to get rid In spite of the struggles and setbacks in of their own remaining lewisite, they licensed his chosen career, Ritter feels blessed. He the process from Ritter and called on him for raised four kids, consulted for more than 30 help. “I went down there and they had it in a companies around the world, served as chair system that required a lot of upgrading, and of the Calgary Region Arts Foundation when they realized how much the process (among other associations), and produced would cost they weren’t prepared to put more than a dozen patents. up money to do it, so they abandoned it,” “I’ve always had an interest in science— he says. even as a little kid—and when I was 22 and “What they’ve done with the lewisite only not sure what to do with my life, I thought the gods know. My guess is they dumped it in about my love for doing research, and then it the ocean—that’s the conventional thinking.” became clear to me what I should do, and I In the early 1990s, Ritter moved to British was right,” he said. Columbia and starting doing contract work “If I had to do it all over again I’d do the for Australian National Industries to clean up exact same thing.”
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GUSTAV STROEM CHRISTENSEN 1929 –2007
ustav Stroem “Gus” Christensen was six months, mainly through correspondence Christensen retired as full professor to Gborn April 1, 1929 on a farm on the tiny school in Edmonton, and enrolled in Mission, BC in 1993. He and Penny joined Danish island of Laesoe. The eighth of nine Engineering Physics at the University of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day children, Gustav completed nine years Alberta. Saints and both served at of schooling in an ancient one-room elemen - He blossomed as an engi - the church’s Family History tary school and the island’s brand-new junior neering student, taking the Centre in Abbotsford. With high school. Henry Birks Gold Medal in Penny, a professional In 1945, he ventured to Copenhagen to 1958, along with several genealogist, Gus wrote his take a radio operator apprenticeship. He other scholarships. After a autobiography, the history served as a radio operator with the Danish summer with the National of his parents’ 172 descen - Merchant Navy for four years, and on an Research Council in Ottawa, dants, and a volume of American oil tanker for another two. His he took his M.A. Sc. in translations of historical travels took him to ports on five continents Electrical Engineering under articles on Laesoe, the and to Canada, where he visited his brother Dr. Frank Noakes at the island of his birth. and sister who had immigrated to the prairies. University of British Christensen was an When Christensen joined his siblings in Columbia in 1960. intervener in the National Gustav Stroem Christensen Canada, his life abruptly changed. He Christensen worked with Energy Board hearings that completed his entire high school diploma in the BC Energy Board and resulted in the rejection of Chemcell in Edmonton, but disliked the the huge SE2 coal-fired plant, a project that in memoriam odours associated with chemical engineering. would have emitted unacceptable pollution So he beat a hasty retreat to the rarified into the Fraser Valley funnel. Onlookers will The Faculty of Engineering sincerely atmosphere of academia at UBC. His PhD always remember the NEB Chairman saying, regrets the passing of the following thesis (1966), under supervisor Dr. Avrom “So, Dr. Christensen, is that your entire argu - alumni and friends. Soudack, examined the stability of non-linear ment?” Gus replied, “No sir, I am just getting Anderson, Wendy (Mineral Process '81) mathematical models of systems. started.” It brought the house down. Bradley, Horace (Electrical '50) In July 1966, even before he had At 75, Christensen took up an adjunct pro - Dawson, Earl (Electrical '50) defended his thesis, Christensen was lured fessorship in the School of Engineering Science Fedoruk, Raymond (Electrical '69) back to the U of A as assistant professor. He at Simon Fraser University, where he had an Good, Max (Mining '40) spent the next 27 years teaching, researching office, a computer and a grad student – but no Hawkins, William (Electrical '49) and taking a large load of administrative salary. He spent one or two days there each Lien, Clifford (Electrical '52) responsibilities for the Department week until he died, and he published what he Matheson, J Donald (Civil '51) Poland, Charles (Petroleum '56) of Electrical Engineering. He taught 16 considered to be his best work during this time. Ragan, John (Civil '74) different courses, but his forte was the These papers and patents were in the field of Reynolds, John (Mining '42) one-on-one training with his 24 graduate asymptotic stability of linear and nonlinear sys - Smerek, Alexander (Civil '50) students. tems, a continuation of his PhD work. He sim - Tod, James (Petroleum '55) Christensen’s research focused on the plified the solutions to Lyapunov’s widely Van Der Lee, Arie (Civil '47) optimum economic operation of various applicable stability theorems, making them Warne, George (Electrical '51) types of power systems, minimizing the ener - useful to electric power engineers, other practi - Williams, Reagan (Mechanical '92) gy lost in transmission lines while generating cal engineers, and many other professionals. Willumsen, Arnold (Civil '58) the maximum possible amount of power. He With the help of linear programming, he also authored over 140 scientific papers, four solved the least absolute value estimation prob - books and four chapters in books on his lem originally posed by Laplace in 1750. The Faculty of Engineering was recently made aware of the following alumni research specialties. Gus Christensen died August 9, 2007 at who passed away more than a year ago. In 1969 Christensen married an English the age of 78. He enjoyed many trips with his immigrant, Penelope Janet Gardner, in family, and was justly proud of their success. McIntosh, Alexander M. (Petroleum '51) Edmonton. They have two children, Lynne He was a wonderful man, touched many lives Spence, Robert (Civil '48) and Neil. and is sadly missed. Wong, James (Civil '75, MEng Civil '77)
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Perfect student continues to grow by Ryan Smith
Lindsay Leblanc is no longer perfect, but she doesn’t mind too much. n i k n a R m a d A
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eblanc (Engineering Physics ’03) earned a “I slept in and loafed a bit,” she smiles. “I Leblanc largely enjoys those long hours, but Lperfect grade in all 46 of her undergrad - really needed some time off at that point.” confesses that sometimes it gets monotonous. uate classes. On graduating, she added the She also indulged her love of reading—par - “Working in a lab is almost like doing manual 2003 Governor General’s Award and C.D. ticularly Canadian literature—and became labour,” she observes. “Sometimes I feel like I Howe Fellowship. addicted to CBC Radio One. need to sit down and learn something, so I find Leblanc was part of the last U of A class Not one to remain idle for long, Leblanc myself opening textbooks just to do that. to be marked on the nine-point grade scale eventually did volunteer work and got a job “I also read a lot of novels,” she adds. “I (the U of A switched to the more traditional part-time with the Women in Scholarship, decided that, when I became a grad student, I four-point scale in the fall of 2003), and she Engineering, Science and Technology was going to continue to read, even if it takes received a nine in every class she took. “I (WISEST) program, an organization close to away from my studies, because I love read - think it was easier to maintain a perfect her heart. “As a female in math and science, ing, and that’s what makes me happy.” record in the nine-point scale than it would you’re always told that you can be as good as Her life in Toronto includes more than lab have been according to the letter scale,” she the guys, and I’ve always worked to try to work and reading. “I have a lot of friends says modestly. prove it,” she says. now,” she says. “It took a while after moving Now a PhD student in physics at the Leblanc continues to achieve in graduate here, but I definitely have an active social life University of Toronto, Leblanc admits her aca - school. “Lindsay is the senior graduate stu - these days. And I really enjoy living in Toronto. demic record is no longer completely unblem - dent on an ultra-cold atom experiment to I love the diversity. I can sit in a circle of friends ished. “I received an A-minus in one of my study the physics of ferromagnetism,” says and realize that I’m the only one who’s a native master’s classes a few years ago,” she laughs. her PhD supervisor, Dr. Joseph Thywissen. English speaker, and that’s pretty neat. “It was actually a really tough class, and I did - “She is rapidly becoming an independent “I think I’m a big city kid in the end,” she n’t have some of the background I needed researcher. Recently she gave her first invited adds. “I grew up in the suburbs of prairie going into it, but that’s OK. I learned a lot.” talk—at Simon Fraser University—and she cities and, you know, they’re always the Not surprisingly, Leblanc continues to do has also published a first-author paper this same—there’s always a Wal-Mart and a well for herself nearly five years after her year in Physical Review A.” Superstore. Now I live in a neighborhood flawless run at the U of A. Now 26 years old, Thywissen goes on to describe Leblanc’s where there’s not a single chain business; she received her master’s in physics at the current research. “One of the main goals of everything’s independently owned, and U of T in 2005, and hopes to attain a PhD in our field is to understand how high-tempera - physics by 2010. ture superconductivity works. There are var - Not surprisngly, Leblanc Despite her stellar success as an under - ious models proposed for what this does, but graduate, Leblanc admits she had some mis - they can’t be solved by computers, so we continues to well for herself givings about entering graduate school, hope the kind of experiments our lab is work - nearly five years after her “I took a year off after the U of A and ing on will help us understand this type of flawless run at the U of A. considered becoming a high school teacher,” physics better.” she says. “I love kids and I love teaching, and Leblanc works in a room full of lasers it was the classic idea that I wanted to do that also includes a vacuum system and mag - there’s a coffee shop on the corner and a used something good for the world, and I wasn’t netic fields, which control the models of book store and a used clothing store, and I sure grad school was the way to do that. But atoms that she and her colleagues build in can ride my bike anywhere I want to go. I then I came to the decision that I love to order to better understand their properties. love that.” learn, so I choose grad school. I still plan to The research is basic, says Leblanc, but the After Leblanc earns her PhD, she plans to teach, but now it’ll be at the university level.” knowledge gained may be applied in many do a post-doctoral fellowship and then find a Shortly after writing her final exam for ways. “For one example, this material’s resis - job as a faculty member at a Canadian uni - her engineering physics degree in the U of A’s tance to electricity is so low—zero—that if we versity, perhaps the U of A. Department of Computer and Electrical were able to understand it and use it to trans - “I really enjoyed my time at the U of A. I Engineering, Leblanc threw some clothes and mit electricity, it would be much more effi - think it’s a great school and I have a lot of good a Eurail pass into a backpack and hopped on cient than current methods, which lose about friends there,” she says. “And I know this is a plane to wander Western Europe for three half the power.” The materials could also be going to sound lame, but I really miss the months. used to build powerful magnets, she adds. administration at the U of A—it’s a lot better Her favorite stop was Rome. “I grew up These might, for example, improve the effi - organized and friendlier than at the U of T.” on the Prairies and there aren’t too many ciency of the levitating bullet trains in Japan. The university isn’t the only thing that things there that are more than 100 years old, “Lindsay is an extremely dedicated might draw Leblanc back to Alberta. “I miss so when you can go to a place like Rome, worker,” marvels Thywissen. “She sometimes the Prairies sometimes. I miss being able to n i runs the experiment late into the night— see the sky.” k with so much history, it’s really interesting.” n a R When she returned to Canada, Leblanc a time when scientific breakthroughs That’s ironic, because the sky is her m a d canonically occur.” only limit. A engaged in some much needed relaxation.
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Continuing a tradition of GIVING By Richard Cairney
ou don’t have to look very far to see the tion of the careers that enabled us to raise our Ymany ways that Engineering alumni families. Through planned giving, you give have given back to the community. Whether not through your income, but through your volunteering to help build a neighbourhood assets.” playground, coaching a sports team or mak - “When you look at your estate, there are ing significant financial donations, engineer - going to be taxes on it. Most people are ing alumni have a long tradition of miffed when they discover how much tax community service. there will be on it. But the government allows “Every gift counts; everything is meaning - us the opportunity to make choices, if we ful,” says Nena Jocic-Andrejevic, the Faculty wish, to invest some of those assets into our of Engineering’s Planned Giving Counsel. In passions to a degree we weren’t able to solely her role as a fund development professional, do through our income—and receive a signif - Jocic-Andreovic helps families find alternate icant tax deduction.” ways of supporting the community through Jocic-Andrejevic says that with planned gift planning. giving, we are all empowered to give, empha - Many people think they aren’t able to sizing the importance of having a “plan” in support causes they’re passionate about, and planned gifts. “My role is to listen to people Jocic-Andrejevic says they’re often surprised and work with their financial planners to to learn that they are capable of giving more than they’d imagined. “Often, we feel that our finances restrict Many people think they aren’t able to our ability to give back to the community on support causes they’re passionate a regular basis. Maybe it’s because we’re about, and Jocic-Andrejevic says young and just starting out in our life and our they’re often surprised to learn that profession, or because we’re starting a fami - s
o they are capable of giving more than i ly, or caring for our own parents—we have d u t S obligations.” they’d imagined. h s i f e
u But that doesn’t mean that, at the end of l B the day, we can’t make a gift from our accu - Nena Jocic-Andrejevic mulated assets. Jocic-Andrejevic is straight - assist them in developing a plan that takes forward on this point: “It is a truism that the care of themselves and their family, but also only things certain in life are death and to look at the amount of taxes on their estate taxes,” she says. and making an informed choice about how While there’s nothing we can do about they want to manage their taxable assets— death, there are plenty of options for dealing their social capital.” with taxes—and that, says Jocic-Andrejevic, is U of A Engineer will have regular features where people become pleasantly surprised in on planned giving. For more information on their ability to support institutions and causes. planned giving contact Nena Jocic-Andrejevic, “Most of us support our passions by vol - the Faculty of Engineering’s Planned Giving unteering or giving back to an institution that Counsel, at 789-492-8969 or via e-mail at provided us with an education, the founda - nena.jocic [email protected].
34 U o fAEngineer Fall 2008 ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:27 AM Page 35
Kudos Taking pride in achievement
of projects in the oil and gas, FILIPCHUK, DAVID MORGAN, GWYN evaluating and completing high- (Civil ’84) PEng municipal and transportation (Mechanical ’67 ) , PEng pressure sour gas fields as well Has been appointed as regional infrastructure sectors. Heinz Has been appoint - as operations of gas plant facili - vice president, Western will be based in Calgary. ed to Canada's ties. Most recently, Sorochan Canadian buildings operations Outstanding CEO joined Compton Petroleum for PCL. Filipchuk began his of the Year Corporation (2004-2008) of HILL, DAVID W. Calgary to provide engineering PCL career in 1984 as a field (MSc Civil ’77), PEng Advisory Board for support for areas in southern engineer in Edmonton, and has Has been appointed 2008 by the Alberta, conduct economic eval - served the organization at President and Caldwell Partners, Deloitte, CTV uations and capital expenditures, numerous locations across Chairman of the and the National Post. Morgan coordinate completions, and help North America. In 2004, he Board of Thurber is retired founding president recommend new wells and select became operations manager for Engineering Ltd. CEO of EnCana Corporation new exploration areas. PCL Edmonton, prior to his Hill joined the and was named the 2005 recipi - appointment as district manager firm’s Edmonton office in 1983 ent of Canada's Outstanding of Southern Alberta operations and subsequently relocated to CEO of the Year Award. in the same year. Filipchuk was TAYLOR, DON ’58 BSc the Vancouver office in 1995. (Civil ’58, MSc Civil ’60), PEng appointed vice president and He has previously served as Has been named a district manager of Southern SARMA, HEMANTA Branch Manager for Thurber’s laureate of the Alberta operations in 2005. (PhD Petroleum ’88) Edmonton and Vancouver Professor Hemanta Calgary Business offices and most recently as the Sarma is a recipient Hall of Fame. He firm’s Managing Director. GROVER, DR. WAYNE D. of the 2008 was honoured for Hill’s expertise encompasses (PhD Electrical ’89), PEng Australian his entrepreneurial Has been elected as foundation investigation and Learning & spirit and for his work as presi - a Fellow in the design for buildings, land Teaching Council dent of Engineered Air, an air- Royal Society of development projects, and Citation for Outstanding conditioning equipment Canada: The transportation and municipal Contributions to Student manufacturing business. Under Academies of Arts, infrastructure. He has practiced Learning “for initiating students his direction, this company Humanities and in Alberta and British Columbia, into the profession of Petroleum achieved steady growth and Sciences of Canada. Founded in and is currently based in Engineering while interacting never experienced an unprof - 1882, RSC is Canada’s most Thurber’s Vancouver office. with them to secure their welfare itable quarter. prestigious scholarly organiza - as individuals and success as tion. Election to RSC is the high - McGINLEY, MARK scholars”. Sarma holds the Reg est honour a scholar can achieve Sprigg Chair in Petroleum USENIK, ANDREW (Civil ’83, MSc Civil ’85, (Civil ’08) E.I.T. in the Arts, Humanities and Engineering at the Australian PhD Civil ’88) As the lead vocalist and song - Sciences. A professor for the School of Petroleum A professor and endowed chair writer for the Edmonton-based Department of Electrical and Engineering, University of of infrastructure research and punk rock group Ten Second Computer Engineering, Grover Adelaide. civil engineering at the University Epic, Usenik has been touring was also awarded 2008 Alberta of Louisville in Kentucky, the country and working on a Ingenuity Fund Research McGinley recently received an new album, after crossing the Excellence Award. ASTM International Award of SOROCHAN, ERNEST (Chemical ’72), PEng convocation stage this summer. Merit. He was recognized for his Has been appointed to the board He has also taken on a position outstanding dedication to and of directors for Mainland as a songwriter with Sony HEINZ, HEINRICH K. involvement in the entire mason - (MSc Civil ’84, Ph.D. Civil ’88) PEng Resources Inc. Sorochan has Music, as well as writing and ry industry, and particularly the Has been appointed built a professional career focus - performing with his own band. standards process, including Managing Director ing on understanding all techni - research contributions related to of Thurber cal aspects of planning, drilling, test methods. Engineering Ltd. Heinz joined Thurber’s Calgary office in 1995 and was appoint - CORRECTIONS ed as a Principal in 2000. He served as Thurber’s Calgary On page 35 of the Winter/Spring 2008 issue of U of A Engineer, the class organizer for the Class of 1968 office manager from 1999 until Chemical Engineering was incorrectly identified as Bruce Burdenie. Our apologies to Bill Burdenie who was 2007, during which time, the in fact the class organizer. office developed in both size and staff expertise and capabilities, On page 23 of the Winter/Spring 2008 edition of U of A Engineer, Dr. Jeff DiBattista (MSc Structural ’95, to become one of the leading PhD Structural ’00) PEng was named as the sole recipient of the Consulting Engineers of Alberta award of geotechnical consulting firms in merit in building engineering, for the PCL Centennial Learning Centre. In fact, the award was presented to the City. He has worked on an entire team from Cohos Evamy “for their excellent work on the mechanical, electrical, and structural major geotechnical engineering engineering systems,” says DiBattista. “The success of the PCL building was a team effort—many of whom projects in Canada and abroad, are graduates of the University of Alberta—and it is their work that truly deserves the recognition.” and is well known for his contri - butions in the fields of tunneling and trenchless technology. In his Do you have news to share? new capacity, he will continue to Send news of your awards, appointments, and other be involved with senior review successes to [email protected]
U o fAEngineer Fall 2008 35 ENGMAGfall08_31:2 ENG ALUMNI W05 1/7/09 11:27 AM Page 36
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40051128 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Postage paid Port payé Faculty of Engineering, Publications Poste- University of Alberta Mail publications E6-050 Engineering Teaching & Learning Complex 40051128 Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4 EDMONTON, ALBERTA e-mail: [email protected] University of Alberta ENGINEE RING Celebrating a Century
This year, as we celebrate 100 years of engineering education at the University of Alberta, the 20,000th U of A Engineer will graduate. More than ever, a new generation of engineering graduates will be inspired by the accomplishments of those alumni who have graduated before them. But while the campus, the tools, and the technology may have changed, today's engineers share a common goal with their predecessors: to use human creativity and imagination, along with an understanding of natural phenomena, to solve the problems of society. Today, the Faculty of Engineering at the U of A is recognized as one of the top engineering programs in North America, and the foundation of our success has been the outstanding tradition of our alumni supporting each new generation of engineers. We thank you for your continued commitment to our faculty. If you have any comments regarding the Faculty of Engineering or would like more information on how you can support future U of A Engineers, please contact: Laurie Shinkaruk, Acting Assistant Dean, External Relations Faculty of Engineering, University of Alberta c/o E6-050 Engineering Teaching and Learning Complex Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4
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If you were an Alberta resident on December 31, 2007 and have already I would like information on how to include the Faculty of Engineering given $200 elsewhere, your combined income tax savings will be: at the U o f A as part of a will, life insurance, or other planned gift instrument. I have provided for the Faculty of Engineering at the U o f A in a will or trust agreement. Your donation to the U of A $100 $500 $1,000 $2,500 Your tax credit for your gift: $50.00 $250.00 $500.00 $1,250.00 Please return to: * To best meet Faculty of Engineering’s needs, donations may Office of the Dean, Faculty of Engineering be directed to endowed funds. Donations made to endowment funds University of Alberta are invested in perpetuity and the investment earnings are used to E6-050 Engineering Teaching and Learning Complex 02552 advance the specified purposes of the fund within the University. Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2V4