SECTION SECTION SECTION 22 IDENTITY CRISIS 31 GRADUATE 36 RESEARCH 39 INDUSTRY 2014 A YEAR Your smartphone is your NOT YOUR EDUCATING THE NEW ECE INDUSTRY IN REVIEW AVERAGE ROBOTS WHOLE ENGINEER ADVISORY BOARD best friend. But how good is The next generation Introducing Hai-Ling Partners help inform it at keeping your secrets? of human helpers Margaret Cheng research direction 10 KING’S COLLEGE ROAD, TORONTO ON M5S 3G4 / PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT NUMBER: 42887022 NUMBER: AGREEMENT MAIL PUBLICATION / 3G4 M5S ON TORONTO ROAD, COLLEGE KING’S 10 ENGINEERING COMPUTER & ELECTRICAL OF DEPARTMENT SR. ROGERS S. EDWARD THE THE EDWARD S. ROGERS SR. DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER ENGINEERING DIRECTORY ECE RESEARCH RESEARCH ECE 3 FINDING NEW AND SMARTER WAYS TO GENERATE AND DISTRIBUTE ENERGY IS ONE OF THE MOST PRESSING ISSUES OF OUR TIME. In ECE, we are world leaders in energy systems research and education. We have just completed Phase 1 of a comprehen- sive three-stage update to our energy systems laboratories. This renovation will open up new opportunities for both research and teaching, allowing graduate and undergraduate students to gain first-hand experience with the latest smart grid technologies, alternative energy resources and PHOTO BY RAINA+WILSON advanced methods for control of power systems. One of our department’s primary strengths is a close Where research and teaching connection to industry, which influences both our Please help us reach this ambitious goal. touch real-world issues teaching and research directions. I am pleased to announce a fresh collaboration with Hydro One, The year was 1982: the first CD players hit markets running through 2016. We have also founded a new in Germany and Japan, Michael Jackson released ECE Industry Advisory Board composed of members Thriller, and Time Magazine declared the computer from Hydro One, Qualcomm, IBM, TELUS, Altera its ‘Machine of the Year’. Here in The Edward S. and Huawei. Learn more about the board’s role on Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer page 39. Engineering (ECE), something prescient was developing—Professor K.C. Smith and his graduate More than three decades since multi-touch took student presented a new way to interface directly root in our labs, we maintain our position as the top- with computers by capturing signals on a flat ranked ECE program in Canada and are proud to be glass surface. among the best in the world. In these pages you’ll find stories about the people that keep us there—our It was the beginning of multi-touch, something most students, faculty, alumni and community. I view this of us now use every day on smartphones, tablets magazine as an opportunity to invite comment about and laptops. At the time, no one imagined how our activities and continuing evolution. I welcome ubiquitous mobile devices would become. Today we your feedback and hope you will take this chance to rely on our phones to tell us where we are, remind reconnect with the department—you may reach me us what we’ve forgotten, and inform us of every- directly at [email protected]. thing we don’t know. In return, we feed our devices a constant flow of information about ourselves. We hope our personal information is safe, but how can we be sure? This issue’s cover feature, Identity Crisis on page 22, highlights our investigation into pressing concerns surrounding smartphone and biometric FARID N. NAJM, To learn how you can help advance our energy security and privacy. PROFESSOR & CHAIR systems research and teaching, please contact Celeste Taylor, Director of Development, at 416 978 0291 or [email protected] 5 FEATURES SECTIONS 2014 35 RESEARCH PEO Engineering 8 Medal EDITOR Professor Natalie Enright Marit Mitchell Power Players Jerger recognized with Young Engineer award ART DIRECTOR As demand on the power Katina Constantinou, grid grows, Hydro One turns Sugar Design to three ECE professors for smart solutions PHOTOGRAPHY & 28 39 ILLUSTRATION Raina+Wilson Mark Smith UNDERGRADUATE INDUSTRY COPY EDITORS PEY Profile New Advisory Kelly Hayward 12 Field notes from Emily Miao, on the job Avivah Wargon Board at Intel Custom Foundry ECE announces the formation of EDITORIAL INQUIRIES: Baking an its first Industry Advisory Board ECE Communications Office 22 Tel: 416 978 7997 Improved Fax: 416 978 1145 18 [email protected] Breadboard Identity Crisis Three fresh ECE graduates Great Expectations Can we still protect our 44 Visit us online: are bringing sexy back How one electrical engineer became an unexpected deeply personal information www.ece.utoronto.ca to analog electronics labs champion for reading in the 21st century in the smartphone age? ALUMNI Join the conversation: ECE Alumni in Return to Skule Professor Steve Mann shares ANNUM is published annually by stories from 35 years at the the communications office of The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department forefront of wearable computing of Electrical & Computer Engineering. All material is copyright © 2014, and may not be reprinted without the express written permission of the author. All correspondence and undeliverable copies: 16 ANNUM Magazine This is the cake The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Optical Inclusion we want, this is Sandford Fleming Building, 31 10 King’s College Road, Room SFB540 PhD student Arash Joushaghani’s Toronto, ON M5S 3G4 work on a largely forgotten how we want it to GRADUATE Update or correct your material brings optics one taste, you figure contact information: switch closer to revolutionizing 416 978 1999 or email Not Your Average Robots [email protected] our electronic status quo out the recipe and Researchers cross disciplines to develop the Publication Agreement No: next generation of human helpers 42887022 configure this ISSN 2368-70292368-7037 thing. p.12 Printed in Canada by Flash Reproductions.Reproduction. ANUM_Editorial_FINAL.indd 4 2014-12-02 8:58 PM 6 ANNUM 2014 7 TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS 2014–2015 23 Engineering & Technology Universities Chair titles held by ECE faculty in OUR STORY 2013–2014, includ- #1 ing Canada Research Founded in 1909, The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & IN CANADA #15 Computer Engineering (ECE) maintains a proud history of world- IN NORTH Chairs, Endowed leading research and innovative education. We are the top-ranked ECE AMERICA Research Chairs, department in Canada and one of the largest. With 99 professors, 595 1,480 graduate students and 1,480 undergraduates, our classrooms, halls and Industrial Research laboratories hum with energy and creativity. Chairs and U of T Undergraduate ECE students and professors work together to solve some of the most #24 pressing issues of our time—we are recognized leaders in the fields of IN THE Distinguished students smart grid technology, mobile application development, next-generation WORLD Professor Chairs networks, and emerging areas such as biomedical engineering and 595 robotics. Our graduates go on to prominent careers in engineering, Graduate finance, medicine, law and more—their options are truly unlimited. students 30 PATENT APPLICATIONS 99 OUT OF ECE ACADEMIC RANKING OF SINCE 2010 Professors, QS World University WORLD UNIVERSITIES 2014 including Rankings 2014 Engineering/Technology & Emeritus Computer Sciences 52 # # # 145 1 11 23 INVENTIONS OUT OF Post-docs #1 ECE SINCE 2010 IN CANADA #17 in in North in the IN NORTH 49 Canada America World AMERICA Admin & Electrical & Electrical & Electrical & Electronic Electronic Electronic tech staff Engineering Engineering Engineering 11 #24 STARTUPS OUT OF IN THE ECE SINCE 2010 16 WORLD Research #1 #8 #19 associates in in North in the 6 Canada America World 230 Visiting Computer Computer Computer UNDERGRADUATE Science & Science & Science & DEGREES AWARDED Information Information Information FOR 2013–2014 professors Systems Systems Systems 8 ANNUM 2014 9 BY MARIT MITCHELL POWER PLAYERS Wild weather, electricity addiction and even renewable resources put more strain on today’s power grid than ever before. To make their network smarter and hardier, Ontario’s largest distribution and transmission utility Hydro One turned to three ECE professors for smart grid technologies that will help keep us all plugged in 10 ANNUM 2014 11 A SINGLE UNPRUNED TREE WAS ALL IT TOOK. “If some event happens “It is great to be able to say ‘Let’s use the sun’s times per second, a vast improvement on old upstream in the system rays or the wind to generate electricity,’ but it’s sensors that are polled only once every two to On August 14, 2003, one hot day in a hot summer, and you get discon- very transient in nature,” says Esendal. “You three seconds. “This gives you a much better a power line sagged onto some branches in the nected, you become an cannot predict the trend at all, and that is idea of how power is flowing immediately, small village of Walton Hills, Ohio. The resulting electrical island,” says the worst thing that you can have on the grid. so you can tell whether a line is disconnected cascading failure throughout Ontario and the Professor Iravani, who The system requires accurate anticipation or a generator is down,” he says. “Improving northeastern United States shut down power has had much successful and prediction to be able to plan and dispatch detection fosters efficiency—you don’t have to to more than 10 million people, becoming the collaboration with Hydro One and the electricity where the need is. Unfortunately run the system as conservatively if you know second-most-widespread blackout in history and its predecessor, Ontario Hydro, that is a major challenge in integration of you can react instantly.” a major wake-up call for power generators and since 1991. “We should be able renewable generation.” electric utilities operators around the world. “There are a lot of challenges today—these are to operate these islands in or- What if you could bottle up some of that wind only a few issues that we have,” says Esendal.