The Engineering Career Centre’s PEY Co-op Awards celebrate our students and industry partners who help make PEY Co-op a successful and rewarding program. Two stellar CivMin students have been nominated for the award.
Annemieke Tucker is currently in her final year of her undergraduate degree, pursuing a degree in Civil Engineering with a minor in Environmental Engineering.
During her 16-month Professional Experience Year (PEY) Co-op, she worked with SLR Consulting, an environmental consulting firm, as a member of the Mine Waste Engineering Team. Annemieke gained on-site experience and contributed to auditing and rehabilitation mine projects. Towards the end of her Co-op term, she was assigned the Technical Coordinator role for a tailings dam in a mine in Brazil.
Annemieke is also a varsity athlete on the Toronto Varsity Blues Track and Field and Cross-Country teams.
Michael Milad (Year 4 CivE) helped shape Toronto’s future with his work on cycling and pedestrian infrastructure at the City of Toronto‘s Transportation Services, demonstrating a passion for sustainable urban development.
The Tomory family, with 11 U of T alumni among them, turned a hobby into the second-largest maple syrup producer in the province.
Every spring, the warming weather sees the tree sap run again, beckoning the Tomory family to renew their combined annual efforts. Harvesting the quintessential Canadian product, maple syrup, has yielded sweet results for the siblings. What started as a hobby farm has become the second-largest maple syrup producer in Ontario.
About 80 km northeast of downtown Toronto, the 200-acre Pefferlaw Creek Farms is set in the rolling hills of the countryside near Zephyr, Ont. Four brothers, John, Ben, Eugene and Tony, run and own the farm. In all, there are seven siblings who are all U of T alumni – six from U of T Engineering. Their parents, Paul Sr and Teresa, as well as uncles Eugene and Nicholas also count U of T as their alma mater, making the count 11 alumni among the Tomorys.
The crunch month of March, coinciding with the annual March Break holiday for students in Ontario public schools, sees a staggering uptick in the visitors. With this surge in customers, several siblings and their father, Paul Sr, gather to tackle the demands. Activities available include a tapping tour, maple taffy tasting in the sugar shack, syrup tasting and a pancake breakfast. Weekends can see live music complementing the experience for diners enjoying a pancake breakfast.
“We’ve been aggressively expanding,” says Ben Tomory (CivE 1T0, MEng 1T3), explaining the rapid expansion of operations. In the past year they have gone from fifth to second in provincial production, utilizing their family’s extensive combined academic backgrounds and syrup-related skills honed during their youth.
“We grew up in the country, and my parents had about 10 acres of property. There we would make maple syrup in the backyard,” recounts Ben. “It was something you did in the spring. Those first warm days after a winter you could wear a t-shirt, running around collecting firewood and sap, and eating sugar all day. That was my childhood and there was always kind of a, ‘Oh, it’d be great to do this for a living!’ and this kind of thinking about it.”
All seven Tomory siblings attended U of T; the six brothers at U of T Engineering, with their sister, Melisande, completing a degree in Geology in 2000. “The six boys all went through U of T Engineering. My father, and his two brothers, also went through engineering at U of T.”
Their father, Paul Tomory Sr (ElecE 6T4), and his two brothers – uncles to the seven siblings – Eugene (ChemE 6T1) and Nicholas (ElecE 6T5) led the way. Their mother, Teresa, completed the first doctorate for the family (Fine Art St Michael’s College, 1970; MA 1971; PhD Fine Art 1980).
Civil Engineering attracted three brothers to attend – first Paul (CivE 9T5, MASc 9T7, MBA 02) then twins, Ben and Tony simultaneously (CivE 1T0, MEng 1T3). The remaining brothers are Leslie (EngSci 9T7, MA Hist 2005, PhD History of Philosophy of Science & Technology 2009), Eugene (MechE 0T1), and John (ChemE 1T1, MEng 1T4).
Initially, loving the outdoors, the property was purchased for its trees, Ben recalls, “We bought the farm as an investment about 11 years ago. I love the outdoors and nature, so we wanted to buy a property with a nice forest. We found this one. Basically, from there, we had the maple trees we needed.”
“We had money because we’re all working as engineers, Bachelor engineers, and we just needed time. I had a job that allowed me to take six weeks of vacation, so we just went for it. Then, 11 years later, here we are,” Ben says.
The impressive main building, built during the beginning of the pandemic four years ago, is an impressive red-roof structure with concrete flooring, large timber framing, and massive electrical wiring and piping for liquid transport throughout.
“We wanted to build a destination, not just a utilitarian building.” Ben relays. “We want to draw people in during the maple syrup season, so we moved an old barn here to our property and preserved a bit of Ontario heritage at the same time.”
“It’s been a cool project to work on. And I was basically our project manager – I have a construction background with 10 years of construction experience, he says. “This whole building is all building science. I really beat up the contractors getting the building designs right when it came to this thing because I didn’t want it leaking.”
Peffferlaw, with the advantage of having several engineers at its disposal, can embrace technological change. Ben recounts, “We have the biggest evaporator in Ontario now. Reverse osmosis has penetrated the maple syrup industry quite a bit, and we are implementing a bunch of newer technologies with what we do.”
“All the process design within the facility has been 100% an application of my education and even professional experience. That also goes for the installations in the forest because it’s plumbing design – it’s all kinds of fluid dynamics, vacuum pumps, transfer pumps, things like that.”
The scaling up of production saw the family combine their areas of expertise throughout. Complementing their engineering credentials in electrical, chemical, mechanical and civil allows the brothers to “have some good conversations” with each other.
With grandchildren now teenagers, the operation sees all hands contribute to March Break tours and operations, allowing three generations of Tomorys to come together in this sweet family business.
By Phill Snel
By the numbers:
- 11: number of U of T alumni in Tomory family
- 9: number of U of T Engineering alumni
- 700 acres of Maple forests managed by Pefferlaw Creek Farms
- 48,000 taps in trees
- 4,000,000 litres of maple sap harvested annually
- 85,000 litres of maple syrup bottled and sold
- 10,000 annual visitors
- 8 ft. x 20 ft. evaporator (most evaporators in Ontario are ~2’x6’ or 3’x8’)
- 450 km of tubing
- 300 hp across 100 different motors (pumps, vacuums, compressors)
Slicing up a pancake breakfast with plenty of local maple syrup. (Photo by Phill Snel)
CivMin students were among the many worthy recipients who received recognition at the U of T Engineering Student Leadership Reception on Friday, April 5.
The University of Toronto Student Leadership Awards (UTSLA) recipients from CivMin include Charu Tyagi (Year 4 CivE) and Bo Zhao (Year 4 CivE), who is also recognized for his role as outgoing VP of finance for EngSoc.
UTSLAs recognize students in their final year of study, with a minimum cumulative GPA (CGPA) of 2.70. Students may be nominated by staff, faculty or alumni. All nominees must have at least one year of significant volunteer leadership and high-impact service in the year immediately prior to the current nomination period.
Julia DeMarchi (Year 4 CivE) is recognized with the L.E. Jones Award of Distinction for arts in Engineering. The award is presented to a graduating student in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering who made a significant contribution in the arts, either within Skule™ or externally, during their time at U of T.
The Award was established to acknowledge the contributions of L.E. (Ted) Jones, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, over his long and distinguished career, to students, alumni and the Faculty, as well as his continuing support and dedication to the Engineering Society and the Engineering Alumni Association of the University of Toronto. The Award endorses Ted’s great appreciation of the arts and his love of music in particular.
A full list of student award recipients is posted by Engineering News
Mohammed Basheer’s research uses the Nile as a case study for how interdisciplinary frameworks can inform resource management
But with nearly 86 percent of the water that flows into the Nile originating in Ethiopia – and nearly all of it consumed in Egypt and Sudan – there are complex dynamics surrounding resource management and reconciling the needs of countries along the north-flowing river.
The University of Toronto’s Mohammed Basheer is looking to address this by integrating AI, engineering, social sciences and stakeholder engagement into a holistic model of water resource management.
An assistant professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Basheer’s work focuses on the water-energy-food nexus, incorporating political and economic dynamics to improve policy and planning across the region.
This interdisciplinary approach is laid out in a framework, developed with partners at the International Food Policy Research Institute and published in the Journal of Hydrology, that provides a blueprint to navigate the interplay between water, energy and food resources at basin scale.
“It makes sense to manage these resources together; if you aren’t thinking holistically, then interventions may produce trade-offs,” says Basheer.
Concerns over water availability downstream have mounted ever since Ethiopia began construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2011. The project could double electricity generation in a country where around 45 per cent of the population didn’t have access to electricity as of 2021 – but it’s expected to affect the inter- and intra-annual variabilities of the Nile flow, potentially affecting water supply and hydroelectric power downstream in Egypt and Sudan.
Currently, water supply from the Nile accounts for around 97 per cent of Egypt’s freshwater resources. A significant amount of irrigation and hydro in Sudan is sourced from the river as well.
“It is difficult to develop fixed long-term plans given the uncertainties stemming from the variability and shifts in the Nile flow,” Basheer said, highlighting the imperative for adaptive strategies.
The framework created by Basheer and partners comprises four steps.
The first involves understanding the food-water-energy nexus by consulting with stakeholders to identify key priorities and trade-offs.
The second stage is simulation – Basheer and colleagues developed sophisticated models to encapsulate the complexities of the Blue Nile River basin. These models serve as virtual laboratories that enable policy-makers to explore scenarios and interventions.
The third stage leverages AI algorithms to identify patterns and recommend strategies to balance trade-offs between water, energy and food performance.
Stakeholder engagement and communication is the final stage, with visualizations and online tools used to communicate findings and actionable insights to policy-makers.
The work has resulted in partnerships with the International Food Policy Research Institute and other government and academic institutions, with Basheer – a recent addition to U of T Engineering faculty – keen to apply his methodology to projects in Ontario and across Canada.
“This interdisciplinary approach is applicable to various water resource systems internationally, and I hope it results in policy and operational enhancements,” he said.
“I envision a future where water resource systems are planned and managed holistically, incorporating engineering, economic, social and political dimensions.”
April 2, 2024 | U of T News
U of T and the UTAA honour Paul Cadario for “longstanding contributions to the University over many decades.”
Paul Cadario (CivE 7T3, Hon. LLD 2013) has dedicated nearly five decades to the university community as a volunteer. It all started when he became one of the first students elected to the university’s Governing Council. Since then, Cadario has taken on more than 35 volunteer positions at U of T, earning accolades such as the Arbor Award and an honorary degree. And, through his philanthropic support that spans various priority sectors of U of T, he has significantly impacted the lives of thousands of students.
“On behalf of the University of Toronto community, I am delighted to congratulate Paul Cadario on receiving the Rose Wolfe Award,” says U of T President Meric Gertler. “Through his decades of volunteer service and philanthropy, Dr. Cadario has made a positive difference in the lives of so many University of Toronto students. And through his work at the World Bank, he has helped to raise the living standards for people around the world.”
The Rose Wolfe Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes exceptional alumni who demonstrate outstanding professional achievements, dedication to civic, charitable and social causes and extraordinary service to the University of Toronto. The award is jointly sponsored by U of T and the University of Toronto Alumni Association (UTAA). It is named for Dr. Rose Wolfe (BA 1938 UC, Dip. Social Work 1939, Hon. LLD 1998), who served as Chancellor of the University of Toronto from 1991 to 1997. She was an exemplary volunteer for the university she loved dearly.
“Paul Cadario embodies the values and principles championed by Rose Wolfe and the highest ideals of the University of Toronto,” says Dr. Rose Patten, Chancellor of U of T and chair of the Rose Wolfe Award selection committee. “His extraordinary record of service to our university is an inspiration to our entire community. His tireless commitment to lifting the student experience through his involvement and philanthropy will resonate for generations to come.”
Born and raised in Toronto, Paul Cadario studied civil engineering at U of T and worked as a research assistant assessing municipal services in Inuit communities in the Northwest Territories. After graduating in 1973, he became a Rhodes Scholar and spent a summer working in the central planning office in Papua New Guinea and travelling through developing regions in Asia.
After these formative experiences, Cadario joined the World Bank in 1975 and pursued a lifelong commitment to reducing poverty and improving living standards for people worldwide. During a 37-year career at the World Bank, he managed various development programs in Africa and Asia and helped modernize the Bank for the digital age of transparency and accountability. Before he retired in 2012, Cadario oversaw quality, results and compliance for the multi-billion-dollar portfolio of funds and grants that the World Bank administers.
Watch Paul Cadario’s acceptance speech:
“I’m honoured to be named alongside past recipients of this award,” says Cadario. “My motivation for giving, whether it’s time or money, is to strengthen the student experience. Even though I’ve long since graduated, I continue to have formative learning experiences at U of T. It’s an incomparable ecosystem in Canada for students to learn how to learn, and to become strong, contributing members of society.”
Cadario has been a member of the Governing Council twice, first as an undergraduate and later as an elected Alumni Governor. He served as the first openly gay president of the University of Toronto Alumni Association. And he was the first non-resident of the GTA to be elected president – another indicator of his extraordinary commitment. Cadario regularly sits on advisory boards at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. In 2012, these divisions named him Distinguished Fellow in Global Innovation and, in June 2013, U of T awarded him an honorary LLD for his leadership and dedication to the University.
The same year, Cadario received recognition for being an outstanding role model for engineering students, the Engineering Alumni Medal. This is the highest honour awarded by the Engineering Alumni Association and given to alumni who have made outstanding achievements in their diverse careers, while responding with flair and excellence to challenges.
Cadario’s philanthropy at U of T spans multiple faculties and disciplines, reflecting his wide-ranging interests. During the 1990s, he established the Cadario Facility for Integrated Learning and the Paul Cadario Scholarship at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. More recently, he created a doctoral fellowship in global engineering and provided foundational support for the Centre for Global Engineering at the Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
“I am in awe of Paul Cadario’s contributions,” says Corwin Cambray, president of the UTAA. “His lifetime work inspires others to do more. And he has provided exemplary leadership to the U of T community through his myriad volunteer advisory roles for decades. We are all proud to count him as a member of our global alumni community.”
At the Faculty of Arts & Science, Cadario founded the Paul Cadario Visiting Professorship in Public Policy and Governance, the GSEF-Paul Cadario Scholarships in Public Policy and the Paul Cadario Fellowship in Global Affairs. He also helped revitalize University College, making it more accessible and student friendly. His generosity helped build the Paul Cadario Conference Centre at Croft Chapter House. Most recently, he endowed four undergraduate awards within the Experiential Learning Commons, which will assist as many as 60 students each year. His giving also established new social impact internships, which will support approximately 12 students annually.
“Paul Cadario is among this university’s most dedicated alumni, donors, volunteers, fellows, advisors and friends,” says David Palmer, Vice-President Advancement. “He has been an exemplary champion of U of T, serving with distinction in nearly every capacity an alumnus could possibly serve – an unrivalled record of volunteer service over 50 years since his graduation. We are truly fortunate to call him a friend, and to honour him as one of the university’s great citizens with the Rose Wolfe Distinguished Alumni Award – our highest alumni honour.”
You can read an interview with Paul Cadario here, where he discusses his decades as a volunteer and his advice for today’s students.
This story originally published by Alumni News
A team of U of T Engineering students, including CivMin graduate and undergraduate students, came in third place at the University of Toronto Mississauga Big Data AI Case Competition, sponsored by Scotiabank, the weekend of Saturday, March 23. The team is comprised of Katia Ossetchkina (CivE MASc), Yuqi (Grace) Hu (Year 4 CivE), Nirmal Pol (PhD BME), William Hazen (Meng MIE), and Renzo Benavides (MEng MIE).
The group faced a total field of 70 teams. The IMI BIGDataAIHUB Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Competition is designed as a developmental opportunity for students to gain additional hands-on exposure to big data and artificial intelligence through real-world data – with the chance to win $30,000 in cash prizes. This multi-faceted competition is open to graduate students and undergrads with big data/AI experience from any academic discipline in any year of their academic career at the University of Toronto.
March 22, 2024 | Forbes
Water treatment plants are on guard of the safety and cleanness of the water we use daily. However, the CivMin’s Drinking Water Lab is essential in addressing the many challenges they face. We chatted with two graduate students working under the supervision of Professor Ron Hofmann, a member of the University of Toronto’s Drinking Water Research Group, to learn more about their current research.
Mennatallah Alnahas, CivE PhD Candidate
Cyanobacteria, commonly known as harmful algae blooms, grow on the top of the water’s surface in hot climates. As a result of climate change, we have observed an increase in algae growth in regions such as Canada, which are not typically hot. Water treatment plants face an issue, where the blooms end up in their water intake. Some of these blooms can be toxic as they release toxins into the water. Consequently, algae blooms can create a big issue for water treatment plants, as they are not equipped with the appropriate treatment processes to either remove the cells or degrade the toxins.
My research is focused on monitoring these cyanobacteria relying on phycocyanin fluorescence which is a unique pigment to these harmful algae, and then using machine learning to predict the upcoming blooms, so the utilities can be alarmed to put emergency plans in action.
Maeva Che, PhD Candidate
My research focuses on removing taste and odour compounds from drinking water, primarily using granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration.
The method I’m focusing on is commonly used in water treatment plants, it involves using granular activated carbon (GAC), which is derived from organic materials such as wood, coal, or coconut shells. The taste and odour compounds are removed from the water when they adhere to the adsorptive surfaces of activated carbon through adsorption. However, the adsorption capacity of GAC filtration decreases over time as the carbon becomes exhausted, meaning there are no functional surfaces left to remove the contaminants.
To address this challenge, my work explores alternative mechanisms, particularly biodegradation. Beneficial microorganisms within operational GAC filters can biodegrade and remove taste and odour compounds from water. By combining adsorption and biodegradation, filter performance can be enhanced. However, predicting filter lifetime becomes challenging.
Therefore, my research is focused on exploring the methods to enhance biodegradation in GAC filters and accurately predict filter performance and lifetime when biological removal is the primary method of removing taste and odour compounds. This will reduce the need for frequent media replacement and lowering associated costs in water treatment utilities.
By Galina Nikitina
Ezinneifechukwunyelu Ndubueze is a PhD candidate currently working under the supervision of Professor Brent Sleep on a project looking into the removal of forever chemicals (poly and perfluoroalkyl substances – PFAS) from groundwater using colloidal activated carbon (CAC).
It is important to find a solution that will be able to remove the forever chemicals, as they may be found in drinking water, making it dangerous for consumption. CAC is an economical technology widely used for the in-situ (on-site) removal of PFAS from groundwater. Once injected into the groundwater CAC forms a filtering barrier which traps the forever chemicals. The project seeks to understand how CAC removes PFAS in groundwater when placed in the subsurface. In addition, it is looking into understanding how CAC behaves in the subsurface before and after the adsorption of PFAS.
1. What companies/organizations are you working with (if any)?
This project is in collaboration with the consulting firms Geosyntec and Porewater Solutions. The research is also conducted in collaboration with Professor Anh Pham’s Lab and Professor Neil Thomson from the University of Waterloo.
2. Who is leading this research and how many are involved?
The U of T part of inter-university research is led by Professor Brent Sleep. As a member of this project, my role mainly involves setting up and conducting laboratory experiments. During the past summer, I received assistance from a summer undergraduate student named Laura Xu. Additionally, PhD candidate Paul Furbacher also contributes to the project by helping with troubleshooting some of the laboratory experiments.
3. What impact do these projects have on the larger scale? (In what way will engineering address the problems to make the world a better place?)
Ultimately the project aims to develop methods to predict removal of PFAS after placing a CAC barrier in the subsurface. This will be useful in decision-making regarding the installation of CAC barriers for the containment of PFAS. As well as, the development of long-term monitoring plans at sites where CAC is used for filtering PFAS.
By Galina Nikitina