May 3, 2019
Carolyn Farrell
More than 200 U of T Engineering faculty and staff gathered in the Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship on May 2 to recognize their colleagues’ exceptional contributions at the 12th annual Celebrating Engineering Excellence event. This celebration honours the recipients of U of T Engineering’s staff, research and teaching awards, as well as those who received awards and major research grants over the past year. ECE staff and faculty took home five of nine awards conferred at the celebration.
The award recipients from ECE are:
Stewart Aitchison
Safwat Zaky Research Leader Award
Recognizing leadership in innovative interdisciplinary and multiple-investigator initiatives that have enhanced the Faculty’s research profile within the broader community.
Professor Stewart Aitchison has held the Nortel Chair in Emerging Technology since 2001. His most recent research, on point-of-care technologies, is being commercialized by ChipCare, the start-up he co-founded in 2009. Aitchison has made significant contributions to research at U of T in several leadership roles. From 2003-2007 he was director of the Emerging Communications Technology Institute, and from 2007-2012 he was vice-dean, research, where he oversaw a 45% increase in federal funding and a 75% increase in major partnership funding, as well as the creation of a Faculty-wide energy initiative. Since 2013, Aitchison has served as associate scientific director and theme lead, public health for IC-IMPACTS, a unique Canada-India Research Centre of Excellence dedicated to building healthy communities in both countries. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Jason Anderson
Faculty Teaching Award
Recognizing a faculty member who demonstrates outstanding classroom instruction and develops innovative teaching methods.
Over more than 10 years of teaching, Professor Jason Anderson’s teaching evaluation scores have been among the highest in the Faculty, which is particularly notable as he teaches large compulsory first- and second-year courses. In addition to his outstanding classroom teaching, Anderson has been an exceptional mentor for undergraduate student theses and summer projects; he has co-published 15 refereed articles with undergrad students and one of the teams he supervised won the 2018 Gordon R. Slemon Award. He has also been active in undergraduate curriculum development, spearheading the development of the new AI engineering certificate and minor programs, for which he now serves as inaugural director. Anderson’s teaching excellence has garnered seven ECE teaching awards, as well as the Gordon R. Slemon Award for the Teaching of Design and the Faculty’s Early Career Teaching Award.
Krisztina Harmath
Catherine Gagne Sustained Excellence in Leadership Award
Recognizing a staff member who has demonstrated leadership in supporting the Faculty’s mission over a sustained period.
As director, administration & finance for ECE, Harmath is responsible for overseeing more than 50 administrative and technical staff and a budget of over $30M, as well as the department’s facilities and infrastructure. Harmath’s impact on the department since she was hired in 2012 has been remarkable. She has demonstrated leadership and vision in every aspect of her role, continuously innovating and improving ECE’s financial and administrative processes, resulting in a department that runs more smoothly in every respect. Harmath has set a standard of excellence for all ECE staff, and has fostered professional development (several staff have been promoted internally) and communication across all portfolios. She is a dedicated mentor to staff at all levels, as well as a resource and a role model for business officers and managers across the Faculty.
Frank Kschischang (ECE)
Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award
Recognizing a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in teaching over the course of at least 15 years.
Since joining the Faculty in 1991, Professor Frank Kschischang has excelled as a teacher and made tremendous contributions to undergraduate curriculum development in ECE and in the Faculty. Kschischang served as chair of both the Faculty curriculum committee and ECE’s curriculum committee for several years. He was a key architect of ECE’s current flexible curriculum, overseeing the entire development process from the planning stages to implementation and fine-tuning. Kschischang has also made significant contributions to graduate education, both as an advisor and as associate chair, graduate studies, for ECE. He has received six departmental teaching awards over the years, as well as a departmental service award for his contributions to curriculum development. Kschischang has also garnered the Faculty Teaching Award and the U of T Faculty Award, which recognizes excellence in linking teaching and research.
Jennifer Rodrigues
Agnes Kaneko Citizenship Award
Recognizing a staff member who has served with distinction and made contributions to the Faculty’s mission above and beyond their job description over a long period of time.
Rodrigues is the administrative coordinator for the Electronics Research Group. Throughout her 32 years in ECE, she has continuously demonstrated an exceptional commitment to the department and the Faculty and earned the trust and respect of all those she works with. Faculty, staff and students alike rely on her encyclopedic knowledge of the department, sound judgement, and ability to calmly deal with crises. She also contributes to a positive workspace in small but important ways, such as ensuring that there is always fresh coffee in the staff lounge, decorating the office for the holidays, and making new staff, students and faculty members feel welcome. Rodrigues is valued by everyone she works with for her willingness to help her colleagues and support the Faculty’s mission in any way she can – often going well beyond her job description to do so.
“It has been my great privilege to bring our community together every year for the past 12 years to acknowledge and celebrate the tremendous accomplishments of our faculty and staff” said Cristina Amon, dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “On behalf of the Faculty, I offer heartfelt congratulations to the awardees, and my deep gratitude to all our faculty and staff, past and present, for their hard work, dedication and commitment to excellence.”
This story originally appeared in U of T Engineering News.
More information:
Jessica MacInnis
Senior Communications Officer
The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
416-978-7997; jessica.macinnis@utoronto.ca