People

UTEV researchers come from the entire spectrum of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, including undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research associates, and professors.

UTEV is positioned at the forefront of the regional EV ecosystem in Canada’s top innovation hub, further encouraging the widespread adoption of EVs and providing many opportunities for Canada-grown EV experts.

UTEV offers a world-class environment ideal for large-scale deployments, testing, and development of battery, charging, and EV technology.

Olivier Trescases received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, in 2007. From 2007 to 2008, he was a Concept Engineer and Mixed-Signal IC Designer with Infineon Technologies in Austria, focusing on safety-critical automotive applications. He is currently an Associate Professor in the E. S. Rogers, Sr., Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. His group conducts research on advanced power electronic converters. Since 2015, he has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS. While on sabbatical in 2016, he was with the Texas Instruments Kilby Labs in Santa Clara, CA, USA. Since 2016, he has been the Vice Chair of the IEEE Toronto Section and has served on various IEEE conferences technical committees, including the Applied Power Electronics Conference, the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, and the International Symposium on Power Semiconductors and ICs. Additional information on Prof. Trescases and the Power Electronic Converters: ICs and Systems Laboratory can be found here.

Peter W. Lehn (SM’05) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MN, Canada, in 1990 and 1992, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, in 1999. He joined the faculty at the University of Toronto, in 1999. He spent six months as Visiting Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in 2001. His research interests include HVDC technologies, grid integration of storage and renewables, power electronics for electric vehicles and theoretical analysis of power electronic systems. Dr. Lehn is currently an Editor of the IEEE Transactions On Energy Conversion. Additional information on Prof. Lehn and the Laboratory for Advanced Power Conversion and Systems Analysis can be found here.

Prof. Cristina Amon joined UofT in 2006 as the Alumni Chair Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. Her research contributions include nano-scale thermal transport, energy systems, transient thermal management and electronics cooling, and design optimization subject to multi-disciplinary constraints. Her pioneering work has resulted in 16 book chapters, more than 350 refereed articles and numerous keynotes. She has served as General Chair of IEEE/ASME ITherm Intersociety Conference on Thermal, and Thermomechanical Phenomena and Emerging Technologies in Electronic Systems.  In 2015 she received the PEO Gold Medal, and in 2016, she became ASME Honorary Member and received the Engineering Institute of Canada’s Sir John Kennedy Medal. She has been inducted into the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Canada, the Hispanic Engineer Hall of Fame and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and elected fellow of all the major professional societies in her field. A complete biography for Dean Amon can be found here, and additional information on the Advanced Thermal / Fluid Optimization Modelling and Simulation (ATOMS) Laboratory can be found here.

Sean Victor Hum (S’95–M’03–SM’11) received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, in 1999, 2001, and 2006, respectively. He joined the Edward S. Rogers Senior Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto (UofT), Toronto, ON, Canada, in 2006, where he currently serves as an Associate Professor. He leads the Reconfigurable Antenna Laboratory, UofT, and along with his students, conducts research in the areas of reconfigurable/multifunction antennas, space-fed arrays, electromagnetic surfaces, and antennas for space applications. Dr. Hum received the Governor General’s Gold Medal for his work on radioon-fiber systems in 2001 and the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Student Paper Award for his work on electronically tunable reflectarrays in 2004. In 2006, he received the ASTech Leaders of Tomorrow Award for his work in this area. In 2012, he received the Early Researcher Award by the Government of Ontario. In 2015, he was a co-recipient of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society R. W. P. King Award. On the teaching side, he has received three UofT Departmental Teaching Awards since 2007, and received an Early Career Teaching Award in 2011. He served on the Steering Committee and Technical Program Committee of the 2010 IEEE AP-S International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation. He has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION since 2010. He was the TPC Co-Chair of the 2015 IEEE APS International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation. Additional information on Prof. Hum and his Reconfigurable Antenna Laboratory can be found here.

Dr. Timothy Barfoot (Professor, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies – UTIAS) holds the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Autonomous Space Robotics and works in the area of guidance, navigation, and control of mobile robots a variety of applications.  He is interested in developing methods to allow mobile robots to operate over long periods of time in large-scale, unstructured, three-dimensional environments, using rich onboard sensing (e.g., cameras and laser rangefinders) and computation.   Dr. Barfoot took up his position at UTIAS in May 2007, after spending four years at MDA Space Missions, where he developed autonomous vehicle navigation technologies for both planetary rovers and terrestrial applications such as underground mining.  He sits on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Robotics Research and the Journal of Field Robotics.  He recently served as the General Chair of Field and Service Robotics (FSR) 2015, which was held in Toronto.  He is the author of a new book, “State Estimation for Robotics”, in press. Additional information on Prof. Barfoot and the Autonomous Space Robotics Laboratory can be found here.

Dr. Jonathan Kelly (Assistant Professor, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies – UTIAS) specializes in sensor fusion for mobile robot navigation and mapping, with a focus on developing robust, multisensor perception algorithms that enable robots to operate safely in challenging environments, for example, on road networks, underground, underwater, in space, and on remote planetary surfaces. He joined the Institute for Aerospace Studies as an Assistant Professor in 2013. Prior to moving to the University of Toronto, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Alberta, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Southern California, where he was an Annenberg Fellow. After completing his B.Sc., he spent one year as a researcher in the Software & Ground Segment group at the Canadian Space Agency (Longueuil, Quebec). Additional information on Prof. Kelly and his Space & Terrestrial Autonomous Robotic Systems (STARS) Laboratory can be found here.

Wai Tung Ng received his B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, in 1983, 1985 and 1990, respectively. In 1990, Dr. Ng joined the Semiconductor Process and Development Center of Texas Instruments, Dallas TX, to work on power devices for automotive applications. His academic career started in 1992 with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, at the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Ng returned to the University of Toronto in 1993. He was promoted to associate professor in 1998 and full professor in 2008. His research interests cover a wide spectrum, ranging from smart power ICs, power management ICs, integrated DC-DC converters, smart gate driver ICs, silicon and GaN power semiconductor devices, advanced CMOS and RF BJTs. Prof. Ng serves as the director of the Toronto Nanofabrication Centre at the University of Toronto since 2014. He is also an associate editor for IEEE Electron Device Letters since 2009. In 2018, Prof. Ng will be chairing the Technical Committee in Power Devices and ICs for the IEEE Electron Devices Society. He will also serve as the 2018 Technical Program Committee chair for the International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs, ISPSD 2018. Additional information on Prof. Ng and the Smart Power Integration & Semiconductor Devices Research Group can be found here.

Josh Taylor received the BS degree in 2006 from Carnegie Mellon University and the SM and PhD degrees in 2008 and 2011 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, al in mechanical engineering. He was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, from 2011 to 2012. He joined the University of Toronto in 2013, where is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and the associate director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy. His research interests include renewable energy, interdependent infrastructures, and control and optimization. Additional information on Prof. Taylor’s research can be found here.

Reza Iravani received the BSc degree in 1976 (Tehran) and the MSc and PhD degrees (Manitoba) in 1981 and 1985, all in electrical engineering. He worked as a consulting engineer from 1976 to 1979. Currently, he is a professor, L Lau chair holder and director of the Centre for Applied Power Electronics (CAPE) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. His research interests include dynamics, control and real-time simulation of HVDC-AC power systems, and applications of power electronics for grid integration of energy storage systems and renewable/alternative power generation systems. He is a fellow of the IEEE, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the former Editor-In-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery.

Francis Dawson (S’86-M’87) received the BSc degree in physics and the BASc, MASc, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto in 1978, 1982, 1985, and 1988, respectively. He worked as a process control engineer in the pulp and paper, rubber and textile industries during the period 1978-1980. From 1982 to 1984 he acted as a consultant on various projects. Development areas included high-frequency link power supplies, power supplies for specialized applications and high current protection circuits. Since 1988 he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto where he is engaged in teaching and research. His areas of research interest include static power converters and their applications, signal processing in power engineering applications, energy storage systems and device or process modeling. He has also participated as a Consultant or Project Leader in several industrial projects. Dr. Dawson is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario and is an IEEE Fellow. Additional information on Prof. Dawson’s research can be found here.