By: Carolyn Farrell, Director, Awards and Honours, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering

Professors Barry Adams (Department of Civil Engineering), Michael Collins, (Department of Civil Engineering), Mark Fox (Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) and Jim Wallace (Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) have been elected Fellows of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC).

The EIC is a federation of Canadian engineering societies; it awards Fellowships annually in recognition of exceptional contributions to engineering in Canada. The University of Toronto received four of the twenty Fellowships awarded – more than any other single institution.

“We are delighted that four of our professors have been recognized by the EIC for their contributions to their fields and to the Engineering profession as a whole,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. “We are also grateful to these professors for their outstanding service to the Engineering Faculty and for being outstanding ambassadors of the University of Toronto.”

Barry Adams has been a faculty member in the Department of Civil Engineering since 1975. He has served as Chair of the Environmental Engineering Program and Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering. In addition to his service to the University, Professor Adams has consulted in Canada and abroad with industry, municipalities and the Crown on water resources and environmental engineering. He has published over 90 papers, books and book chapters in the fields of water resources and urban infrastructure. He has conducted innovative research in the development of analytical probabilistic models for urban water resource infrastructure system planning and design and wrote the first major textbook on this subject, published in 2000.

Michael Collins is a University Professor and a Bahen-Tanenbaum Professor of Civil Engineering who has been with the Department of Civil Engineering since 1969. Professor Collins has made outstanding contributions to the field of structural engineering as an educator, researcher, and engineer. His analytical and experimental research contributions on the shear behaviour of reinforced concrete (particularly his Modified Compression Field Theory) have received international recognition. Professor Collins is also a gifted educator who has received numerous awards for his teaching – in 2005 he was a Top 10 Finalist in TVO’s Best Lecturer contest

A professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering since 1991, Mark Fox co-designed a new Industrial Engineering Curriculum for the department and was the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Enterprise Integration from 1991-2001. Professor Fox has undertaken groundbreaking work in both the theory and application of artificial intelligence in industrial systems. In 1981 he developed the concept of Constraint Directed Scheduling, which is employed in all scheduling systems being sold today. In 1994 he cofounded Novator Systems Ltd., one of the first companies to provide software and services for the then brand-new field of online retailing.

Jim Wallace is a former Chair of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, where he has been a faculty member since 1978. He is an internationally known researcher in the area of alternative fuels use in internal combustion engines and has contributed significantly to the advancement of knowledge in this field. His accomplishments include the development a patented natural gas fuel injector. Professor Wallace’s work with natural gas and hydrogen led to his election as a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers for advancing the use of alternative fuels for emissions reductions. He is an award winning teacher and was made Fellow of the CSME for his contributions to education and research.

The new Fellows will be recognized at the EIC Awards Gala in Ottawa on March 7, 2009.

(home)