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  • Improving Communication Skills for Engineers

    Room 202, Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street

    Wednesday February 22, 2017 at 6:30 p.m. IEEE Toronto Section’s Industry Relations Committee and Young Professionals Affinity Group will be hosting a seminar on “Improving Communication Skills for Engineers” with distinguished speakers who will share their experiences and speak about the opportunities, possibilities, and challenges in an engineering workplace and the required communication skills. You will hear first-hand tips on how to become an excellent communicator to advance your career. The focus of this seminar is on communication skills one requires to be successful in an engineering profession. This seminar could be of special interest to engineering students, new graduates, young engineers, and young professionals in general. This seminar is free; light refreshments will be provided. Please register at the link below: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/improving-communication-skills-for-engineers-tickets-31690711772 Day & Time: Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Location: Room 202, Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street Organizer: IEEE Toronto Section’s Industry Relations Committee, Young Professionals Affinity Group Event Details: 6:15 pm-6:40 pm: Registration and Welcoming 6:40 pm-7:00 pm: 1st Speech by Dr. Tom Murad 7:00 pm-7:20 pm: 2nd Speech by Mr. Hugo Sánchez-Reategui 7:20 pm-7:40 pm: 3rd Speech by Mr. Ted Lyberogiannis 7:40 pm-8:00 pm: Open Panel and Q&A with Speakers 8:00 pm-8:30 pm: Closing and Networking Other topics that will be covered in this seminar include: § What university does not teach you: the minimum level of knowledge and skills an engineer requires to perform engineering work independently, including academic knowledge, sector specific technical knowledge, business specific knowledge, emerging technologies, supervisory, management, and communication skills. § How much you can benefit from mentors in achieving your career goals. § Why life-long learning is critical for your career and life success. Biography of speakers: Dr. Tom Murad Dr. Tom Murad is the Head of Siemens Engineering and Technology Academy, in Siemens Canada, with over 35 years of experience in professional engineering and technical operations executive management including more than 10 years of academic and R&D work in industrial controls and automation. In the last four years, he worked within Siemens Canada as the Head of Expert House and Engineering Director in the Industry Sector. Prior to joining Siemens Canada, Tom was the Senior Vice President and COO of AZZ-Blenkhorn & Sawle, an engineering system integration and technical solutions provider in Ontario, specialized in power distribution and controls in various industrial and infrastructure applications. He has previously held various V.P. and Director positions in a number of engineering and industrial organizations internationally, and contributed to many large global industrial projects. Dr. Murad is a Fellow of Engineers Canada and a member of Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), APEGA in Alberta, and NAPEG in the Northwest Territories, as well as a Senior Member of IEEE in various technical societies. Tom earned a Bachelor of Engineering and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Power Electronics and Industrial Controls from the Loughborough University of Technology in the UK. He also received a Leadership Program Certificate from Schulich Business School, York University. Currently, Dr. Murad serves on a number of advisory boards in the industry and academia. He has been an active member of the PEO Licensing “Engineering Experience Review” Committee for the last 12 Years. Mr. Hugo Sánchez-Reategui Hugo Sanchez-Reategui has been a consultant of PowerStream Inc. for the past 6 years confirming capacity for Embedded Distributed Generators dealing with stakeholders, developers, utilities and government agencies. Hugo is a current member of Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), active member of Toastmasters International (Public Speaking) for the past 7 years. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering at National University of Callao, Peru and IEEQB Program Certificate at Ryerson University in 2010. Currently, Hugo mentors undergrad students, international engineers and junior Toastmasters members. His technical interests include Smart Grid Technologies, Distribution Reliability, Substation Communications and Protection of Distribution Systems. Mr. Ted Lyberogiannis Ted is a Professional Engineer with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto and a Master’s degree in Electrical Power Systems from the University of Waterloo. He currently works as a manager at an electrical utility in Toronto. Upon graduating from his Bachelor’s degree in 2004, he realized that his technical abilities would be of little use if he was unable to communicate effectively. Shortly after graduating, he began practicing his public speaking by joining a local Toastmasters club at his work. He is now an experienced Toastmaster who has competed at the Semi-Finals of the World Championships of Public Speaking on two occasions – most recently placing 3rd in his Semi-Final this past August in Washington, DC. He has delivered talks to dozens of different audiences including the National Job Fair, students at the University of Toronto and the Water Environment Association of Ontario. He is a firm believer in the power of communication and that anyone can become a good public speaker if they practice enough – even those of us who studied engineering!

  • Health Apps by Design: A Reference Architecture for Mobile Apps for Health

    Room TRS2164 (8th Floor of the Building), 575 Bay Street (Entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University

    Monday February 27, 2017 at 12:00 p.m. Dr. Karim Keshavjee will be presenting “Health Apps by Design: A Reference Architecture for Mobile Apps for Health”. Day & Time: Monday, February 27th, 2017 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Speaker: Dr. Karim Keshavjee Location: Room TRS2164 (8th Floor of the Building) 575 Bay Street (Entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Organizers: WIE, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics, Magnetics, Computer Science Department of Ryerson University Biography: Karim is a Family Physician with over 25 years of experience designing, developing and implementing Electronic Health Records/Electronic Medical Records and helping clinicians use them effectively. Currently working on architecting a scalable and sustainable technology system that will help us prevent diabetes cost-effectively. Diabetes prevention is feasible, but is not cost-effective. I believe an engineered solution could change things dramatically.

  • An Introduction to UAV Regulations

    York University, Petrie Science & Engineering Building (building #17), Room Number: 422, 4700 Keele Street

    There has been an exponential surge in the use of the small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAV), also known as drones, ranging from recreational to professional and research activities. However, whether used as a great toy to record spectacular images from the air or a great tool for activities such as mapping, construction or emergency response, the sUAV can crash or collide with other objects, or can cause privacy concerns. This is why most countries regulate the operation of sUAS to mitigate the risks from potential inflight accidents with manned aircrafts that operate in the same airspace, collisions with vehicles and power lines, crashes in populated areas, or privacy violations that can raise trespassing and security concerns. The presentation will address various regulations and operational aspects we need to be aware of for the safe and legal operation of a sUAV. Speaker: Costas Armenakis, PhD, PEng Registration: Registration is free, and is open to IEEE members and non-members, but space is limited. Please RSVP through the registration website or contact Kyarash Shahriari / Dante Bolatti. Remote Access: This meeting is accessible through IEEE WebEx service for those who may not be able to attend. Please contact Kyarash Shahriari or Dante Bolatti for more details. Day & Time: Tuesday, February 28th, 2017 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Location: York University 4700 Keele Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada Building: Petrie Science & Engineering Building (building #17) Room Number: 422 Contacts: Kyarash Shahriari Dante Bolatti Biography: Dr. Costas Armenakis is an Associate Professor and Program Director of Geomatics Engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, Canada. He has over 30 years of research experience in photogrammetry, remote sensing and GIS working on the acquisition, handling, processing and management of geo-spatial data and information from terrestrial, aerial and space-borne image sensors. His research interests are in the areas of photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing mapping, focusing on unmanned mobile sensing and mapping systems and the use of unmanned aerial vehicle systems for geomatics. He is an ISPRS Fellow and former President of the ISPRS Technical Commission IV on Digital Mapping and GeoDatabases. Currently he serves as Co-Chair of the ISPRS ICWG I/II: UAS & Small Multi-Sensor Platforms: Concepts & Applications.

  • Big Data

    Room TRS2164 (8th Floor of the Building), 575 Bay Street (Entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University

    Monday March 6, 2017 at 12:00 p.m. Dr. Ann Cavoukian will be presenting “Big Data”. Day & Time: Monday, March 6th, 2017 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Speaker: Dr. Ann Cavoukian Location: Room TRS2164 (8th Floor of the Building) 575 Bay Street (Entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Organizers: WIE, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics, Magnetics, Computer Science Department of Ryerson University Biography: Dr. Ann Cavoukian is recognized as one of the world’s leading privacy experts. She is presently the Executive Director of Ryerson University’s Privacy and Big Data Institute. Dr. Cavoukian served an unprecedented three terms as the Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada. There she created Privacy by Design, a framework that seeks to proactively embed privacy into design, thereby achieving the strongest protection possible. In 2010, International Privacy Regulators unanimously passed a Resolution recognizing Privacy by Design as an international standard. Since then, PbD has been translated into 39 languages. Dr. Cavoukian has received numerous awards recognizing her leadership in privacy, most recently as of the Top 100 Leaders in Identity (January, 2017).

  • Emerging Trends in Software, Computing, & Application Development

    Room TRS2164 (8th Floor of the Building), 575 Bay Street (Entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University

    Monday March 13, 2017 at 12:00 p.m. Dr. Ilia Nika, Software Engineering Technology Professor and Coordinator of Software Programs at ICET Department of Centennial College, will be presenting “Emerging Trends in Software, Computing, & Application Development”. Day & Time: Monday, March 13th, 2017 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Speaker: Dr. Ilia Nika Software Engineering Technology Professor and Coordinator of Software Programs ICET Department, Centennial College Location: Room TRS2164 (8th Floor of the Building) 575 Bay Street (Entrance at 55 Dundas Street West), Ryerson University Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Organizers: WIE, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics, Magnetics, Computer Science Department of Ryerson University Abstract: Software is taking the planet by storm. Whether is engineering, manufacturing, medicine, business, arts, or education, the use of software is changing the way we live and is helping to improve people’s lives. In this talk we will present several emerging trends in software, computing, and application development, as well as show some of the recent applications in various areas. Most importantly, we will relate the recent changes to ongoing curriculum updates to computing program across the education system. Biography: Ilia has a Ph.D. in Applied mathematics, and more than 30 years of experience in mathematical modeling, software development, teaching, applied research, and curriculum development. His main areas of expertise include mathematical modeling, Java and .NET programming, and mobile application development. Ilia has developed several automated systems for signal processing of geophysical data including the solution of inverse resistivity problem in resistivity logging. He is very interested in applications of machine learning in both engineering and education and has developed an application for predicting student retention in community colleges using institutional data and ensemble learning. Ilia has developed and taught courses in Software Systems Design and Computer Communications & Networking degree programs, as well as courses in Software Engineering Technology programs. Ilia has been principal investigator and/or co-investigator in several ARIC projects. He is also an Information Technology Management and Continuing Education part-time instructor, at Ryerson University (2007 – Present). Currently he is teaching Emerging Technologies course for Software Engineering Technology students, Centennial College.

  • Cyber Security for Utilities Seminar

    Room 202, Galbraith Building, 35 St. George St. Toronto, Ontario

    Wednesday March 22, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. the IEEE Toronto Computer Society/Industrial Relations will be presenting “Cyber Security for Utilities Seminar”. Day & Time: Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Speakers: Steel McCreery Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) Doug Westlund, P. Eng. AESI Location: University of Toronto 35 St. George St. Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S 1A4 Building: Galbraith Building Room Number: 202 RSVP is required for this event. Please visit https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/44162 for more details and to register. FEES: IEEE Members: Free Non-IEEE Students: Free Non-Member (Professional): $10 + HST Abstract: Cyber Security is one of the hottest technology topics ensuring the safety and reliability of the Electrical Grid against cyber-attacks from hackers. This seminar will be a great opportunity for students, new grads, and engineers to have a general overview on cyber security issues and challenges for utilities in North America. Industry Standards such as NERC CIP will be discussed, as will career opportunities on this field. Join us on our first seminar on Cyber Security with IEEE Toronto Section. We look forward to seeing you at the event! Biographies: Steel McCreery is an Integration Application Specialist II Communications, providing communications and automation applications engineering support to sales, consultants, utility and industrial customers in addition to SEL’s internal Engineering Services team. Doug Westlund, P. Eng., has 30 years’ experience in technology and cyber security in the utility and telecommunications markets. In his role at AESI he assists utility executive teams and their Boards with strategic planning and risk management. He has led more than 100 cyber security projects for generation, transmission and distribution utilities, developed risk management for the Ontario LDC insurer (MEARIE), and developed cyber security best practices and programs for the American Public Power Association and its 2,000 distribution utility members.

  • Hybrid Renewable Energy Standalone Systems

    Room BA 4287, 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S2E4

    Friday March 24, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. Dr. Ambrish Chandra of Department of Electrical Engineering, École de technologie supérieure, will be presenting “Hybrid Renewable Energy Standalone Systems”. Day & Time: Friday, March 24th, 2017 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Speaker: Dr. Ambrish Chandra Department of Electrical Engineering École de technologie supérieure Location: Room BA 4287 Building: Bahen Center of Information Technology University of Toronto 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S2E4 Contact: Sanaz Kanani Organizers: IAS & PLES Joint Chapter Register: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/44319 Abstract: Several isolated areas in the world currently use only diesel generators (DGs) to serve their requirements of electrical energy. However, the use of DGs has many drawbacks: 1) high cost of electricity, 2) air and noise pollution, 3) Loss in fuel efficiency and maintenance cost. To remedy those problems it is better to generate power from a cost-effective, environmental friendly renewable energy sources (RESs) such as wind, solar, hydro, biomass, etc. RESs are clean and almost available all over the planet but are intermittent in nature, especially wind and solar power generations. This makes their integration to micro-grid with DG difficult, especially if the local grid is not connected to the main grid. Hybrid standalone system consists of many elements such as photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, DG, energy storage system, AC and DC loads, dump load etc. Most of these elements are connected to the AC or DC bus via power electronic devices. In this presentation many possible hybrid renewable energy standalone systems will be discussed. Control of some of the systems will be discussed in detail. Biography: Prof Ambrish Chandra did his engineering degree from the University of Roorkee (presently IIT), India, M.Tech. degree from IIT, New Delhi, India, and Ph.D. degree from University of Calgary, Canada, in 1977, 1980, and 1987, respectively. Since 1994, he is working as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), Université du Québec, Montréal, Canada. The key differentiator of Prof. Chandra’s work is in the simplicity and practicality of the new solutions proposed by him. His most significant work is concerned with the advancement of new theory and control algorithms in the following two areas: 1) integration of renewable energy sources to distribution systems with improved power quality features, and 2) power quality improvement in distribution systems. His work has had a significant impact and is now extensively employed in the industry. During the past 20 years he has published around 300 research articles in these two areas. He was instrumental in writing six review articles on power quality; those have now become de-facto standards worldwide. Many of the articles co-authored by him have high Google citations 2036, 867, 603, 325, with total Google citations 9380, h-index 42, i10-index 99, and are being referred by many international researchers. He is a coauthor of the book ‘Power Quality – Problems and Mitigation Techniques’, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, (2015) which deals with the power quality problems in distribution systems. Prof Chandra is Fellow of many organisations, including IEEE, CAE, EIC, IET and others. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Power and Energy Society, and also of IEEE Industry Application Society. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. He is IEEE Power and Energy Society Montreal Chapter Chair. From May 2012 to September 2015, he was the Director of a multidisciplinary graduate program on ‘Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency’ at ÉTS. Prof Chandra is a professional engineer in the province of Quebec, Canada.

  • Navigation Sensors and Systems in GNSS Degraded and Denied Environments (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About GPS)

    Room EPH 207, Eric Palin Hall, Ryerson University 87 Gerrard Street East, Toronto

    Tuesday March 28, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. George T. Schmidt, IEEE AESS Distinguished Lecturer & Board of Governors, will be presenting a distinguished lecture, “Navigation Sensors and Systems in GNSS Degraded and Denied Environments (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About GPS)”. Day & Time: Tuesday, March 28th, 2017 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. Speaker: George T. Schmidt EEE AESS Distinguished Lecturer & Board of Governors IEEE Life Fellow, AIAA Fellow Location: Room EPH 207, Eric Palin Hall, Ryerson University 87 Gerrard Street East, Toronto Contact: Kyarash Shahriari Organizers: AESS Toronto Chapter Register: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44109 Abstract: Position, velocity, and timing (PVT) signals from various Global Navigation Systems (GNSS) are used throughout the World. However, the availability and reliability of these signals in all environments has become a subject of concern for both civilian and military applications. Most of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors for the US economy, security, and health are dependent on GPS signals. More than 90% of the US military guided weapons use GPS. Accuracy and other planned improvements for GPS are explained as well as technology approaches for increasing system robustness. International news reports about a successful GPS spoofing attack on a civilian UAV in the USA have only increased concerns over the planned use of UAVs in the national airspace and safety of flight in general. Other examples of the effects of GPS interference and jamming are illustrated in this presentation. This is a particularly difficult problem that requires new and innovative ideas to fill the PVT gap when the data are degraded or unavailable. One solution is to use inertial and/or other sensors to bridge the gap in navigation information and maintain world-wide navigation capability. This presentation summarizes with examples four different methods for combining GPS and other systems to achieve mission success when GPS becomes unavailable. Biography: George T. Schmidt is an IEEE Life Fellow. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS). He is also a Distinguished Lecturer for that society. He was the Director of several recent NATO Research and Technology Organization Lecture Series related to Navigation Sensors and Systems in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) Degraded and Denied Environments. In 2013 he completed 17 years of service as Editor-in-Chief of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics. He was responsible for managing the peer review of more than 6500 submitted papers. He is an AIAA Fellow. From 1961 through 2007, he was at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and the Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts. His final position was as the Draper Director of Education. Prior to that position he was the Leader of the Guidance and Navigation Division and Director of the Draper Guidance Technology Center. For many years he was a Lecturer in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, retiring in 2010. He has received several awards including the AIAA International Cooperation Award in 2001 and the NATO Science and Technology Organization’s highest technical award, the von Kármán Medal in 2005. He is author or contributing author of more than 100 technical papers, reports, encyclopedia articles, and books. He received his S.B. and S.M. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and his Sc.D. in Instrumentation from MIT.

  • Engineering Skills Gaps: “Jobs without people” and “people without jobs”

    Room ENG 288, 245 Church Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3

    Friday March 31, 2017 at 2:30 p.m. Dr. Farzad Rayegani, Associate Dean, School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Technology, will be presenting “Engineering Skills Gaps: ‘Jobs without people’ and ‘people without jobs'”. Day & Time: Friday, March 31st, 2017 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Speaker: Farzad Rayegani, Ph.D., P.Eng., FEC. Associate Dean, School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Technology Location: Room ENG 288 George Vari Centre for Computing and Engineering, Ryerson University 245 Church Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3 Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Organizers: IEEE Toronto WIE, Magnetics, Measurement/Instrumentation-Robotics and Computer Science Department of Ryerson University Biography: Farzad Rayegani is credited with developing an applied research program involving students, graduates and faculty mentors to address technological and educational needs of the Halton and Peel regions. Over the past 10 years, he has been simultaneously partnering with SME enterprises on product and process innovation projects while developing an applied research program involving students, graduates and faculty mentors to examine issues of product development / refinement, process automation, systems integration and manufacturing management. In the past year, this work has been bolstered by a range of successful, high-profile, federally funded projects with companies in both regions. Under his leadership, through the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies (CAMDT), Sheridan has been reaching out to a significant number of manufacturers in Brampton, Mississauga and Oakville, particularly small and medium enterprises, to support adoption and integration of efficient manufacturing practices and product innovation performance and improvements. CAMDT now supports over a dozen local and regional SMEs who are struggling with limited availability of technological, human, financial, and management resources. Under his leadership, Sheridan College recently become a member of the CDIO Initiative – a worldwide movement to restore the balance between teaching practice skills and the fundamentals of math and science to engineering students. What started as a partnership between MIT and a few Swedish universities in 2001 has gained significant international momentum, with 103 institutions adopting the model. Sheridan is the fifth Canadian institution and the first college in the world to be accepted. As a CDIO collaborator, Farzad is seeking to develop a new curriculum structure based on a new philosophy for engineering education. The framework educates students to Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate complex, value-added engineering products, processes and systems in a modern, team-based, global environment. He aims to develop a curriculum rich in project-based, hands-on learning, producing engineers who are “ready to engineer” when they graduate. Farzad is ASME chair on additive manufacturing. As the committee chair, he will be leading the launch of ASME’s inaugural additive manufacturing challenge designed to give mechanical and multi-disciplinary undergraduate students around the world an opportunity to re-engineer existing products or create new designs that minimize energy consumption and/or improve energy efficiency. As chair, he will also be collaborating with ME department heads to develop educational material on behalf of ASME to benefit the educators and students. Farzad was recently designated an Engineers Canada Fellow by Engineers Canada. This prestigious award is presented in recognition of exceptional contributions to the engineering profession in Canada. Farzad has been a full-time professor in Sheridan’s Faculty of Applied Science and Technology since 2004. Currently, he is the associate dean of the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering & Technology and director of the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies (CAMDT).

  • Women in Robotics: Dr. Pooja Viswanathan, Co-founder and CEO, Braze Mobility

    263 McCaul Street, Room 120, Health Innovation Hub

    Dr. Pooja Viswanathan is the Co-founder and CEO of Braze Mobility Inc. Dr. Viswanathan has a PhD in Robotics and Assistive Technology, is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto and the AGE-WELL Network of Centres of Excellence, and is an Ontario Brain Institute Entrepreneur. Dr. Viswanathan is a passionate and accomplished innovator and still makes time for mentorship and education of the next generation of young innovators. Click here for more information.

  • Regularization by Denoising (RED)

    University of Toronto, Bahen Center (Room BA 5281)

    Thursday April 13, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. Dr. Peyman Milanfar, Leader of Computational Imaging team in Google Research, will be presenting an IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecture, “Regularization by Denoising (RED)”. Day & Time: Thursday April 13, 2017 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. Speaker: Dr. Peyman Milanfar Leader of Computational Imaging team in Google Research Visiting Faculty at Electrical Engineering Department, UC Santa Cruz Location: University of Toronto, Bahen Center (Room BA 5281) 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 https://goo.gl/maps/7ick2cparLF2 Contact: Mehrnaz Shokrollahi Organizers: IEEE Signal Processing Chapter Toronto Section Abstract: Image denoising is the most fundamental problem in image enhancement, and it is largely solved: It has reached impressive heights in performance and quality — almost as good as it can ever get. But interestingly, it turns out that we can solve many other problems using the image denoising “engine”. I will describe the Regularization by Denoising (RED) framework: using the denoising engine in defining the regularization of any inverse problem. The idea is to define an explicit image-adaptive regularization functional directly using a high performance denoiser. Surprisingly, the resulting regularizer is guaranteed to be convex, and the overall objective functional is explicit, clear and well-defined. With complete flexibility to choose the iterative optimization procedure for minimizing this functional, RED is capable of incorporating any image denoising algorithm as a regularizer, treat general inverse problems very effectively, and is guaranteed to converge to the globally optimal result. Biography: Peyman leads the Computational Imaging/ Image Processing team in Google Research. Prior to this, he was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at UC Santa Cruz from 1999-2014, where he is now a visiting faculty. He was Associate Dean for Research at the School of Engineering from 2010-12. From 2012-2014 he was on leave at Google-x, where he helped develop the imaging pipeline for Google Glass. Peyman received his undergraduate education in electrical engineering and mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, and the MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds 11 US patents, several of which are commercially licensed. He founded MotionDSP in 2005. He has been keynote speaker at numerous technical conferences including Picture Coding Symposium (PCS), SIAM Imaging Sciences, SPIE, and the International Conference on Multimedia (ICME). Along with his students, he has won several best paper awards from the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He is a Fellow of the IEEE “for contributions to inverse problems and super-resolution in imaging.”

  • SSCS Distinguished Lecture: Holistic Design in Optical Interconnects

    Room B024, Bahen Centre 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4

    Monday April 24, 2017 at 2:10 p.m. Dr. Azita Emami, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering at Caltech, will be presenting a distinguished lecture, “Holistic Design in Optical Interconnects”. Day & Time: Monday, April 24th, 2017 2:10 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Speaker: Dr. Azita Emami Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator Deputy Chair of Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences Caltech Location: Room B024, Bahen Centre 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Dustin Dunwell Organizers: IEEE Toronto SSCS Cost: Free for everyone. Complimentary refreshments will be provided. Abstract: The scalability of CMOS technology has driven computation into a diverse range of applications across the power consumption, performance and size spectra. Today Data Center (DC) and High Performance Computing (HPC) performance is increasingly limited by interconnection bandwidth. Maintaining continued aggregate bandwidth growth without overwhelming the power budget for these large scale computing systems and data centers is paramount. The historic power efficiency gains via CMOS technology scaling for such interconnects have rolled off over the past decade, and new low-cost approaches are necessary. In this talk a number of promising solutions including Silicon-Photonic-based interconnects that can overcome these challenges will be discussed. In particular effective co-design of electronics and photonics as a holistic approach for reducing the total power consumption and enhancing the performance of the link will be presented. Biography: Azita Emami received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1999 and 2004 respectively. She received her B.S. degree from Sharif University of Technology in 1996. Professor Emami joined IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in 2004 as a research staff member in the Communication Technologies Department. From Fall 2006 to Summer 2007, she was an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in the city of New York. In 2007, she joined Caltech, where she is now a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering. She is a Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator, and serves as the deputy chair of division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Caltech. Her current research interests include mixed-signal integrated circuits and systems, high-speed on-chip and chip-to-chip interconnects, system and circuit design solutions for highly-scaled CMOS technologies, wearable and implantable devices for neural recording, stimulation, and efficient drug delivery.