Saxe, Donmez Canada Research Chairs
 
Congratulations to UTTRI associated faculty, Professors Shoshanna Saxe (photo, left) of Civil & Mineral Engineering, and Birsen Donmez (photo, right) of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering who have been named Tier 2 Canada Research Chairs.
Dr. Shoshanna Saxe is a new Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Infrastructure.
Dr. Birsen Donmez's Canada Research Chair in Human Factors and Transportation has been renewed.
Tier 2 Canada Research Chairs are for exceptional emerging researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field.
Read more about this month's Canada Research Chair announcement and these researchers.
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Cracks in Canada’s fiscal system: Slack
UTTRI associated faculty Dr. Enid Slack, Director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, points to longstanding fiscal issues in “What Canada’s economic recovery might look like,” macleans.ca, December 10, 2020.
The article discusses the pandemic’s impact on Canada’s growing government budget deficits, and ways that governments can raise revenues to pay down those deficits for future economic prosperity.
Read Slack's comments and link to the full article and related content.
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Karen Chapple named director of School of Cities
Karen Chapple, a renowned urban planning and data science academic, will become director of U of T's School of Cities on July 1, 2021 (photo by Shoey Sindel)
Urban planning and data science academic Dr. Karen Chapple has been named the new director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. She begins her post at U of T’s School of Cities on July 1, 2021 and will hold her academic appointment as professor with tenure in the Department of Geography and Planning.
UTTRI associated faculty Professor Matti Siemiatycki will continue to serve as School of Cities interim director until June 30, 2021.
Read more about Chapple and her appointment.
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2020 Smart Freight Symposium a showcase for research, partnerships and innovation
The 2nd annual Smart Freight Symposium presented by the Smart Freight Centre was hosted by the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University the mornings of November 20 and 27, 2020.
This year’s Symposium was held remotely on Zoom and was attended by over 100 invited guests. Thirty-seven speakers and moderators from government, NGOs, universities, industry and non-profits took part. Moderated Q & A followed each session.
Read more about the symposium and link to presentation files and video recordings.
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Population synthesis methods for the GTHA examined at workshop
Synthesis of a future year population is a critical first step in generating travel demand forecasts.
UTTRI’s Travel Modelling Group (TMG) hosted “Workshop: Population Synthesis Methods for the GTHA” on December 9, 2020. This workshop presented a new population synthesis procedure, named MetroPop, developed for use in the GTHA through the collaborative effort of Metrolinx, IBI Group and TMG.
The workshop was the latest in an ongoing series of workshops held by TMG to advance operational travel demand modelling methods in the GTHA and beyond.
Read more about the Travel Modelling Group and its workshops, and access resources.
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How transit can innovate - and how policy can help
Given that transit agencies’ traditional sources of revenue have dried up due to the COVID crisis, there have been questions on how transit can innovate – and how policy makers can help.
UTTRI Director Professor Eric J. Miller was a guest panelist for “How Can Policy Makers Incentivize Innovation in Public Transit,” a webinar presented by Pantonium on December 3, 2020. The two other panelists were UTTRI Advisory Board Member Drew Fagan, former Ontario Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, and Mariya Frost, Director at the Coles Center for Transportation. Pantonium's Luke Mellor and Jeremy Eves hosted and moderated the discussion.
Read more about the webinar discussion and link to the video and audio recordings.
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New Transportation Alumni Executive
The U of T Transportation Alumni Committee held an Annual General Meeting on December 16, 2020 and elected their 2020-2021 executive:
- Chair: Ann Marie Chung, Metrolinx
- Vice-Chair: Yunfei Zhang, HDR
- Secretary: Kevin Chan, Metrolinx
- Treasurer: Viktoriya Zaytseva, CGH Transportation
- Communications Officer: Karina Maynard, IBI Group
- Membership Officer: Mostafa (Yaser) Kouchakzadeh, MASc (2021), Civil & Mineral Engineering
- SponsorshipOfficer: Open
- Student Representative - Planning: Joanna Ilunga-Kapinga, MScPl (2021), Geography & Planning
- Student Representative - Engineering: Yash Kulshreshtha, MASc (2021), Civil & Mineral Engineering
The new executive will serve one-year terms from now until the next AGM in Fall 2021.
Thanks were given to several committee members who stepped down: Chair Bruce Mori, IBI Group; Communications Officer Elli Papaioannou, HDR; Treasurer Michelle Kearns, Access Planning; and Planning Student Representative Patricia Arnold, Mott MacDonald.
U of T Transportation Alumni interested in serving as Sponsorship Officer, as a Member-at-Large, or in generally supporting the activities of the network are encouraged to reach out by email to uttri@utoronto.ca.
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ONLINE EVENTS
- January 7, 2021, 4-5:30 p.m., Errick "Skip" Willis Memorial Event on Leadership and Emissions Trading. Dirk Forrister, former Chair of the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton and current CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), Presented by School of the Environment. Free, donation to Skip Willis Undergraduate Scholarship encouraged. Registration req'd.
- January 11, 4-5 p.m., Supply Chain Optimization, Professor Chris Beck, Industrial Engineering. Presented by School of Cities, Building Resilience in Food and Health Supply Chains seminar series. Free, registration req'd.
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OPPORTUNITIES
 The Smart Freight Centre is hiring a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow for their new major research initiative, CLUE (City Logistics for the Urban Environment). Both of these positions will be at U of T:
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RESOURCES
PAST WEBINARS / PODCASTS
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Disclaimer: The information in this newsletter is true to the best of our knowledge at time of posting. All listings are made without guarantee on the part of UTTRI, and we disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information.
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