Technology

Michael Carter describes his passion for improving the healthcare system, primarily in Ontario. In 1989, he was asked to investigate how nurses' experiences in hospitals could be improved, and he developed scheduling algorithms for operations to minimize the number of post-operative patients in hospitals on weekends. This evolved into a passion to use systems engineering to improve the healthcare system. He recognized the need to have a "small army of engineers" working in hospitals: he now knows of 180 former engineering students who work in healthcare in Toronto.

Dr. Michael Carter is an industrial engineer who, after completing degrees in mathematics, started as a professor at the University of Toronto in 1981. He defines industrial engineering as "the applications of mathematics, computers, and psychology to developing and building human systems". Dr. Carter's initial interest was optimization and scheduling, and he developed an algorithm for scheduling university examinations that was implemented at Waterloo, Western, Toronto, Carleton, the London School of Economics, Limerick (Ireland) and Otago (New Zealand). In 1989, he was asked to investigate how nurses' experiences in hospitals could be improved, and he developed scheduling algorithms for operations to minimize the number of post-operative patients in hospitals on weekends. This evolved into a passion to use systems engineering to improve the healthcare system: he now knows of 180 former engineering students who work in healthcare in Toronto. He created the Centre for Healthcare Engineering at U of T in 1989 that now has a dozen industrial engineering faculty doing healthcare research. He describes how initially, the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Medical Research Council thought his field was outside their purview, but now they have joint programs to support this research. He recalls his efforts to learn how to use Artificial Intelligence in his work – "just keeping up is a challenge, but it's fun" – and the need for massive quantities of comprehensive data to facilitate effective machine learning. He advises high-school students to consider engineering careers if they are interested in the applications of science and mathematics. He looks forward to "several more years of pushing students into the deep end of healthcare".

Hugh Fraser describes one of the highlights of his career, contributing to the development of reusable plastic shipping containers for Ontario's agriculture industry. He describes his work with both the corrugated cardboard and plastic industries to make this happen. He notes that they are now collapsible, can stack, and require less room in shipping. In a testing phase they followed food products from California right through to Toronto. "It was very interesting – very proud of that work."

Hugh Fraser is an agricultural engineer who grew up in rural Quebec and completed a year as an agriculture student at the University of Guelph before switching into the engineering program there. He attributes his interest in agricultural to his teenage summers working on his family's dairy farm, working field machinery, bailing hay, wrangling steers and picking rocks. His interest in engineering came from his interest in mathematics and science and their applications to baseball statistics, "Magic Brain" Calculators, and board games. While in university, he spent two summers helping to deliver a year's worth of goods to communities on Baffin Island and in northern Quebec, a third working for the Ontario Department of Agriculture conducting surveys to support farmers who were installing tile drainage, and learning to troubleshoot, and a fourth working for a John Deere parts plant in Grimsby. His first job was at the John Deere factory in Welland, reviewing warranty claims, and a year later rejoined the Ministry of Agriculture as the county extension engineer for Brant and Hamilton-Wentworth Counties based in Brantford. He became an expert in Minimum Distance Separation, which stipulates the minimum distances between livestock barns and neighboring homes, transferring the implementation from paper-based rules to electronic computer programs in the '80s. He did work on the post-harvest handling of fruits and vegetables, developing standards for forced-air cooling based on experimental work, and introduced reusable plastic shipping containers to the agriculture industry in Ontario. He mediated disagreements between farmers and their neighbours, in accordance with the Ontario Farming and Food Production Protection Act, and also worked with the Ontario Dead Animal Disposal Act. In retirement, his interviews with farmers between St. Catherines and Beamsville about their irrigation needs, has led to a proposal to create a pressurized pipeline system to irrigate grapes, tender fruit, and other crops. He is currently President of Ontario Barn Preservation, an organization that finds ways to save old barns, has written a book on old barns, and is currently working on a second book. He describes the transitions in his professional career, offers advice to high school students considering a career in engineering, and presents a list of 13 recommendations to new engineering graduates who want to improve their careers.