Study
*I will be on Research Leave through to January 2007. Supervision of existing and incoming students will be ongoing, but I will not be teaching courses in the Fall of 2006
Undergraduate Courses and Research
The undergraduate courses I have consistently delivered the last several years are CIV261 Engineering Mathematics I (read more about CIV261
) and CIV523 Geotechnical Design (read more about CIV523), although I have also recently delivered CIV321 Geomechanics (read more about CIV321
) and CIV424 Foundations and Earthworks (read more about CIV424). A key objective of all of these courses is to illustrate the theoretical concepts using practical design problems drawn from my research and consulting experience, as well as using case studies provided by colleagues in industry. All of these courses have been delivered using the CCNET course content management system. However, the University of Toronto recently standardized on the Blackboard Learning Management System
, with implementation of Applied Science and Engineering courses slated to begin in January 2007. This new system promises a seemless "portal" for students to all of their courses, as well as other aspects of student life including managing their registration (ROSI), involvement in student clubs, etc. - stay tuned for new courses mounted on Blackboard in 2007!
Current undergraduate students interested in pursuing a career or graduate studies in geotechnics and/or the engineering geosciences should consider technical electives in the areas of Geotechnical Design and Groundwater Flow, Rock Engineering, Construction Engineering, Concrete Materials, and Structural Analysis and Design. In particular, our undergraduates need to be aware of the option of taking 300 and 400 level courses in either of third and fourth years, subject to pre-requisites and scheduling constraints. This flexibility allows a student to specialize in an area of study in third year in order to be better prepared for summer jobs, co-op (PeY) work opportunities, or fourth year undergraduate thesis projects. To find out more, contact me or the Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies.
In the coming year the undergraduate thesis (CIV499) will be an option rather than a compulsory course. I have traditionally supervised a few theses each year in areas relating to geotechnics (pile foundations, slope stability analysis, deep excavation design, soft ground tunneling) as well as paste tailings. Of particular note is Robin Woolfrey's undergraduate thesis on predicting deposition angles for surface deposited paste, which won the 2002 Undergraduate Report Award (Individual) from the Canadian Geotechnical Society.
I have consistently taken on a few unergraduate summer research assistants each year, with two of these students also working at the Bulyanhulu mine site in Tanzania in 2004 and 2005. Students interested in summer research should also find out in advance about the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Summer Research Award (USRA) and other forms of summer awards, by contacting the Undergraduate Counsellor. (Note: sorry, for summer 2006 I've taken on all of the undergraduate assistants that I need!)
Graduate Courses
My recently delivered graduate course is CIV1446 Slopes and Embankments (read more about CIV1446) but a new graduate course is planned for January 2007. Stay tuned for more information...
All graduate students in the Engineering Geosciences area are strongly encouraged to take courses that develop a complement of skills related to aquiring information and data, processing information and data, and applying analysis results in practical design contexts. Courses that many of my graduate students take include: MIN565 Design and Support of Underground Mine Excavations, CIV514 Concrete Technology, CIV523 Geotechnical Design, CIV529 Rock Engineering, CIV549 Groundwater Flow and Contamination, CIV1174 Finite Element Methods in Structural Mechanics, CIV1250 Instrumentation Techniques in Concrete Technology, CIV1399 Advanced Contaminant Hydrogeology, CIV1499 Unsaturated Soil Mechanics, CIV1499 Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, as well as courses from Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE1301 Solid Mechanics, MIE1206 Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics), and courses offered by the Department of Statistics specifically for graduate students from other departments (STA1001 Applied Regression Analysis, STA1004 Introduction to Experimental Design, STA1005 Applied Multivariate Analysis).
Graduate Research
Please see the Research portion of the site for descriptions of my core research areas of interest, and the People portion of the site for current students and research associates and their ongoing projects. We are always looking for excellent people and have a wide range of funding mechanisms with which to support them. Most of my research is coordinated through the Lassonde Institute for Engineering Geoscience and interested students should look carefully at this content of the Institute's site as well (follow this link...). For more information, please contact me.