Some stories I’ve done over the years, either for my day job at U of T Engineering News or for freelance clients.
If you want more, check out the the blog section of my website.
Canada’s largest urban geoexchange system
Illustration: Nicolas Demers, courtesy of U of T Facilities & Services
U of T Engineering Professor Frank Hooper’s research on ground source heat pumps helped inspire the sustainable Geoexchange Project at the heart of U of T’s historic St. George Campus
[U of T Engineering News, January 26, 2022]
Artificial intelligence helps researchers up-cycle waste carbon
Photo: Daria Perevezentsev
Researchers at U of T Engineering and Carnegie Mellon University leveraged AI to speed up the search for a new catalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into ethylene — a chemical precursor to a wide range of products, from plastics to dish detergent.
[U of T Engineering News, May 13, 2020]
FLATTEN: Engineering students create free online map to help track the spread of COVID-19
Image courtesy FLATTEN.ca
An online tool built by a team of volunteers uses self-reporting to create a heatmap of potential COVID-19 cases across the GTA.
[U of T Engineering News, March 25, 2020]
Big cats of southern Alberta

A reexamination of old fossils shows that Smilodon (sabre-toothed cats) roamed further north than previously thought — and that Eurasian cave lions came further south.
[Canadian Science Publishing, October 7, 2019]
Leading the ‘vinyl renaissance’

Rob Brown is chief operating officer of Viryl Technologies, one of only two companies in the world that make vinyl record pressing machines.
[U of T Engineering News, September 27, 2019]
Spray-on solar power

Protective polymers from researchers at the University of Saskatchewan could lower the cost of photovoltaics.
[Canadian Science Publishing, September 23, 2019]
Why don’t more Torontonians cycle to work?

A new study maps cycling stress levels and accessibility across the city.
[U of T Engineering News, September 10, 2019]
Out of thin air

A promising technique for converting atmospheric CO2 into commercially valuable products.
[U of T Engineering News, May 29, 2019]
Cleaning up the lithium-ion battery supply chain

Li-Cycle is a Toronto-area company that recovers critical materials from lithium-ion batteries
[U of T Engineering News, April 30, 2019]
How self-driving cars could shrink parking lots

Optimizing for autonomous vehicles could increase the capacity of a parking lot by up to 62 per cent
[U of T Engineering News, March 28, 2018]
Let them eat dirt

University of British Columbia microbiologist Brett Finlay suggests that bacteria have a role to play in keeping us healthy
[Innovation.ca, February 13, 2017]
A 150-year-old fossil mystery from the Canadian Arctic

A fossil recovered during the search for the lost Franklin Expedition is finally identified after a century and a half
[Canadian Science Publishing, January 10, 2017]
What if all the ice on earth melted?
I researched and wrote the script for this video starring Bill Nye, which has more than 6.5 million views on YouTube.
[AsapSCIENCE, September 7, 2016]
Designing against disaster

As offshore wind turbines proliferate, engineers are considering the possibility of collisions with ships.
[Hakai Magazine, June 11, 2015]
What if humans disappeared?
I researched and wrote the script for this video, which has more than 8.5 million views on YouTube.
[AsapSCIENCE, January 28, 2015]
How Toronto engineers built a human-powered helicopter

Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson won the Sikorsky prize for designing and building the quadcopter Atlas
[Torontoist.com, July 16, 2013]
The Human Edge
I edited and wrote some of the display copy for this exhibit at the Ontario Science Centre
[Opened 2013]
Nature’s industrialists
This story won the inaugural Award of Journalism Excellence in Engineering from Engineers Canada
[Canadian Chemical News, December 2012 issue]
Final verdict
This story won the Herb Lampert Emerging Journalist Award from Science Writers & Communicators of Canada (formerly the Canadian Science Writers’ Association)
[Canadian Chemical News, July/August 2011 issue)535]