Congratulations to U of T engineering students Bradley Kloostra (CivMin MASc 2021), Chandler White (CivMin MASc 2021) and Shawana Munir (CivMin BASc 2021) who have been awarded Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) Foundation 2020 Scholarships.
Bradley Kloostra completed his undergraduate degree in Engineering Science at U of T in 2016, and then worked in the design division of a multinational construction company on several large P3 transportation projects. He returned to U of T in 2019 to pursue an MASc in Civil Engineering with a focus on infrastructure sustainability.
His current research focuses on assessing the sustainability implications of the materials used in our built environment, specifically looking at measuring use of materials like concrete over time and across the urban environment. His overall goal is to provide a benchmark against which to measure the materials needed to deliver transportation infrastructure for a growing urban population, and to inform infrastructure planning decisions that moderate the use of finite natural resources.
Bradley is completing his MASc under the supervision of Professor Shoshanna Saxe and expects to graduate in August 2021.
Chandler White has a BASc in Civil Engineering from the University of British Columbia. During his NSERC USRA under the supervision of Professor Tarek Sayed, he analyzed the empirical safety of intersections for pedestrians via computer vision.
Chandler’s MASc research at the University of Toronto focusses on real-time passenger inflow control coordination between successive metro stations via reinforcement learning. He is completing his MASc under the supervision of Professor Amer Shalaby and expects to graduate in August 2021.
Shawana Munir is a 4th year Bachelor of Applied Science student in Civil Engineering at University of Toronto planing to minor in Environmental Engineering and obtain a certificate in Global Engineering. She recently completed her Professional Experience Year Co-op (PEY Co-op) at a civil engineering consulting firm where she was exposed to multiple structural and transportation projects. Previous to that, she held internships within the transportation field, one of them at a major railway company in Tokyo, Japan.
Shawana’s past work experience as well as the courses she took in her third year of university – including Transportation I taught by Professor Matthew Roorda – fuelled her interest in pursuing a career in transportation, particularly urban transportation and sustainable transportation systems.
She is currently enrolled in Transportation Planning with Professor Khander Nurul Habib.
Shawana hopes to pursue higher education in the field upon graduation, and says “With everything changing around the world very quickly from technology to the environment, I am excited to play a part in shaping our future in transportation as an aspiring engineer!”
About the TAC Foundation
The Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) Foundation, a registered charity, was established by the Transportation Association of Canada in 2003 to address the issue of shortages in the number of skilled people available for the planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of Canada’s transportation infrastructure.
The primary thrust of the TAC Foundation has been to significantly expand TAC’s previous support of transportation education, both in terms of annual total dollars available to students in transportation programs and in scope. The expansion in scope is in reference to broadening the reach of the scholarship program beyond university graduate students, as well as to the implementation of other programs to support transportation education in Canada, such as promoting careers in transportation to high school students and assisting transportation educators and researchers.
The TAC Foundation: supports education in transportation-related disciplines: connects transportation and roadways sector employers with the best and brightest young professionals entering the field; and raises the visibility, image and profile of the transportation industry in the Canadian education system.
The TAC Foundation awarded fifteen scholarships valued at $66,500 in 2020. It is funded by donors and overseen by a Board of Directors.