Jonathan Rose | Engineers Canada

Jonathan Rose has had a strong impact on the field of electrical and computer engineering, both in Canada and worldwide. In the early 1990s, he and his research team at the University of Toronto were at the forefront of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) research, creating architecture exploration CAD tools and insights into the architecture of this type of computer chip, now widely used in the digital world.

Jonathan and his team built a start-up to commercialize their FPGA research. The company was quickly purchased and later became part of chipmaker giant Intel. The subsequent creation of a computing research and development lab in Toronto was early in the wave of start-ups that helped make the city a technology centre of excellence, with many associated economic benefits.

While doing a postdoc at Stanford University, Rose got a firsthand look at the rapid pace of innovation happening in Silicon Valley and after his start-up experience became a champion of entrepreneurship. He helped create U of T’s Engineering Entrepreneurship Hatchery and a seminar series that brought prominent entrepreneurs to the university to speak with students. He also served as the inaugural director of U of T’s popular Engineering Business minor program, which gives engineering students the tools they need to operate within the business world.

“It’s clear to me that the economic future of a country rests on the shoulders of entrepreneurs,” Rose says.

Seeking new ways to volunteer his time and expertise, he visited Ethiopia with the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration, training instructors at the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology and mentoring two PhD candidates. He also served for 11 years as a Director with the Canadian NGO Academics Without Borders, which helps universities in developing nations grow their capacity.

Rose’s curiosity, fearlessness, and optimism continually drive him to seek out new fields of research. Currently, he is working with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, using large language models to develop a chatbot that can help people move toward the decision to quit smoking.