Cristina Amon, ScD., P.Eng.

Cristina Amon is the Alumni Distinguished Professor in Bioengineering and Dean Emerita at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. She is a distinguished scholar in mechanical engineering, a devoted educator, and an innovative academic leader who helped establish the University of Toronto’s Engineering program as a world leader in multidisciplinary engineering research and education. During her time as Dean, Amon strengthened partnerships with Canadian industries and developed leading-edge programs and institutes to foster collaborative research addressing the world’s most pressing challenges.  She diversified the curriculum and created opportunities for engineering students to develop the leadership, communication, entrepreneurship and business competencies to become leaders in their fields. She also made incredible strides in increasing diversity and gender equity, increasing the first-year engineering cohort from 20% women in 2006 to 42% women in 2019.

Amon’s research pioneered the development of Computational Fluid Dynamics for formulating and solving thermal design challenges subject to multidisciplinary competing constraints. Throughout her career, she has made contributions to concurrent thermal designs, innovations in electronics cooling, optimization algorithms for renewable energy, design of biomedical devices, and transient thermal management of electric vehicle batteries and fast chargers. These are areas that contribute to positive societal change in critical sectors like renewable energy, electrical cars, and healthcare. Her research is at the forefront of current innovation, driving engineering and business value.