Professor Cristina Amon is Alumni Distinguished Professor in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering and former Dean of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. Her responsibilities as Dean (2006 – 2019) included the strategic and visionary leadership of one of the world’s most distinguished engineering Faculties, with more than 750 faculty and staff, and 8,000 students. Under her leadership, U of T Engineering has become Canada’s top ranked engineering school and a global hub for multidisciplinary research, education, and innovation, known for its strategic Faculty-wide initiatives, cross-Faculty centres and institutes, and innovative undergraduate and graduate programming.  Her commitment to outreach, diversity and inclusion has set a new standard for engineering schools worldwide. During her term as Dean, the number of women faculty members at U of T Engineering  almost tripled and the Faculty celebrated an historic 40% women first-year undergraduate enrolment for three consecutive years. 

Born in Uruguay, Amon earned her Mechanical Engineering degree from Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela, and her M.S. and Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Prior to joining U of T in 2006, she was the Raymond J. Lane Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems at Carnegie Mellon University. She has pioneered the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics and the development of multidisciplinary multi-scale hierarchical modelling, concurrent design and optimization methodologies for thermo-fluid transport phenomena, with applications to thermal management of electronics and electric vehicles, renewable energy, and biomedical devices.

Professor Amon was appointed to the Order of Canada and inducted into the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Hispanic Engineer Hall of Fame, Royal Society of Canada, Spanish Royal Academy and U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE). She is a fellow of all major professional societies in her field and has contributed over 400 refereed articles to the education and research literature. Among her many accolades, she received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Westinghouse Medal, American Society for Engineering Education Ralph Coats Roe Award, ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, ASME InterPACK Achievement Award, Engineering Institute of Canada Sir John Kennedy Medal, and the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering Robert W. Angus Medal. She was recognized as one of Canada’s Most Influential Women, received the Engineers Canada Award for the Support of Women, was named YWCA’s Women of Distinction, and received the highest honour for engineers in Canada (2020 Engineers Canada Gold Medal) and in Ontario (2015 Ontario Professional Engineers Gold Medal) for outstanding engineering public service, technical excellence and professional leadership.

Active in executive boards and professional societies, Professor Amon, PEng and ICD.D, has served as director and adviser on boards in North America and abroad, including independent director of MKS Instruments Inc.  She was chair of the National Council of Deans of Engineering and Applied Science research committee and founding chair of the Global Engineering Deans Council, and has served on advisory boards for several institutions, including MIT, NAE, Stanford, UBC, UCLA, and Waterloo, and foundations for science, engineering and technology in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore and the U.S.