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science at ryerson

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Welcome to Science at Ryerson! As a teaching discipline, science has long been an integral part of the Ryerson community. With the university being located in the heart of downtown Toronto, we are uniquely positioned to lead the science world in education and research. In addition to our studies in class, we hope to add value to the education of students by engaging them in prolific research projects in cooperation with our accomplished faculty members. The Faculty of Science is committed to interdisciplinary teaching and research across our four departments - physics, chemistry and biology, computer science, and mathematics - to prepare our students for a career in the lab, the emergency room, and beyond.

Listen to the dean's vision for the Faculty of Science, as Imogen Coe speaks with Ryerson Today's Shirley Moore.

message from the dean

The Faculty of Science (FOS) is Ryerson’s newest Faculty, having come into existence officially on July 1, 2012, and the only new Faculty Ryerson launched in over 40 years. The aspiration to have an independent Faculty of Science has been long-standing at Ryerson, and through the hard work, dedication and vision of many people, it is now a reality. FOS has over 80 full-time faculty members and is home to the foundational science disciplines, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics, housed within four departments. FOS programs currently cater to approximately 1650 undergraduate and 200 graduate students and new undergraduate programs (Biomedical Sciences, Financial Mathematics) will be added in 2013. Although we are a nascent Faculty, we have been providing leading-edge education for many years using evidence-based approaches to improve and innovate at all levels. FOS also provides the foundational science teaching for our former home, FEAS. FOS also has a long history of outstanding, nationally and internationally-recognized research and is home to two Government of Canada Research Chairs. Our researchers are actively engaged in exploratory activities with local community partners in Toronto and with many organizations and institutions beyond the city.

The acronym we have chosen to use to define ourselves is FOS, Faculty of Science. FOS can mean more than Faculty of Science, such as “foundations of science”, “full operating system”, even “fructo-oligosaccharide.” But most significantly, fos, in Greek (φως), means light. Science illuminates our world and allows us to understand ourselves better. As the late astrophysicist and popularizer of science Carl Sagan would say, science is a candle in the dark. FOS will burn brightly and we look forward to further developing and expanding our vision for outstanding and innovative teaching and research within the Faculty of Science at Ryerson University.

- Imogen Coe, Dean of the Faculty of Science

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