RICore: One integrated core
From atoms to systems, UTM’s research facilities provide science researchers with shared, cutting-edge tools, expert support, and hands-on training. Now integrated as the Research & Innovation Core (RICore), these facilities form a coordinated ecosystem supporting more than 60 laboratories across UTM, with collaborators from UTSG, UTSC, and external partners, enabling seamless investigation across biological scales — from ecosystem to atomic level.
RICore researchers pursue projects that address global grand challenges and advance fundamental knowledge, supported at every stage of their work.
Complemented by the Collaborative Digital Research Space (CDRS) and the Academic Workshop, the ecosystem brings together coordinated expertise, shared protocols, digital research support, and custom fabrication. This integrated model helps researchers move fluidly between techniques, generate high-quality data, and tackle complex scientific questions — from climate adaptation to molecular mechanisms — within a single, collaborative research environment.
Our priorities
RICore comes together as a cohesive community of practice. Priorities are guided by the OVPRI’s strategic framework, which supports excellence in research at UTM and advances the University’s reputation as an award-winning research institution.
Central to this work is a commitment to enhancing facilities and streamlining processes — improving process flow, strengthening documentation, and increasing transparency for users. Facility leads — highly skilled researchers embedded within the core — play a central role in advancing our goals by putting plans and initiatives into action, supporting researchers throughout their work, fostering inclusive, collaborative research environments that empower scholars to do their best research.
Integrated service & support
- Design of multi-scale experimental workflows
- Cross-platform training
- Coordinated sample preparation across scales
- Seamless facility operations
- Facilitation of data integration
- Troubleshooting across the research continuum
Meet our experts
Our facility leads have strong research backgrounds, which enable them to support faculty — and teach and inspire our students.
Academic Workshop
The Academic Workshop has been a core facility since the inception of this campus, supporting UTM's research and teaching community for more than 50 years. The shop offers services ranging from repairs to the manufacturing of specialized equipment, and its highly knowledgeable staff work with researchers to develop custom projects from design through fabrication.
Lead: Peter Duggan, Supervisor
Phone: 905-828-5327
Email: peter.duggan@utoronto.ca
Location: DV 1004
Animal Care Facility (ACF)
The ACF works with faculty members and graduate students at U of T Mississauga to facilitate research projects in which the use of animals is necessary, and ensures the research is conducted following proper procedures.
Lead: Tracy McCook, Manager
Email: tracy.mccook@utoronto.ca
Collaborative Digital Research Space (CDRS)
Designed as a shared hub for interdisciplinary work in the Humanities and Social Sciences, CDRS offers bright, flexible meeting rooms; state-of-the-art meeting and recording technology; and modular furniture, alongside year-round programming that supports research, skill development, and scholarly community building.
Researchers use CDRS to host a wide range of collaborative and digital research activities, including lectures, seminars, workshops, meetings, talks, exhibitions, and interactive programs.
Lead: Tia Sager, Interim Senior Research Associate
Email: cdrs.admin@utoronto.ca
Location: MN 3230
Growth Facilities
Comprised of our research greenhouse, growth chambers, environmental rooms, and phenotyping systems, these facilities are a valuable campus resource for interdepartmental plant and animal research. Here, researchers investigate various species and perform experiments on different aspects of biology from abiotic stress physiology to epigenetics, biochemistry and evolutionary ecology.
Lead: Vera Velasco, Senior Research Associate
Phone: 905-569-4394
Email: utm.growth.facilities@utoronto.ca
Location: 1695 Outer Circle Road (northwest corner of Parking Lot 9)
Imaging Facility
The Imaging Facility is a shared resource providing instruction, support, and equipment for researchers performing optical microscopy. It is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments, including a conventional confocal microscope, a spinning disc confocal microscope, a confocal system for multiphoton imaging, an epifluorescence microscope, and a tabletop SEM. The facility also provides training, consultation, workshops, and access to software for data analysis.
Lead: Katie Harris-Howard, Senior Research Associate
Phone: 416-996-8751
Email: utm.imaging@utoronto.ca
Location: Facility: DV 1074C | Office & Dry Lab: SB 2079
Life Sciences Core Facilities
UTM's Life Sciences Core Facilities offer shared equipment across three specialized facilities located in the W.G. Davis Building and New Science Building:
- Cell and Molecular Biology Facility
- Cell and Tissue Culture Facility
- Autoclave and Research Resources Facility
Lead: Xin Zhao, Life Sciences Core Facilities Manager
Phone: 416-970-3661
Email: xin.zhao@utoronto.ca
Location: SB 1130
Lead: Lubna Abu-Jazar, Research Facilities Manager
Phone: 437-688-5973
Email: lubna.abujazar@utoronto.ca
Location: SB 1130
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre
Providing services to academic and industrial clients alike, the NMR Centre is a research facility focusing on small molecule structure characterization, fragment-based drug discovery, ligand-target interactions, and target structural dynamics. The facility is equipped with modern spectrometers capable of a wide range of experiments, and our staff and researchers offer extensive expertise in medicinal, structural biology, and biophysical research.
Lead: Ferenc Evanics, NMR Facility Manager
Phone: 905-828-5327
Email: nmr.centre.utm@utoronto.ca
Location: DV 2051B
2025 by the numbers
Supported 50 labs across 9 U of T departments
Provided services to support R&D needs of 16 companies
Logged 247,268 hours of instrument use
On the Horizon
- Advance the cluster as a recognized university-wide research facility
- Strengthen our profile and communicate the expertise, infrastructure, and supports available
- Foster partnerships and collaborations that enhance research outcomes across disciplines
- Expand engagement with external partners and PIs
- Continue to grow in a sustainable way that supports evolving research needs and ensures long-term impact
Did you know? Students are a vital part of the RICore Facilities.
Work study students provide essential support while developing practical skills through hands-on training.
As Growth Facilities assistants, they contribute to plant science research, controlled environment systems, imaging technologies, and science communication. In the Imaging Facility, students help maintain equipment, streamline image-analysis workflows, automate microscope operations, and support researchers. At CDRS, students work as Event and Communications Assistants, helping run programs and events, and creating promotional materials.
Through these roles, students build valuable skills while expanding their professional networks. In fact, many of our facility leads got their start as trainees at U of T!
“I completed my undergraduate studies (BSc) at York University and then continued with a PhD in Developmental Biology at U of T (St George). I graduated from U of T with a PhD in Developmental Biology in June 2010.
It was in my graduate research program that I learned how to use confocal microscopes to study the inner workings of cells. I went on to do postdoctoral research in cellular neurobiology at the Picower Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before coming to UTM as a Research Associate, and eventually taking the role of Senior Research Associate for the Imaging Facility.
The high-level training I received as a graduate student is a constant source of inspiration for how I hope to educate and mentor the graduate students who come through my facility today.”
— Katie Harris-Howard, Senior Research Associate, Imaging Facility
“I’m a former U of T PhD graduate, and I began working in this role while finishing my degree, which was a huge opportunity.
My involvement with the Critical Digital Humanities Initiative as an inaugural graduate fellow gave me valuable experience in event planning, programming, and supporting digital research, and ultimately led to my role as interim SRA at CDRS.
Collaborating with faculty and supporting digital and collaborative research at UTM has been an incredible learning experience.”
— Tia Sager, Interim Senior Research Associate, CDRS
“I did my undergraduate degree at UTM in analytical chemistry and biology, and starting working in the teaching labs as a work study student. After graduation, I worked as a lab technician in Patrick Gunning’s Lab and after that I became the Lab Lead at the Centre of Medicinal Chemistry.
Now I am the Research Facilities Manager for the New Science Building.”
— Lubna Abu-Jazar, Research Facilities Manager, New Science Building