Dear Colleagues,
Let me first take this opportunity to wish you well during the current pandemic. On behalf of CSBE council, I thank you all for your understanding with the changes we had to make to our 2020 AGM, and for not being able to meet in Quebec City with CIGR. We hope that the global health situation will improve by next summer, so that we can convene in person in Quebec City.
Dear Members of CSBE,
We are always in short supply of member news for the newsletter. The newsletter is posted on-line on the 15th of September, December, March, and June.
It would be good if you can submit a short item to the newsletter editor, Rene Morissette (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). It can be very simple eg. your professional work, current or recently concluded projects, what you enjoy about your contributions to your profession and the Society, your recent achievements or changes in work responsibilities, or what ways can the CSBE improve its services to you. I particularly call on our retired members to write about their employment up retirement and current activities. Remember you are the Society, and the Society can only be as strong as your participation.
I thank you most kindly.
Chandra A. Madramootoo ing.
Chers membres de la SCGAB,
Nous sommes toujours à court de nouvelles des membres pour le bulletin d'information. Le bulletin d'information est mis en ligne le 15 des mois de septembre, décembre, mars et juin.
Il serait bon que vous puissiez soumettre un court article à l'éditeur du bulletin, René Morissette (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). Il peut être très simple, par exemple votre travail professionnel, vos projets en cours ou récemment terminés, ce que vous appréciez dans vos contributions à votre profession et à la société, vos réalisations récentes ou les changements dans vos responsabilités professionnelles, ou encore les moyens par lesquels la SCGAB peut améliorer ses services pour vous. J'invite tout particulièrement nos membres retraités à écrire sur leur emploi jusqu'à la retraite et leurs activités actuelles. N'oubliez pas que vous êtes la Société, et que la Société ne peut être qu'à la mesure de votre participation.
Je vous en remercie très sincèrement.
Chandra A. Madramootoo ing.
In consultation with the Editor and Managing Editor of our Canadian Biosystems Engineering Journal, a decision has been made to issue a Call for Papers for a Special Issue of our Journal focusing on the topic of engineering education within our discipline, with a specific focus on the needs of educating engineering students for the sustainable production of food, bioproducts, and bioenergy. Papers are requested that relate to any of the following topics:
- engineering education in bioengineering,
- graduate attribute strengths & challenges in the bioengineering curriculum,
- trends in bioengineering graduate programs,
- lessons learned from past program closures,
- challenges with recruitment of bioengineering students,
- challenges facing bioengineering graduates, and
- emerging opportunities for introducing bioengineering education within Canada’s post-secondary education system.
Within our Canadian universities, the discipline of bioengineering (and its’ predecessor agricultural engineering) has been contracting for the past several decades despite ongoing societal challenges related to the sustainable production of food, bioproducts, and bioenergy. The goal of this Special Issue is to allow us, as a technical society, to focus our attention on the various issues associated with the education of bioengineers in Canada. By sharing ideas we can promote best practice in bioengineering education within our existing programs and possibly even generate ideas to reverse this state of contraction within the Canadian context.
Papers for this Special Issue are to be submitted to the Canadian Biosystems Engineering Journal using the established manuscript submission process. January 15, 2021 has been set as a submission deadline for this Special Issue to enable the various submissions to proceed through the review process simultaneously. During his current sabbatical, Dr. Danny Mann (Head, Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba) has agreed to provide assistance to the Editor and Managing Editor related to this Special Issue.
Aitazaz Farooque - 2020 Young Engineer of the Year Award
Huiqing Guo - 2020 John Turnbull Award
Fahimeh Yazdan Panah- 2020 Glenn Downing Award
Zhiming Qi - 2020 Jim Beamish Award
Manick Annamalai - 2020 John Clark Award
Dion Ag. Inc - 2020 Industrial Award
Ramesh Rudra - 2020 John Ogilvie Research Innovation Award
Amit Kumar - 2020 Fellow Award
This has been a challenging year to our membership because of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly due to the cancellation of our annual meeting in Quebec city. Especially for our students and researchers with respect to the opportunity to present their research. Fortunately, we have managed to come together and organize a series of webinars providing an alternative platform for this purpose. A call for abstracts in the early part of the summer resulted in 25 submissions which have been organized into biweekly events occurring every Friday from September of this year to early February of 2021. We already held our first event on September 11 and were very impressed with the quality of work shared by the presenters that day. We look forward to the rest of the series and strongly encourage our members to participate. Our next event is scheduled for September 25 at 10:00 am PST.
Dr. Keith Duhaime, BC Director
Dr. Joy Agnew, Past-president
