2018 Maple Leaf Award
Ramesh Rudra P. Eng. receives the CSBE Maple Leaf Award for his outstanding contributions to soil and water engineering and non-point source pollution management in Canada, and active participation in CSBE activities at provincial national level.
Professor Ramesh Rudra joined the School of Engineering at University of Guelph in 1980 and he was promoted to the full Professor status in 1993. He was elected to the grade of Fellow by the CSBE in 2005. He was also made a Fellow of the Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers in 2012. He has been Chair of CSBE Foundation and CSBE Fellow Committee since 2015. He has supervised over 80 Master’s and Ph.D. students, published more than 200 refereed publications, ten book chapters, one book and more than 550 presentations at national and international conferences, workshops and symposia.
The focus of Dr. Rudra’s research program has been on the development of agricultural nonpoint source pollution control practices for Ontario climatic conditions, including mechanics and modelling of processes at plot, field and watershed scale. His innovative contributions include the introduction of the concept of temporal variation in soil hydraulic and erosion characteristics, targeting approach for agricultural watershed management, mutli-tier approach to watershed management, and modelling and monitoring procedures to identify sources of runoff, erosion and pollution in agricultural watershedsUnder the leadership of Dr. Rudra, the Guelph group introduced the application of modelling approaches, GAMES and GAMESP, for watershed management in 1980’s and SWAT model in the Canadian Great Lakes basin in 2005. Now the modelling approach and the SWAT model is being used by many conservation authorities in the Province. His recent research work has focused on variable source hydrology, effect of climate change on precipitation and temperature regimes and nutrient management.
His recent research work has focused on variable source hydrology, effect of climate change on precipitation and temperature regimes and nutrient management.
2018 Young Engineer of the Year Award
Satyanarayan Dev is an Assistant Professor in the Biological Systems Engineering Program in the College of Agriculture and Food Sciences at Florida A&M University (FAMU) and an Adjunct Professor in the Chemical & Biomedical Engineering Department at the FAMU-FSU Joint college of Engineering, Tallahassee, FL. Before joining FAMU in 2015, he served as an Assistant Professor at A’Sharqiyah University in the Sultanate of Oman for three years. He obtained his Master’s and Doctoral degrees from McGill University, Montreal in 2007 and 2010 respectively. He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University as well as in the Department Chemical Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in 2011 and 2012 respectively. He was awarded the Outstanding Young Researcher of the Year award in June 2017 by the Florida Section of ASABE. He has won several outstanding oral presentation and poster presentation awards as well as superior paper awards from the ASABE and the International Congress of Engineering and Food. His research projects have focused on food safety, value addition, nutritional quality, process optimization, modeling and simulation of food processing operations, electromagnetic equipment design for food processing, sustainable cold chain as well as thermo and biochemical conversion of biomass. Dr. Dev has published more than 100 technical publications, of which 37 are peer reviewed publications in journals and indexed conference proceedings, 10 book chapters and a book.
2018 John Turnbull Award
Kris Dick is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biosystems Engineering, Director of the Alternative Village at the University of Manitoba, maintains a consulting practice, is Executive Director of the Western Wood Truss Association – SK, MB, N.W. Ont. and a registered professional engineer in five provinces. Coming out of a trade background as a Journeyman Boilermaker he brings a hands-on approach to his research and teaching. He has been the recipient of numerous teaching and outreach awards. Kris is particularly proud of the service-learning course he developed and ran in rural Honduras which provided design and construction experience for engineering students. The majority of his research has been with industry partners. His work has supported product development and evaluation and also had an impact on Canadian truss design specifications. Kris currently teaches courses in wood design, light frame structures, alternative building systems and instructs the Biosystems capstone course. His recent research involves the evaluation and development of alternative building materials such as earth, straw and hemp combined with recycled material for structural and thermal performance.
2018 Glenn Downing Award
Venkatesh Meda started at the Department of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering (now, Chemical and Biological Engineering) at the University of Saskatchewan in August 2002. Prior to that, Dr. Meda worked as a Project Development Officer, Office of Vice-President, McGill University during 2000-2002. From 1994-2000, he was a graduate student and research assistant in Bioresource Engineering at McGill University. He has extensively participated in strategic discussion(s) /seminars conducted by CIDA, World Bank, Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS), ICRISAT on post-harvest engineering.
Dr. Meda has a well-established research program on utilising electro-technologies for handling and processing agri-food materials. His expertise in mechanical optimization of a grape harvester and the development of a double shoot on a disc drill have received industry recognition (Case New Holland, Inc.). His collaborative initiatives with the Prairie fruit growers resulted in technology development for appropriate processing for harvesting, cleaning and drying operations which aided in revitalisation of Saskatchewan’s fruit industry.
Dr. Meda completed several research projects under the Agricultural Bioproducts Innovation Network grants during 2007-2011 connecting researchers across Canada, AAFC (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), and Industry partners in bioenergy, biofuels and bioproducts. For the past few years, Dr. Meda has been working in projects dealing with utilisation of electromagnetic energy for downstream processing across the value-chain; crop flow modeling; co-product utilisation in bio refineries, and most recently in the Protein Industries Canada Supercluster effort.
Dr. Meda was awarded as ‘distinguished Professor’ by Karunya University, India in 2011 and NIFTEM, Government of India (2014, 2018) for his outstanding contributions in the field of Food, Chemical & Biological Engineering. He has supervised several M.Sc./Ph.D/PDFs and published in high quality journals. Dr. Meda’s enthusiasm continues to thrive on integrating approaches to food systems ultimately addressing global food security challenges.
2018 Jim Beamish Award
Nazim Cicek is a Professional Engineer and Professor in the Department of Biosystems Engineering at the University of Manitoba. He received his M.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering in 1995 and Ph.D. degree in Environmental Engineering in 1999 from the University of Cincinnati, OH. After working for 2 ½ years in the private sector, he returned to academia in November 2001. Nazim reached the rank of Professor in 2011 and has served as the Associate Department Head since 2009.
Nazim’s research interests are in the area of biological wastewater treatment, wetland treatment for water quality, biofuels and bioenergy production, and biopolymer production processes. Nazim has authored or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has graduated 15 M.Sc. students, 7 Ph.D. students and two Post-Doctoral Fellows and is currently supervising 4 Ph.D. and 5 M.Sc. students.
Nazim received the 2012 Manitoba Excellence in Sustainability Award in the category of Innovation and Research for Sustainability. He received the 2013 CSBE/SCGAB John Turnbull Award for his contributions in the area of Waste Management. He has been a member of CSBE-SCGAB since 2002 and served as the Program Chair for the CSBE/SCGAB Annual General Meeting and Technical Conference in Winnipeg, 2017.
2018 John Clark Award
Oon-Doo Baik is a Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. Oon-Doo has taught Modeling of Food Processes, Modeling in Biosystems, Transport Processes, and Food and Bioproducts Engineering, courses needed in the understanding of unit operations during food and bioproduct processing. His research has been on the use of electro-technologies for food processing and storage applications, heat and mass transfer processes, extraction of bio-components and biomass processing. Oon-Doo’s research group reported inherent non-uniform temperature distributions during RF heating based on theoretical and experimental determination. Through 3-D multi-physics simulations, his group also determined the magnitude of selective heating during RF assisted disinfestation to kill insect pests without significant damaging grain qualities. They also suggested a new concept of applicator for inline RF disinfestation. Oon-Doo has been active in attracting funding for his research for a total amount of $ 2.3 M over his tenure at the University of Saskatchewan. He has co-authored 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, and 53 conference presentations. He has made 27 invited presentations in different conferences on such as seafood processing, modeling and simulation of processing operations, radio frequency applications in food processing and extraction of bio-active compounds.
2018 Fellow Award
Dr. Stéphane Godbout has been a member of the CSBE for 30 years. He has served the Society as Québec’s regional director and chair of the XVIIth CIGR World Congress and the 5th CIGR International Conference. He has also been involved in the Executive committee of the Québec’s Association of Agri-Food Engineers (AIAQ) as president, vice-president, or administrator. As a research scientist at the Quebec’s Hog Development Center (CDPQ) and Research and Development Institute in Agri-Environment (IRDA), Dr. Godbout has developed and led engineering R&D programs related to air quality in agriculture and management of agricultural residues and livestock manure. He has strongly influenced technical knowledge in agricultural engineering. Dr Godbout developed an innovative methodology to measure gas and odour emissions from agricultural buildings. He collaborated in the unique development of 12 independent rooms to assess the environmental impacts of new techniques in pig and poultry production. His recent research on bioenergy led to the construction of a special laboratory dedicated to the reduction of vegetable spillage and use of agricultural biomass to produce on-farm energy. Dr Godbout is also adjunct professor at Université Laval. This position has allowed him to supervise 11 undergraduate students and 8 postdoctoral fellows, and or co-supervise 19 MSc and 7 PhD students. He has received many honours including CSBE Young Engineer Award and the John Turnbull Award. In light of his strong record, he is elected as 2018 CSBE/SCGAB Fellow.
2018 Fellow Award
Dr. Sylvio Tessier obtained his Bachelors (1980) and Masters (1982) degrees in Agricultural Engineering from McGill University, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Science from Washington State University (1988). Dr. Tessier has been an active member of CSBE/SCGAB and ASABE since 1989, and was the President of CSBE/SCGAB during 2015-2016. He was the recipient of the Glenn Downing Award of CSBE/SCGAB in June 2003, for his outstanding work on the machinery systems. He has received the AE50 award of ASABE in 2013 for the world’s best technology innovations in agricultural, food and biological systems. He also received three Superior Paper awards of ASABE. He has 3 patents: 1) Minimum tillage seeding device (US 5724902, Canadian patent # 2,144,565 Mar 10, 1998); 2) Hydraulic floating system for down-pressure control of seeding tools (US 5562165, Canadian Patent 2144564, Oct 8, 1996); and 3) Tool Control System for Agricultural Seeders (us 20130112124 A1, filed on Jul 30, 2012). Sylvio is a dynamic engineer and all along his career, he has focussed on the ethics and quality of expertise of our profession. For him, the future of our society depends on specific expertise and its implication for young engineers and students. Through his engineering efforts, R&D works, and CSBE/SCGAB involvement, Dr. Tessier has significantly contributed to sustainable agriculture and environment in Canada. His leadership as a professor and head at Université Laval has helped their Agricultural and Food Engineering programs immensely. In recent times he has contributed to professional engineering aspects of agriculture in Manitoba.
2018 Fellow Award
Dennis Hodgkinson P.Eng., FEC is the President and Founder of DGH Engineering (DGH). Dennis was instrumental in the development and implementation of a variety of building systems and building service developments in the Agri-Industrial sector. He has contributed to the evolution of developing building systems that integrate wood, structural steel, and concrete elements in very wide, large industrial building complexes, which optimize cost effectiveness and energy efficiency. Dennis has also participated in the development of several precast concrete building products, non-combustible modular buildings and innovative equipment and systems for building ventilation and heating including heat recovery and biomass energy production.
Dennis has practiced as a professional engineer for over 40 years. He commenced his career in the technical and scientific knowledge extension service with the engineering group within the Manitoba Department of Agriculture from 1976 until 1989. He has been a strong supporter of CSBE serving in the capacities of Vice-President for Industry and as President.
Since 1989, Dennis has led DGH’s multidisciplinary team of engineers to grow into a 50-person practise that specializes in commercial and industrial building design, and construction across Western Canada. Embedded in the DGH team are engineers with bilingual capabilities in Mandarin and Russian that support Dennis in the development of international business opportunities.
HONOURS AND AWARDS:
Awarded title “Fellow of Engineers Canada” in recognition of outstanding support to the Engineering Profession. 2011
Recipient of the John Turnbull Award from CSAE in recognition of outstanding contributions to the structural field of agricultural engineering. 1997
Recipient of the Canadian Agricultural Engineer of the Year Award from CSAE in recognition of outstanding
Design and construction of a four-wheel-drive tractor taking into consideration the rules specified by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE)
Université Laval, Équipe ULtrac - Frédérik Daigneault, Félix Keurentjes, Nicholas Lefebvre, Christophe Rainville, Étienne Marineau-Bélanger, Clovis Courchesne, Jasmin Fréchette
University of Saskatchewan, - Sled Dogs - Jason Cousins, George Dodds, Keith Halcro, Charley Sprenger, Cory Bart, Austin Pizzey, Dane Steen, Tyler Reaser, Matthew Lashyn (Advisor: S. Noble)
Recognizes academic excellence among student members of the Society. The Scholarship is awarded each year to the student member of the Society with the highest GPA in the preceding semester.
University of Manitoba - Sarah Currie
Université Laval- Anthony Beaudoin
University of Prince Edward Island- Skylar Tang
Dalhousie University - Jack Lynds
University of Manitoba - Afua Mante for a thesis entitled “Impact of soil and water management practices on soil strength for field operations in southern Manitoba” (Advisor: R. Sri Ranjan)
McGill University - Daihui Zhang for his thesis entitled “ Synthesis and characterization of 5-hydroxymethlfurfural derivative based materials” (Supervisor: M. Dumont)
The University of British Columbia - Hamid Rezaei - for his thesis entitled “Physical and thermal characterization of ground wood chip and ground wood pellet particles” (Advisors: S. Sokhansanj, A. Lau and J. Lim)
University of Prince Edward Island - Evan MacDonald - for a thesis entitled “Are vegetation indices derived from sUAS mounted multi-spectral sensors an accurate predictor of yield in potatoes” (Supervisor: A Fenech)
University of Guelph - Andrea DiNardo for a thesis entitled "Investigation and Optimization of Methods for the Extraction of Antioxidants and Polyphenols from Yellow European Plums (Prunus Domestica L.)" (Advisor: A. Singh)
University of Guelph - Harjeet Singh Brar for a thesis entitled " Physio-chemical Changes Occurring During the Dehydration of Yellow European Plums (Prunus domestica L.) into Golden-dried Prunes (Advisor: A. Singh).
University of Manitoba - Krishana Kaja for a thesis entitled “HYDRUS modelling to predict field trafficability under different drainage design and weather conditions in southern Manitoba” (Advisor: R. Sri Ranjan)
McGill University - Aidan Fedele De Sena for a thesis entitled “Characterizing the organic phosphorus species in Histosols of the Holland Marsh” (Supervisor: C. Madramootoo)
McGill University - Subhash Palaniswamy for a thesis entitled”Development of a Millet Dehuller (hand-operated) to reduce drudgery in processing and utilization of Millet waste (hulls) in antioxidant extraction” (Supervisors: V. Orsat and V. Raghavan)
University of Saskatchewan - Charley J. Sprenger for her thesis entitled “ Classification and Densification of Municipal Solid Waste for Biofuels Applications” (Supervisor: L. Tabil)
University of Prince Edward Island - Clayton Harding for a thesis entitled “Hybrid sol-gel poly(n-ethylaniline) coatings with increased self-healing properties” (Supervisor: A Hsiao)
Université Laval - Gabriel Collin for his thesis entitled “Optimisation de la production d’amandes par la gestion de l’irrigation en temps réel / Optimization of almond production by real-time irrigation management” (Advisors: J. Caron and J. Gallichand)
University of Manitoba - Thesis Award - Hunter Loewen for a thesis entitled “Effect of dancers’ footwear and landing conditions on force propagation and balance measures during jump-landing” (Advisors: J. Morrison & J. Singer)
McGill University - Design Project Award - Lindsay Cass, Isabella Pietracupa, and Melissa Zbacnik-D'Antonio for their project entitled “The Household Washing Machine Filtration Device for Microfibers” (Supervisor: C. Madramootoo)
McGill University - Paper Award - Julia Ethier, Ellen Feigl, and Sarah Ghazal for their paper entitled “Rainwater catchment and storage for the McGill School of Environment building” (Supervisor: C. Madramootoo)
University of Prince Edward Island - Thesis Award - Zach Denny for a thesis entitled “Wastewater management in rural Pakistan” (Supervisors: G. McSorley; B. Smyth; D. Taylor)
University of Prince Edward Island - Design Project Award - Zach Denny; Skylar Tang; Andrew MacEwen; Zumer Fatima; Haley Butler for a project entitled “Wastewater management in Rural Pakistan” (Supervisors: G. McSorley; B. Smyth; D. Taylor)
Dalhousie University - Thesis Award - Melanie Bos for a thesis entitled “Nitrate and bromide transport in response to soil moisture content” (Supervisor: D. Burton)
Dalhousie University - Design Project Award - Brenden Wheeler and Justin Thorne for a project entitled “Mechanical Wild Blueberry Harvester Header Positioning System” (Supervisor: T. Esau)
Université Laval - Design Project Award - Antoine Beauchemin, Émilie Blouin-Verroeulst, Jérémie Bonneau, Caroline Verrier for their project entitled “Conception d'une fendeuse-cordeuse de bois de chauffage/ Design of a firewood splitter-chord machine”(Advisor: M. Khelifi)