Jim Nicell, Professor and Dean of Engineering, and Professor George Demopoulos, Chair of the Department of Mining and Materials, were among 57 New Fellows appointed yesterday into the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE). At a ceremony in Calgary, CAE President Eddy Isaacs said,
鈥淭he new Fellows are engineers of outstanding abilities and of widely varying backgrounds, from industry and academe and government. What they all have in common is the demonstrated desire and ability to go beyond the normal practice of engineering and contribute in exemplary ways towards their fields and to their communities.鈥�
Jim Nicell (left) and George Demopoulos.
Recently reappointed Dean of Engineering on the unanimous recommendation of the Advisory Committee, Prof. Nicell has a reputation for community building, as well as for enabling leading-edge research among 160 professors, 3,500 undergraduate and 1,200 graduate students in the Faculty. Over the course of his career, he has received numerous awards for teaching. In 2017, the Faculty of Engineering received top honours at 91社区鈥檚 Awards for Equity and Community Building.
The CAE recognized Dean Nicell鈥檚 research into environmental applications of enzymes, as well as the assessment of the fate and impacts of pharmaceutically active compounds, green plasticizer development, and odour impact assessment, as of particular importance to the field.
George Demopoulos, who holds the Gerald Hatch Chair in Engineering, is internationally renowned for outstanding research in hydrometallurgy and advanced energy material processing. Having trained over 100 researchers in industry-linked projects and published more than 250 influential papers, his work has been critical to advancing research in renewable energy, including in the environmentally sensitive area of arsenic immobilization. His contributions to the development of a device capable of harvesting and storing energy using light have opened the door for the development of self-charging batteries.
The Canadian Academy of Engineering is the national institution through which Canada鈥檚 most distinguished and experienced engineers provide strategic advice on matters of critical importance to Canada. The CAE is an independent, self-governing and non-profit organization established in 1987. Members of the CAE are nominated and elected by their peers to Fellowships, in view of their distinguished achievements and career-long service to the engineering profession.