Dr. Ajay Dalai
Dr. Dalai is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Bioenergy and Environmentally Friendly Chemical Processing at the University of Saskatchewan. His Catalysis and Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory specializes in heterogeneous catalysis, sustainable biofuels and bio-chemicals production, petroleum processing, hydrotreatment, pollution control, nanotechnology, gasification, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, and novel materials production and characterization. Dr. Dalai aims at unravelling the potential of thermochemical conversion (pyrolysis, torrefaction and gasification) of Canadian agricultural biomass such as canola meal, canola hull and oat hull into high energy products along with biochar.
Dr. Animesh Dutta
Dr. Dutta is a professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph. His Bio-Renewable Innovation Lab developed expertise in thermochemical conversion of agricultural residues, biomass and wastes into products that can be used as fuel, industrial materials and energy. Currently, Dr. Dutta aims at developing biocarbon, activated carbon, biomethane, and biofertilizer from wet biomass using a hybrid thermochemical and biochemical approach.
Dr. Donald Smith
Dr. Smith is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Plant Science Department of McGill University in Montreal. His laboratory focuses on plant-microbe signaling and the development of biological products to enhance plant production. Additionally, Dr. Smith works on purpose-grown biomass crops such as switchgrass, Miscanthus and Spartina pectinate. Dr. Smith aims at finding new biological products to enhance growth of biomass crop or to increase residue biomass of food crop.
Dr. Jinguang Hu
Dr. Jinguang Hu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Calgary. He leads the Biomass & Biorefinery Research Lab and focuses on biomass valorization, sustainable energy, bioinspired materials/systems, and protein engineering for Energy, Environmental and Biomedical application.
Dr. Shahabaddine Sokhansanj
Dr. Sokhansanj is an adjunct professor in the faculty of chemical and biological engineering at the University of British Columbia. His research group addresses challenges in feedstock engineering focusing on harvesting, drying, fractionating, and densification of cellulosic biomass. His work includes: (1) experimenting with innovative biomass preprocesses to acquire engineering data for design and optimum operation of individual unit operations; and (2) developing engineering models for simulation of unit operations for optimizing the entire supply chains.
