Get to know our 2018 Scholarship Recipients

The winners of the 2017/2018 Paul G. Complin Memorial Scholarships are:

Chris Hey – Carleton University (M.Sc. candidate in Environmental Engineering)

Chris is a former mining engineer from Sudbury transitioning to a career in mine reclamation and sustainability. Chris’s research is focused on the potential use of biosolids in tailing soil covers, simultaneously addressing the issues of effective and affordable soil covers for mine wastes and paving the way for reduced biosolids disposal costs.  Chris intends to finish his Master's at Carleton University in 2018 and to apply his research in mine closure and sustainability to projects world-wide. Chris resides in Ottawa where he likes to cross country ski, mountain bike, fly-fish, and enjoy the outdoors.

Tamar Richards-Thomas – Trent University (Ph.D. candidate in Environmental and Life Sciences)

Tamar is a doctoral candidate in the Environmental & Life Sciences program at Trent University. She is studying the settling rate and micro-scale properties of dust particles, investigating the impact of a water droplet on loose dust surfaces and simulating dust re-suspension through wind tunnel experiments and numerical modeling. The findings from her studies will provide new insights into dust emission, transport and deposition processes specific to cold and humid environments such as Iceland. She graduated from her M.Sc. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Alberta in May 2014 and B.Sc. (honors) in Physics from the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica in November 2011.

Dean Kennedy – University of Ottawa (Ph.D. candidate in Chemical and Biological Engineering)

Dean is pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Ottawa. He is currently investigating the use of adsorption technology for bulk industrial gas separation and purification. His primary focus is on the use of modified zeolites for improved recovery of fugitive 'waste' methane emissions from biogas and natural gas sources. The effectiveness of these materials will be analysed using adsorption and membrane based applications in terms of industrial and economic feasibility in order to both mitigate and recover this resource. Dean graduated from his B.A.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Ottawa in 2015, he continued unto a fast-track Ph.D. program in 2016 working with the ENERGY-S.M.A.R.T. group under the supervision of Dr. F. Handan Tezel at the University of Ottawa. Throughout his studies, Dean has had the opportunity to collaborate on several industrially relevant projects and hopes to continue with these efforts in the future.