In this weekly news, I feature a short summary of the CHBE Industry Night, which is a bi-annual event organized by UBC CHBE Undergrad Student Council and the UBC APSC Alumni Relations Team.

Some of you that follow the CHBE GSC Blog might know, the featured alumni are Dr. Eric Jervis, PEng – STEMCELL Technologies, Jane Nieuwenburg, EIT – Lorax Enviromental Servies Ltd, Peter Wynne, PEng – Chevron, and Warren MacPhail, PEng – Devon Energy, who is actually an alumni of U of Calgary.

The event started with Dr. Peter Englezos welcome speech. The evening continued with Claudio Arato, PEng as the host. Claudio Arato is a alumnus of UBC CHBE and currently sits on the department’s Industrial Advisory Board.

Following this, I will state important points that each speaker had mentioned during the presentation.

Dr. Jervis is the 1st speaker of the evening. He encouraged the students to work for good grades because that shows how hardworking a student is. He stressed the importance of 10 year plan as a successful career requires time, patience and planning to build.

Jane Nieuwenburg, who is a recent graduate from our graduate. discussed her job hunting experience. There are 2 points that hit the spot.

1. No matter which year you’re in, start looking for a job right now.
2. Don’t limit yourself to posted jobs. You have to approach companies by contacting them personally. State your interest and your capability to the company clearly.
3. Learn more about companies by talking to representatives in career fairs and info session available on campus and else where.

Peter Wynne has worked with Chevron since his graduation from UBC in year 1981. He said that he actually worked in many different jobs in the same company. He stated as a design engineer, then financial and marking representative and currently a process engineer at a refinery. He works with clients from around the world in daily basis. The advice that Peter gave is to try as many experience as you can. When you’re young, try out jobs that are outside your comfort zone. For example, working in the freezing North of BC or somewhere far away from home. This will help yourself to widen your mindset and also serves as a great opportunity for you to learn many lessons that one might not learn in an office job.

Warren MacPhail talked about his experience at Devon Energy. He talked about the development of optic fibre well temperature sensor and search for improved technology for the future 5 or 10 years. Warren also talked about what he looks for in a resume. He looks for something that people challenge themselves to do over time. Join professional societies and organizations and get involved.

To sum up, start now, build your technical and soft skills, expand your network, and find your passion immediately.

If you have any suggestion for what you like to see on our weekly news, please email me at jslee@chbe.ubc.ca or comment on this blog post.
Also please join the CHBE Grad Student Club Facebook Group onhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/chbegsc/ if you are a graduate student or a recent alumni of graduate program of UBC CHBE.

From the left, Warren MacPhail, Jane Nieuwenburg and Peter Wynne

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We are very happy about the great turnout for the First Research Day 2013 event! This event is a success because of the efforts of the organizers (CHBE GSC executives, faculty and staff members in UBC CHBE and APSC), keynote speakers, presenters, and the participants! Don’t forget the generous sponsors of this event.

I represents the Research Day Organizing Committee to thank you everyone who provided support to this event and we will see you next year! Cheers!

Below are the congratulation wishes from our Department Head, Dr. Peter Englezos

“Dear Fahimeh [Chairwoman of Research Day 2013 Organizing Committee],
On behalf of the Department, congratulations one more time for organizing the Department’s Research Day. The event was a huge success and exceeded expectations.
Everyone I talked to was impressed with the organization and the quality of the oral and poster presentations and how effectively you brought together students, faculty and the broader community.Your efforts are much appreciated by all of us. I am confident that the experience you gained will be valuable in your professional life. Please also convey my congratulations and appreciation to Alireza, Hafiz, Negar, Ramin, Sonia, Jun Sian, and Hamid.”

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Ehsan Espid

My name is Ehsan Espid. I am currently a MASc Student working on a project related to developments of a new photocatalytic microreactors. During my     B.S. career, I dedicated a great portion of my time to do group activities and participate in social committees, so my Extracurricular Activities gave me valuable experiences by fully interacting with faculties and staff. Here I’m going to devote myself to help the GSS become better integrated into graduate student life. My goals for my term in GSS generally will  be on developing an effective connection to establish closer relation with graduate students to promote awareness of campus facilities and devise a way to share these facilities with all graduate students in different departments.

Pooya Hossein

Greeting my fellow grad students, I, Pooya, hail from Iran and started my PhD program in January 2012 working on “bi-functional oxygen evolution/reduction cathodes in alkaline batteries and fuel cells” under the supervision of Prof. Elod Gyenge. Since I am currently the treasurer in our one and only ECS BC Student Chapter, I have some experiences dealing with financial issues such as funding for events. Hence, I would like to work with my fellow councilors in GSS Council to make GSS funds more accessible to every events hosted by any grad student including my friends in CHBE. I think it is a great opportunity for me to deal with one of major grad event’s sponsors in our UBC to hopefully make it easier to host a grad event in CHBE or any other department in the future.

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The first seminar this year of the “CHBE Professional Development Seminar Series”, organized by the CHBE Graduate Student Club, was successfully held on September 20th with Professor Xiaotao (Tony) Bi as the speaker. After completing his PhD from this department, Professor Bi worked at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal as a postdoctoral follow and Natural Gas Technologies Centre as a research scientist prior to joining UBC as a faculty member in 1997. In addition to teaching and active research, he served as the associate department head for 3 years, as an associate director of the Clean Energy Research Centre since 2009, manager of the Fluidization Research Centre since 1998, and a faculty mentor of the UBC Bridge program since 2007.

In his talk, Professor Bi provided a summary of his academic career starting from his childhood. He was born and raised in a small town in the south-west of China. The end of Chinese Cultural Revolution opened the door for him to compete for and get admitted in the prestigious Tsinghua University of China. After completing Bachelor degree, he decided to pursue Masters degree at the influence of some faculty members there. Later, he moved to UBC to obtain a PhD degree in this department under the supervision of Professor John Grace.

Professor Bi frankly admitted that throughout his career he had been attracted by many diversions, but successfully managed to get over all the allurements and pursued his main goal. He always asks himself what is the most important thing he needs to do at that time in order to reach the main goal. By sharing the stories of his own struggles, he has addressed some of the interesting questions which cross the mind of a graduate student who wishes to develop career in the field of research and/or teaching. Professor Bi highly recommended participating in extra-curricular activities for developing soft skills; however, he stressed the need for giving academic activities the priority.

CHBE Graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members well attended the talk. Graduate students from other engineering departments, too, participated.

If you have any suggestion for what you like to see on our weekly news, please email me at jslee@chbe.ubc.ca or comment on this blog post.
Also please join the CHBE Grad Student Club Facebook Group on https://www.facebook.com/groups/chbegsc/ if you are a graduate student or a recent alumni of graduate program of UBC CHBE.

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Introduction to our Technical personnel in Chemical & Biological Engineering Department

This is the 3rd part and the last part of CHBE Staff Info Series. Here are the links for the 1st part: Administration personnel; 2nd part: Management personnel. This post features our staff members from the CHBE Workshop, led by Doug Yuen, the workshop supervisor, CHBE Store, managed by Richard Ryoo, our storekeeper and CHBE Lab, managed by Ken Wong, our lab technician.

Doug Yuen is the Technical team leader of CHBE technical staff. He manages most the technical staff members who help graduate students, faculty member and other researchers in the department to build and  setup there equipment according to specifications provided by requestor. The workshop is divided into two main sections: Mechanical Workshop and Electrical Workshop. Graham Liebelt, Gordon Cheng, Charles Cheung and David Roberts are the mechanical workshop technicians. Alex Thang and Serge Milaire are the electrical workshop technicians. To name a few machines in the workshop, there is a Fadal CNC milling machine, OMAX CNC water jet-cutter, Plasma cutter, TIG welder,TOS lathes, EDM machine and many other machines. Quoting Doug, “Anything you dream,  we can build !” This line perfectly echos the work that is performed by the workshop. However, Doug stressed that detail planning, drawing and deep understanding of a setup have to be done before the job is sent to the workshop. Graduate students should consult their supervisors then consult the workshop about what they wish to build. The most important thing is to have mutual understanding between you and the workshop on the objectives, the problems and the results that are desired from a setup.

Richard Ryoo is our CHBE storekeeper. He handles the delivery and pickup of supplies and instruments of the department. At the same time, Richard keeps the store well-stocked with supplies of consumables, such as paper towels, gloves, small bottles for sample collection, and many other items. He helps us to order items from specified suppliers, provided that you have a speed chart (more info about speed chart, click the hyperlink and find [ctrl+F] “speed chart”). Also, to ease his work, please submit your order using the “New Workshop and Online Ordering System” in CHBE IT Resources.

Ken Wong is our lab technician. His main job is to maintain the undergraduate laboratory in the 4th floor. However, he is also in charge of assigning access to a fob-access laboratory, e.g Lab 506. Ken is the one that provides us with assess to the undergrad lab to obtain ice and distilled water.

Next week, we will feature the summary of Dr. Bi’s professional seminar. Starting the week following that, I will ask graduate students to contribute on posting to describe their research groups. If you wish to contribute, please email me to the email address below.

If you have any suggestion for what you like to see on our weekly news, please email me at jslee@chbe.ubc.ca or comment on this blog post.
Also please join the CHBE Grad Student Club Facebook Group on https://www.facebook.com/groups/chbegsc/ if you are a graduate student or a recent alumni of graduate program of UBC CHBE.

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