As a Professor of Teaching in Civil Engineering, I have lead the development of sustainability curriculum and taught several courses, at all levels, that introduce engineering students to sustainability engineering concepts.  I have co-authored peer-reviewed papers and presentations in sustainability engineering education research.  From 2018 to 2022 I was the co-director of UBC Applied Science Masters of Engineering Leadership in Urban Systems. Also, I was on the team who co-developed UBC’s new Environmental Engineering Program.

I am also a trained Instructional Skills Workshop facilitator, and have developed and/or co-facilitated several faculty development workshops, including UBC’s three-day course design institute, and the one-day ASEE Service Learning workshop.  I am a trained peer reviewer of teaching, and have over 15 years experience providing both formative and summative peer reviews.

In Jan, 2022, after becoming a Professor Emeritus, I initiated, and am now leading, an ecosystem restoration project, which is documented in this website.

If you are wondering how it was that I became interested in sustainability and engineering, read on …..

In 1981, having graduated from the University of British Columbia (UBC) with a Bachelor of Arts* degree in History (majoring in post-confederation Canadian history), I went fishing – literally.

While working (on and off) as a salmon gillnet fisher in B.C.’s coastal waters in the early and mid 1980’s, I had the incredible opportunity to meet all kinds of people up and down the coast.  Discussions sometimes focused on resource depletion issues such as the “war in the woods“, politics, how the world was changing, and what might unfold in our life times.  I also read a lot.  And, like many British Columbians, I simply observed our truly magnificent marine environment.

Fishing was a transformative experience.  I went back to school, earned a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering, worked as a research engineer studying novel methods of chlorine dioxide production**, then obtained a doctoral degree in Chemical Engineering (also from UBC) for research on colloidal ink particle detachment mechanisms during paper recycling.

As a graduate student, I came across the Sustainability Guidelines for professional engineers in British Columbia, and learned about the Sustainability Committee of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C., which I immediately joined.   The Sustainability Committee experiences, as well as work with one of its members (Tony Hodge), introduced me to the field of sustainability engineering and I was hooked.

In 1999, with Ph.D. in-hand, my career goal was clear:  teach sustainability engineering.

Starting in 2000, after appointment as a full-time instructor in UBC’s Department of Civil Engineering, I have developed and taught several core and elective engineering sustainability courses via traditional and novel pedagogies, including community service learning, and on-line learning.  I have also engage in sustainability engineering education research.

As an engineering educator, it was a privilege, in 2005, to complete UBC’s Leadership in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning – Faculty Certificate Program of Higher Education, and to be awarded an inaugural Sustainability Teaching Fellowship at UBC in 2010/11. Since then I have been involved in UBC’s Sustainability Initiative in a variety of teaching fellowship roles, including as the  Senior Sustainability Teaching Fellow at UBC in 2015/16.

*The B.A. degree program was a formative experience for me that helped develop critical thought and appreciation for others.  No matter what your career interests, I recommend the humanities!
** Chlorine dioxide is a benign, but difficult to produce, substitute for the toxic chlorine which, for several decades, had been used as a bleaching agent in the pulp and paper industry.