Keynotes
The agri-food sector at today’s turning point: how to better manage a sector in social and environmental crisis?
Rosa Galvez, originally from Peru, is one of Canada’s leading experts in pollution control and its effect on human health. She has a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from McGill University and has been a professor at Université Laval à Québec since 1994, heading the Civil and Water Engineering Department from 2010 to 2016. She specializes in water and soil decontamination, waste management and residues, and environmental impact and risk assessment.
Throughout her career, she has been requested by private, governmental and community organisations to offer expert advice. She has also advised a number of international organisations including on Canada-US and Quebec-Vermont agreements regarding the protection of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. She also conducted an important study on the catastrophic oil spill at Lac-Mégantic.
Senator Galvez is a member of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and Engineers Without Borders. Her research has led her around the world to countries such as France, Italy, Belgium, Japan and China.
Senator Galvez was appointed to the Senate on December 6, 2016, representing Québec (Bedford). She lives in Quebec with her partner, Luke, and has three children, Virginie, Lydia and Francisco.
The OIQ: regulating and upholding Quebec’s engineering professionals for over a century
Since 2016, Kathy Baig, Eng., MBA, ASC, has been President of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ), the organization that oversees and supports approximately 65,000 engineering professionals in Québec. Under her leadership, the OIQ developed and implemented the ENG2020 Plan and the ENG 20-25 Plan to become the reference for public protection within Québec’s professional system. The outstanding efforts she has made to restore confidence in the engineering profession in the aftermath of the Charbonneau Commission have not gone unnoticed.
Her accomplishments have been recognized by the École de technologie supérieure (honorary doctorate), by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of Québec (Mercury Award for her leadership), by Engineers Canada (Fellow), the national organization of Canada’s 12 engineering regulators, and by the Canadian Academy of Engineering (Fellow). She also received a Canada's Top 40 under 40 Award during the 2019 edition of this prestigious national awards program.
Kathy Baig makes a significant contribution as a member of the boards of directors of Via Rail Canada, the National Optics Institute (INO), Engineers Canada, and Maison Saint-Gabriel.
Before being elected President of the OIQ, Kathy Baig enjoyed an engineering career of over 10 years with multinational corporations (IBM, Johnson & Johnson), an SME (Pyrogenesis) and Aéroports Montréal (ADM), the airport authority that operates and develops two international airports in the Greater Montreal Area.
Kathy Baig has a degree in chemical engineering (Polytechnique Montréal) and in business administration (HEC Montréal). She also holds a corporate governance certification from the Collège des administrateurs de sociétés at Université Laval.
How Europe is Transforming the Global Agri-Food Industry Through a Public/Private Open Innovation Ecosystem
Before joining the European Institute of Innovation and Technology Food (EIT Food), Andy built and turned around several businesses in Europe and the USA, and most recently engineered a successful exit for Open Innovation Service Leader NineSigma, which he ran for 10 years. The majority of NineSigma’s clients are from the Agri-Food Industry. Other stations in his career include 6 years at KPMG Consulting, where he built an international telecommunication strategy practice, and 5 years at Vanco plc, where as CEO North America and Central Europe he was part of the Executive team that took the business public on the London Stock Exchange. Andy joined EIT Food as CEO in November 2018. Andy holds a Master’s degree that combines Business Administration and Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Berlin, and he earned a Doctorate’s Degree with a thesis on (Open) Innovation Management from RWTH Aachen.
Coop Agri-Énergie Warwick: a farmer’s co-op approach to biomethane
Benoit is a professional engineer involved in renewable energy, sustainability and decision analyses for over 18 years. He holds a graduate diploma in management from HEC Montréal and has served as Golder’s global manager for GoldSET©, a project sustainability decision tool he helped develop. As Energy manager with Coop Carbone since 2016, he takes part to the development of GHG reduction projects (e.g. geothermal, biogas). His responsibilities include project financing, planning & contracting, as well as structuring co-op business plans. He is on the governing board of Coop Carbone and Solon. Benoit has been involved in the Warwick biomethane project right from the start and he is now acting as co-general manager of Coop Agri-Énergie Warwick.
Challenges associated with climate change induced thermal stress in modern animal production
Thomas Banhazi completed his PhD studies at the University of Adelaide in South Australia studying the engineering aspects of livestock buildings and their impact on indoor environmental quality. He worked as a Research Scientist at the South Australian Research and Development Institute for 17 years before joining the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in 2010 as an Associate Professor. He is currently responsible for the delivery of an agriculture science course in addition to supervising post-graduate students. Thomas has published in excess of 200 book chapters, journal and international conference papers, in addition to the large number of scientific reports, extension articles and seminar papers he also produced. He serves on the editorial Board of the “International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering”, the “Journal of Information Processing in Agriculture” and the “Journal of Agricultural Informatics”. He was the Guest Editor for the special journal issues of the “Australian Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering” for number of years and for the Elsevier published Biosystems Engineering in 2013 and 2019.
Supplying carbon needs of society without fossil resources
Lorie Hamelin is one of only 44 researchers who have received funding from the French presidential climate plan “Make our planet great again”. In this framework, she is establishing a carbon management research line within the laboratory TBI - Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, Bio & Chemical Engineering, on the campus of INSA-Toulouse (Federal University of Toulouse), from 2018 to 2023. Through her Cambioscop project, she aims to develop sustainable, tailored and dynamic bioeconomy strategies for French policy makers.
Prior to her research in France, Dr. Hamelin worked as a senior researcher (invited) at the Danish Centre for Circular Bioeconomy (CBIO; 2017-18). She worked as an assistant professor in the Centre for Life cycle Engineering at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU; 2014-2016), and has been recruited in the framework of the European ERA Chair Programme to work as a senior scientist on bioeconomy research in Poland (2016 – 2017), prior to moving to France. She further founded her own consulting company in France.
The Québec Cap-and-Trade System for Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Frederic is currently working for the Carbon Market division within the Québec Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change.
His role mainly consists of analyzing, validating and verifying the GHG emissions declarations submitted by agri-food and industrial emitters, as well as collaborating in the development of legislative and regulatory measures.
He also uses the experience gained in the past by participating in the development of offset credit protocols in agriculture.
Previously, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Research and Development in Agri-Environment (IRDA). Over a period of fifteen years, he participated in several projects and contributed to the advancement of knowledge in areas such as: the quantification and reduction of greenhouse gas, ammonia and odour emissions, application of life cycle analysis to agriculture, energy use, manure recovery and treatment, water management and animal welfare.