Innovation and creativity earn accolades for Schulich students

Innovation and creativity earn accolades for Schulich students

University of Calgary students Leon Prebeau-Menezes, second from left, and Carol Yan, far right, compete with team members in the FortisBC Energy Challenge at the International Student Energy Summit. Photo by Mark Jarder Photography Students from the Schulich School of Engineering made a number of presentations and brought home top awards from a mix of conferences over the summer.

Sean Dawson, a master's student in chemical and petroleum engineering, took home first prize at the 104th Annual Conference of the Air and Waste Management Association in Orlando, Florida. His paper outlined a method that involves taking petroleum coke, a waste product from oil sands operations, and using it to clean the water that was used in the process so it can be recycled.

The conference featured more than 500 presenters and more than 150 posters. Dawson's supervising professors are Alex De Visscher and Josephine Hill.

Four students presented papers at the American Rock Mechanics Association's 45th Geomechanics Symposium. They were part of a contingent of 15 graduate students and post docs who travelled to San Francisco along with Geir Hareland, NSERC/Talisman Senior Industrial Research Chair in Drilling Engineering. The event brought together experts from around the world who represent all aspects of rock mechanics and rock engineering.

At the International Student Energy Summit in Vancouver, students from the University of Calgary placed in the top four among delegates from around the world. The event is a forum for post-secondary students to discuss global energy issues.

Mikhail Anisimov and Leon Prebeau-Menezes, graduate students at the Schulich School of Engineering, and Carol Yan, an undergraduate student at the Haskayne School of Business, competed in the FortisBC Energy Challenge. The event challenges teams to develop an energy district system for a city and has technical and business components.

Anisimov competed on team KAWA and Prebeau-Menezes and Yan were on team "e3". After four days of competitions the top teams moved to the final round. Asisimov's team finished just outside the top four while team "e3" proceeded to the finals. After an intense round team "e3" was just edged out for first place.

Anisimov and Prebeau-Menezes were sponsored to attend by the Alberta Government and Yan was sponsored by Shell. Supervising professors for Anisimov and Prebeau-Menezes are Geir Hareland, Gordon Moore and Raj Mehta in chemical and petroleum engineering at the Schulich School of Engineering.

The delegation from the Schulich School of Engineering at the 45th Geomechanics Symposium in San Francisco. Front row: Ugochukwu Odiegwu, Lisa Song, Geir Hareland, Behrad Rashidi, Vahid Mostafavi, SHareland, Behrad Rashidi, Vahid Mostafavi, Serik Abdrazakov, Oscar Contreras, Charles Nwaoji, BellaDonna Maulianda Back row: Mohammad Moshirpour, Mohammad Fazaelizadeh. Photo by Aqsha Aqsha	Sean Dawson, right, presented with first prize from Raghavan Ramanan, chair of the Education Council of the Air and Waste Management Association. Photo courtesy Sean Dawson