The new, non–profit, Global Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability-GIEES, has been incorporated in the US, and will be based out of MIT, in due course. It will have an international Board, of 15 members, with a mandate to provide technical and research services/advice on topics of Energy, Environment and Sustainability , globally, but in particular to the UN, World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, to begin with. Only 2 Canadians have been invited to serve on the Board, one being Dr. Don Mavinic.
Dr. Mavinic has a Bachelor in Civil Engineering and a Ph.D. Sanitary Engineering from the University of Windsor. He has been a Faculty member at UBC since 1973, and is currently Professor and Associate Head of Civil Engineering. He was formerly Associate Dean, Faculty of Applied Science. He is a registered Professional Engineer in B.C.
Don is the co-inventor of a proprietary technology, the UBC Crystal Reactor, now marketed under license to the OSTARA Corp., a UBC spin-off company. He was a Board member from 2005-2009. This technology successfully recovers excess nutrients in pellet form, and is sold as a slow release fertilizer, called Crystal Green. Don has received many professional awards and citations for this research, including the Manning Award of Distinction, an NSERC Synergy Award, a Killam Senior Research Award and most recently, the APEGBC Meritorious Achievement Award.
Don has been a consultant to more than 80 clients, and has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers. He is a member of WTAC, Nunavut Territorial Government; a Special Advisor to the U.S. government on nutrient recovery technologies; and a technical advisor to the Governments of Peru and New Zealand on resource recovery.
Don is a Fellow of the CSCE, CAE, and the EIC. He is a past Editor of the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering and currently Co-Editor of the Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science. He is a past member of both the NSERC Grant Selection Committee GSC- 06 and the NSERC Strategic Grant Program; he is currently Group chair, NSERC Grant Committee 1509. Over the past 3 years, he has been a guest speaker over 30 times, including the Parliament of Canada.