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The recipient of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture 2022 Early Career Teaching Excellence Award is Dr. Travis Esau, Department of Engineering.

Travis has been teaching in the Engineering department since 2018, and has taught many courses in both the undergrad and graduate level.  He’s been described as “creating an environment of positivity while consistently demanding the highest quality of work from those around him.”  Dr. Esau demonstrates his effectiveness of teaching by providing students with the necessary resources, support, and motivation that they need to succeed in a course.  He had been able to effectively maneuver his course material to a hybrid learning style with online materials in the form of PowerPoints, video presentations, and Teams meetings.

Travis’s teaching philosophy includes:

Helping students develop their critical thinking skills, something that can be used to succeed in a broad spectrum of occupations and life in general.

Creating a positive atmosphere that encourages intellectual thought and diversity.

And a combination of teacher-centred lecturing and student-centred learning.

Travis has also made numerous contributions outside of the classroom. For example, he has been an active judge for national 4-H competitions on campus, and as Regional Director of the Canadian Society for Bioengineering, he provided sponsorship and hosted a networking event for undergraduate and graduate students.  These are just a few contributions.

Travis is also active in the profession, with memberships In the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, Engineers Nova Scotia, and Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineers.

And I’ll end with a final work from one of his former students, “Dr. Esau’s students understand that he has an open door policy, and he is never worried about rushing you out the door. If you have 15 questions he will sit there with you until you’re satisfied with the answers to all of them, and this is no exaggeration. If this means he needs to work an extra 2-3 hours that day, it doesn’t seem to matter to him, and this is truly his most admirable quality as an instructor and mentor.”

In recognition of his enthusiastic commitment to teaching and student success at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture, we present the 2022 Early Career Teaching Excellence Award to Dr. Travis Esau

The recipient of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture 2022 Undergraduate Advising Award is Sherry Matheson, Department of Plant, Food and Environmental Sciences.

Sherry is a Senior Instructor and has been responsible for advising in the BSc (AGR) Plant Science program since 2019, as well as being responsible for advising students interested in the Plant Science minor and Plant Science Honours Program.

Her unique advising portfolio in Plant Science includes four international cohorts: FAFU in China, UAF in Pakistan, TNAU in India, and RVSKVV in India, in addition to the domestic students in the program.  Of course, the challenges of COVID and changing travel restriction rules added complications and required that Sherry advise both locally and for students who were unable to travel to campus.  Additionally, these cohorts begin their program with us at different spots in the degree – some join us in their 3^rd year and other join in their 4^th year, some start in the summer, some in the September, and some in January, all with different requirements to graduate.  Sherry works tirelessly with the students, instructors, and the Registrar’s Office to find correct courses, and sort out their transfer credits.

Here are some other highlights from Sherry’s nominators:

 From solving scheduling conflicts, that can have students lost before they have even begun, to mentorship in times of difficulty. Sherry’s willingness to go above and beyond encouraging students to achieve success, find their goals, and build a road map to achieve them, is commendable.

Sherry’s continued commitment to the academic, and professional success of students, support in their growth and her understanding of their unique personal goals stands high, above the simple “responsibilities” of an academic advisor.

Sherry is a most deserving recipient of this award, first and foremost for her sincere concern for helping students take their best path through their academic lives. She always has the best interests of the students in mind when advising.

In recognition of her enthusiastic commitment to academic advising and student success at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture, we present the 2022 Undergraduate Advising Award to Sherry Matheson.

The recipient of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture 2022 Staff Award for Excellence in Service is Natalie Cole.

This award recognizes and celebrates Natalie’s many contributions to the Faculty of Agriculture, supporting our students, instructors and staff, and helping us create a welcoming and vibrant campus through her work as Finance Manager in the International Office.

Natalie’s service contributions, that go beyond her role as Finance Manager for the International Office. Natalie’s institutional memory and financial management skills are always being called upon for furthering new and current projects and even to training staff members at the Halifax campus on financial reporting and procedures. The international office has also experienced a number of management turnovers and leaves of absence the past couple of years; Natalie has been a crucial leader to the successful progression and completion of projects and the furtherance of our faculty and university strategic goals and priorities.

Here are just a few highlights from her nominators: Natalie’s exceptional skills as an administrator are coupled with a keen understanding of the goals of the Faculty.  In other words, she gets things done efficiently and collaboratively to reach the goals of the international projects with which she is allied.  She is a team player who can adapt to the changing climate of international challenges, calmly and with focus on the job and the people it affects.

Natalie believes in diversity and inclusivity and easily fosters collaboration and communication with Ministries, University Faculty, Staff, and students in developing countries and at partner institutions. She has helped to bring in millions of dollars in projects and always sees them through to successful completion.

As an example of Natalie’s dedication to a project beyond what is required of her on paper, I would like to tell you about how during the early days of COVID-19, she was one of the key members involved in organizing and sending voluntarily donated funds to a person who is important to many individuals from our faculty who have delivered training in Uganda; our driver.  His income was drastically and unexpected cut due to our sudden halt in travel. Without fanfare, she arranged a wire transfer to our friend and colleague.  To this date, his business is able to remain in operation - his response: “You are the most amazing people I have ever met.  May your days be as amazing as you are.”

In recognition of her wide ranging and impactful contributions to the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture, we present the 2022 Staff Award for Excellence in Service to Natalie Cole.

The recipient of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture 2022 Experienced Research Excellence Award is Dr. Vasantha Rupasinghe, Department of Plant, Food, and Environmental Sciences

This award recognizes and celebrates Dr. Rupasinghe’s many contributions to research at the Faculty and was selected based on the originality, independence of thought, overall quality, and impact of his research program.

Here are just a few quotes from other researchers supporting Vasantha’s nomination:

Dr. Rupasinghe’s food bioactive research program is recognized around the globe for understanding dietary flavonoids in human health and innovation of value-added food from cool climate fruits. His research is unique in originality as well as innovative in food and natural health product development.

Vasantha has been making an outstanding contribution to HQP training.  He has completed training 34 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students and 24 postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars, who now serve in academia, governments, and industry.

His extensive scientific publications, their impact shown by high citations, and patents granted/fillings clearly demonstrate originality and independence of thought of his research.

Vasantha holds one of the highest Google Scholar citations (11,090) and author h-index (59) at our Faculty. He is ranked among the world’s top 3% researchers by AD Scientific Index ranking of scientists. Based on the last five years' i10 index, Vasantha is ranked #16 among 753 researchers of Dalhousie University. He has significantly impacted the scientific community through his 212 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 21 book chapters, one edited book, 252 conference abstracts, and 78 invited presentations. The excellence of his research program was already recognized through his Canada Research Chair (Tier II) Award in 2011 and Killam Chair Award in 2016. His contribution to the Canadian food and beverage industry has been recognized by the Fellow Award of the national organization, CIFST, in 2018.

The contributions of his research program have been aligned directly to Dal-AC and Dalhousie’s strategic directions, especially the UN SDGs of zero hunger, human good health and well-being, economic growth, and industry innovation through discoveries of health-promoting value-added functional foods, food ingredients, and natural health products.

In recognition of his extensive contributions to research at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture, we present the 2022 Experienced Research Excellence Award to Dr. Vasantha Rupasinghe.

The recipient of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture 2022 Friend of the Faculty Award is Dr. Gordon B. Murray.

Dr. Murray has had a lengthy association with Dalhousie University and the Faculty of Agriculture. He graduated from Dalhousie in 1985 with a B.Sc. in geology and from the Faculty of Agriculture in 1988 with a B.Sc. (Agr.) in chemistry and soil science from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College.  He then obtained his M.Sc. from McGill University in 1991, but his research was directly supervised by faculty within Dalhousie’s Faculty of Agriculture (NSAC) and his research was completed in Nova Scotia on the hydraulic conductivity of local soils. He also obtained his Ph.D. from Dalhousie’s Faculty of Engineering in 2006, although his research was supervised conducted at the Faculty of Agriculture in Truro.

Dr. Murray’s support for research and graduate studies has been primarily through his role as a member of Senior Management within Stella-Jones Inc. (SJI). Dr. Murray fostered a research partnership between SJI and the Faculty of Agriculture which has elicited substantial research dollars for our campus.

The first graduate student funded by SJI with Dr. Murray’s support graduated in 1998. Since that time, a total of 13 graduate students who were funded directly by SJI have graduated from Dalhousie University, mainly through the Faculty of Agriculture. As well, an additional 4 graduate students are currently conducting their research on the Truro campus under the supervision of faculty within the Faculty of Agriculture. Dr. Murray has served as a member of the supervisory committees for the bulk of these students. The funding secured by Dr. Murray includes monies for both the direct support of research costs, graduate student stipends, tuition fee reimbursements, and travel. To date, this support has amounted to over $1 million.

In addition to supporting graduate student research, Dr. Murray has also supported our undergraduate community. This has included providing funds and treating plant access to students completing honors fourth year research projects, as well as the employment of summer students to work at the treating plant or in the SJI research laboratories on the Truro campus.

As one of Dr. Murray’s nominators stated - Dr. Murray’s enthusiasm, passion, and belief that by sharing his immense knowledge, wealth of practical experience with our student community through various means, supporting and nurturing knowledge generation through stipend support, funding their research, building equipment infrastructure investment all have created immense impact on our student community, Department’s, Faculty’s visibility, contribution, which have all impacted our community, society and environment as a whole. I consider Dr. Murray, as a “True Friend” of Faculty of Agriculture and Dalhousie University, which must be recognized.

In recognition of his spirit of service and many contributions to the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture, we present the 2022 Friend of the Faculty Award to Dr. Gordon B. Murray

The recipient of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture 2022 Part Time Academic Teaching Excellence Award is Dr. Desiree Jans, Department of Plant, Food and Environmental Sciences.

Desiree has been teaching at the Faculty of Agriculture since 2002 back in the Nova Scotia Agricultural College days when she first taught Transition to Organic Agriculture and Organic Field Crop Management, and more recently she has been co-instruction Agroecology in the FAFU 2+2 program.  Desiree most recently has also contributed organic production expertise to the curriculum revision of the Horticulture Skills Training Program offered at the Nova Institution for Women, providing competency-based training to incarcerated women to assist in their re-entry into the workforce.

 In addition to her PTA duties, Desiree had been a frequent contributor to many Extended Learning Initiatives as a result of her industry experience.  Desiree maintains a very high level of knowledge and is a natural choice when developing learning materials for various projects.

One of her colleagues wrote: “Maintaining engagement of a diverse student body and facilitating enriching exchanges in asynchronously delivered on-line courses takes a particular instructor skill set at which Desiree excels.”

Desiree has gone above what is expected of a part time academic.  As one nominator wrote: “Last year, when Dr. Jans taught the FAFU courses, she saw the need to improve the FAFU students’ English.  So she volunteered her and her daughter’s time to tutor FAFU students by providing verbal communication sessions.”

Desiree’s main teaching objective is to help students develop the confidence and skills to think critically.  She says that “Solutions are rarely black and white; navigating the grey with credible information, sound analysis, and an authentic voice are important life skills.”

In recognition of her enthusiastic commitment to teaching and student success at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture, we present the 2022 Part Time Academic Teaching Excellence Award to Dr. Desiree Jans.