A team of fourth year Environmental Engineering students walked away with top honours at the Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO) Student Design Competition held recently in Toronto, for a cost-saving wastewater design solution that allows efficient resource recovery.

The team of Amal Ghamrawi, Ruoshi (Rose) Zhao, Tania Farah and David Tran, all fourth year students, developed their project in response to a call for ideas that would allow Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant (ABTP), the country’s largest, to lessen environmental impact, reduce the cost of water treatment or adopt a resource recovery approach.

“Our solutions allows efficient phosphorus and nitrogen recovery, an important process to recover resources - a feature the judges highly appreciated,” says Ghamrawi.

“Though the permitted investment limit of the contest was $80 to $200 million, we proposed an efficient capital investment of approximately $50 million.”

Municipal wastewater treatment plants treat the water that we use in our homes and businesses, including what we flush down our toilets, before releasing it back to our lakes and rivers.  

The team started their intensive research in September under the supervision of Environmental Engineering professor Rajesh Seth and competed against five other universities at the Toronto event.

“In all the last seven competitions that we have participated, the most rewarding part has been the judges’ praise for UWindsor teams’ level and quality of work,” says Seth.

The UWindsor team will head to Chicago in September to compete against other North American teams at the Water Environment Federation’s Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference.

Master of Fine Arts alumni Lisa Lipton (MFA ’06) and Zeke Moores (MFA ’05) are on this year’s Sobey Art Award  long list of nominees representing the Atlantic provinces. 

Both artists exhibit their work at the national and international level. Lipton is a multidisciplinary visual artist, musician and director, and Moores’ art explores the social and political economies of everyday objects and our complex relationships with them. He also teaches sculpture at the School of Creative Arts.

The Sobey’s shortlist exhibition takes place from September 26, 2015 to January 3, 2016, at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax.

The Award Announcement Gala is scheduled for October 28 at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

For more information, read SoCA's newsletter.

Read more about the nominees in the Chronicle Herald article

UWindsor grad Stan Yavno (BSH 2008, MSc 2010) was recently awarded the third annual Arnold Berliner award from the international journal The Science of Nature (formerly Naturwissenschaften), for best research article published in the previous calendar year.

Dr. Yavno received the award for his doctoral research on the morphological plasticity of native and non-native pumpkinseed sunfish.

While at UWindsor, Yavno worked with supervisor Lynda Corkum to study behavioural responses of the Round Goby to fish egg odours in an effort to control the invasive fish.

After completing his Masters at UWindsor, Yavno went to Trent University where he earned his Ph.D.

“Stan is successful because he enjoys every aspect of research,” says Dr. Corkum.

“He has a flair for technology and is extremely efficient in getting things done each day. I am very proud that Stan received the Arnold Berliner Award, he is most deserving.”

During his tenure at UWindsor, Yavno published three papers on the behaviour and ecology of the Round Goby.

The University will commemorate workers killed or injured because of their work by lowering flags on campus Tuesday, April 28, in observance of the International Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the day’s recognition by the Canadian government. It has now spread to about 80 countries, encouraging cooperation between employers and workers to prevent worker injuries and deaths before they occur.

University employees are also invited to observe a minute of silent reflection at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

The Campus Bookstore will close to business Tuesday to Thursday, April 28 to 30, for its annual inventory.

Marketing co-ordinator Martin Deck invites departments to make purchases with an eye to the fiscal year-end: “People who need to pay for items before the start of the next budget year should come in and place their orders now!”

The Campus Bookstore website remains open for online shopping 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at www.bookstore.uwindsor.ca.

The summer program offered by Food Services starting today will focus on self-serve based in the CAW Student Centre’s Marketplace.

A new central counter offers Tim Hortons coffee and baked goods, says department head Dave McEwen, in addition to a selection of soups, salads, sandwiches and confectionary products.

“We want to make sure our patrons can find a satisfying snack or meal,” he says.

The Marketplace will operate weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Another change is the suspension of the $5 minimum on debit transactions, making it more convenient for customers to pay for small purchases.