Anyone who believes in education understands it’s a lifelong process that doesn’t stop when people leave university.~
Nihar Biswas got a sense of that phenomenon when he had a visit from a former post-doctoral fellow who now works as a research professor in the Ministry of Environmental Protection for the People’s Republic of China.
Xie Yongming came back this week as part of a five-member delegation from China to learn from his former supervisor, and his community, about Canadian wastewater treatment methods and pollution solutions.
“They’re in the process of establishing a new five-year plan,” said Dr. Biswas, senior associate dean of engineering and Yongming’s academic supervisor between 1990 and 1994. “They were here to look at how we manage the environment in terms of treatment technologies for liquid industrial and municipal waste. They wanted to know about planning and regulations regarding discharge levels and how we enforce policies.”
The delegation met with members of the International Joint Commission, toured the Lou Romano wastewater treatment facility in Windsor’s west end, met with representatives from Stantec Consulting and took a look at the new massive retention treatment basin being installed along the riverfront at the foot of Aylmer Avenue. University researchers were instrumental in developing the process that will be used in that basin to prevent the overflow of untreated sewage that currently flows into the Detroit River during heavy storms.
While on campus, Yongming donated a book called Symposium of Scientific Research in Aquatic Environment, a collection of academic papers he authored while he worked here, to the Leddy Library.
Engineering professor Nihar Biswas chats with his former post-doctoral fellow Xie Yongming during a return visit to Windsor.
News story courtesy of UWin Daily News.