Research Management Committee

Dr. Steve Larter is Canada Research Chair and Professor of Petroleum Geology at the University of Calgary. Prior to joining the University of Calgary in 2004, he worked for the Universities of Newcastle and Oslo and, in the 1980s, for Unocal in California. He is also CEO of Gushor Inc. and Scientific Director of Profero Energy, two technology companies developing transition technologies to enable society and the oil and gas industry to rapidly migrate to zero carbon emission practices. Dr. Larter has broad research interests which range from understanding the phenomenon of biodegradation and predicting fluid property variations in tar sand and heavy oil reservoirs; biogenic gas generation and shale gas and coupling fluid chemistry as part of reservoir simulator history matches; through to studying the microbial life of subsurface petroleum reservoirs. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society and AAPG distinguished lecturer. His degrees are from the universities of Cambridge and Newcastle.

For nearly three decades, Richard Adamson has been dedicated to facilitating the commercialization of innovative technologies. Prior to his appointment with CMC, Mr. Adamson played a pivotal role with the Southern Research Institute’s Environment and Energy team, resulting in the Carbon to Liquids (C2L) Development Centre in Durham, North Carolina. He has founded or worked with small and large technology companies in Alberta ranging from lab, environmental remote sensing, and industrial process control instruments through to small-scale combined heat and power systems for which he holds a patent, pioneering a distributed micro-utility business model. Mr. Adamson serves on the board of C3 (formerly Climate Change Central) and was founding chair of NewERA, the predecessor to WADE Canada. He has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary.

Office of Energy Research and Development, NRCan
Dr. Marc D’Iorio has had a longstanding career with the Government of Canada. He has worked as a scientist and has held a number of executive positions in Natural Resources Canada. Marc was appointed Director General (DG) of the Office of Energy Research and Development in 2010, after four years as Director General of the Geological Survey of Canada. He has published and presented over 100 papers. He is past President of the Canadian Remote Sensing Society and has been an adjunct professor in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Ottawa and in the Geography Department of the University of Montreal. He holds a B.Sc. in Geophysics from McGill University and a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa in Geostatistics.

Associate Professor, Faculty of Law
Associate Director, Institute of the Environment
University of Ottawa

Professor Stewart Elgie specializes in environment and natural resources law and policy. From 1992 to 2001, Professor Elgie was the founder and managing lawyer of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, now Canada’s largest public interest environmental law organization. In that role, he advised over 100 environmental, community and First Nations groups across Canada, and served as counsel on a number of precedent-setting public interest environmental cases across Canada – including four successful appearances before the Supreme Court of Canada on major environmental-constitutional cases. Prior to founding SLDF, he worked as an environmental lawyer in Alaska, including litigating against Exxon over the Valdez oil spill. From 2001 to 2003, Elgie was the founding Executive Director of the Canadian Boreal Trust: a foundation supporting conservation of Canada’s northern forest ecosystems. In 2007, he founded Sustainable Prosperity, a research and policy initiative that brings together leaders from business, environment, academia and government to build a vision of transforming Canada to a truly sustainable economy through fiscal and policy reforms.

Professor Elgie has served on government advisory bodies on a range of issues, including: the NAFTA environmental side agreement, endangered species legislation, parks legislation, environmental assessment, and trade and the environment. He is a frequent witness before Parliamentary committees on environment matters, and spearheaded a successful campaign for federal endangered species legislation (passed in 2002).

In 2001, Professor Elgie was awarded the Law Society of Upper Canada medal (LSM) for exceptional contributions to law, one of the youngest persons ever to receive the profession’s highest honour. In 2003, he also received an Achievement Award from the federal Environment Minister for his leadership role in the development of Canada’s endangered species law.

L.S.M., B.A. (Duke, U.W.O.), LL.B. (U.W.O.), LL.M. (Harv.), of the bars of Ontario, B.C. and Alaska, Associate Professor

Dr. John Grace oversees Theme A, Recovery, Processing and Capture. He is also Director of the Fluidization Research Centre which conducts fundamental and applied research on fluidized bed reactors, their modeling and/or applications. Dr. Grace’s primary research interests are concerned with fluidized bed reactors and related multi-phase systems. He has investigated a wide range of problems which are fundamental in nature, but which have practical application. Applications studied include fluidized bed combustion and gasification of biomass and coal, a novel process for steam reforming of natural gas to make pure hydrogen, greenhouse gas mitigation, thermal energy storage and drying of wood wafers. Dr. Grace is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Chemical Institute of Canada, Engineering Institute of Canada and Royal Society of Canada. He has a D.Sc. (Hon) and B.E.Sc. from the University of Western Ontario and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge University.

Dr. Don Lawton oversees Theme C, Secure Carbon Storage. He is Director of the Fold-Fault Research Project (FRP) which involves integrated geophysical and geological research into the 3-D geometry and evolution of structures of economic and academic interest in fold and thrust belts. He is also Associate Director of the Consortium for Research in Elastic Wave Exploration Seismology (CREWES). His research interests include acquisition, processing and interpretation of multicomponent and conventional seismic data and near surface geophysical studies for environmental applications and for reflection static corrections. He has a Ph.D. and B.S. (Hon.) from the Department of Geoscience at Auckland University.

Dr. Bernhard Mayer is a Professor of Isotope Geochemistry in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary. He has co-authored more than 70 papers in international refereed journals and 10 book chapters. His innovative research has contributed to various provincial, national, and international research programs, including the Alberta Ingenuity Center for Water Research (AICWR), the Alberta Ingenuity Center for In-Situ Energy (AICISE), the Canadian Water Network (CWN) National Centers of Excellence (NCE), and the United Nations SCOPE Nitrogen group. He received his PhD in Isotope Geochemistry in 1993 from the University of Munich in Germany. After an 18 month stint as postdoctoral fellow at the University of Calgary, he returned to Germany as an Assistant in the Department of Sedimentary and Isotope Geology at the Ruhr-University Bochum (1994-1997). In September 1997, Dr. Mayer accepted a professorial appointment at the University of Calgary.

Dr. James Meadowcroft oversees Theme D, Accelerating Appropriate Deployment of Low Carbon Emission Technologies. He teaches in both the School of Public Policy and Administration and in the Department of Political Science at Carleton. He is also Associate Editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies. His research is focused on the ways in which governments are adjusting their practices and policies in order to cope with the emergence of problems of the environment and sustainable development. He also investigates how citizens can work towards sustainability by improving production and consumption methods. He has written on environmental politics and policy, democratic participation and deliberative democracy, national sustainable development strategies, and socio- technical transitions. Recent work deals with sustainable energy policy and climate mitigation technologies such as carbon capture and storage. He has a BA in Political Science from McGill University and a Doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Prior to joining the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) as Program Deputy Director for the NCE and BL-NCE programs, Dr. Stéphanie Michaud was Senior Manager for Strategic Planning in the Research Partnerships Programs Directorate of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC). She has occupied several Account and Portfolio Manager positions within NSERC, including lead for Idea to Innovation (I2I), NSERC’s technology commercialization program and was responsible for the review of NSERC’s Intellectual Property Policy. She is well versed in intellectual property law as a result of her work within the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and continues to act as lead for IP Policy at NSERC. Prior to joining the federal government, she worked in the private sector for a biotechnology university spin-off firm where she led the R&D efforts of the chemistry group. She holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from McGill University.

Rick Musleh currently manages the energy sector at Enterprise Saskatchewan. His role includes identifying and advancing new energy sector projects and new business development opportunities, identifying new markets and leads to attract foreign investment into Saskatchewan’s energy sector, and representing the province of Saskatchewan on national committees which include the federal government, other provinces, and industry. Over the past 20 years, he has served as a policy advisor, business development manager, business analyst, labour economist and market analyst within Saskatchewan’s energy industry. He formerly served as a Government Relations Manager at Wascana Energy where he acted as the chief representative with provincial government. He holds a BA in Economics and a Bachelor of Administration in Marketing from the University of Regina. He is a graduate of the Canadian Securities course.

Dr. Allen Pfeffer worked at Pratt Whitney for 24 years in a variety of positions, including Head of Turbine Design, Research and Development. In 1990, he moved to ABB, which was later acquired by Alstom. Since 2007 he has been on an Alstom steering committee for carbon capture through which he oversees major CCS programs. He has worked in a variety of management positions; including running the development program for both gas turbines and boilers. He also directed Alstom’s FP 6 and 7 programs. His research interests include use of carbonic anhydrase enzyme to promote CO₂ post-capture, designing of gas turbine cycles using flue gas recycle, chemical looping combustion and the study of pressurized oxy-combustion. He was the Swiss delegate to ERCOFTAC, which is the group advising the EU on flow turbulence and combustion. He has a PhD in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology.

Dr. Andrew Pollard is Director of the Sustainable Bioeconomy Centre and the M.Sc. Collaborative Program in Computational Science and Engineering at Queen’s University. He serves on the editorial boards of academic journals and scientific advisory committees of several international symposia, and is a member of various international and national government, university and scientific review panels, councils, committees and fora. He is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, professional engineer and a member of various academic and professional societies, including Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Dr. Pollard is a founding member, former Associate Director and Director of the Centre for Advanced Gas Combustion Technology of Queen’s University. He is a founding member and former (inaugural) president of the CFD Society of Canada. He is a founding member, Chair of the Board of Directors and President of C3.ca Association Inc. He received his education at Waterloo University, Imperial College and University of London.

Jim Rowley has more than 37 years of experience in the petroleum and environmental engineering industries. He served as the Director of Technology Integration, Major Projects at Suncor Energy during which time he advised the merger integration of Suncor and Petro Canada. Prior to his appointment at Suncor, he held various management positions at Petro Canada. His professional interests are project management best practices, implementation of change initiatives and technical solutions in environmental management. He is a former member of the Newfoundland Transshipment Limited and C-CORE Boards of Directors. He has a B.Sc. (With Distinction) and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Alberta and is a graduate of the Queen’s University Executive Program.

Mike Scribner is currently the manager of the Technology and Optimization organization for Oil Sands, ConocoPhillips Canada (CPC). The organization is involved in the technology development process for improving economic return on CPC assets via proving of technology in field pilots. During his 27 years with ConocoPhillips, he has led organizations in Research and Development, Technology Development, and Technical Support for the upstream organization. Prior to joining ConocoPhillips, he received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Iowa State University doing research on the flash vacuum pyrolysis of coal-modeling compounds.

Dr. John Shaw oversees Theme B, Emerging and Enabling Technologies. He is also an associate editor of Energy and Fuels, and sits on the Network Coordination Council for the Canadian Oilsands Network of Research and Development (CONRAD). He is a specialist in the phase behavior, transport and thermo physiochemical properties of mixtures from coal liquids, heavy oils and condensate rich reservoir fluids to pure compounds. Dr. Shaw served as professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto before joining the University of Alberta in 2001. He has held visiting scientist/professor positions at the Technical University of Delft (Delft, The Netherlands), the Institut Francais du Petrole (Rueil-Malmaison, France), the Syncrude Canada Research Centre (Edmonton, Canada), the ITESM campus of the Technical University of Monterrey (Guadalajara, Mexico) and is now visiting the TOTAL Research Centre and UPPA (Pau, France). He has a B.A. Sc. and PhD. from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. John Zhou is the Executive Director, Environmental Management at Alberta Innovates – Energy and Environment Solutions (AI-EES). He has 24 years of research, development, and management experience in oil sands industry and environmental management. His responsibility at AI-EES includes carbon capture and storage (CCS), oil sands tailings and water management, life cycle analysis, sustainability, biodiversity, and land reclamation. Dr. Zhou is a member of APEGGA, a project advisor for Climate Change and Emission Management Corporation (CCEMC) and a board member of Oil Sands Research and Information Network (OSRIN). He was an associated editor for an international journal, Applied Geochemistry, between 1997 and 2000. Dr. Zhou is an inventor with seven US patents, two of which led to multi-million dollar commercial success. He holds a B.Sc. in Geology from Jilin University, China and a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from the University of Western Ontario.