PhD students’ international study supported by Carbon Management Canada

Source: Mark Lowey, UToday – the online newsletter of the University of Calgary

Amir Bahman Radneja, University of Calgary

Amir Bahman Radneja, University of Calgary

Three University of Calgary PhD students spent a week this July at the prestigious UK Energy Research Centre Energy Summer School, assisted by travel subsides from Carbon Management Canada Inc.

The three were among 100 doctoral students from the UK and other countries who gathered at the University of Warwick in the English Midlands, for discussions about energy systems and particularly pathways to low-carbon and resilient energy systems.

“This program is specifically designed to give second-year PhD students the opportunity to look beyond their own research, and to connect with other students around the world doing multidisciplinary work in carbon management,” says Anita Arduini, program director at Carbon Management Canada (CMC).

CMC, based at the University of Calgary, is a nationwide, multidisciplinary research network focused on reducing carbon emissions in the fossil energy industry and from other large stationary emitters.

CMC provided travel subsidies of $2,000 each to a total of five doctoral students, all of them studying with CMC-affiliated faculty at Canadian universities in the network.

The University of Calgary PhD students selected for the summer school were Paul Addo, Hamid Emami Meybodi and Amir Bahman Radnejad. CMC also funded two HQP from other universities: Anna Harrison, University of British Columbia, and Abedeh Gholdoust, University of Alberta.

“This was an opportunity for me to establish a network with international PhD students working on energy-related topics,” Radnejad says.

The three students’ supervisors are, respectively: Viola Birss, professor of chemistry in the Faculty of Science; Hassan Hassanzadeh, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering in the Schulich School of Engineering; and Harrie Vredenburg, professor in the Haskayne School of Business.

International exchange program

CMC also is providing travel subsidies to four other University of Calgary students, to participate in a separate international student exchange program with organizations associated with carbon management in the UK, Australia and the United States.

Mohammad Sedghkerdar, Ehsan Mostavi, Suresh Mulmi and Shahin Moradi will visit laboratories at, respectively, University of Nottingham, University of Leeds, Imperial College London and Stanford University in California. Sedghkerdar and Mostavi are students of Nader Mahinpey, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering in the Schulich School of Engineering. Mulmi is studying with V. Thangadurai, associate professor of chemistry in the Faculty of Science, and Moradi is a student of Don Lawton, professor of geoscience in the Faculty of Science.

In return, Lawton and Gerrit Voordouw, professor of biological sciences in the Faculty of Science, will host students from the University of Melbourne and Curtin University in Australia.

The exchange program opens up potential post-doctoral opportunities and lays the foundation for Canadian researchers to participate in collaborative, international research programs, Arduini says.

“These PhD students are our future early-career researchers. If they’ve already got these professional experiences and connections with international research laboratories, it really helps,” she says.

CMC allocated a total of $96,000 in one-time funding to support Canadian PhD students attending the summer school and participating in the international exchange program.