I am a Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, at Queen’s University. cross-appointment to the School of Policy Studies and to the School of Environmental Studies. I am currently the Associate Dean and Director of the School of Policy Studies, Director of the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy (QIEEP), as well as the Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Renewable Energy Development and Implementation. I earned my BScF, MScF, and PhD from the Faculty of Forestry, at the University of Toronto. As I gradually moved from forest operations to wood chemistry, to pulp and paper science, and ultimately, to advanced forest products including energy production, I became very interested in the policy aspects of both environmental management and technology development.
During my Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, I focused on the environmental aspects related to human security in the global context. When I was a Research Associate in the Forest Products Biotechnology group at UBC, I became involved in the development of new bioenergy and biofuel technologies, both in Canada and around the world. My main area of focus was exploring policy tools to evaluate the efficiency of new energy systems, and to deploy these types of technologies in commercial application. Much of this work was done in conjunction with the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
My current research focuses on the interface between renewable energy policy and technologies, with particular emphasis on wood energy and biofuels, working across a broad spectrum that covers environmental policy, international approaches to renewable energy development, and commercialization of new products and processes. A major research project that we have undertaken at Queen’s is an evaluation of renewable energy opportunities and challenges specific to Eastern Ontario, which we have proposed as Canada’s first Renewable Energy Region. This research approach builds on international examples, in Sweden, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere, of successful regional strategies to develop renewable energy solutions.