By the late 1980s, the department had become internationally recognized for its contributions to sustainable agriculture and engineering. Faculty traveled extensively to the West Indies, Africa, and Asia, helping address global production challenges and attracting students from around the world.
In 1987, Professor Eric R. Norris succeeded Professor Edward McKyes as chair, continuing to lead the department into a new era of research, collaboration, and interdisciplinary innovation.
Professor Vijaya Raghavan became Chair in 1993. He oversaw the restructuring of the curriculum of the department to reflect changes in the scope of the research activities of the department into remote detection and monitoring of water and soil quality, use of mechatronics, developing food processing methods and formulations and nutrient fortification of food products, management and valorization of agricultural waters, development of biomaterials, etc. This change in the curriculum to includes new research streams in agricultural engineering was accompanied by a change of the name of the department to Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering in 1995 and the hiring of new staff members with expertise in these new streams. There was an increase in the number of international graduate students through the success of professors in obtaining research grants for work on the international level. The undergraduate program was revised and the granting of B, Eng, (Bioresource) with a department name changed to Bioresource Engineering was achieved. Professor Raghavan stepped down after the end of his second term in 2003 and was succeeded by Professor Robert Kok.
Dr Kok continued the transformation of the curriculum and staff members of the department. Dr Michael Ngadi was hired to augment the teaching and research in food engineering. Dr Kok also initiated the hiring of recruiters to increase the profile of the department in CEGEPs and high schools and to increase on-line presence of the department. Dr Kok also completed the transformation of the name of the department to Bioresource Engineering in 2004 in the accreditation process. All these measures were successful in the progressive increase in the number of undergraduate students, and especially in the number of women students. The composition of undergraduate students reached parity between men and women students and remains so to this day. Drs. Valérie Orsat, Grant Clark, Mark Lefsrud, and Viacheslav Adamchuk were new hires in this period with expertise respectively in food processing and development of new food products, ecological engineering with applications to composting, and greenhouse technologies and food production, and precision agriculture. Dr. Adamchuk was a faculty member from the University Nebraska-Lincoln prior to joining the department. This addressed development of the new areas of specialization being promoted by the changes in the curriculum. Their work was successful in obtaining funding for major project with collaborators from across Canada, and from industry for development of greenhouse technologies for hydroponics.
Dr Shiv Prasher succeeded as Chair of the Department in 2008 and Dr Valérie Orsat in 2013. Both professors shepherded the department through a period of fiscal constraints that were beyond the control of the department and the university. Drs. Jan Adamowski, Zhiming Qi, and Marie-Josée Dumont were hired during the tenure of Dr. Prasher. With the hiring of Dr. Dumont, the department had two women professors. Dr. Abdolhamid Akbarzadeh Shafaroud joined the department when Dr. Orsat was Chair. The expertise of the new faculty members both strengthened the traditional agricultural engineering and expanded into new domains. Dr Adamowski’s research is focused on water management and modeling of water resources for applications in the field in Canada and overseas. Dr. Adamchuk’s research is precision agriculture using sensor systems that his research group is developing to measure soil and water
quality. His work has received funding from different funding agencies in different disciplines and is multi-national in scope. Dr. Qi studies the effect of engineering on hydrology, environment, and sustainable agriculture and has long term projects in the field of local farmers. Dr. Dumont research was on the use of agricultural wastes to produce useful products such as hydrogels and in developing materials in which biofibers are use in place of petroleum by products. She attracted much interest and support from industry in her work. Similarly, the research activities of Dr. Akbarzadeh Shafaroud is on the development of multifunctional materials derived from agricultural biomass that can be used in the formulation of materials used in 3D printing.
Dr. Viacheslav Adamchuk became Chair after Dr. Orsat stepped down in 2018 and guided the department through the COVID pandemic and major renovations to the Technical Services Building and the Macdonald Steward building. Drs. Shangpeng Sun, Ebenezer Miezah Kwofie, and Idaresit Ekaette are new hires since 2020.
Dr. Dumont left the department in 2022 for a position at Université Laval, and with the hire of Dr. Idaresit Ekaette, there are still two women professors in the department.
Today, the Department of Bioresource Engineering continues to build on its legacy—bridging technology and sustainability to shape the future of agriculture, food systems, and the environment.