Dr. Michael Boh

Michael Boh is a Research Associate in the Department of Bioresource Engineering at McGill University. He obtained his PhD in Agricultural Science from the University of Hohenheim (Germany), an MSc in Agricultural Science, Food Security and Natural Resource Management from the same university and a BSc (Hons) in Geography from the University of Buea (Cameroon). He received a postdoctoral research fellowship award from Fond de Recherche du Quebec, Nature et Technologies (FRQNT) in 2016. His research focuses on organic waste management systems and specifically targets practices and processes that return organic residues and nutrients to soils, including the effects on crop production landscapes, climate change and ecosystems services. The main goal of his current research is to develop a data-driven waste management planning approach to close the loop on regional organic residue and nutrient flows.

Dr. Roberto Forte

Roberto Forte holds a Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) and a Permaculture Teacher Certificate (PTC) from the Permaculture Education Institute in Australia. Roberto is a certified Environmental Professional (EP) by ECO Canada. Roberto holds a Master of Resource & Environmental Management (MREM) from Dalhousie University in Canada, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Science and Technology, and a Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering from the Technological University of Panama. Roberto worked in the private, public, consulting, and NGO sectors in Panama and Canada. Roberto worked for six years as CEO of the Panama Green Building Council. In 2011 he occupied the position of Project Manager at the Summerhill Group Consulting Company in NS, Canada.

Anna Cantu

Anna studied her B.Sc. Biotechnology in the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico’s industrial capital, Monterrey. She has six years of experience in the use of biotechnological solutions for the environment, with a specialty in industrial wastewater treatment. With the desire to focus more on the development of solutions for diverse environmental purposes, she obtained her master’s degree in Bioresource Engineering at McGill University in 2025. There she had a research assistantship in the Ecological Engineering Research Group to help with projects related to the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions in crop fields. She acquired hands-on experience with anaerobic reactors and fermentation processes using food waste. She has an interest in waste valorization as well as measurement and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Theo Humbeeck

Theo grew up on the outskirts of Brussels, Belgium. He first obtained an M.Eng. in biomedical engineering from Imperial College London, where he learned to apply engineering principles to biological systems. Feeling limited by a purely medical perspective on human health, he then decided to get an M.Sc. in Global Health and Food Security at Royal Holloway, University of London. His main interests now revolve around regenerative agriculture, sustainable resource management, and bridging the gap between the expertise of farmers and scientists. This is reflected in his current Ph.D. project which focuses on modelling carbon and nitrogen dynamics in polycropping systems, under a range of climate change and management scenarios. Theo aims to engage farmers and incorporate their knowledge in this modelling process, so as to maximize the relevancy and applicability of its results. He is co-supervised by Dr. Grant Clark and Dr. Jan Adamowski.

Samson Ndukwe

Samson Kelechi Ndukwe hails from Imo State, in Southeastern Nigeria. He obtained his master's and bachelor's degrees in Agricultural and Bioresources Engineering from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State and Federal University of Technology Owerri, Imo State, respectively. He is very good at manufacturing agricultural and industrial machinery, which capacitated him in establishing an industrial company named Kesandus Engineering Industries Limited. He is passionate in innovative research, food processing systems and design, modeling Agri-Systems, optimizing ecological resources vis-à-vis cutting down wastage, energy conservation and tracking the flow of mass and energy to develop more optimal solutions to our current environmental and agricultural problems. His doctoral research work focuses on quantification of greenhouse gas emissions from landfills in Canada using manual chambers, automated chambers and micrometeorological systems.

Xiaowen Ni

Xiaowen Ni was born in Suzhou, China, a beautiful city with a combination of modern and classical. She went to Beijing for her studies when she was a teenager. She has an interdisciplinary background in natural resources as well as geography. When she was an undergraduate student, she majored in Physical Geography at Beijing Forestry University, which laid a solid foundation for her in geography, environment, and methods of spatial analysis. After that, she went on to pursue her master’s degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. She paid attention to food waste of different groups in the consumer segment (residents, tourists, farmers, herders, etc.), and the potential environmental costs of food waste (carbon footprint, ecological footprint, water footprint, etc.). Xiaowen is pursuing her PhD degree in Bioresource Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Grant Clark. Her research focuses on food systems and environmental sustainability.

Ali Taghdisian

Ali received his B.S. in Civil Engineering and his M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering. After graduating, he tested designed novel waste technologies to re-use of saline waste to tackle water scarcity and food security in his home country of Iran. He has since shifted towards system analysis of the underlying social and political drivers of environmental change. He likes to link quantitative and qualitative concepts and move beyond pure technological silo-based answers to sustainability problems of socio-natures. He has experiences as an engineer, researcher, and climate data analyst. His current focus is on how urban areas interact and co-evolve with their environment and metabolize socio-ecological flows. Sustainability of urban food and organic residual (waste) systems are areas that he is currently researching through an urban metabolism lens. Ali is currently pursuing his Ph.D. under a Cotutelle arrangement between McGill and the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.

Liam Fitzpatrick

Originally from Toronto, Liam received a B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from McGill in 2017 and is currently pursuing a M.Sc. in Bioresource Engineering. His research is focused on using automated, steady-state chambers to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from agriculturally applied biosolids. Manually-operated static chambers are widely used for measuring greenhouse gas fluxes from agricultural soils. This method is laborious and measurements are infrequent. As such, short-term fluxes due to weather changes or soil disturbances associated with field management are not captured. In contrast, automated chambers systems can continually measure greenhouse gas fluxes from soils, but they are costlier to procure and operate.

Dennis Dankwa

Born and raised in Ghana, West Africa, Dennis pursued a BSc in Environmental Science for his undergraduate studies at KNUST, Ghana. He is currently pursuing an MSc thesis in Bioresource Engineering at McGill University, focusing on measuring greenhouse gas emissions from municipal organic waste composting in Canada. Dennis seeks to obtain a new and real-time Canadian dataset of GHG emissions from municipal organic waste composting. His data will help national GHG inventory estimates and policy frameworks in Canada. In his free time, he loves to explore new environments and learn about new cultures. ‘’Exposure is the greatest form of education’’-Dennis Dankwa.

Sadie MacDonald

Sadie MacDonald obtained her bachelor’s degree in Bioresource Engineering at McGill University (Sep 2019- Dec 2023). She is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Bioresource Engineering at McGill University (Jan 2024-Dec 2025). Her research focuses on quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions from organic waste using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). She also works as a Teaching Assistant for Introductory Physics. She previously worked as an agronomic research intern at Corteva Agriscience and as an undergraduate research assistant in the Sustainable Urban-Rural Futures (SURF) Lab at McGill University. For the latter she studied the environmental impacts of controlled-environment agriculture using LCA and received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Award. She was a 2024/2025 recipient of the Environment Research and Education Foundation Scholarship.

Yonatan Bensimon

Yonatan Bensimon grew up in Brussels, Belgium and moved to Montreal when he was 12. He is a 4th year undergraduate student studying Software Engineering at McGill University. He is passionate about finding innovative solutions to interesting problems. He has experience in data analysis and aerospace engineering and has completed two internships at Pratt and Whitney. He is currently working as an intern on an interactive web dashboard to help present the research findings of the other team members. He is skilled in Python, Swift and C#. He is set to graduate in 2026 and looks forward to the career opportunities that will allow him to combine his technical skills with his passion for problem-solving.

Postdoctorate

PhD

MSc

Undergraduate