Dr. Chandra Madramootoo, P.Eng., is a James McGill Professor in the Department of Bioresource Engineering at McGill University, and Director of the McGill Water Innovation Lab. Professor Madramootoo’s areas of expertise are water management, irrigation and food security. He is also a Visiting Professor and Visiting Scholar in Water and Food Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He served as Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences from 2005 to 2015, and was the Founding Director of the Brace Centre for Water Resources Management at McGill. He created the McGill Institute for Global Food Security, as well as programs in integrated water management, food safety, food security, and innovation and entrepreneurship in the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
His current reseach involves agricultural water quality, the effects of agricultural water management systems on greenhouse gas emissions in Eastern Canada, water quality assessment frameworks for a safe food systems, managing agricultural systems to protect Canada's freshwater, variable rate irrigation technology for water efficiency and conservation, soil-plant-water dynamics, and water productivity benefits of subsurface drip irrigation.
Professor Madramootoo has published over 230 book chapters and refereed journal papers. He has delivered over 200 conference presentations, and has been invited to deliver some 160 keynote presentations at national and international conferences and symposia. He has supervised the thesis research work of 95 MSc and PhD students. He has garnered millions of dollars of research grants and contracts from NSERC, FQRNT, CFI, IDRC, CIDA, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and other agencies over his academic career. He has extensive field experience working on water projects in Central Asia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sub-Saharan Africa, China, and the Caribbean.
Chandra Madramootoo is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Bioengineering, a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, and was awarded the DSc (honoris causa) by the University of Guelph. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. He was inducted into the Drainage Hall of Fame, in recognition of his teaching and research contributions in subsurface drainage engineering in North America and worldwide. Chandra is Vice Chair of the IDRC Board of Governors, and a member of the NSERC Advisory Committee on University-Industry Grants. He was Chair of the Board of Trustees of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and he chaired the NSERC Strategic Assessment Review Panel on Environment and Agriculture in 2015-16.
