Maria Rosario P. Mosqueda, a 3rd year Ph.D. student at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan has been awarded the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Doctoral Research Award (IDRA). IDRA enables Canadians, permanent residents of Canada, and citizens of developing countries pursuing doctoral studies at a Canadian university to conduct research in developing countries on areas relating to IDRC’s research priorities. The project, “Improving the productivity of Philippine smallholder animal production through the efficient use of agro-industrial wastes and renewable energy sources”, aims to develop and evaluate the feasibility of a multi-power dryer and feed mill module that would enable small farmers to collectively and efficiently produce their own brewer’s spent grain-incorporated feed products. It will be implemented in partnership with Xavier University College of Agriculture, a private university in the Philippines.

Leila Dominguez, a Ph.D. graduate student at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Univ. of Saskatchewan, was awarded second place in the R.O. Ball Graduate Student Research Competition at the 2012 Banff Pork Seminar (BPS) held in Banff, Alberta on January 17-20, 2012. Initiated in 1972, BPS is an annual event attended by pork producers, researchers, agribusiness representatives, and extension specialists from North America, Europe and Asia. Participants in the competition are graduate students involved in selected high value research related to pork production in the fields of nutrition, breeding, management, and the environment. Leila’s presentation was based on her research conducted at the Prairie Swine Centre on improving efficiency in swine barns by evaluating different heating systems, under the supervision of Dr. Bernardo Predicala.