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Shawn Cleary: My name is Shawn Cleary and I'm a professor in the Civil Engineering Technology
Program. I've been working here at Humber since 2007, and I'm here to talk about the
research I've been involved in and some lessons learned from the research to maybe help out
others that are involved in research here at Humber as well.
So, I'm just going to start with a little background on myself. I'm a in the Department
in civil Engineering Technology and I've been here since 2007 and I have an interest in
sustainable drinking water treatment systems in small and remote communities. And this
applies to first nation communities in Canada and there is a big problem with lack of access
to clean, safe drinking water on some reserves and in some small communities. This research
really addresses that. The object of this research is to: we're looking at a particular
technology that could really help out some of these small communities.
So we want to decrease the size, the footprint, and the operational burden of some of these
drinking water systems that are implemented in Northern communities, so we're looking
at one particular technology that many people tend to like, but the problem is that it is
operationally intense and not sustainable. There is a lot of energy use and chemical
use that goes into it. We're looking to reduce the operational requirements. We want to integrate
a proven, pre-treatment process with this technology that everybody wants ultrafiltration
membrane technology.
Here's just a picture of the proven process that we've worked with in the past. We've
done research, I've done my master's research on this system and it just consists of a roughing
filter. First of all, we add ozone to the water which oxidizes the material, the organic
matters so it can be more easily removed in the filter. It goes through a gravel roughing
filter it's called. So, coarse gravel, fine gravel, and then through GAC, so Carbon, Granular
activated carbon, and then it goes down through a slow sand filter, which is a very fine sand.
And this is the proven process that works really well and we are implementing this in
small communities. It's used in small communities. The problem is that this is a big filter,
and we really want to decrease the footprint, the size of this and also a lot of communities
are wanting the latest and greatest Membrane Technology.
What we want to do is take this process right here as a pre-treatment process and put that
in front of the membranes. The membranes would replace this slow sand filter. We have a pilot
treatment system installed on Ottawa River, at the Britannia Water Treatment Plant and
it's in a trailer, and inside the trailer it looks like this. You have a bunch of plastic
columns, and that's basically a scaled down version of the pre-treatment process. This
is the research that's currently happening under the NSERC Award that we have and I'll
tell you all about that, how that's set up and what the partners are in a few minutes.
This is just another picture looking the other way in the trailer. So this is just the current
research that I'm involved in. Before I talk about that current research, I just want to
talk about some of the past lessons learned from SIRF. Maybe there's a few things that
you can take away from this that might help you with your own research. One of the goals
of the past project which was also using a filter and we were researching the filter,
the performance of the filter, was student involvement. We want to have students involved
in our research; we want to be able to select the best students to work with us on our research,
and really, they get the experience and a value added education, being involved in this
research. But I want to talk about some of the limitations and some challenges that we
ran into.
We had probably the best student in the class helping us out and no matter how good they
are, they will probably not share the same passion for the research as you do as the
primary researcher that is bringing the topic to the table. One important thing to remember
is that at the end of the day you are going to be ultimately accountable for the results,
for the data analysis and everything that takes place and while the student may be interested,
they still have six courses to deal with and their interests can wane over time as the
term goes on, even though they have good intentions, they can only physically handle so much. When
the coursework gets very heavy, they really need to focus on that to get by to get their
Diploma. That's one thing to keep in mind when you're planning on integrating your students
into your research that you really have to give them, you know, chunks of work that they
can work on and not get overwhelmed and you can't expect too much. You have to, at the
end of the day, be responsible for the data analysis and the results and the documentation
results. You have to expect that, and anticipate for that.
So that kind of ties in with my next point that there was not enough time on my SWF to
do this research. At the time, it was only 3 hours a week. And if you really want to
get involved in any meaningful research, it really means course release time that frees
you up to do meaningful work. This is important when you are writing your grants to be first
of all looking for grants that do give you course release time, that give you money to
fund another person to fund another person to come in and teach that course. That was
one of the lessons learned for moving forward for me for the next stage of research, which
is the current stage that I am involved in. And then, when we are talking about time,
when you think about the research task that needs to be done, there might be some things
that you can outsource. In my case, if I have a choice of doing the water analysis of the
water samples taken from the filter systems of doing that here, on Humber campus, utilizing
Humber's facilities, or paying 25 dollars to analyze one sample for E-coli and total
Chloroform bacteria, I would outsource that because it's a huge time saver, and at the
end of the day if you were to place any value on your time, you're way ahead by outsourcing
that task, that particular task, to, in my case, I went to an external laboratory to
do that.
If you can think of, in your own research, any task that you may get some exterior service
to take care of for you and then you can budget for that, and that should be a legitimate
expense in any grant application when you put together your budget. So, think about
those things that you can outsource that can free up your time to focus on more of the
analysis of your results instead of just the grunt work to get the results.
For the future, so, my experience with SIRF is that it was fun. I had the passion and
the interest to see it through, but it was a lot of work and I did not have enough time
on my SWF to do it. I did get burned out on that one, so I thought, for the future; I
want to remove the burden of doing all the work from myself. I really thought about what
would be the best structure for the next step, and that would be the modified research structure
that we came up with for the current research that we're involved in. This is the NSERC
award that we currently have. This is one where we have (let me get the terminology
right): the NSERC College University Idea to Innovation Award, the CU-I2I is what we
have been awarded.
That's where we're working with the university. This is great because you're working with
Masters Students or Ph.D. Students, and basically this project is their baby. They have to see
it thought in order to get their Masters or Ph.D., so now I have taken the burden from
myself and it's on the Master's Student, or the Ph.D. Student at the University. The stakes
are high for them so they're going to see it though because they want their credentials
at the end of all of it. We have an industry partner, and it's always easier to get funded
if you have an industry partner if we're talking about applied research at a college, so we
have that. They're a small company, they have a product that they want prove, they want
to take a part of one of their proven technologies and put it in front of membranes.
We have Humber students that can still be involved, but they are supporting the University
students, so it's not all on them, I don't have to rely on them to do all the data analysis
and reliable work. That leaves, for myself, as the principle investigator, that leaves
me to do the technical guidance of the work, and the senior review of the results. So now
I have, more high level review, technical guidance, and I'll have the time to do it
and I don't get burned out. We've budgeted for ample course release time in the budget
itself, so it's enough to release me once course. So, I get a course reduction of one
course on my SWF and it works out to be, in this case, it's about 10 hours on the SWF.
For this term, it was one course, two sections; it's not exactly 10 hours, all I wanted was
one less course to teach.
The next point is, let the research department do their job, and they have been a huge help
for me, I could have been doing any of this without the research department. They're taking
care of all the administrative related facilitation of the research right from the beginning of
the writing of the grant, they put the grant together, I provided my technical input, they
submitted it, they did the back and forth talk with NSERC, and so I was relieved of
having to deal with all the time and energy to do all that back and forth talking with
NSERC. We are still teachers at the end of the day and we still have 50 to 100 students
we're responsible to. The research department is so important in helping out.
I'll talk a little more about Humber research department because this research wouldn't
be happening without them. They can identify grant opportunities for you; they can manage
the grant application process. They're the glue that go behind all of the parts that
go into a grant application and they take care of all the fine details and they do a
really good job of it. If really interested in getting into research but are worried about
the time, hopefully some of the things that I've learned, the lessons that I've learned,
you might be able to learn from as well and to rely on the research department and know
that they're there for you. The flow of funding, once you get the grant, the flow of funding
and all the money and all that: I don't have to deal with any of the money. It goes to
the research office, and they handle all that. The students get paid and the required reporting
back to NSERC, they're going to facilitating that. I'll be providing my technical input,
but really, its hands off the administrative part me and I can really focus on doing the
technical aspects of the research.
They work with the students, so they're taken care of and they're paid. Again, this research
wouldn't be happening without the support of the research department. Based on the past
research project that I was involved with, I probably wouldn't be doing this next one
if I didn't have the research department helping me out. So far, it's going well, I don't feel
like I have a huge burden on myself, so it's still fun, and I'm not burning out, and we're
getting results. I hope some of these lessons that I've learned, you can take away one or
two things that might help you with your research that's currently happening or any research
that you want to do in the future.
Just some acknowledgments, Laura Keating has been a huge help, words can't describe how
much help she's always been there to support. Candice Watson, and everybody in the research
department. Anton Stoecki, our student this summer from the Civil Engineering department
program, he was a huge help and he's still involved. He's at the Polytechnic Canada conference
next week, so that's going to be a great experience for him out in Calgary. Our partners in all
of this are Robert LeCraw, our industry partner, from MS Filter Systems, Dr. Onita Basu, Professor
at Carlton University. Kerry Black is the Ph.D. Student. And of course, the funding
provider is NSERC.
Shawn Cleary: If you have any questions right now, I would be happy to try and answer them
for you. Yes, Patricia.
Patricia: [Inaudible]
Shawn Cleary: Dr. Basu, her and I are colleagues from University of Waterloo, She was doing
a Ph.D. and I was doing Masters in drinking water treatment there, so we have similar
interests. She's working at Carlton (University) now so we want to work together and produce
some meaningful research. She's really supervising the Ph.D. student there and doing also the
technical guidance and senior review of the results as well.
Patricia: [Inaudible]
Shawn Cleary: And also the Ph.D.'s student's name as well.
Shawn Cleary: If it's the Ph.D. students doing most of the writing, she'll probably being
the primary author, and then we'll be co-authors on that work.
Patricia: [Inaudible]
Shawn Cleary: There's some transition happening right now, she's going on maternity leave
actually, so we are getting other Masters students involved, so there are two other
Masters students involved right now. The project is a three year timeline so that's what we're
aiming for.
Patricia: [Inaudible]
Shawn Cleary: They're going to see it through; they're looking after data collection. Masters
students, it's not as big of a project as a Ph.D. Thesis, however, with a couple Masters
Students, they can bite off smaller chunks that can be their thesis that will see this
research through.
Audience member: [Inaudible]
Shawn Cleary: No, because they are all working under Dr. Basu anyway, so the one hurdle is
to find the one student that are interested. When you're in say, University of Toronto,
or working with University of Waterloo, there are likely more students to choose from. Carlton
(University) is a great program, but there's not as many students interested in drinking
water treatment compared to some other Universities. That's been one challenge, to find students,
to find Master's Students. But, it looks like we have a couple of good ones right now to
see this through.
Shawn Cleary: Any other questions? Okay, thank you for your attention. Thanks for coming.
[Audience applause]