Tag Archives: Alberta Innovates

Turning asphaltene into graphene

Asphaltene (or asphaltenes are) is waste material that can be turned into graphene according to scientists at Rice University (Texas, US), from a November 18, 2022 news item on ScienceDaily,

Asphaltenes, a byproduct of crude oil production, are a waste material with potential. Rice University scientists are determined to find it by converting the carbon-rich resource into useful graphene.

Muhammad Rahman, an assistant research professor of materials science and nanoengineering, is employing Rice’s unique flash Joule heating process to convert asphaltenes instantly into turbostratic (loosely aligned) graphene and mix it into composites for thermal, anti-corrosion and 3D-printing applications.

The process makes good use of material otherwise burned for reuse as fuel or discarded into tailing ponds and landfills. Using at least some of the world’s reserve of more than 1 trillion barrels of asphaltene as a feedstock for graphene would be good for the environment as well.

A November 17, 2022 Rice University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, expands on this exciting news, Note: Links have been removed,

“Asphaltene is a big headache for the oil industry, and I think there will be a lot of interest in this,” said Rahman, who characterized the process as both a scalable and sustainable way to reduce carbon emissions from burning asphaltene.

Rahman is a lead corresponding author of the paper in Science Advances co-led by Rice chemist James Tour, whose lab developed flash Joule heating, materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan and Md Golam Kibria, an assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Calgary, Canada.

Asphaltenes are 70% to 80% carbon already. The Rice lab combines it with about 20% of carbon black to add conductivity and flashes it with a jolt of electricity, turning it into graphene in less than a second. Other elements in the feedstock, including hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur, are vented away as gases.

“We try to keep the carbon black content as low as possible because we want to maximize the utilization of asphaltene,” Rahman said.

“The government has been putting pressure on the petroleum industries to take care of this,” said Rice graduate student and co-lead author M.A.S.R. Saadi. “There are billions of barrels of asphaltene available, so we began working on this project primarily to see if we could make carbon fiber. That led us to think maybe we should try making graphene with flash Joule heating.”

Assured that Tour’s process worked as well on asphaltene as it did on various other feedstocks, including plastic, electronic waste, tires, coal fly ash and even car parts, the researchers set about making things with their graphene. 

Saadi, who works with Rahman and Ajayan, mixed the graphene into composites, and then into polymer inks bound for 3D printers. “We’ve optimized the ink rheology to show that it is printable,” he said, noting the inks have no more than 10% of graphene mixed in. Mechanical testing of printed objects is forthcoming, he said.

Rice graduate student Paul Advincula, a member of the Tour lab, is co-lead author of the paper. Co-authors are Rice graduate students Md Shajedul Hoque Thakur, Ali Khater, Jacob Beckham and Minghe Lou, undergraduate Aasha Zinke and postdoctoral researcher Soumyabrata Roy; research fellow Shabab Saad, alumnus Ali Shayesteh Zeraati, graduate student Shariful Kibria Nabil and postdoctoral associate Md Abdullah Al Bari of the University of Calgary; graduate student Sravani Bheemasetti and Venkataramana Gadhamshetty, an associate professor, at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and its 2D Materials of Biofilm Engineering Science and Technology Center; and research assistant Yiwen Zheng and Aniruddh Vashisth, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, of the University of Washington.

The research was funded by the Alberta Innovates for Carbon Fiber Grand Challenge programs, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-19-1-0296), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (W912HZ-21-2-0050) and the National Science Foundation (1849206, 1920954).  

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Sustainable valorization of asphaltenes via flash joule heating by M.A.S.R. Saadi, Paul A. Advincula, Md Shajedul Hoque Thakur, Ali Zein Khater, Shabab Saad, Ali Shayesteh Zeraati, Shariful Kibria Nabil, Aasha Zinke, Soumyabrata Roy, Minghe Lou, Sravani N. Bheemasetti, Md Abdullah Al Bari, Yiwen Zheng, Jacob L. Beckham, Venkataramana Gadhamshetty, Aniruddh Vashisth, Md Golam Kibria, James M. Tour, Pulickel M. Ajayan, and Muhammad M. Rahman. Science Advances 18 Nov 2022 Vol 8, Issue 46 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add3555

This paper is open access.

2018 Canadian Science Policy Conference (Nov. 7 – 9, 2018) highlights and Council of Canadian Academies: a communications job, a report, and more

This is a going to a science policy heavy posting with both a conference and the latest report from the Canadian Council of Academies (CCA).

2018 Canadian Science Policy Conference

As I noted in my March 1, 2018 posting, this is the fourth year in a row that the conference is being held in Ottawa and the theme for this 10th edition is ‘Building Bridges Between Science, Policy and Society‘.

The dates are November 7 -9, 2018 and as the opening draws closer I’m getting more ‘breathlessly enthusiastic’ announcements. Here are a few highlights from an October 23, 2018 announcement received via email,

CSPC 2018 is honoured to announce that the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, will be delivering the keynote speech of the Gala Dinner on Thursday, November 8 at 7:00 PM. Minister Duncan will also hand out the 4th Science Policy Award of Excellence to the winner of this year’s competition.

CSPC 2018 features 250 speakers, a record number, and above is the breakdown of the positions they hold, over 43% of them being at the executive level and 57% of our speakers being women.

*All information as of October 15, 2018

If you think that you will not meet any new people at CSPC and all of the registrants are the same as last year, think again!

Over 57% of  registrants are attending the conference for the FIRST TIME!

Secure your spot today!

*All information as of October 15, 2018

Here’s more from an October 31, 2018 announcement received via email,

One year after her appointment as Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer will discuss her experience with the community. Don’t miss this opportunity.

[Canadian Science Policy Centre editorials in advance of conference]

Paul Dufour
“Evidence and Science in Parliament–Looking Back at CSPC and Moving Forward”

Dr. Tom Corr
“Commercializing Innovation in Canada: Advancing in the Right Direction”

Joseph S Sparling, PhD
“Reimagining the Canadian Postdoctoral Training System”

Milton Friesen
“Conspiring Together for Good: Institutional Science and Religion”

Joseph Tafese
“Science and the Next Generation : Science and Inclusivity, Going beyond the Slogans”

Eva Greyeyes
“Opinion Editorial for CSPC, November 2018”

Monique Crichlow
Chris Loken

“Policy Considerations Towards Converged HPC-AI Platforms”

Should you be in the Ottawa area November 7 – 9, 2018, it’s still possible to register.

**Update November 6, 2018: The 2018 CSPC is Sold Out!**

Council of Canadian Academies: job and the ‘managing innovation’ report

Let’s start with the job (from the posting),

October 17, 2018

Role Title:      Director of Communications
Deadline:       November 5, 2018
Salary:            $115,000 to $165,000

About the Council of Canadian Academies
The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts assessments of evidence on scientific topics of public interest to inform decision-making in Canada.

Role Summary
The CCA is seeking an experienced communications professional to join its senior management team as Director of Communications. Reporting to the President and CEO, the Director is responsible for developing and implementing a communications plan for the organization that promotes and highlights the CCA’s work, brand, and overall mission to a variety of potential users and stakeholders; overseeing the publication and dissemination of high-quality hard copy and online products; and providing strategic advice to the President and CCA’s Board, Committees, and Panels. In fulfilling these responsibilities, the Director of Communications is expected to work with a variety of interested groups including the media, the broad policy community, government, and non-governmental organizations.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities
Under the direction of the President and CEO, the Director leads a small team of communications and publishing professionals to meet the responsibilities and accountabilities outlined below.

Strategy Development and External Communications
• Develop and execute an overall strategic communications plan for the organization that promotes and highlights the CCA’s work, brand, and overall mission.
• Oversee the CCA’s presence and influence on digital and social platforms including the development and execution of a comprehensive content strategy for linking CCA’s work with the broader science and policy ecosystem with a focus on promoting and disseminating the findings of the CCA’s expert panel reports.
• Provide support, as needed for relevant government relations activities including liaising with communications counterparts, preparing briefing materials, responding to requests to share CCA information, and coordinating any appearances before Parliamentary committees or other bodies.
• Harness opportunities for advancing the uptake and use of CCA assessments, including leveraging the strengths of key partners particularly the founding Academies.

Publication and Creative Services
• Oversee the creative services, quality control, and publication of all CCA’s expert panel reports including translation, layout, quality assurance, graphic design, proofreading, and printing processes.
• Oversee the creative development and publication of all CCA’s corporate materials including the Annual Report and Corporate Plan through content development, editing, layout, translation, graphic design, proofreading, and printing processes.

Advice and Issues Management
• Provide strategic advice and support to the President’s Office, Board of Directors, Committees, and CCA staff about increasing the overall impact of CCA expert panel reports, brand awareness, outreach opportunities, and effective science communication.
• Provide support to the President by anticipating project-based or organizational issues, understanding potential implications, and suggesting strategic management solutions.
• Ensure consistent messages, style, and approaches in the delivery of all internal and external communications across the organization.

Leadership
• Mentor, train, and advise up to five communications and publishing staff on a day-to-day basis and complete annual performance reviews and planning.
• Lead the development and implementation of all CCA-wide policy and procedures relating to all aspects of communications and publishing.
• Represent the issues, needs, and ongoing requirements for the communications and publishing staff as a member of the CCA senior management team.

Knowledge Requirements
The Director of Communications requires:
• Superior knowledge of communications and public relations principles – preferably as it applies in a non-profit or academic setting;
• Extensive experience in communications planning and issues management;
• Knowledge of current research, editorial, and publication production standards and procedures including but not limited to: translation, copy-editing, layout/design, proofreading and publishing;
• Knowledge of evaluating impact of reports and assessments;
• Knowledge in developing content strategy, knowledge mobilization techniques, and creative services and design;
• Knowledge of human resource management techniques and experience managing a team;
• Experience in coordinating, organizing and implementing communications activities including those involving sensitive topics;
• Knowledge of the relationships and major players in Canada’s intramural and extramural science and public policy ecosystem, including awareness of federal science departments and Parliamentary committees, funding bodies, and related research groups;
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Creative Suite, WordPress and other related programs;
• Knowledge of a variety of social media platforms and measurement tools.

Skills Requirements
The Director of Communications must have:
• Superior time and project management skills
• Superior writing skills
• Superior ability to think strategically regarding how best to raise the CCA’s profile and ensure impact of the CCA’s expert panel reports
• Ability to be flexible and adaptable; able to respond quickly to unanticipated demands
• Strong advisory, negotiation, and problem-solving skills
• Strong skills in risk mitigation
• Superior ability to communicate in both written and oral forms, effectively and diplomatically
• Ability to mentor, train, and provide constructive feedback to direct reports

Education and Experience
This knowledge and skillset is typically obtained through the completion of a post-secondary degree in Journalism, Communications, Public Affairs or a related field, and/or a minimum of 10
years of progressive and related experience. Experience in an organization that has addressed topics in public policy would be valuable.

Language Requirements: This position is English Essential. Fluency in French is a strong asset.

To apply to this position please send your CV and cover letter to careers@scienceadvice.ca before November 5, 2018. The cover letter should answer the following questions in 1,000 words or less:

1. How does your background and work experience make you well-suited for the position of Director of Communications at CCA?
2. What trends do you see emerging in the communications field generally, and in science and policy communications more specifically? How might CCA take advantage of these trends and developments?
3. Knowing that CCA is in the business of conducting assessments of evidence on important policy topics, how do you feel communicating this type of science differs from communicating other types of information and knowledge?

Improving Innovation Through Better Management

The Council of Canadian Academies released their ‘Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ report on October 18, 2018..As some of my regular readers (assuming there are some) might have predicted, I have issues.

There’s a distinct disconnection between the described problem and the questions to be answered. From the ‘Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ summary webpage,

While research is world-class and technology start-ups are thriving, few companies grow and mature in Canada. This cycle — invent and sell, invent and sell — allows other countries to capture much of the economic and social benefits of Canadian-invented products, processes, marketing methods, and business models. …

So, the problem is ‘invent and sell’. Leaving aside the questionable conclusion that other countries are reaping the benefits of Canadian innovation (I’ll get back to that shortly), what questions could you ask about how to break the ‘invent and sell, invent and sell’ cycle? Hmm, maybe we should ask, How do we break the ‘invent and sell’ cycle in Canada?

The government presented two questions to deal with the problem and no, how to break the cycle is not one of the questions. From the ‘Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ summary webpage,

… Escaping this cycle may be aided through education and training of innovation managers who can systematically manage ideas for commercial success and motivate others to reimagine innovation in Canada.

To understand how to better support innovation management in Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) asked the CCA two critical questions: What are the key skills required to manage innovation? And, what are the leading practices for teaching these skills in business schools, other academic departments, colleges/polytechnics, and industry?

As lawyers, journalists, scientists, doctors, librarians, and anyone who’s ever received misinformation can tell you, asking the right questions can make a big difference.

As for the conclusion that other countries are reaping the benefits of Canadian innovation, is there any supporting data? We enjoy a very high standard of living and have done so for at least a couple of generations. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has a Better Life Index, which ranks well-being on these 11 dimensions (from the OECD Better Life Index entry on Wikipedia), Note: Links have been removed,

  1. Housing: housing conditions and spendings (e.g. real estate pricing)
  2. Income: household income and financial wealth
  3. Jobs: earnings, job security and unemployment
  4. Community: quality of social support network
  5. Education: education and what you get out of it
  6. Environment: quality of environment (e.g. environmental health)
  7. Governance: involvement in democracy
  8. Health
  9. Life Satisfaction: level of happiness
  10. Safety: murder and assault rates
  11. Work-life balance

In 2017, the index ranked Canada as fifth in the world while the US appears to have slipped from a previous ranking of 7th to 8th. (See these Wikipedia entries with relevant subsections for rankings:  OECD Better Life Index; Rankings, 2017 ranking and Standard of living in the United States, Measures, 3rd paragraph.)

This notion that other countries are profiting from Canadian innovation while we lag behind has been repeated so often that it’s become an article of faith and I never questioned it until someone else challenged me. This article of faith is repeated internationally and sometimes seems that every country in the world is worried that someone else will benefit from their national innovation.

Getting back to the Canadian situation, we’ve decided to approach the problem by not asking questions about our article of faith or how to break the ‘invent and sell’ cycle. Instead of questioning an assumption and producing an open-ended question, we have these questions (1) What are the key skills required to manage innovation? (2) And, what are the leading practices for teaching these skills in business schools, other academic departments, colleges/polytechnics, and industry?

in my world that first question, would be a second tier question, at best. The second question, presupposes the answer: more training in universities and colleges. I took a look at the report’s Expert Panel webpage and found it populated by five individuals who are either academics or have strong ties to academe. They did have a workshop and the list of participants does include people who run businesses, from the Improving Innovation Through Better Management‘ report (Note: Formatting has not been preserved),

Workshop Participants

Max Blouw,
Former President and Vice-Chancellor of
Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, ON)

Richard Boudreault, FCAE,
Chairman, Sigma Energy
Storage (Montréal, QC)

Judy Fairburn, FCAE,
Past Board Chair, Alberta Innovates;
retired EVP Business Innovation & Chief Digital Officer,
Cenovus Energy Inc. (Calgary, AB)

Tom Jenkins, O.C., FCAE,
Chair of the Board, OpenText
(Waterloo, ON)

Sarah Kaplan,
Director of the Institute for Gender and the
Economy and Distinguished Professor, Rotman School of
Management, University of Toronto (Toronto, ON)

Jean-Michel Lemieux,
Senior Vice President of Engineering,
Shopify Inc. (Ottawa, ON)

Elicia Maine,
Academic Director and Professor, i2I, Beedie
School of Business, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC)

Kathy Malas,
Innovation Platform Manager, CHU
Sainte Justine (Montréal, QC)

John L. Mann, FCAE,
Owner, Mann Consulting
(Blenheim, ON)

Jesse Rodgers,
CEO, Volta Labs (Halifax, NS)

Creso Sá,
Professor of Higher Education and Director of
the Centre for the Study of Canadian and International
Higher Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto (Toronto, ON)

Dhirendra Shukla,
Professor and Chair, J. Herbert Smith
Centre for Technology Management & Entrepreneurship,
Faculty of Engineering, University of New Brunswick
(Fredericton, NB)

Dan Sinai,
Senior Executive, Innovation, IBM Canada
(Toronto, ON)

Valerie Walker,
Executive Director, Business/Higher
Education Roundtable (Ottawa, ON)

J. Mark Weber,
Eyton Director, Conrad School of
Entrepreneurship & Business, University of Waterloo
(Waterloo, ON)

I am a little puzzled by the IBM executive’s presence (Dan Sinai) on this list. Wouldn’t Canadians holding onto their companies be counterproductive to IBM’s interests? As for John L. Mann, I’ve not been able to find him or his consulting company online. it’s unusual not to find any trace of an individual or company online these days.

In all there were nine individuals representing academic or government institutions in this list. The gender balance is 10 males and five females for the workshop participants and three males and two females for the expert panel. There is no representation from the North or from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland.

If they’re serious about looking at how to use innovation to drive higher standards of living, why aren’t there any people from Asian countries where they have been succeeding at that very project? South Korea and China come to mind.

I’m sure there are some excellent ideas in the report, I just wish they’d taken their topic to heart and actually tried to approach innovation in Canada in an innovative fashion.

Meanwhile, Vancouver gets another technology hub, from an October 30, 2018 article by Kenneth Chan for the Daily Hive (Vancouver [Canada]), Note: Links have been removed,

Vancouver’s rapidly growing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) tech sectors will greatly benefit from a new VR and AR hub created by Launch Academy.

The technology incubator has opened a VR and AR hub at its existing office at 300-128 West Hastings Street in downtown, in partnership with VR/AR Association Vancouver. Immersive tech companies have access to desk space, mentorship programs, VR/AR equipment rentals, investor relations connected to Silicon Valley [emphasis mine], advisory services, and community events and workshops.

Within the Vancouver tech industry, the immersive sector has grown from 15 companies working in VR and AR in 2015 to 220 organizations today.

Globally, the VR and AR market is expected to hit a value of $108 billion by 2021, with tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft [emphasis mine] investing billions into product development.

In the Vancouver region, the ‘invent and sell’ cycle can be traced back to the 19th century.

One more thing, as I was writing this piece I tripped across this news: “$7.7-billion pact makes Encana more American than Canadian‘ by Geoffrey Morgan. It’s in the Nov. 2, 2018 print edition of the Vancouver Sun’s front page for business. “Encana Corp., the storied Canadian company that had been slowly transitioning away from Canada and natural gas over the past few years under CEO [Chief Executive Officer] Doug Suttles, has pivoted aggressively to US shale basins. … Suttles, formerly as BP Plc. executive, moved from Calgary [Alberta, Canada] to Denver [Colorado, US], though the company said that was for personal reasons and not a precursor to relocation of Encana’s headquarters.”  Yes, that’s quite believable. By the way, Suttles has spent* most of his life in the US (Wikipedia entry).

In any event, it’s not just Canadian emerging technology companies that get sold or somehow shifted out of Canada.

So, should we break the cycle and, if so, how are we going to do it?

*’spend’ corrected to ‘spent’ on November 6, 2018.

Ingenuity Lab (a nanotechnology initiative), the University of Alberta, and Carlo Montemagno—what is happening in Canadian universities? (1 of 2)

I was not expecting to come back to the Carlo Montemagno ‘affair’ after my March 5, 2018 posting but it seems this story about a nanotechnology laboratory (Ingenuity Lab) in Alberta and the lab’s leader, Dr. Carlo Montemagno and his hurried departure for a position at Southern Illinois University (SIU) as Chancellor in summer 2017 has legs. It also hints at some issue within Canadian higher education.

Set up

I noted at the time of my posting, that no one in Illinois seemed to be aware that Montemagno had obtained employment for his daughter and son-in-law at the University of Alberta just as he did at SIU when he later moved there. I also noted the pay cut Montemagno took when he moved to Illinois. Both of these facts have since come to light in Illinois and are mentioned in an April 10, 2018 article by Anna Spoerre for SIU’s student paper, the Daily Egyptian.

Before moving onto the latest, I was hoping they’d be able to salvage something from the wreckage in Alberta (from my March 5, 2018 posting),

As for the Ingenuity Lab, perhaps we’ll hear more about their Carbon transformation programme later this year (2018). Unfortunately, the current webpage does not have substantive updates. There are some videos but they seem more like wistful thinking than real life projects.

If they are cleaning up a mess and this looks like it might be the case, I hope they’re successful and can move forward with their projects. [emphases mine] I would like to hear more about the Ingenuity Lab in the future.

Tragedy and comedy

Sadly, it seems the Ingenuity Lab is in the process of being mothballed (from Spoerre’s April 10, 2018 article),

Nine months after Carlo Montemagno left a position as director of Ingenuity Lab to assume the chancellorship at SIU’s Carbondale campus, some members of the Alberta community are still picking up the pieces of what they call a failed project brought to life and then abandoned by its director.

Ingenuity Lab was established in 2012 by the government of Alberta in partnership with the University of Alberta and Alberta Innovates to conduct nanotechnology research related to health, environment, energy and agriculture.

Though a reason was not explicitly given, funding for the lab will be cut this year [2018; emphasis mine] following a review of the lab’s operations.

In June 2017, a review of Ingenuity Lab was authorized. [emphasis mine] The process wrapped up in September [2017] as part of a review of all Alberta Innovates funded programs, said Robert Semeniul, the new media specialist at Alberta Innovates.

Montemagno announced his relocation to SIU shortly after the review got under way. [emphasis mine] Meanwhile, an interim director — Murray Gray — was appointed by the university to redirect the initiative, Semeniul said.

“I was looking for an institutional leadership position that presented new challenges and opportunities — where there was work to be done and I could make a difference,” Montemagno said of leaving Alberta for Illinois. “I also missed interacting and working directly with students.”

“This was supposed to generate incredible amounts of economic activity,” said a former researcher at the former National Institute for Nanotechnology who had experience in the lab. “After awhile — three or four years — people were astonished at the lack of anything coming out of this lab, out of this giant pile of money that was being spent.”

Montemagno said through ground-breaking research the lab attracted external grant funding, including $9 million the last year he ran the lab. [As far as I can tell, as per an Ingenuity Lab news release mentioned in my March 5, 2018 posting, there was a $1.7M from Natural Resources Canada. It was the only grant announced when I was looking in March 2018. Where did the $9M come from?]

The final review has not been made public. Gray did not respond to requests for comment.

Keeping family close

In early April [2018] in Edmonton the remnants of the Ingenuity Lab were gradually erased from the Nanotechnology Research Center on the University of Alberta’s campus.

A nametag pinned to a cubicle wall there displayed the name Kyle Minor, Montemagno’s nephew, and graduate student and project leader in his uncle’s lab.

Minor was one of three family members Montemagno employed at Ingenuity Lab. [emphasis mine] Montemagno’s daughter, Melissa Germain, and son-in-law, Jeffrey Germain, (both of whom are now employed at SIU) were also given jobs at the lab in Canada. The possibility of the Germains’ employment was mentioned in Montemagno’s hiring contract in Alberta.

“I can see why the people who hired [Montemagno] liked him, because he has a charismatic presence and he says the right things to the people he is speaking to,” a previous research associate at the lab said.

Montemagno was brought to the university of Alberta in 2012 with an annual salary of $500,000, almost $400,000 in U.S. currency at Tuesday’s exchange rate. He also received a $1,000,000 interest-free housing loan, according to his employment paperwork. [emphasis mine]

“Your intention to employ, through funding available under the NEBSL Accelerator initiative, your son-in-law and daughter in positions commensurate with their education and experience is acknowledged,” Montemagno’s contract read.

The contract, which purported to follow the University’s “Employment Policy” and “Managing Conflict of Interest in Employment Procedure” was signed by David Lynch, Alberta’s [sic] dean of engineering at the time of the hire. Lynch did not respond to requests for comment.

According to emails obtained through public information requests, there was a personal agreement between Lynch and Montemagno that the expenses for the immigration costs for him and his family would also be covered. [emphasis mine]

“On occasion, the recruitment of specialized faculty members includes a provision for the hiring of a family member into a position commensurate with their education and experience, and subject to our recruitment policy, [emphasis mine]” said Kiann McNeill, spokesman for the University of Alberta.

In addition to what seems to be an extraordinarily high salary ($500,000 + per year) and hiring his family (three of them per the Daily Egyptian’s Anna Spoerre as opposed to the two mentioned in my March 2018 post) to work in his lab, Montemagno got a $1M interest-free loan (this is not entirely correct, the CBC article, which follows, downgrades that number as you’ll see in the 2nd excerpt) and had his and his family’s immigration expenses covered. Is this standard hiring practice in the academic field? Given the failure to get a response from an individual (David Lynch, the University of Alberta’s then dean of engineering) who would have been involved, the answer would seem to be ‘no’.

Please do read the rest of Spoerre’s article and, if you have a little more time,  the comments. It should be noted that there seem to be a couple of problems with details. The one noted here is the issue around the loan and, in the article, she states that the National Institute of Nanotechnology has been renamed to Nanotechnology Research Center. After changing ‘center’ to ‘centre’ in my search term, I found this site, which bears yet another name, NRC-UAlberta Nanotechnology Initiative. Should I ever find out what is going with Canada’s national nanotechnology institution, it will be the subject of another posting. [ETA June 20, 2018: I was finally able to untangle the mess (see my June 20, 2018 posting). Spoerre is unlikely to have been following the ‘National Institute of Nanotechnology story’ as I have and missed the ‘downsizing/rebranding exercise’ that had taken place. Also, that particular detail was largely irrelevant to her story.]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) also covered the situation in an April 10, 2018 online article by Charles Rusnell and Jennie Russell,

The University of Alberta recruited star American nanotechnology researcher [emphasis mine] Carlo Montemagno in 2012 by agreeing to his condition that it hire his daughter and son-in-law to work in his laboratory — in addition to his $500,000 a year salary.

Documents obtained through freedom of information by CBC News show the university offered jobs to Jeff and Melissa Germain, for which the couple were not required to formally apply.

In addition to leading the Ingenuity Lab at the U of A, he also served as director of the biomaterials program for the Canada Research Council’s National Institute for Nanotechnology and was its research chair in intelligent nanosystems.

The university recruited Montemagno from the University of Cincinnati, where he was the founding dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

An internal U of A document shows Montemagno sought the nepotism hires in Alberta because he wanted to continue the same arrangement he had at the University of Cincinnati.

It is the same deal he again negotiated when he left Alberta in 2017 to become chancellor of Southern Illinois University – Carbondale (SIU).

In January [2018], the university’s student newspaper, The Daily Egyptian, revealed SIU hired the Germains into jobs which were not advertised. Those hirings are now the subject of a state investigation.

Here’s where it gets interesting (from CBC’s April 10, 2018 online article),

The internal University of Alberta documents reveal:

  • The university appears to have allowed Montemagno to help write son-in-law Jeff Germain’s job description [emphasis mine] as laboratory manager. An early draft of the job description shows a master’s degree as a minimum educational requirement. It was later downgraded to a bachelor’s degree. Germain has a bachelor’s degree in biology but had significant experience as a lab manager.
  • The university agreed to pay Jeff Germain a “market supplement” of more than $25,000 [emphasis mine]. Added to his base salary of nearly $95,000, that raised his total yearly salary to $120,000 a year, not including benefits. Germain was later promoted to director of operations for the Ingenuity Lab.
  • The engineering faculty also hired Montemagno’s daughter, Melissa Germain, as a “laboratory technician” in chemical and materials engineering, the same area as her husband. For 24 hours a week, her starting salary was nearly $3,500 a month. [emphases mine]While officially employed as a lab tech, Melissa Germain’s LinkedIn profile states she worked as a copy editor. She was later promoted to a full-time position as communications director and paid nearly $6,000 a month. According to her LinkedIn account, she has a bachelor’s degree in geology. [emphases mine]
  • ​The university also initially offered Montemagno an interest-free $1.4-million loan to buy a house. That provision was later changed to an interest-free $100,000 loan [emphases mine] and the reimbursement of any mortgage or line of credit interest fees used for a downpayment, provided the cost of the house was not more than $1.4 million. The loan had to be repaid as soon as Montemagno sold his house in Ohio or by June 30, 2017, whichever came first.

(sigh of relief) At least, it wasn’t a $1M loan. One other thought, was the loan repaid? Also, I checked (see here [accessed April 18, 2018]) for the standard salary scale for communications specialists in Canada and Melissa Germain’s roughly $72,000/year is on the high end of the scale, $73,000 being at the top. Presumably, you’d need a lot of experience and, hopefully, some training for the top salary.

Ethics, anyone?

CBC soldiered on and found an ethics expert (perhaps the University of Alberta needs someone?), from (from CBC’s April 10, 2018 online article),

Hiring spouses who are themselves academics is not uncommon in higher education, said Richard Leblanc, an expert in ethics and governance at York University in Toronto. But Leblanc said hiring a child and their spouse is “very, very strange. Very anomalous.”

“You want merit-based hiring and merit-based student applications, and not on the basis of favouritism or conflicts of interest,” he said.

“You want completely even-handed treatment of staff, of faculty, and of students. And something like this could reveal a culture of, in fact, inequitable treatment, which could be very damaging for a university.”

Leblanc also said the university should not be offering loans.

“Unless you are a financial institution — which the university is not, the university has public taxpayer money and the public trust — so offering an interest-free loan for anybody, any faculty member, is highly anomalous, for obvious reasons,” Leblanc said.

“I mean, that’s not what the university does and it is a conflict of interest because you don’t have the ability to let that person go. You are sort of beholden to that person and it is just not a proper use of scarce funding and taxpayer resources, to offer an interest-free loan. It is very strange.”

But the university’s new dean of engineering, Fraser Forbes, strongly defended the hirings, insisting there was no nepotism involved. [emphases mine]

Just in case some of us might not agree with Forbes, he notes this, (from CBC’s April 10, 2018 online article),

Forbes said the Germains were not paid with university operating funds. Instead, Forbes said they were paid with funds provided to the university by the province and federal government for nanotechnology research. [emphases mine]

I feel ever so much better.

The Province of Alberta did have something to say about this, eventually (from CBC’s April 10, 2018 online article),

The University of Alberta said Wednesday [April 11, 2018] it will review its conflict of interest policy in light of news that a former employee six years ago had requested family members be hired in a process that was not rigorously documented.

Last month [March 2018], Alberta Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt [emphasis mine] sharply criticized University of Alberta president David Turpin’s $824,000 total compensation in the context of a four-per-cent budget cut, and increases in tuition for international students and student-residence rates.

Schmidt refused an interview request from CBC News for this story. His press secretary said Schmidt had no time in his schedule over several days to accommodate a 10-minute interview.

But at a media availability Tuesday [April 10, 2018] on new rules to limit salaries of university and college presidents, Schmidt was asked about Montemagno’s deal to hire his daughter and son-in-law.

“No, nepotism has no place in any public agency,” Schmidt said.

It’s good to know Schmidt’s stance on this and perhaps there will be some action taken over what seems to be a blatant failure to curb nepotism at the now largely defunct (no website but they still have a Facebook and Twitter presence) Ingenuity Lab.

Since the April 10, 2018 online article, the University of Alberta has pleaded guilty in the court of public opinion and admitted to the conflicts of interest in the Montemagno affair, from an April 11, 2018 article by Juris Garvey for the Edmonton Journal,

While the university was in no way “contractually obligated” to hire family members, it may have done so against its own conflict of interest policy. [emphasis mine]

Deputy provost Wendy Rogers said Wednesday there is nothing unusual about post-secondary institutes hiring people from the same family. But their policies say family members are not allowed to be involved in the hiring of other family, develop job descriptions, supervise them or make recommendations for their pay.

Emails show university staff recommended Montemagno write the position description for the job intended for Jeffrey Germain, and an organizational chart shows Jeffrey Germain reported directly to Montemagno for the first two years.

Of greatest concern, however, is that the university acknowledged there was “no record of an advertisement for the position … nor records of the hiring process” for Jeffrey Germain.

“We cannot confirm whether or not the appropriate procedure governing conflict of interest was initially followed,” the university said in a statement posted to its website Tuesday [April 10,2018].

Had we received a complaint about this at any time while Dr. Montemagno was employed here, it would have been fully investigated.” [emphasis mine]

Yes, I can imagine the number of people stepping forward to make a complaint. They were certainly eager to be interviewed for Spoerre’s April 10, 2018 article,

The former research associate was one of 11 people interviewed in Edmonton for this story who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of harming their careers.

Part 2

Alberta’s (Canada) Ingenuity Lab and its nanotechnology dreams

I believe the Nov. 6, 2013 news release from Alberta’s Ingenuity Lab was meant to announce this new lab’s existence (why does Alberta need another nanotechnology-focused institution?),

Alberta’s first accelerator laboratory brings together some of nanotechnology’s leading players to make small science have a big impact in Alberta, by harnessing and commercializing emerging technologies, and simultaneously addressing some of the grand challenges faced by our province.

“We still have an incredible amount to learn from nature. This we know,” says Ingenuity Lab Director, Dr. Carlo Montemagno. “The opportunity in front of us is the potential to create a bio-enabled, globally-competitive and value-added industry while training the next generation of researchers and innovators in Alberta.”

With a research team of 25 strong and growing, Ingenuity Lab is focusing its research on the mining, energy, agriculture and health sectors, and is a $40 million provincial government led initiative working in partnership with the National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT), Campus Alberta and industry.

Alberta already hosts the National Institute of Nanotechnology (which was and perhaps still is partially funded by the province of Alberta) and there’s ACAMP “(Alberta Centre for Advanced MNT Products) is a not for profit organization that provides specialized services to micro nano technology clients. Clients have access to world-class equipment, facilities …” Both the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary have any number of labs dedicated to nanotechnology research and then there’s nanoAlberta which now lives on as part of  Alberta Innovates where* it’s listed on their Programs and Services page. It seems to me they have a number of organizations devoted to nanotechnology research and/or commercialization in Alberta. By the way, Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) can still be found on two different websites; there’s the NINT on the National Research Council of Canada website and there’s the NINT on the University of Alberta website.

While the lab’s Nov. 19, 2013 news release (h/t Nanowerk) explores the lab’s goals, it doesn’t really answer the question: why another one?,

Dr. Carlo Montemagno and a world-class team of researchers are working across disciplines to identify innovative solutions to some of the province’s most difficult issues, including optimal resource extraction while enhancing environmental stewardship of Alberta’s signature natural resources [oil sands].

“Nanotechnology will have a significant impact on Canada’s economic prosperity and global competitive advantage,” says Ingenuity Lab Director, Dr. Carlo Montemagno.  “This enhanced understanding of matter will provide the necessary underpinning for revolutionary discoveries across disciplines that will forever change the way we envisage the future.”

Ingenuity Lab is applying recent advances in targeted drug delivery and other areas to develop novel technologies that will enable the recovery of valuable materials, currently discarded as waste, from our industrial operations and the environment.

The Ingenuity research team is engineering new materials that have the capability to detect, extract and bind to rare earth and precious metals that exist in nature or synthetic materials. As this approach is refined, it will spawn a variety of applications like reclamation of trace amounts of valuable or harmful materials from soil, water and industrial process streams, including tailing ponds.

“Our molecular recognition techniques, what we call biomining, offer the ability to maximize the utility of our resources, establish a new path forward to restore damaged lands and water and to reaffirm Canada’s commitment to societal and economic prosperity,” says Dr. Montemagno. “The further we delve into the very makeup of the natural and inorganic components of our universe, the more opportunities we uncover. This radical shift away from conventional thinking means that we leverage research gains beyond their intended purpose. We achieve a multiplier effect that increases the capacity of nanotechnology to address the grand challenges facing modern industrial societies.”

I became a little curious about Dr. Montemagno and found this on the Ingenuity Lab’s About the Director page,

Dr. Carlo Montemagno

“The purpose of scientific study is to create new knowledge by working at the very edge where world-changing knowledge unfolds.” – C. Montemagno

Driven by the principles of excellence, honor and responsibility and an unwavering commitment to education as an engine of economic prosperity, Dr. Montemagno has become a world-renowned expert in nanotechnology and is responsible for creating groundbreaking innovations which solve complex challenges in the areas of informatics, agriculture, chemical refining, transportation, energy, and healthcare.

He was Founding Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at University of Cincinnati; received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture and Bio Engineering from Cornell University; a Master’s Degree  in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from Penn State and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences from Notre Dame.

“Research and education are critical to success because the transfer of knowledge creates economic prosperity.” — C. Montemagno

Dr. Montemagno has been recognized with prestigious awards including the Feynman Prize (for creating single molecule biological motors with nano-scale silicon devices); the Earth Award Grand Prize (for cell-free artificial photosynthesis with over 95% efficiency); the CNBC Business Top 10 Green Innovator award (for Aquaporin Membrane water purification and desalination technology); and named a Bill & Melinda Gates Grand Challenge Winner (for a pH sensing active microcapsule oral vaccine delivery system which increased vaccine stability and demonstrated rapid uptake in the lower GI tract.)

Despite my doubts, I wish the Ingenuity Lab folks good luck with their efforts.

*where’s changed to where, Feb. 3, 2014