Geotechnical News • June 2018
13
CANADIAN GEOTECHNICAL SOCIETY NEWS
3. des lettres de recommandation de
collègues, préférablement des fel-
lows de l’ICI.
Il est recommandé que les personnes
qui soumettent des candidatures
examinent les détails et les critères des
prix avant de les préparer. Pour obtenir
de plus amples renseignements, com-
muniquez avec le bureau national de
la SCG à :
La Société canadienne de
géotech
nique
8828 Pigott Road
Richmond, C.-B.
V7A 2C4, Canada
Télécopieur : 604-277-7529
Courriel :
Les noms des membres de la SCG qui
ont déjà reçu des prix et des bourses
de recherche de l’ICI sont affichés sur
le site Web de la SCG à
/
awards.php?lang=fr.
Members in the News
Catherine Mulligan - A Woman
of Innovation
Catherine Mulligan
, chair of the
CGS geoenvironmental division from
2006-2010, vice president of commu-
nications from 2013-2016, and A.G.
Stermac Award-winner in 2010, was
featured in a book that the
Canadian
Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and
Petroleum
(CIM) published called
Women of Innovation: The Impact of
Leading Engineers in Canada
. The
book details the stories of 20 inspir-
ing women engineers in Canada
who have overcome obstacles and
excelled in their fields. Excerpts from
each woman’s chapter will be posted
over the next several months on the
CIM Magazine website. Below is the
excerpt for Catherine Mulligan which
can also be seen on the CIM website
at
/
catherine-mulligan/
Catherine Mulligan has a background
in chemical engineering and is a
world leader and pioneer in research
and new solutions for geoenviron-
mental engineering. In particular, she
is a recognized expert in the areas
of the decontamination of water,
sediments and soils, and bioenergy.
Catherine is currently a professor in
the Department of Building, Civil and
Environmental Engineering at Con-
cordia University and the Concordia
Research Chair in Geoenvironmental
Sustainability. She is also the director
of the Concordia Institute of Water,
Energy and Sustainable Systems.
Catherine contributes actively to
external communities in her field at
the local and international levels. She
is a member of numerous technical
and scientific committees, including
serving in leadership roles with the
Canadian Society of Civil Engineering
and the Canadian Geotechnical Soci-
ety. Additionally, Catherine has twice
won the Pero-Canada Young Innova-
tor Award and won the Engineering
Institute of Canada John B. Sterling
Award this year.
What factors influenced your deci-
sion to pursue engineering?
I wasn’t interested in pure sciences;
I couldn’t really see the point. My
mother made an off-hand remark
once, “Here’s an ad in the paper for
chemical engineering. Maybe that’s
something that could be of interest to
you.” I looked into it. I said, “Hey, you
can do math. You can do chemistry.
You can do physics. It’s not pure of
anything, it’s kind of a mixture of all
sorts. Maybe that might be interest-
ing.” So that is what I applied for. It
was only McGill that was offering
chemical engineering, so I went there.
Why did you decide to pursue your
Ph.D.?
I was starting to get bored in my job.
There weren’t a lot of challenges. The
boss that I had was not very stimulat-
ing. The pilot project that we had was
for a mobile unit. We were bringing
our wastewater reactor to different
places. This particular project was
kind of on its last legs. SNC Lavalin
really did not want to spend much
money on research. I was starting to
think, “Where’s the challenge here?”
What obstacles did you encounter
in your early career and how did
you overcome them?
The obstacles were in the lab itself.
During my Ph.D., I was looking at the
surfactant and whether it had some
affinity for metal. I said to my supervi-
sor, “Maybe this is an avenue I would
like to explore for my Ph.D. Is there
some way I can use these surfactants,
these biological products, to actually
help remediate contaminated soils and
sediments?” This is what I ended up
doing. I got some contaminated soil
and some contaminated sediments
and I used my surfactants to try to see
whether there was a way we could do
it. At that particular time, surfactants
weren’t commercially produced so I
had to produce my own. My supervi-
sor didn’t have the nice little facility
like the one I had when I was working
at BRI, so I had to fabricate my own.
That was the biggest challenge I had at
the time.
You work with researchers in Japan
and China. What benefits come
with international collaborations?
I’ve been going to China and doing
work with biological surfactants. They
have a lot of problems with contami-
nated soil. They don’t have the same
environmental restraints as we do
so there might be an opportunity to
try stuff there that I might not do so
easily here. I would love to be able
to do more field work, especially in
surfactants. China is really hungry for
solutions, so they say, “Come and help
us out here.”
What did it mean to you to be ap-
pointed the Concordia Research
Chair in Environmental Engineer-
ing?
It gives you a bit of recognition. At
that time, there were very few of these
research chairs. To me, it was very
special and prestigious to get it.
