PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – On Friday 10th October, 2008, The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine Campus will celebrate the installation of Professor Clement Sankat as Campus Principal. The installation ceremony will take place at the Daaga Auditorium, adjacent to the centre for Language Learning (CLL) from 6:00 p.m.
The Ceremony, steeped in University tradition, and hosted by the Vice Chancellor and will include an academic procession and a ceremonial bestowing of the robe on the incoming principal and is expected to attract Heads of University Departments throughout the region members of Staff and Administration and Government representatives.
Professor Clement Sankat
Professor Sankat took up the mantle of Pro Vice Chancellor and Campus Principal for the St. Augustine Campus on January 1st 2008 after nearly thirty years of service to the University, as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Assistant Dean and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Campus Coordinator for Graduate Studies and Research, and, Pro Vice Chancellor for Graduate Studies.
He has been steadfast in supporting student-centredness, research and development, graduate-level training and in building capacity, promoting quality and accreditation for engineering education at the UWI and in the Americas. For his efforts in Public Service, University Service and Research he was awarded in 2001, the UWI Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence.
Professor Sankat has for many years been actively involved in the application and promotion of Science and Technology (S&T) for national and regional development. He is a long serving member on the Board of Directors of the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) and has previously served as the Institute’s Chairman. During his tenure as Chairman of CARIRI, Professor Sankat led the drive to re-focus and re-engineer the Institute with a strategic vision of business service and self-sufficiency. He was also a previous Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS).
Under his leadership, The Bureau became engaged in a programme of physical and service expansion so as to better meet the needs of the business and manufacturing community. He has served too as a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (NIHERST), and was instrumental in the development of a Draft National Policy on S&T for Trinidad & Tobago (T&T).
He was appointed as Chairman of the Vision 2020 Sub-committee on Science, Technology and Innovation for Trinidad and Tobago and was the lead author of the Committee’s final Report. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Metal Industries Company Ltd. (MIC), The National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation (NAMDEVCO) and the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business (ALJGSB).
His teaching, research and development and professional interests are in the areas of Processing/Storage of Tropical Crops and Food Engineering, Engineering Graphics and Machine Design, and the Management of Innovation.
Professor Sankat was the first engineer to be promoted to a Readership in the Faculty of Engineering, UWI and was subsequently promoted to a Personal Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
His research and developmental work in the areas of Caribbean Food and Agro-industrial Development has been published in the leading international and regional journals in the field such as: Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural Engineering; Canadian Agricultural Engineering; International Journal of Food Science and Technology; Post Harvest Biology and Technology; Food Research International; West Indian Journal of Engineering; Tropical Agriculture and ASEAN Food Journal.
Professor Sankat has more than a hundred published papers to his credit. Much of this has been achieved through his direction of graduate research students at the Master’s and Doctoral levels and through external research grants.
Some of his work has gone beyond academia and has been extended and applied in the food and agricultural industries.
Professor Sankat holds a Bachelor’s Degree (First Class Honours) and Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from The UWI and a Doctorate from the University of Guelph’s School of Engineering (Canada). He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), a Fellow of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (FIAgrE) of the UK and a Fellow of the Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago (FAPETT). A graduate of Queen’s College in Georgetown Guyana, he was the recipient of a Government Scholarship for undergraduate engineering education, and was the winner of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Award for best Mechanical Engineering student at the UWI in 1972. He received a UWI post graduate scholarship for Master’s research, a CIDA scholarship for Ph.D studies in Canada and an NSERC Research Associate ship in Food Engineering at Laval University in Quebec, Canada.
