Graduate and Regional Representative
Brooke Hayes (she/her), PhD Student in Environmental Studies, University of Victoria
With an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry, Brooke Hayes has returned to the University of Victoria as a graduate student in the school of Environmental Studies after a twenty year career working in the BC provincial service. Brooke has worked on a variety of projects during that time, such as assessing the impacts of the mountain pine beetle epidemic on rural communities in BC, supporting the transition of the BC Ambulance Service and the Oil and Gas Commission out of the public service, developing a cross-government strategy for the delivery of $6.6 billion of goods and services delivered through procurement, and most recently, held responsibility for climate change, marketing, land use planning, and soil, air and water quality portfolios within the BC Ministry of Agriculture. Here Brooke discovered a passion for agriculture that has inspired a return to school to investigate the relationships between climate-adaptive soil management practices and the overall health of farmers and communities in BC and beyond.
Graduate Student/ BC Peace Regional Representative
Joseph Crudo, M.Sc. Student in Soil Science, UBC
Joe completed his B.Sc. in Natural Resources Conservation at UBC Forestry. After graduating, Joe went on to work as a field supervisor and senior forest technician with a prominent forestry consultant. This work took him to the forests of northern B.C., northern Alberta, and as far away as the Northwest Territories. Joe is a forest mensuration specialist and has been involved in implementing some cutting edge LIDAR-based technologies including ground-based scanning systems. Although he has focused on forest inventory and timber cruising in the past few years, in his duties as a field supervisor, Joe has overseen the multi-phase development of hundreds of thousand of cubic meters of timber in B.C.’s northern-eastern regions. This includes soil and ecological assessments, stream and riparian assessments, engineering and harvest reports, bridge and road planning, etc. After gaining 5 years of field experience, Joe has now returned to UBC to complete his M.Sc. Soil Science under the supervision of Dr. Maja Krzic.
Membership Coordinator
Bryan Driscoll, M.Sc. Student in Soil Science, UBC
Bryan recently graduated from ‘Applied Biology – Food and the Environment’ at UBC. Transferring from the University of Calgary, he began in nutritional science before switching focus to sustainable agriculture. He fell in love with soils after taking the intro soils course at UBC. He also went on the PRSSS summer field ID course in 2014. After graduating with his BSc., he worked with the Food Pedalers, briefly, before buying into the co-op in 2017. He and two others operated the microgreen growing business in Strathcona, just outside downtown Vancouver, out of a shipping container greenhouse. He started his MSc in Soil Science in September 2019. His research is in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The project is a soil and water conservation system designed for terracing of potato production and is the first field experiment in the world linking subsurface drainage and irrigation with erosion control structures.
Director
Lewis Fausak, M.Sc. in Soil Science, UBC
Lewis is currently the Applied Biology Education and Research Technician at UBC. He completed his post-secondary education at the University of Alberta (B.Sc.) and the University of British Columbia (M.Sc. in Soil Science). His research has included studying greenhouse gas emissions in cropping systems, soil quality (aggregate stability, carbon pools, soil fractals, moisture characteristics, nutrient availability), irrigation water demand, heavy metal contamination, and mafic tailings. In his current position, he gets to help excite students about soil science, participate in research, and learn from a great group of mentors. He is also the creator of @adventuresinsoils, where he creates fun soil science themed art, and has also contributed to soil science textbook illustrations.
Director
Eveline Wolterson, M.Sc. Soil Science, P.Ag., EP (Emeritus)
Eveline was raised in rural Horseshoe Bay and earned her training in physical chemistry, geomorphology and soil science at UBC. She has worked as a cocktail waitress, in an oil refinery, as a laboratory tech, in applied research, and for the last 30-odd years as an environmental consultant in agriculture, forestry, transportation, mining, land use planning, and water resources. Eveline is a Professional Agrologist and an Environmental Professional certified in the disciplines of agriculture, waste management, and site assessment and reclamation. She is retired from full-time consulting, but continues to dabble in environmental policy, planning and advocacy for local communities, sustainable agricultural systems, and stump ranching in the north Okanagan Valley.
Director
Amy Norgaard, M.Sc. Soil Science
Amy is a research assistant in the Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes (SAL) lab, UBC, working on a greenhouse gas opportunity assessment for the agriculture sector in BC. She completed her MSc in Soil Science in the SAL lab in October 2020; the goal of her MSc research was to help improve nutrient management on organic vegetable farms to balance crop production with environmental stewardship. To do so, she worked with 20 producers across three regions of southwest BC (Fraser Valley, Pemberton, Vancouver Island). Amy has also worked on an organic mixed vegetable farm in Pemberton, BC for several seasons and was a program coordinator for the Richmond Food Security Society. She is a Professional Agrologist with the BCIA and teaches sustainable soil management with the KPU – Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School, KPU Richmond Farm School, and the UBC Farm Practicum. She also works with ES Crop Consult offering nutrient management services to farmers in the lower Fraser Valley. Amy has been a speaker and facilitator of workshops on nutrient management, translating agricultural science at numerous producer events in the province.