Dr. Amit Chakma, President and Vice-Chancellor

Explore Dr. Chakma's website: http://president.uwo.ca

Dr. Amit Chakma is the 10th President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Western Ontario, succeeding Dr. Paul Davenport on July 1, 2009. Dr. Chakma arrived at Western after serving the University of Waterloo since 2001 as Vice-President, Academic & Provost, and as a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Prior to that, he served as Dean of Engineering and then Vice-President (Research) and International Liaison Officer at the University of Regina. He began his academic career as a professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Chakma is a graduate of the Algerian Petroleum Institute (Dip. Ing., 1982) and the University of British Columbia (Master of Applied Science, 1984 and PhD, chemical engineering, 1987). The author of more than 100 articles, he is a leading expert in areas related to petroleum research and energy management. His research interests include mass transfer, gas separation, gas processing, membrane separation, petroleum waste management, greenhouse gas control technology, and energy and environmental systems modeling.

In addition to his roles at Western, Dr. Chakma currently serves as a chair of the board of Health Force Ontario Marketing and Recruitment Agency.

In 1998, Dr. Chakma was recognized with Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award, given annually to honour Canada's best and brightest in their fields younger than 40. He is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.