FORMER pro vice-chancellor and campus principal (2016-2022) Brian Copeland is among two men conferred with emeritus professor titles by UWI's St Augustine campus. The other is Prof John Agard.
Both conferrals take immediate effect.
The title of emeritus professor (or emerita professor for women) is given to retired professors for notable contributions to academia. Aside from the special title, an emeritus status gives distinguished professors extra privileges at the university, a statement from the campus explained.
The last two years, the statement said, saw Copeland, whose focus areas have been digital electronics and microprocessor systems design and control systems, navigating the campus through the covid19 pandemic.
During his distinguished career at UWI, he also served as professor in electrical and computer engineering, dean of the Faculty of Engineering, and head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
“As co-ordinator of the Real Time Systems Group, a UWI unit for developing university/industry liaison through impactful R&D projects, Prof Copeland was the project lead for design and construction of the electronic scoreboard at the Queen’s Park Oval.
“He co-ordinates the Steelpan Initiatives Project, which saw the development and patenting of the G-Pan, a re-engineered form of the traditional steelpan, as well as the Percussive Harmonic instrument (PHI), an electronic form of the traditional steelpan.”
Copeland is convener of the Steelpan Research Centre, UWI and a former member of the board of CARIRI.
He has also received many prestigious awards. He was the first recipient of the Order of the Republic of TT (ORTT) in 2008, and in 2007, he was joint recipient of the Chaconia Medal (Gold) as a member of the G-Pan development team.
He received the Guardian Life Premium Teaching Award in 2002, the BP/AMOCO Fellowship Award for Senior Academic Staff at UWI, 2001 and a LASPAU/Fulbright scholarship for a doctoral programme at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1987, among others.
Agard is professor of tropical island ecology at the Department of Life Sciences in the Faculty of Science and Technology at St Augustine.
He also serves as executive director of the Global Institute for Climate-Smart and Resilient Development at UWI.
His research interest is sustainability science, especially as it relates to mainstreaming environmental considerations such as biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, and developing blue and circular economy into the core of policy and decision-making.
Internationally, he has served as an independent adviser on environment and sustainability policy to the Board of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC.
He has also been on the Scientific Advisory Panel of UNEP for the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO6) and was previously a co-ordinating lead author for the scenarios chapter in GEO4, co-ordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental (science-policy) Pan
