Forces of Today Special Message from Mayor Naheed Nenshi
AVE Network's third annual Speaker Panel Series will feature expert panelists who will be discussing Climate Change, Inclusion and Technology in business.
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The panelists are outstanding leaders in science with vastly different backgrounds and successes as researchers, leaders and innovators.
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Together with a dynamic moderator and questions by attendees, the evening is guaranteed to generate meaningful discussions.
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There will be light snacks and refreshments during a networking session before the panel and a “after-panel” party to continue the conversation with attendees, sponsors and panelists with Happy Hour Specials all night!
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5:oo pm – Doors open and appetizers & networking session before Panel Discussion begins
5:5o pm – Panel Discussion Begins
7:3o pm – After Party and Networking Session
Meet Your Speakers
Moderated By:
Heather Herring
Executive in Residence: GE/Ryerson Accelerator -
Zone Startups
Heather Herring is an engineer and proud alumna of the Haskayne School. She coaches client companies in business, communications and customer development in her role as Executive in Residence with the GE/Ryerson Accelerator - Zone Startups. Her career focuses on oil and gas encompassing R&D, technology qualification, operations, project management, economics and increasingly the digital oilfield. She spent a number of years working with energy researchers at the University of Calgary where she secured over $30M in grants. While with Total E&P Canada and Laricina Energy she was responsible for innovation and technology development. Her passion for innovation led her to volunteer on the boards of TECTERRA and Innovate Calgary. Some of the best opportunities she has seen, arise from the cross pollination of ideas and business models from disparate industries.
Panelists from Finland:
Dr. Swanne Gordon
Distinguished Academy of Finland postdoctoral fellow -
University of Jyvaskyla
Swanne Gordon got her Masters at McGill University in Montreal and her PhD at the University of California, Riverside. She is currently a distinguished Academy of Finland postdoctoral fellow at the University of Jyväskylä. Her research includes the exploration of the evolution and maintenance of diversity in nature. She also focuses heavily on studying the mechanisms which enable organisms to adapt to abrupt and rapid changes in their environment due in wide part to human-induced global effects. When she is not researching she is a staunch supporter of increasing underrepresented minorities in all forms in academia (including gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation etc.), and uses a variety of platforms to help achieve this. Above all, her most important contributions to society are her two young children Amaya and Kai, who she enjoys raising with her husband, and scientific partner, Dr. Andrés Lopez Sepulcre.
Dr. Andres Lopez-Sepulcre
CNRS is Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Researcher at Sorbonne University, France & the University of Jyvaskyla
Andres Lopez-Sepulcre is a CNRS Researcher at Sorbonne University, in Paris (France), and the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland. He obtained his BSc at the University of Barcelona, in his native Spain, and obtained his PhD from the University of Helsinki (Finland) in 2007. Before becoming a tenured CNRS researcher in 2011, he did post-docs at the University of California, Riverside, and the Ecole Normale Superiéure de Paris. His research interests revolve around the study of evo-evolutionary theory, which acknowledges that, as organisms adapt to their environment, they also change their environment in ways that affect their subsequent adaptation. Whithin this framework, he studies a variety of questions ranging from the dispersal and spread of animal populations under environmental change, or the ecosystem consequences of of rapid evolution. He is a close collaborator of Dr. Swanne Gordon in both science and the raising of their two children, Amaya and Kai who, every day, teach them the importance of balancing work and family.
Local Expert Panelists:
Dr. Qiao Sun
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Associate Dean of Diversity & Equity,
Associate Dean of Teaching & Learning
Dr. Qiao Sun is a professor of mechanical engineering. She is the Associate Dean (Diversity and Equity) and Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) at the University of Calgary’s Schulich School of Engineering. As a research scholar, Qiao has established herself in the field of mechanical system modeling, control, and fault diagnosis. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles, and has been a keynote and invited speaker nationally and internationally. As an educator, her colleagues have selected her for numerous teaching excellence awards. Her students have voted her three times as their Professor of the Year in Mechanical Engineering. She has supervised over 20 doctoral and master’s students to completion. Under her guidance, her students have won best paper awards and conference sponsorships at national and international conferences. As an academic administrator, she leads the Schulich School of Engineering’s initiatives to advance diversity in engineering. Through persistent effort, Schulich has attained a female enrollment that puts it among the leading engineering schools in Canada. The School was awarded the 2016 Knovo Award of Distinction for advancing diversity and equity. Its Discover Engineering recruitment program was a runner up for the global 2017 GEDC Airbus Diversity Award. Its Cybermentor outreach program was awarded the American WEPAN Women in Engineering Initiative Award in 2017.
General Manager - Strategic Technology, Suncor
Gary Bunio P.Eng
Gary Bunio is a professional engineer with over 30 years of experience in the upstream petroleum industry in Canada and internationally. He obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada (1980) and then a Masters of Quality Management from Loyola University, New Orleans, U.S.A. (1998).
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Mr. Bunio has held senior technical and management roles in oil sands research and development, operations, and project management at Imperial Oil, PanCanadian (EnCana), Paramount (MGM Energy) and Suncor. He has been involved in many innovations in the production of extra heavy oil including gravity drainage and infill wells as a follow-up thermal process, solvent injection, partial upgrading, and CO2 sequestration for enhanced gas recovery.
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Mr. Bunio is currently Suncor’s General Manager, Strategic Technology. He is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta and Manitoba, the NWT Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and CHOA. All of you who have met him before know he is an enthusiastic evangelist of innovation, oil sands development and related emerging technologies.
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As always, Gary is here with the permission of his two children, Sian and Lyndon.
Platinum Sponsors
Gold Sponsors
Community Sponsor
