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Saturday, July 19, 2025

UWI confers Emeritus titles on Agard, Copeland

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862 days ago
20230309
Emeritus Professor Brian Copeland, PhD

Emeritus Professor Brian Copeland, PhD

UWI

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) has con­ferred emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor ti­tles on Pro­fes­sors John Agard and Bri­an Copeland, both of the re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tion’s St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus in T&T.

The ti­tle of emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor (or, emeri­ta pro­fes­sor, for women) refers to re­spec­tive re­tired pro­fes­sors who are recog­nised and ho­n­oured by their uni­ver­si­ties for no­table con­tri­bu­tions to acad­e­mia. Aside from the spe­cial ti­tle, an emer­i­tus sta­tus gives dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sors ex­tra priv­i­leges at the uni­ver­si­ty.

Emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor John Agard, PhD is pro­fes­sor of Trop­i­cal Is­land Ecol­o­gy at the De­part­ment of Life Sci­ences in the Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy at the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

He al­so serves as the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Glob­al In­sti­tute for Cli­mate-Smart and Re­silient De­vel­op­ment at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

His re­search in­ter­est is in the field of sus­tain­abil­i­ty sci­ence es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to main­stream­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions such as bio­di­ver­si­ty and ecosys­tem ser­vices con­ser­va­tion, cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion, and the de­vel­op­ment of blue and cir­cu­lar econ­o­my in­to the core of pol­i­cy and de­ci­sion mak­ing.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, he has served as an in­de­pen­dent ad­vi­sor on en­vi­ron­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty pol­i­cy to the Board of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) in Wash­ing­ton DC.

He has al­so been on the Sci­en­tif­ic Ad­vi­so­ry Pan­el of UN­EP for the Glob­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Out­look (GEO6) and was pre­vi­ous­ly a co­or­di­nat­ing lead au­thor for the Sce­nar­ios chap­ter in GEO4.

He has al­so been a co­or­di­nat­ing lead au­thor of the of the In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal (Sci­ence-Pol­i­cy) Pan­el on Bio­di­ver­si­ty and Ecosys­tem Ser­vices (IPBES), first glob­al as­sess­ment chap­ter five “Path­ways to a Sus­tain­able Fu­ture” as well as the Re­view Ed­i­tor for Small Is­lands in the cur­rent 6th as­sess­ment of the In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC).

Pro­fes­sor Agard has pre­vi­ous­ly served as a lead au­thor in IPCC’s pre­vi­ous 4 and 5th As­sess­ments.

Emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor Bri­an Copeland, PhD served as the pro vice-chan­cel­lor and cam­pus prin­ci­pal of St Au­gus­tine from 2016-2022, the last two years of which saw him nav­i­gat­ing the cam­pus through the COVID-19 glob­al pan­dem­ic lock­down.

In his tenure at The UWI, he has served as pro­fes­sor in Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er En­gi­neer­ing, dean of the Fac­ul­ty of En­gi­neer­ing, and head of the de­part­ment of Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er En­gi­neer­ing.

His fo­cus ar­eas have been in dig­i­tal elec­tron­ics and mi­cro­proces­sor sys­tems de­sign and con­trol sys­tems.

As co­or­di­na­tor of the Re­al Time Sys­tems Group, a UWI unit for de­vel­op­ing uni­ver­si­ty/in­dus­try li­ai­son through im­pact­ful R&D Projects, Pro­fes­sor 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.

Pro­fes­sor Copeland is con­ven­er of the Steel­pan Re­search Cen­tre, UWI and is a for­mer mem­ber of the board of di­rec­tors, Cariri. He is the hold­er of many pres­ti­gious awards.

In 2008 he was the first re­cip­i­ent of the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T 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 The UWI, 2001 and a LAS­PAU/Ful­bright schol­ar­ship for doc­tor­al pro­gramme at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Los An­ge­les, 1987 among oth­ers.

A state­ment from UWI said both con­fer­rals are with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

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