1999 • Environmental Causes Award
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ROSALIND CAIRNCROSS

Opting for a career in engineering, Rosalind chose chemical engineering as a starting point but she has since enhanced her B.Sc degree with additional studies and now concentrates on the important field of environmental engineering.

As a well-respected consultant in this field, Rosalind’s work has taken her to numerous projects in Canada, Cuba, Kenya and South Africa.  Such is her authority on environmental engineering that she is a contributing editor to the Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine. 

She was also invited to work with the Ontario Ministry of Environment, and its Round Table on Environment and Economy, on policy and regulation development, enforcement, analysis of chemical contaminants and water treatment.  Rosalind is also past President of Women in Science and Engineering and vice-president of the Ontario Advisory Council on Women’s Issues.   

Her training, experience and research into environmental engineering have led her into more diverse areas of the discipline and related fields of study.  She has  researched and presented environmental success stories to a Vancouver audience and acted as a consultant to the Environmental Unit at Peninsula Technikon in Cape Town.  Also in Ontario she undertook a preliminary evaluation of sustainability education in the Ontario Schools system.

Her varied skills were used by the Peninsula Technikon to research and advise on the feasibility of fish farming for community development purposes.

At the same institution, she consulted on immunoassay methods for the analysis of PCBs.  Two very different subject matters which show the diversity of Rosalind’s skills and broad understanding of the wider environmental engineering field. 
Rosalind also spent a year in Cuba reorganizing and preparing a strategic plan for environmental organization in that country. 

Not content with her success so far in a relatively new engineering field, Rosalind has enrolled in Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto where she aims to receive her Masters degree.