PEI native Dr. Suzanne Kresta appointed Dean of UPEI Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering

Dr. Suzanne Kresta, a native of PEI, has been appointed as the Dean of the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering (FSDE) at the University of Prince Edward Island for a five-year term, effective September 1, 2024. 

Dr. Kresta is a professor of chemical engineering and recently completed a term as the Dean of Engineering (2018–2023) at the University of Saskatchewan. Previously, she was the Associate Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, at the University of Alberta.

Dr. Kresta has a long-standing connection to UPEI. She grew up in Charlottetown, and both her mother and her uncle taught at the University.

As the Dean of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, she led eight undergraduate programs through a transformational redesign of the first-year program, called RE-Engineered. This redesign was recently recognized with the D2L Innovation Award from the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 

Among other leadership contributions, she implemented a required Indigenous cultural contextualization course for all first-year engineering students, laid the foundations for a major building project, and led and carried out a five-year strategic plan. During her tenure, the University of Saskatchewan College of Engineering doubled its cohort of female faculty members and increased the first-year cohort of female students by eight per cent. Its Times Higher Education rankings jumped from the 301–400 group to the 201–250 group. 

Dr. Kresta earned a BScEng (University of New Brunswick), MSc (Leeds University), and PhD (McMaster University), all in chemical engineering. She has made significant contributions in research, particularly related to turbulent mixing in multi-phase and reacting flows in the process industries and co-edited The Handbook of Industrial Mixing, which is now a cornerstone in the field. 

She has received several teaching and research awards, including the Senior Molton Medal from the IChemE (UK). She was named on the World’s Top 2% of Scientists and Engineers list by a Stanford University study. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and Engineers Canada.

“It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Kresta to UPEI,” said Dr. Greg Naterer, Vice-President, Academic and Research at UPEI. “I look forward to working with Dr. Kresta and the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering as we continue to build on the faculty’s already innovative and successful program.”

Dr. Naterer also thanked Dr. Wayne Peters for his leadership contributions as interim dean of the FSDE since 2020. He noted that under Dr. Peter’s leadership, the FSDE received accreditation from the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) at the Charlottetown campus, and for the first time in Canada, accreditation was granted from the CEAB for an international site at the UPEI Cairo campus. 

“Under Wayne’s tenure, the FSDE has provided exceptional learning experiences for students in the design clinic program, among other innovative changes to its academic curriculum,” he said.