Dr. Bill Van Heyst, PhD, P.Eng.
School of Engineering
Bill's Face

Professor
Environmental Engineering
School of Engineering


Research Program Director - Environmental Sustainability
OMAFRA - U of G Partnership
Office of Research

University of Guelph
Guelph, ON Canada
N1G 2W1
Rm. 1333, Thornbrough Bldg.

Phone: (519)824-4120 Ext. 53665
Fax: (519)836-0227
E-mail: bvanheys@uoguelph.ca

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I obtained my undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1990. In my fourth year, I became interested in environmental fluid mechanics which led me to continue my education by pursuing a Masters degree (1992)
and eventually my Ph.D. degree (1997), both in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. For both my graduate degrees, I studied the effects of how atmospheric turbulence can enhance the dispersion of a plume.

While formally educated in Mechanical Engineering, my interests had evolved to focus primarily on air quality and air pollution phenomena. As such, once I completed my Ph.D. degree in 1997, I joined a prominent air quality consulting company in Toronto where I worked for five years both on the research side as well as the regulatory compliance side of air quality. During my time as a consultant, I had the privilege of working with world class scientists and engineers in Environment Canada, Agriculture and Agrifood Canada, United States Environmental Protection Agency, and various academic institutions both in Canada and in the USA. In addition, my consulting experience allowed me to work with clients in diverse industrial sectors in Ontario including automotive manufacturing and assembly, catalytic converter manufacturing, chemical production, coal fired power generation, fossil fuel processing, and pulp and paper production a well as with numerous small scale manufacturing and processing facilities.

In 2002, I joined the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph in the Environmental Engineering Program as an Assistant Professor. In 2004, I was granted tenure and, in 2007, I was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. In 2015, I was promoted to full professor. My research and teaching, while still heavily focused on air quality, have expanded to encompass many different aspects in Environmental Engineering, in part, due to the underlying connectedness of many of the environmental problems and issues we face today.

I’m currently a registered professional engineer with the province of Ontario and a member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) / Canadian Society for Bioengineering (CSBE).