This article is part of a series shining a spotlight on the personalities and priorities of Dal's senior leadership team. Revisit previous profiles at the Leadership and Vision website.
Both of Graham Gagnon's parents thought he would go into agriculture. They worked at the University of Guelph in the field, after all, his dad as a chemist in a farming extension lab and his mom as a secretary in the agricultural college.
And it's true that Dr. Gagnon spent the summers of his youth doing labour on farms, including some that were part of the university. He planted various tree species on rotating experimental plots and had fun doing it. "It was part of a group of experiments being done by the agroforestry program. It got me thinking about university as a career."
But, to everyone's surprise, he got a scholarship to study environmental engineering at the University of Guelph instead.
"I liked the idea of doing some sort of public good," he says. "In the early 90s a lot of farmers were using their land to bury other people's waste and having their water contaminated as a result. Environmental engineering seemed an opportunity to help."
