Homage to Professor Khaled Belkacemi 1957 - 2017
Commémoration-premier anniversaire de décès
En cette date du 29 janvier 2018, qui marque la première année de la disparition tragique de notre collègue Khaled Belkacemi, professeur titulaire au Département des sols et de génie agroalimentaire, nos pensées vont vers Khaled et aux membres de sa famille.
Depuis son engagement en 2002, Khaled a franchi avec brio tous les échelons et devenu un chercheur chevronné, reconnu par la communauté scientifique tant nationale qu’internationale, et très respecté par les pairs. Au cours de sa carrière universitaire, Khaled était un enseignant rigoureux et exigeant, et dévoué à la formation des étudiants, et à l’avancement de la science dans les domaines de recherche du génie alimentaire.
Le Département des sols et de génie agroalimentaire s'associe à leur chagrin dans cette période de l'année toujours douloureuse.
Antoine Karam
Directeur
Homage to Professor Khaled Belkacemi 1957 - 2017 Khaled Belkacemi (60), born on January 18th 1957 in El Harrach (Alger, Algeria) lost his life tragically on January 29th 2017 at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Québec City. He was professor of food processing engineering at the Soils and Agri-Food Engineering Department, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Université Laval (Québec, Canada).
Graduated in chemical engineering (State Design Engineer from Polytechnical School in Alger, Algeria, in 1983; M.Sc. in 1986 and Ph.D. in 1990 from Sherbrooke University, Quebec, Canada), he had an expertise in chemical engineering reactions, process separation and process development thanks to multiple knowledge interfaces in process engineering/ heterogeneous catalysis/ food chemistry. He was recruited on January 1st 2002 as an assistant professor at the Soils and Agri-Food Engineering Department of Université Laval (Québec, Canada) to apply his knowledge to food engineering process development.He became an associate professor on June 1st 2006 and full professor, June 1st 2010.
From the beginning of his appointment as professor at the Soils and Agri-Food Engineering Department, his research priorities focused on the improvement of existent transformation processes or the development of new technologies, which would optimize nutritional and techno-functional quality of lipids or other food biomolecules, valorize of biomass and other by-products into value-added products, or use nanotechnologies.
He initiated and performed advanced research in hydrogenation of vegetable oils, compound isomerization and metathesis, valorization of lactose by partial oxidation, and metal nanoparticles synthesis as bactericides agents, putting together nanotechnology, nanoscience and heterogeneous catalysis to develop new venues for food and nutraceutical transformations.
While abroad during his sabbatical leave at the Department of Chemical Engineering of University of California (Santa Barbara, USA) from September 2010 to July 2011, Professor Belkacemi studied the interfacial phenomena between reactive compounds and catalysts, playing a major role in a chemical reaction.
From 2002, Dr Belkacemi continuously received individual or group grants and research contracts, to support his research expertise from the following grant organisations: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)-Discovery; NSERC-strategic; NSERC-equipment; NSERC- Research Partnership; Canada Foundation for Innovation (FCI)-New Opportunities Funds; FCI-Infrastructure Operating Fund; CORPAQ-partnership; Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food – Québec (MAPAQ)-Agri-food Innov’Action program; Quebec Industrial Research Center (CRIQ); Quebec Research Funds – Nature and technologies (FRQNT)-Agreement Actions; FRQNT-strategic groups; FRQNT-Team Research; FRQNT- CRIBIQ- CRIQ- CNRC- MDEIE- MAPAQ- SPBQ; Grant Institution- BDR. All these grants and research contracts, contributed to educate highly qualified personnel in Quebec, Canada and at an international level, and allowed graduate students, international interns and post-doc fellows to use sophisticated research equipment to perform their research studies.
During his research career, Dr. Belkacemi continuously published over 80 research articles in high impact scientific journals. The contribution of Dr. Belkacemi to the advance of chemical engineering research and to the development of ecological solutions for the food industry was recently recognized by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
From 2003, Dr. Belkacemi was responsible of the compulsory course ‘Unit Operations in food engineering II’, which is taught to undergraduate students of the food engineering (B.Eng.) program. From 2008 to 2012, he occupied the position of coordinator of the M.Sc. agri-food engineering program, and he represented the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences in the Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies Faculty from 2011 to 2017.
He participated on editorial boards of several scientific journals for diverse research subjects, from chemical engineering to food engineering, nanotechnologies and organic chemistry. He supervised and co-supervised many graduate students, registered in M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs such as Agri-Food Engineering, Soils and Environment, Chemical Engineering and Food Science.
He was member of the FQRNT Green Chemistry and Catalysis Center (CCVC), the Research Center for Interfacial Properties and Catalysis (Université Laval), the Nutrition and Functional Foods Institute-INAF (Université Laval), the Ordre des Ingénieurs de Québec and two scientific councils in Algeria (the Research Theme Office in Nature and Life Sciences at Bejaia, and the Scientific and Technical Research Center in physico-chemistry properties in Bou-Ismail, Alger).
The Department of Soils and Agri-Food Engineering wishes to express its sincerest condolences to professor Belkacemi’s family, his wife Dr. Safia Hamoudi, also a Professor in the SGA Department, and their children.
Antoine Karam
Head