Alfred F. Wong Lifetime Achievement Award
The annual Alfred F. Wong Lifetime Achievement Award honours individuals who have made significant contributions to the development and success of the Canadian steel construction industry over a sustained period of years. This award recognizes individuals participating in the structural steel design, fabrication, construction, and academic communities.
Recipients of the Alfred F. Wong Lifetime Achievement Award will have:
Made a positive impact on advancing the use of structural steel gained the respect of professional peers,
Been generally acknowledged as having reached the pinnacle of their profession or industry; and
Demonstrated, over an extended period, exemplary leadership, mentorship, advocacy, standards development, advancement of knowledge, and/or innovation in design, fabrication, construction, or academia.
The 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award winners are:
Dr. Reinhold “Reini” Schuster, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo
Dr. Schuster has made significant, and lasting, contributions to the Cold-Formed Steel industry throughout his career as an educator, researcher, code developer (CSA S136/AISI S100) and engineering consultant, renowned both nationally and internationally. Many CSSBI member manufacturers rely on Reini for his technical expertise when developing load/span tables, testing requirements and supervision, and excellence in education on the topic of CFS.
Dr. Robert Driver, Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta
Dr. Driver’s dedication to excellence in teaching structural steel design at the University of Alberta has been widely recognized. Throughout his career, Dr. Driver has contributed to over 100 publications, including as co-author of the staple book of the industry, Structural Steel for Canadian Buildings: A Designer’s Guide, chaired the S16 Technical Committee, and is a former CISC staff member.
H.A. Krentz Research Award
This award is offered in honour of H. A. Krentz who made significant contributions to the engineering profession, the development of codes and standards, the education of engineers and to the development of the Canadian steel industry. The recipient of this award also receives a Research Grant for their proposal.
The 2024 Research Award winner is: “Towards Carbon-Neutral Steel Buildings: Framework for Sustainable System Selection in Commercial and Residential Construction,” awarded to Dr. Ali Imanpour (principal investigator) and Dr. Yuxiang Chen (collaborator), Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta
The research proposal aims to develop a systematic framework for minimizing the embodied carbon in steel-based buildings in Canada with the objective of producing a tool to guide architects and engineers in selecting low-carbon construction systems that meet safety, cost-effectiveness, and environmental criteria.
G.J. Jackson Fellowship
The G.J. Jackson Fellowship is awarded annually in memory of the late Geoffrey Jackson. Mr. Jackson was for many years a leader in the Canadian structural steel fabrication industry and was a founding member of the Steel Structures Education Foundation (SSEF), now overseen by the CISC Education & Research Council. This prestigious award is currently valued at $25,000 over a one-year period and is presented annually to an engineering student who, in the following academic year, will be registered in the first to fourth year of full-time graduate studies in structural engineering, with a major emphasis on the study of steel structures.
The 2024 G.J. Jackson Fellowship recipient is: Brendan Richards, PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Resource Engineering at Dalhousie University
Brendan’s research focuses on creating innovative design procedures that address key challenges in the construction industry, namely reducing the complexity of design processes when dealing with complex behaviour of RHS moment frames. His studies promise to influence North American design standards, benefiting both the Canadian steel industry and future construction practices.
For more information, read our press release.