Prof recognized for innovation leadership in Canada’s marine sector

Prof. Mehrdad Hajibabaei is the recipient of a prestigious Innovation Leadership Award for his work on the ecological monitoring of marine environments. 

The Turning the Tide Marine Industry Awards recognizes excellence and innovation in Canada’s marine sector. Hajibabaei, an Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph and Chief Scientific Officer at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, has developed HTS (High Throughput Sequencing) protocols for biodiversity analysis. Hajibabaei oversees genomics innovation at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG). As founder and CSO of eDNAtec, he collaborates with ocean industries and other stakeholders to advance the ecological monitoring of marine environments. 

The Innovation Leadership Award recognizes firms that challenge the status quo through new game-changing technologies, smarter ways of working and developing new markets to benefit ocean industries. 

“Whether that innovation has solved an age-old problem, or opened up a completely new frontier, what is evident is that the winner of this award has pushed through a barrier to benefit their business and, in doing so, has raised the bar (and the ceiling) for the entire marine industry in Newfoundland and Labrador,” the Turning the Tide website states. 

“I am truly honoured for this fantastic recognition of eDNAtec’s contributions in developing and deploying cutting-edge genomic technologies to track and monitor marine biodiversity,” said Hajibabaei. 

“Our technologies are making a significant impact in stewardship and protection of marine biodiversity at a time when we are faced with global biodiversity decline.”

Hajibabaei will receive the Innovation Leadership Award at the Turning the Tide Marine Industry Awards gala on September 14^th at The St. John’s Convention Centre in Newfoundland.