Suzanne M. Kresta

Biography

Suzanne Kresta (BSc, UNB (1986), MSc, Leeds (UK, 1987), PhD, McMaster (1992)) teaches Mass and Energy Balances (CME 265), design (ChE 464) and Mixing (ChE 420 and 620), and serves as Senior Editor of the Handbook of Industrial Mixing. Her principle research contributions are related to understanding turbulence and mixing in stirred tanks (measurement of turbulence, the use of spatial statistics to define mixing and length scales, nano-particle production, solids suspension, reactor design, and additive performance) and she has collaborated with colleagues in a wide variety of industries (including oils sands extraction and froth treatment, photographic film, drinking water treatment, mineral processing and metals refining, polymer reactor design, cosmetics, mixing equipment design, fish processing, clean-up of nuclear waste, and fertilizer production). Many of her papers are both widely cited in the research literature and used for industrial design calculations. Her teaching interests include faculty development workshops, visual problem solving tools, the use of story telling and case studies, active learning, and explicit use of cognitive levels with learning objectives. She has served as an Iron Ring Warden since 1999, as a Peer Consultant at the University of Alberta since 2004, and has won a number of national and international awards for both teaching and research.

Research Interest

The mixing unit operation is far broader than the classical well mixed continuous stirred tank reactor, and scale down of mixing sensitive processes to bench scale mixing test cells is a rapidly developing area of research. Tightly designed mixing equipment is needed to meet the demanding process specifications of both extremely large scale processes, and high value added specialty products. Our group has long standing collaborations with both Lightnin and Syncrude, and a number of active projects which change from year to year.