Dr. Vasantha Rupasinghe came to NSAC as an Industry Research chair in the area of tree-fruit bio products for the NS Tree Fruit Growers Association. His initial infrastructure to start this novel program came from a CFI/NSRIT Leaders Opportunity grant. Over his five year term, his research program grew to include numerous industry sponsored projects, fundamental NSERC Discovery grants and a large AIF project with five tree fruit industry groups as partners. This past July, Dr. Rupasinghe started a new position as NSAC’s Canada Research Chair in Tree-Fruit Bio-Chemistry and Bio-Products.  This award, and its associated CFI award, matched through NSRIT, will allow Dr. Rupasinghe to expand his work and its impact in NS and beyond.

NSRIT has made significant contributions to large number of projects at NSAC over the past ten years.  This has enabled the acquisition of top quality research equipment to successfully initiate research programs in areas such as precision agriculture, plant interactions, alternative energy, and innovative waste management.