News

Four years ago, Ledcor funded the founding of Northern Alberta Institute of Technoloy’s (NAIT) Centre for Oil Sands Sustainability through a $1.5-million endowment that was matched by the Alberta government. More funding was provided by key industry partners, such as Suncor.

Today, we’re proud to announce that our partner, NAIT’s Centre for Oil Sands Sustainability, has appointed its new Ledcor Applied Research Chair in Oil Sands Sustainability, Andrea Sedgwick. Andrea is a veteran industry scientist with more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of upstream surface oil sands development.

The Centre is a 6,000 square foot laboratory in Edmonton Research Park where scientists, engineers, and technicians work with business and industry to develop technologies to improve the oil sands industry’s economic and environmental performance. They focus on helping industry through three functions: remediating tailings ponds and slowing their growth; reducing the use of fresh water and improving water treatment, management and disposal; and innovating technologies to reduce the cost and environmental impact of oil sands operations.

In her new role, Andrea said she plans to foster collaboration between the NAIT Centre and other research-oriented organizations - including universities - by helping them move new technologies forward.

“Research at NAIT is industry driven. As a leading polytechnic, we focus on applied research with industry as our customer and our client. Oil sands sustainability is at the forefront of this work,” said Dr. Chris Dambrowitz, NAIT associate vice-president research and innovation. “Andrea brings with her a high degree of connectivity to industry and exemplifies the quality of research capacity NAIT attracts. I’m happy to welcome her to the team.”

Sedgwick holds a master’s degree in engineering management and a bachelor of science in mining engineering, both from the University of Alberta. Before coming to NAIT, she was the research and development mining manager at Total E & P Canada, directing research nationally and internationally. She worked for Total for eight years, and before that worked as a consultant to industry on several large oil sands projects