Dr. Jeff Boisvert Professor jbb@ualberta.ca
I am actively recruiting high quality MSc and PhD students to start in 2025, for students interested in geostatistical research I am considering applicants with backgrounds in geology, mathematics, computer science, or statistics. See link for the application procedure, email me jbb@ualberta.ca with your CV, transcripts, and research interests.
For students interested in my wildland fire research, I am also considering applicants with general engineering, science, or fire science backgrounds. I am flexible with applicants for this area of research, and I encourage you to apply if you have a different background than listed here. You do not need an engineering bachelor's degree to obtain an MSc or PhD under my supervision. Email me jbb@ualberta.ca with your CV, transcripts, and research interests.
CCG annual meeting September 2023
I am a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta and co-director of the Centre for Computational Geostatistics (CCG). My research interests concentrate on geostatistical numerical modeling and uncertainty management with a focus on mining, petroleum, and wildland fire. Numerical modeling is concerned with generating a set of spatial models of variables such as mineral grade, contaminates, flow properties, fire behavior, etc. These models are used to make important engineering decisions in mine design, exploration campaign design, wildland fire management, preplanning, well placement, well management and contaminate cleanup strategies. Uncertainty management focuses on making these engineering decisions in an optimal way that maximizes value, minimizes environmental impact, and minimizes risk. Numerical modeling and uncertainty management are often framed as optimization problems and so I often use machine learning, artificial intelligence, and optimization techniques to improve solutions.
I currently have over 125 publications and I also teach the undergraduate mining engineering capstone course MinE 402: Mine Design Project, MinE 422: Environmental Impact of Mining Activities and a graduate level class MinE 612: Principles of Geostatistics. Further, I am involved in teaching short courses and longer citation courses focused on geostatistical modeling. My other role is as a consultant on geostatistical modeling projects and I can be reached at jbb@ualberta.ca for additional details.
I welcome email inquiries into my current research, graduate students, or related work. All unsolicited email requests for graduate opportunities are reviewed but due to email volume, a response will be provided if I am interested.
My personal interests include spending time outdoors with my family and Nefertiti (our Border Terrier), curling and paid-on-call firefighting. Because of my interest in firefighting, I have been expanding research into the use of UAVs for spatial mapping for wildland incidents (a.k.a forest fires or wildfires) which has also led to interesting work involving drones for mine rescue applications and law enforcement (drone as a first responder DFR).
Professor, Dept of Civil & Environmental Engineering
6-241 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering (D-ICE)
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2G7
Phone: +1 (780) 492-6157; Fax: +1 (780) 492-0249
E-mail: jbb@ualberta.ca