Professor Da-Wen Sun Conferred with Title of CIGR Honorary President

Professor Da-Wen Sun, UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, has been conferred with the title of CIGR Honorary President at the 4th International Conference on Agricultural Engineering held on 26 - 29 June 2016 in Aarhus, Denmark, for his distinguished services during the period 2011-2016 as President of the International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (CIGR). During the Conference, Professor Sun has also been presented with the CIGR Merit Award for his outstanding leadership in food engineering in the world. This is the 3rd time that Professor Sun was presented with the CIGR Merit Award, previously he was presented with the Award in 2000 in Tsukuba, Japan and in 2006 in Bonn, Germany. The Conference was attended by about 600 participants from 57 countries.

Professor Da-Wen Sun (l) was presented with the certificate of CIGR Honorary President by Professor Tadeusz Juliszewski (r), CIGR President

CIGR (Commission Internationale du Genie Rural) founded in 1930 in Liège, Belgium, as an international, non-governmental, non-profit organization regrouping, as a networking system, regional and national societies of agricultural and biological engineering as well as private and public companies and individuals all over the world, is the largest and highest international institution in the field. CIGR was awarded special consultative status with the FAO in 1958, with UNESCO in 1966, with the Council of Europe in 1967, and with UNIDO in 2004.

Professor Sun has been involved in CIGR activities as early as since joining UCD in 1995, and was first elected Chair of CIGR Internet Service Working Group in 1998 and served for 5 years (1998-2002). In 2003, he was elected Chair of CIGR Section VI on Postharvest Technology and Process Engineering for a 4 year term (2003-2006), one of the seven Technical Sections of CIGR that are the essential working bodies of CIGR. From 2007 to 2010, Professor Sun has served as a member of CIGR Executive Board and the Coordinator of CIGR Working Groups. At the 17th CIGR World Congress in Quebec City, Canada on 13-17 June 2010, Professor Sun was elected as CIGR Incoming President, and served as a member of the CIGR Presidium for six years including CIGR President in 2013-2014. The Presidium consists of CIGR Incoming President, President, Past President and Secretary General.

Professor Sun is a global authority in food engineering research and education. His many scholarly works have become standard reference materials for researchers in the areas of computer vision, computational fluid dynamics modelling, vacuum cooling, etc. Results of his work have been published in more than 400 peer-reviewed journal papers (Web of Science h-index = 71) with 33 papers being designated by ESI as highly-cited papers. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honours including election to the Royal Irish Academy in 2010, selection as a Member of Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe) in 2011 and induction as a Fellow of International Academy of Food Science and Technology in 2012. Among other international recognitions, Professor Sun was the recipient of the CIGR Fellow Award in 2010, the Freezing Research Award in 2013 from International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) and the IAEF Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 from International Association of Engineering and Food (IAEF).