Lope G. Tabil PhD, P.Eng.

Education and Experience

Dr. Tabil started at the Department of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering of the University of Saskatchewan as Assistant Professor in August 2000. He was promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure in 2004. He was promoted to Professor and appointed Head of the department (Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering) in 2008. The Department of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering was merged with the Department of Chemical Engineering in 2010, where he ceased to be Head upon merger. The department is now known as Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Prior to this academic position, Dr. Tabil was a Research Engineer with the then Agricultural Value-added Engineering Centre (AVEC) of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development from October 1997 to July 2000, where we work on a wide range of client-based projects dealing with postharvest technology and value-added processing of agricultural products.

The areas of research in which he works and maintains interest include bioprocess engineering, value-added engineering and postharvest handling of crops. He has also conducted applied research and development projects related to value-added processing of agricultural products including storage, drying and cooling, and physical properties of agricultural and biological materials. For the past few years, he has been working on projects dealing with the utilization of flax straw as fibre reinforcement for biocomposites, bioplastic development from pulse starch and postharvest treatment for red lentil milling. His current projects include pre-processing and densification of biomass for the biorefinery and conversion of lignocellulosic waste into bioproducts, and many others. Dr. Tabil continues to work and have interest in projects such as agricultural waste and processing byproduct utilization and the processing of agricultural materials into industrial products. 

Dr. Tabil teaches a first year engineering course in Problem Solving. He also teaches Principles of Food and Bioproduct Engineering and Postharvest Technology.  

He is a member of the Canadian Society for Bioengineering (CSBE) and the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ASABE). He is a Professional Engineer registered in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. He is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.