In 2007-08, Liber was involved in developing the initial proposal for the creation of the SENS and served on the school’s advisory committee. Since July 1, 2008 he has served as the school’s acting director and has led the school in successfully developing its programming and in increasing its graduate student enrolment from 10 students in its inaugural year to 46 students in 2009/10. “The school is a new and exciting initiative at the U of S, with a lot of potential in becoming a leader in environment and sustainability graduate programming and research,” said Liber. “I’m thrilled to be in the position.” For more information on the school, please visit http://www.usask.ca/sens.

Since 1996, Karsten Liber has served as the director of the university’s Toxicology Centre, an interdisciplinary academic research unit focused on current issues in both environmental and biomedical toxicology. During this time, the centre became widely recognized as having one of the most acclaimed toxicology programs in the world. While serving in this capacity, Liber successfully led the Northern Ecosystems Toxicology Initiative in 2000. Through this major initiative came the allocation of new faculty to the toxicology program, the establishment of a new undergraduate program and associated revisions to the pre-existing graduate program.

Liber also successfully led a major proposal to the Canada Foundation for Innovation for the recent $11.8 million expansion and renovation of the Toxicology Centre, and was the lead author of the phase one institutional Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) proposal. If successful, this CERC initiative could lead to the university attracting one of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds in the field of water security, and $10 million in federal funding over seven years for the chairholder and research team, with additional funds contributed by the university and the Government of Saskatchewan. The U of S is a national and global leader in water research. For more information, please visit http://www.usask.ca/water.

For his contribution to research innovation and leadership in Canada, Karsten Liber has also been invited by the Canada Foundation for Innovation to attend the inaugural Eye on Innovation event hosted by the Speaker of the House of Commons and held at Parliament Hill on Oct. 20, 2009. This event will provide federal MPs, senators and senior government officials with the opportunity to gain insights on Canada’s research successes and its capacity for innovation from a mix of the nation’s most highly regarded researchers.

-30-

For more information contact:

Erica Schindel
Communications and Marketing Specialist
School of Environment and Sustainability
University of Saskatchewan
Telephone: (306) 966-2663
Email: erica.schindel@usask.ca