Rate My Professor Vijaya Raghavan

Vijaya Raghavan is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Department of Bioresource Engineering at McGill University. He obtained his B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University, his M.Sc. in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Guelph, and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from Colorado State University. He joined McGill in 1974 as a Research Associate in the Department of Agricultural Engineering and served as Departmental Chair from 1993 to 2004. His research focuses on post-harvest technologies related to the drying, storage, and processing of foods, with emphasis on electro-technologies such as microwaves, radio-frequency, and pulsed-electric fields for improved efficiency and quality retention. Additional work addresses food security, agricultural waste management, biochar production, microbial fuel cells, and controlled atmosphere storage.

Raghavan has directed multiple international projects funded by CIDA and IDRC on post-harvest technologies and food security in India and electro-technologies in China. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 and as a Foreign Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (India). He has served as President of the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada and as President of the Canadian Society for Bioengineering. In 2023, he received McGill University’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership in Learning. Other honors include the ASABE International Food Engineering Award in 2018 and the Kishida International Award in 2018. His research group has produced over 650 peer-reviewed journal papers, 55 book chapters, and over 850 conference papers. He is Graduate Program Director in Bioresource Engineering and has held roles on committees including the Food Expert Advisory Committee for Health Canada.