An interview with Professor Duraisamy Saravanakumar, Director of the School for Graduate Studies and Research
The end of the year is a good time to reflect on past accomplishments, and this was no doubt at the forefront of the mind of Professor Duraisamy Saravanakumar, Director of the School for Graduate Studies and Research during the campus’s recent 75th anniversary Research Festival and Principal’s Research Awards event. While outlining the legacy of some of UWI’s most exciting and influential research projects over the years, he was hard pressed to summarise the vast number of diverse offerings which have emerged from the various faculties.
To continue this impressive progress, Prof Saravanakumar believes that there should be a continued focus on six thematic areas. He identifies agri-food technologies for food and nutrition security; climate change mitigation and adaptation, and disaster management; regional health issues and advances; science, technology, and engineering solutions for sustainability; social, educational and cultural issues, policies, justice and practices for improved life and a sustainable environment; and communication and digital technologies, including AI and its applications and impacts.
“These are all the areas I think The UWI should influence and The UWI should focus on,” he says.
Yet already, the contributions and potential impact of UWI’s research are wide. Sustainability and climate change are being addressed in many areas, such as solar panels under the Faculty of Engineering. This is also apparent in the FAO funded project at the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, where black soldier flies are being bred to make pellets which can be used in aquaculture and to feed poultry and livestock. Prof Saravanakumar also highlights the SOILCARE project led by Dr Gaius Eudoxie at the Faculty of Food and Agriculture – a Caribbean Small Island Developing States initiative working toward landscape restoration and climate resilient food systems.
“UWI is leading in climate change,” Prof Saravanakumar says as he also describes the work of Professor John Agard who has served on several global working groups, and in 2020, was appointed to a committee by the UN Secretary-General to draft the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report.
UWI’s research projects have the potential to transform the region and, eventually, the globe. Prof Saravanakumar mentions the work he and his team have done with biopesticides which can help with the sustainable management of plant diseases and improve crop yield. At the community level, there are people like Dr Angelique Nixon, Lecturer and Graduate Studies Coordinator at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, who has been leading the Sexual Culture of Justice Project which works toward solutions to end gender-based violence and LGBTQI discrimination.
There is also research towards the creation of commercialisation opportunities, such as the work being done with asphalt sealants, coatings, and grease lubricants by Nizamudeen Mohammed and Lebert Grierson of the Department of Chemistry.
“This has been the outcome of 20 years of research,” explains Prof Saravanakumar. He notes the products’ wide range of uses in boating, building, and equipment lubrication processes. There is huge potential for commercialisation regionally and globally.
A highly anticipated chocolate factory will be a highlight of UWI’s revenue revolution. “We have this international cocoa gene bank, and it is one of the most diverse gene banks with over 2000 germplasm,” says Prof Saravanakumar. “Our cocoa germplasm have been characterised through genome sequencing to identify their leading qualities for chocolate as well as for their pest and disease resistance and for the high yield.”
Among all of these significant projects, Prof Saravanakumar identifies the work of Dr Wendy-Ann Isaac of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture as some of the most exciting. She leads the seed bank project which is sharing and preserving local seeds. The university has developed UWI7 sweet corn and the ICTA farm corn, which needs large production to supply farmers, to feed the population, break the grip of multinational providers, and fortify the nation’s food sovereignty.
“That is one of the most important things that I see based on what we have done and what we have to do,” declares Prof Saravanakumar.
He also highlighted the impactful, decade-long research of Professor Adesh Ramsubhag and his team on antimicrobial resistance and value addition of natural resources for sustainable environment.
Over the years, many researchers have drawn the public eye. Some of the most recent include Professor Judith Gobin, the professor of Marine Biology who made headlines when a species of tubeworm was named after her. She is now immortalised through the Lamellibrachia judigobini because of her substantial efforts to reveal and protect the marine life of the Caribbean and beyond. She is the first woman to hold this prestigious position in the Faculty of Science and Technology.
Professor Christine Carrington has become well known for her life-saving work with her team, in conjunction with the Pan American Health Organisation, the Caribbean Public Health Agency, and the World Health Organisation, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. They worked on detecting COVID-19 variants in Trinidad and Tobago, and did genome sequencing for the region. Professor Carrington was recognised at the Principal’s Research Awards with the Best Researcher Award and the Best Team Research Award. They were also honoured with the award for Most Outstanding Regional/International Research Project.
Prof Saravanakumar was highly impressed, he says, with the leadership shown by Campus Principal Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine in highlighting the campus’s research. Echoing her words, he states, “No good research will go unnoticed,” adding, “Recognition will be there, and it will be continuous, and we will be encouraging multidisciplinary team research, regional and international collaborations, impactful community research and innovative research findings suitable for commercialisation.”
He looks forward to emerging researchers maintaining the standard of the university and to UWI rising still higher in the global ranking.
He predicts The UWI will continue to build an eminent research heritage that will impact countries beyond our shores, as it has been doing for the last 75 years.
