Vijaya Raghavan obtained his PhD (Agr Eng) from Colorado State University, his MSc (Agr Eng) from the University of Guelph, and his BEng (Mech Eng) from Bangalore University. He joined McGill in 1974 as a Research Associate in the Department of Agricultural Engineering, and he is presently a James McGill Professor (equivalent to a Canada Research Chair I). He was Departmental Chair from 1993 to 2003. His research has been on the effects of soil compaction on crop productivity, and on post-harvest technologies related to drying and storage. He has directed four CIDA-funded projects: Three dealt with the transfer of expertise and post-harvest technologies to southern India for the consolidation of food security, and one was on the transfer of expertise and electro-technologies to China for research into food processing and other applications. In 2012, he was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), and into the National Academy of Agriculture Sciences (India) as a Foreign Fellow. He is currently President of the Canadian Society of Bioengineering (CSBE) and Director of the ASE division of the Academy of Science of the RSC. He is an active member of the Food Expert Advisory Committee which provides informed advice to the Minister of Health.

The main thrust of Dr Raghavan’s research efforts over the last two decades has been to study and develop post-harvest or post-production processes and technologies for the drying and storage of produce and crops. Initial studies were on the use of particulate medium or granules for heat treatment and drying of grains in spouted, fluidized, and packed beds. His focus has shifted to the dielectric heating of produce and foods with electro-technologies based on the use of microwaves (MW), radio-frequency (RF), and pulsed-electric fields (PEF). Conventional drying systems operate on the classic thermodynamic concepts of heat and mass transfer. With MW and RF, heat is generated volumetrically within the produce as a result of the material’s dielectric properties. Also, the structure, size, and shape of the produce are important factors affecting the use of electro-technology. The systems are thus more complex, and one of Dr Raghavan’s on-going endeavors is to find the bridge between the heating and drying described by classic thermodynamics equations with those describing the dielectric behavior of the material when exposed to MW and RF. Dr Raghavan’s research activities have also touched on other areas such as soil compaction and tillage practices, controlled and modified atmosphere storage of produce, hyper-baric treatment of produce prior to storage, distribution of heat in heat-treatment of produce, microwave-assisted extraction of bioactive compounds from plant materials, disinfestation of grains in storage using ultra-high frequency microwaves, electro-osmotic dewatering, characterization of a double-pipe helical heat exchanger, microwave-assisted retting of flax and hemp for production of biofibers, microwave pasteurization of in-shell eggs, production and usage of biochar, generation of electric energy by microbial fuel cells, and carbon capture from gas emissions by photosynthetic microorganisms.