Quality Control/Process Assistant; West Fraser Mills Ltd.
I am a forestry intern working as a research assistant at the Bioproduct Institute at the University of British Columbia. Until now, I have been working on the vegan wood leather project. Specifically, the project involves delignification, drying, plasticizing, waxing and many other steps to make the wood pieces flexible and soft.
As this project is led by the Ministry of Forestry, my job is to identify and implement optimizations in the experiments, and to update the theoretical components to provide a solid theoretical basis for wider application and quantitative production.
This Co-op placement has enriched my laboratory experience and given me a better understanding of chemistry and materials research, such as the preparation of reagents, the use of a range of chemical equipment such as lyophilization, and how a complete research project moves forward.