Philippe Ambeault - PhD Candidate - University of British Columbia - Faculty of Forestry - Department of Forest Resource Management Started in 2023 Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering - McGill Universty - graduation 2015 Worked as a professional engineer from 2015 to 2022 (first 2 years as a junior engineer). I did design and integration of machines and systems for robotic and automation industrial projects. I take great pride in the projects I worked on, and I like to think that my expertise is on Systems. Luckily, systems are everywhere. My interest toward research emerged from a desire for a more sustainable future. My initial interest was in carbon emissions. Currently, I am interested in a wide array of things and think of myself as interdisciplinary, but my heart resides now in Indigenous Fire Stewardship. As they say, "Once you see it, you can't unsee it". Every time I see bad air quality from wildfire smoke or hear about the problems caused by wildfires, I think of how the ancestors of these lands would manage the degraded Lands that we have today - I think of fire - not as a destructive process, but as a useful tool. Indigenous ways of thinking are also on my mind a lot these days. It changed the way I see the world - for the better. I'm still new to this, and full of good intentions (like all of us). I do think that my background allows me to see problems differently - that is, in terms of systems. "Stay hungry, stay foolish"
