Robert T. Hughes Memorial Award

2023 Robert T. Hughes Memorial Awardee

The Robert T. Hughes Memorial Award was founded in 2015 to honor Mr. Hughes, who passed away in late 2014. Robert T. “Bob” Hughes joined the ACGIH Industrial Ventilation Committee in 1976. He served as its Chairperson for 11 years before stepping down in 2001, though he remained dedicated and active on the Committee until his death. This award was established by the ACGIH Board of Directors to recognize outstanding individuals in the field of industrial ventilation. The 2023 Robert T. Hughes Memorial Award recipient is Howard Goodfellow, PhD, FET, P.Eng.

Howard D. Goodfellow graduated with a Ph.D., from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto (U of T). As a global leader in the ventllation technology field, Dr. Howard Goodfellow has led a number of successful businesses over the course of his private sector and academic career. His expertise includes specialized consulting and engineering design services for over 1000 industrial and government clients in global markets. He has also been actively involved in Research & Development for more than 40 years, placing an emphasis on the importance of bridging academic research with the private sector with the goal to bring innovative and novel Canadian technologies to commercialization.

As an Adjunct Associate Professor at U of T, I taught a graduate level course in ventilation for over 10 years. For more than 40 years, I have also held the position of Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering (U of T), being actively involved in Research & Development in the field of ventilation and technology development in the process optimization field. Dr goodfellow was a global pioneer in the research and development of technology in the industrial ventilation field including the use of fluid dynamic scale modelling, Computational Fluid Dynamics, plume photographic techniques for sizing of large canopy hoods, mathematical modelling for general building ventilation applications, laser based sensors for measurement of gas velocities and gas composition for dusty and high temperature gas applications.

As President of Tenova Goodfellow Inc., he became known internationally for the Goodfellow Expert Furnace System Optimization Process (EFSOP®), technology he developed and commercialized in 1998. This extractive analytical and smart control system optimizes the electric steelmaking process and is the basis for significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions due to its worldwide application in more than 100 plants. Its use is now being extended to other combustion-intensive industries to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Goodfellow is a global authority on industrial ventilation and clean technology. Through his design guidebooks(Industrial Ventilation Design Guidebooks- vol 1 and vol 2)and technical publications in international journals and conference proceedings, he pioneered new standards for industrial ventilation.

Previous Award Recipients