An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

ann-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Three pro­fes­sors are re­cip­i­ents of the coun­try’s high­est award–the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) this year–Prof Clement Im­bert, Prof John Agard, and Prof Path­manathan Uma­ha­ran.

It is the sec­ond time that three peo­ple will be ho­n­oured in a sin­gle cer­e­mo­ny since the ORTT was first es­tab­lished in 2008.

Prof Im­bert, the un­cle of Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, will be ho­n­oured for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion in the spheres of In­no­va­tion, Ed­u­ca­tion, and Cul­ture and the Arts.

Im­bert cur­rent­ly serves at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies as Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor (Emer­i­tus) in Me­chan­i­cal/Met­al­lur­gi­cal En­gi­neer­ing.

As part of both the en­gi­neer­ing and ed­u­ca­tion fra­ter­ni­ty, he as­sist­ed in se­cur­ing ac­cred­i­ta­tion for the lo­cal en­gi­neer­ing fra­ter­ni­ty.

He has worked on sev­er­al boards in­clud­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), the Caribbean In­dus­tri­al Re­search In­sti­tute (CARIRI) and the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ACTT).

Im­bert has con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the de­vel­op­ment of the steel­pan and is co-founder of the UWI Steel­pan De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre.

He was al­so part of the five-mem­ber team that de­vel­oped the G-Pan.

Speak­ing with Sun­day Guardian hours ahead of the for­mal pro­ceed­ings, which will be held at the Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, tonight, Im­bert ex­pressed grat­i­tude for be­ing recog­nised by his coun­try­men, coun­ter­parts and col­leagues.

He said, “It feels very good to be recog­nised for your in­di­vid­ual ef­fort.”

Im­bert, who re­ceived the Cha­co­nia Gold Award back in 2007, re­vealed he had al­so been ho­n­oured by the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers with the Ca­reer of Ex­cel­lence Award which is their high­est ac­co­lade, as well as UWI’s Vice Chan­cel­lor’s Award for Ex­cel­lence in Pub­lic Ser­vice.

Con­grat­u­lat­ing his fel­low ORTT awardees, Agard and Uma­ha­ran on this achieve­ment, Im­bert com­mend­ed both men on their re­spec­tive ac­com­plish­ments in cre­at­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness/out­reach and re­vi­tal­is­ing the lo­cal co­coa in­dus­try.

He said, “They are very de­serv­ing based on the work they have done.”

Im­bert re­called Agard’s ef­forts to raise pub­lic aware­ness on the ef­fects of cli­mate change as well as en­vi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion and re­lat­ed ar­eas, while he ac­knowl­edged just how much work Uma­ha­ran had in­vest­ed in pro­mot­ing the lo­cal choco­late in­dus­try.

Of Uma­ha­ran, he said, “He has been re­spon­si­ble for re­viv­ing the co­coa in­dus­try in T&T.”

“It’s a hard task be­cause over the last 40 years or so, all the large co­coa es­tates in T&T have been ne­glect­ed, and it’s been a hard task to bring it back as agri­cul­ture was ne­glect­ed for a long time.”

When con­tact­ed, Agard too ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to his fel­low awardees, as he said, “I have done so many projects and I am very pleased.”

Agard is the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Glob­al In­sti­tute for Cli­mate-Smart and Re­silient De­vel­op­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

His re­search is wide­ly recog­nised re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, from nat­ur­al re­sources man­age­ment, wa­ter qual­i­ty, ma­rine and ter­res­tri­al ecol­o­gy to the im­pact of cli­mate change on nat­ur­al and hu­man sys­tems.

He al­so served as co-chair of a group of in­de­pen­dent sci­en­tists ap­point­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al to draft the sec­ond qua­dren­ni­al Glob­al Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Re­port in 2023.

His vi­sion is that of a so­ci­ety which recog­nis­es oth­er forms of wealth in­clud­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty that ex­ist be­yond the lim­it of GDP.

The third awardee, Prof Uma­ha­ran, is the Di­rec­tor of the Co­coa Re­search Cen­tre, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

Hav­ing led the con­ver­sion of the Co­coa Re­search Unit in­to a full-fledged Cam­pus Cen­tre, his re­search projects re­sult­ed in ge­net­ic ap­proach­es to over­come loss­es as­so­ci­at­ed with dis­ease, and im­prov­ing tol­er­ance to cli­mate change.

This has led the way to the de­vel­op­ment of the first mol­e­c­u­lar breed­ing pro­gramme in co­coa, a glob­al DNA fin­ger­print­ing ser­vice, a qual­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ser­vice and the im­prove­ment of co­coa qual­i­ty.

Through his ef­forts, the UWI has now been named by the Eu­ro­pean Union as the top co­coa re­search in­sti­tu­tion glob­al­ly.

Uma­ha­ran was spe­cial­ly nom­i­nat­ed by the UWI for this award and it is the first time this has ever been done.

When con­tact­ed about be­ing se­lect­ed for the pres­ti­gious award, he said, “I feel elat­ed and hum­bled.”

The Sri Lankan na­tive who has lived in this coun­try for the last 25 years and is now a T&T cit­i­zen ad­mit­ted, “I worked re­al­ly hard and am re­al­ly grate­ful to be recog­nised by the coun­try.”

He al­so com­mend­ed col­leagues Im­bert and Agard as he cel­e­brat­ed, “I know how hard they have worked in their re­spec­tive fields, and they are all de­serv­ing of this.”

The ORTT re­placed the Trin­i­ty Cross for dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to the coun­try–and can be award­ed to any cit­i­zen as well as non-cit­i­zens.

While it can be award­ed posthu­mous­ly, a de­ceased re­cip­i­ent does not be­come a mem­ber of the So­ci­ety.

Oth­er awardees

Mean­while, the Cha­co­nia Medal may be award­ed for Long and Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice/ tend­ing to pro­mote na­tion­al wel­fare/or strength­en com­mu­ni­ty spir­it in the Re­pub­lic of T&T.

Cha­co­nia Medal, GOLD

1. Dr Bruce Padding­ton

2. Dr Jacque­line Sharpe

3. Langston Roach

4. Sie­u­nar­ine Per­sad Coos­al

Cha­co­nia Medal, SIL­VER

1. Ainsworth Mo­hammed

2. Dr Calvin In­als­ingh

3. Car­los Hee Houng

4. Francine Ed­wards al­so known as Singing Francine–(Posthu­mous­ly)

5. George Lea­cock

6. Dr Rad­i­ca Ma­hase

7. Rishi Lakhan

8. Prof Su­ru­j­paul Teelucks­ingh MOM

The Hum­ming Bird Medal may be award­ed for Loy­al and De­vot­ed Ser­vice/in any field of hu­man en­deav­our/or for gal­lantry/or oth­er hu­mane ac­tion/to the Re­pub­lic of T&T.

Hum­ming Bird Medal, GOLD

1. Aza­mud­din Khan

2. Az­im Bas­sarath

3. Car­ol Ann Birch­wood James

4. Shi­han Mar­va John-Lo­gan

5. Reynold Howard

6. Richard Es­calante

7. Ruk­m­i­nee Ho­lass Beepath

8. Samuel Badree

9. Wayne Bertrand (Posthu­mous­ly)

Hum­ming Bird Medal, SIL­VER

1. Ash­ton Ford

2. Carl Bir­jah

3. Dr Daniel Parks

4. Er­ic Mc Cree

5. Har­vey Bor­ris

6. Imam Im­ti­az Ali (Posthu­mous­ly)

7. Jim Phillip

8. Ken­neth Fer­gu­son

9. Pas­tor Wilma Kel­ly

Hum­ming Bird Medal, BRONZE,

1. Rachel Bhag­wan­deen (Posthu­mous­ly)

The Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it/may be award­ed for Out­stand­ing and Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice to the Re­pub­lic of T&T.

Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it, GOLD

1. An­tho­ny Bartholomew

2. Bev­er­ly Khan

3. Enid A Zephyrine

4. Gwen­dolyn Loo­bie-Snag­gs (Posthu­mous­ly)

5. Leslie Reuben Hoyte

Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it, SIL­VER

1. John Lopez

2. Yas­min Ra­haman-Singh

Past ORTT re­cip­i­ents

1. Dr Roshan Paras­ram, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer–2022; and Prof Ster­ling Frost, banker–2022

2. Dr Wayne Fred­er­ick–sur­geon– 2020

3. Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool, ed­u­ca­tor/ca­lyp­so icon–2019

4. Wen­dell Mot­t­ley, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter–2018

5. Dr Lenny Saith, for­mer min­is­ter–2017; Mc Cartha “Ca­lyp­so Rose” Lewis, ca­lyp­son­ian–2017; and Prof Courte­nay Bartholomew, HIV/Aids re­searcher–2017.