The CDA Scholarships

The Canadian Dam Association (CDA) offers annually two scholarships to full-time post-graduate students attending a Canadian university or college whose program of study focuses on dam safety and/or the management of dams.

The CDA Gary Salmon Memorial Scholarship, valued at $6,000 was established in 2009 in honour of the late Gary Salmon, P.Eng and is awarded to the selected applicant registered as a full-time student in a Ph.D program at a Canadian university.
The CDA Student Award of Merit Scholarship, valued at $3,000, was established in 2012. Today, it is awarded to the selected applicant registered as a full-time student in a Master degree (M.Eng, M.Sc, M.A.Sc) at a Canadian university, in either project or thesis option.

The scholarships are awarded primarily on the basis of academic excellence and the relevance of the research project to the stated objective, as well as leadership and community involvement. Further information and the application information is available below for download.

Gary Salmon Memorial Scholarship

Student Award of Merit Scholarship

Meet, Dana Amini, 2024 recipient

Dana Amini, University of Manitoba

Ph.D. thesis title: "Performance Analysis of Northern Infrastructure Affected by Climate Change”

Mr. Dana Amini is a Ph.D. candidate with a focus on Geotechnical Engineering in the Department of ‎Civil Engineering at the University of Manitoba (UofM). His research is about the development of an advanced numerical tool for the design and performance analysis of northern infrastructure affected by climate change.

Meet, Camille Morin, 2024 recipient

Camille Morin, Polytechnique Montréal

M.Sc. thesis title: “Development of an automated calibration procedure for any hydro-sedimentary model using SRH-1D software.”

Ms. Camille Morin is a masters student in civil engineering at Polytechnique Montreal. Her research focuses on automatic calibration and uncertainty analysis of hydraulic and sediment transport models. One of the applications of her research in embankment dam safety studies is the layout of probabilistic inundation maps that incapsulate the uncertainty associated with the breaching process and the hydro-sedimentary model. She is also involved in various committees that promote engineering among children and teenagers to increase female interest for this profession.

The previous recipients are:

2009 - Tarek Hamade, McGill University
2009 - Kaley Crawford-Flett, University of British Columbia
2010 - Bryan Tatone, University of Toronto
2011 - Maryam Kalantarnia, McGill University
2012 - Jennifer Nafziger, University of Alberta
2013 - Carl Bernier, Université de Sherbrooke
2014 - Marie-Eve Jean, University of Alberta
2015 - Vincent Castonguay, Université Laval
2016 - Elena Zabolotnii, University of Alberta
2017 - Neeltje Slingerland, University of Alberta
2018 - Haley Schafer, University of Alberta
2019 - Lamine Boumaiza, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi
2020 - Mayari Bernard-Garcia, École Polytechnique de Montréal (CDA Bulletin - Fall 2020)
2021 - Vinoth Ganapathiraman, University of British Columbia (CDA Bulletin - Fall 2021)
2022 - Nahyan Rana, University of Waterloo
2023 - Colin Dreger, University of Alberta

The previous recipients are:

2013 - Ryan Rasmussen, University of British Columbia
2014 - Marta Lopez-Egea, University of Ottawa
2015 - Kevin Sagan, University of Manitoba
2016 - Sylvain Renaud, École Polytechnique de Montréal
2017 - Brittany Dixon, University of New Brunswick
2018 - Fatoumata Maiga, University of Ottawa
2019 - Nicole Winstanley, University of Alberta
2020 - Elijah Edie, University of Manitoba (CDA Bulletin - Fall 2020) - Laura Luna, Dalhousie University - Ali Fallah Yeznabad, Western University
2021 - this scholarship was not awarded
2022 - Micah May, University of Victoria
2023 - Maxime Blanchette, Université Laval

CDA Scholarship Application

Who was Gary Salmon, P.Eng?

The “CDA Gary Salmon Memorial Scholarship” is dedicated to the memory of Gary Salmon, P. Eng. who passed away on October 17, 2007.

Gary devoted his professional life to promoting and improving the practice of dam safety. Amongst his many professional achievements Gary was one of the founders of the Canadian Dam Safety Association (now the Canadian Dam Association - CDA), and served as President of the association from 1993 to 1995. He was one of the principal authors of the Canadian Dam Safety Guidelines, and represented Canada on the Dam Safety Committee of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). Gary pioneered risk-based management of dams. He first presented risk criteria as a tool for dam safety evaluation in 1993 at the ICOLD dam safety workshop in Grindlewald, Switzerland. Much of the progression of the risk-based evaluation of dam safety from a concept to usable tool for decision making is attributed to Gary. His legacy in this field will endure for decades to come.

In 1965, after working eight years in California, Gary joined B.C. Hydro. During his 32-year tenure with B.C. Hydro he held several positions with progressively increasing responsibilities. He was in charge of the structural design of the Revelstoke Project, Manager of the Development Department, and a member of the Canadian Joint Venture studying the feasibility of the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River in China as Manager of Design. Nine years before his retirement he held the position of Chief Engineer and Director of Dam Safety, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of the dam safety program that established B.C. Hydro as one of the world’s leading centers for dam safety.

After his retirement from B.C. Hydro in 1998 he worked as an international consultant and as Technology Coordinator for the CEATI Dam Safety Interest Group (DSIG), a user-driven research group. Under his leadership the group grew from six national organizations to twenty-four organizations from around the globe. Guided by Gary’s vision, practical approach and willingness to consider new ideas, the DSIG pursued a number of practical R&D projects that yielded significant contributions to dam safety process, evaluation, and techniques, including the publication of Risk and Uncertainty in Dam Safety, a handbook for practical decision making based on risk assessment.

Gary was the recipient of the CDSA "Inge Anderson Award" for his contribution to the advancement of Dam Safety, the "Meritorious Achievement Award" from the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia, and was made a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada.

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