Michael Novak
Associate Professor Emeritus, Applied Biology
604–822–2875
MacMillan 131, 2357 Main Mall
After more than thirty years with our Faculty, Associate Professor Mike Novak retired in June 2013.
Novak has an undergraduate degree in Honours Mechanical Engineering from McGill and an MSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Western Ontario. He completed his PhD at UBC under the supervision of Professor Andy Black in 1976, and was hired by the university in 1981 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Soil Science. In 1990, he was promoted to Associate Professor.
His scientific research has concentrated on understanding the energy and mass-flow interactions between the soil and the lower atmosphere, and the ways that these are affected by surface modifications.
Novak has published papers in Global Change Biology, Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Atmospheric Ocean and Soil Science of America and presented at conferences in the US and across Canada.
In addition to his contributions to LFS and the Soil/Biometeorology group, he was an active contributor to the Atmospheric Science Program at UBC and the Institute of Applied Mathematics, where he focused on transport through mulches, energy and soil moisture balances, soil physics and quasi analytical flow theory.
J. Honeybourn, 2013