Gareth Manning, Staff Reporter

Dr Nilza Justiz Smith, the 2008 recipient of the University of Technology's President Research Initiative award. - Contributed

THE OLD rhyme that little girls are made of sugar and spice and all that's nice certainly gave life to the ambitions of this year's President's Research Initiative awardee at the University of Technology (UTech), Dr Nilza Justiz Smith.

The Cuban-born chemical engineer's love for perfumes as a girl helped her find her love for chemistry.

"As a little girl, you started mixing stuff to make something new. I used to make perfumes from plants and I just started doing this type of work at home," Smith tells The Sunday Gleaner with her still very deep Cuban accent.

perfume

She made not only perfume for family and friends but wines as well. But Justiz Smith wanted to make more than the little she did for her family in their home town in Santiago.

"When I transferred to my secondary school, I learnt how I could make it in larger quantities, so that's how the engineering came into play," she says.

There is a glow on her face as she remembers her colourful childhood in Cuba. She spoke lovingly of her parents.

"My mother was always there for me; you could count on her," Smith tells The Sunday Gleaner. "My father as well; he loved to be proud of us."

Both of Smith's parents taught at the university she attended. Her mother was a professor and her father a track and field coach.

graduation

"My mother was there for every stage of my life," recounts Smith. "She was there at my high-school graduation. When I was at univer-sity and presented my last major project, she was there. When I did the finals and had to go to Havana, she was there."

After finishing her PhD in chemical engineering, Smith started out in the petroleum industry in Cuba and lectured part time. But, she really wanted to get into biotechnology.

She moved to Jamaica soon after with "the man of my dreams", and got married in the country where she would begin work in producing biodiesel from agricultural waste.

environmental consultants

Justiz Smith started her career in Jamaica working for environmental consultants, Environmental Solu-tions Limited, before moving on to the University of Technology, where she currently lectures and is head of the Waste Management and Laboratory Services Research Unit.

In her time at the university, Smith has spearheaded a number of successful projects, including the establishment of the university's wastewater treatment plant.

Currently, she is working on a project aimed at generating biodiesel and ethanol from agricul-tural waste, including fat from livestock. She is also working in collaboration with the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica to extract biodiesel from castor beans.

Based on what she has seen so far, Justiz Smith thinks a biodiesel industry could be on the horizon, but its potential needs to be properly assessed.

"I think it should be the way to go, but we don't know the quantity, and this is something we wanted to target at the beginning of the pro-ject - that is, what is the amount of biodegradable waste that Jamaica is producing," says Justiz Smith.

The project will also target coffee for biodiesel generation. Funding is being sought to design three biodiesel converters - one for the UTech's campus and two others that will be located on farms.

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com.