Dr. Michael A. Dixon is the Head of the Horticultural Science Division in the Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph and the Director of the Controlled Environment Systems research program.  Dr. Dixon joined the University in 1985 as an NSERC fellow after earning his PhD from Edinburgh University in Scotland, and has been pursuing his dream of growing roses on the moon.  

 

Through his leadership a multidisciplinary team of scientists were successful in securing a Canada Foundation for Innovation grant with matching support from the Ontario Innovation Trust to build the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility (CES) at the University of Guelph. The facility provides a complete research venue suitable for measurement of plant growth, gas exchange, volatile organic compound (VOC) evolution, and nutrient remediation in a precisely controlled environment. The CES facility is comprised of 24 sealed environment chambers including nine variable-pressure plant-growth hypobaric chambers capable of sustaining a vacuum.  The facility will be the most sophisticated and largest research venue specifically dedicated to studying plant and microbial interactions in advanced life support systems in the world.

Off campus he is a member of the Space Exploration Advisory Committee of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), director of the Controlled Environment Systems Theme within the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology (CRESTech), and is a member of the International Advanced Life Support Working Group (IALSWG) which is a strategic planning group offering information and personnel exchange between international space agencies such as NASA, CSA, ESA and NASDA (Japan).

As project leader for the Canadian research team Dr. Dixon has made significant contributions to the Space and Advanced Life Support Agriculture (SALSA) initiative of the international space program, an area of paramount importance to the viability of long term space missions.

Dr. Dixon is also the project leader for the research team at Guelph investigating the biofiltration of indoor air as a method of alleviating what is commonly known as “sick building syndrome”. His earlier research in plant stress lead to an unpatented technique for measuring plant water stress called the “Stem Psychrometer”.

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