What programme (s) I did:
B.Sc. in Biology, Queens University, Ontario
B.Sc. in Microbiology, University of Guelph, Ontario
M.Sc. in Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University, Quebec
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering and Microbiology, McGill University, Quebec
Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowship (NSERC) with Lallemande Inc, Centre for
Food Research and Development, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec

Salary: $64 143

What are other routes to this position?
Any graduate level work (at least a Master's) in applied sciences (biology, microbiology, biochemistry, chemistry, environmental sciences, pulp and paper sciences or engineering).

Skills and qualities you need for this job:
- must have good research skills
- need background in applied science
- must be able to listen to people
- must be able to set and meet deadlines

David Cameron makes his living from yeast. He doesn't bake bread or brew beer. He helps a company called Tembec Inc. use yeast to create alcohol from wood. It's not magic, just good science. And that makes David happy. "I've always been interested in biology on a practical level," he says. "I wanted to produce things."

What I do

David works at a mill which produces wood pulp. The pulp is used to make paper products such as tissues and paper towels. At the mill, thousands of wood chips are dissolved by heating them with chemicals like sulphur dioxide and ammonia. The pulp is removed, leaving a waste water filled with various materials including sugars. Then the water is fermented with yeast to produce ethanol, commonly known as alcohol.

David's job is to make sure the yeast produces the greatest possible amount of alcohol. To do that, he runs experiments in his laboratory to see if different kinds of yeast will produce more fermentation and thus more alcohol. David is also doing an experiment to see if the waste water, once fermented, can produce fertiliser for farm and garden use.

Just steps away from David's laboratory is a small-scale, fully functional pulp mill called the pentose pilot plant, run entirely by computers. In this miniature alcohol plant, David can actually ferment a sample of waste water with a yeast strain and, in a hands-on way, see how much alcohol is produced.

As the mill's only microbiologist, David is often asked questions about biological materials that build up in the mill's equipment. He'll take samples, study them in the lab, do some library research and try to find a solution to both the immediate problem (getting rid of the stuff) and long-term problem (avoiding the build-up).