Professor Omelon is a chemical engineer/scientist originally trained at McGill University in Montreal. With a B.Eng. (chemical) and an M.Eng. (mining and metallurgical) from McGill, she worked for a few years as a process engineer in the field of “hydrometallurgy”, which focuses on crystallizing valuable materials from solution. Crystallization engineering can also be applied to removing unwanted components from solution as solids, which she used to re-design a waste-water treatment process for a zinc refinery. Professor Omelon was introduced to biominéralisation during her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and materials science with Marc Grynpas at the University of Toronto. As a post-doctoral fellow at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, she pursued the chemistry responsible for how the skeleton produces carbonated apatite. She is interested in how polyphosphate chemistry and crystallization theory can explain the mineralization of apatite in bone and calcifying cartilage. Before joining the University of Ottawa, she spent two years at Calera Corporation in California, developing processes to sequester carbon dioxide into useful building materials through carbonate mineralization. Her current research interests are focused on the role of polyphosphates in skeletal mineralization.

Crystallization engineering Biomineralization