Dr David Layzell has been appointed executive director of the Univ of Calgary's Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and the Economy (ISEEE), effective July 1st. He replaces interim head Dr Warren Veale, who succeeded founding managing director Dr Robert Mandell when he took a sabbatical July 1/07. Layzell comes to ISEEE from Queen's Univ-based BIOCAP Canada, an organization he founded in 1998. BIOCAP was unable to secure follow-on federal funding and is winding up operations on March 31 (R$, October 10/07). He is best known for taking a systems approach to developing biomass as a viable sustainable energy source and will continue at ISEEE by taking a multidisciplinary, multisectoral approach to the Institute's ambitious research plan. Layzell is co-founder, board member and shareholder of Qubit Systems Inc, Kingston ON, a Queen's Univ spin-off that designs instrumentation for research and teaching in the biological sciences. He holds a BSc from the Univ of Waterloo, a Masters in plant science from the Univ of Guelph and a PhD in plant physiology from the Univ of Western Australia….