Evan Henry: A Journey of Passion and Impact
Evan Henry (BSc(AgEnvSc)'15, MSc (Bioresource Engineering)'16) has recently taken on the role of Associate Director at the McGill Sustainable Systems Initiative (MSSI), marking a significant milestone in his career journey. Having traversed from McGill's Macdonald Campus as an undergraduate to co-founding a successful beekeeping technology company, Nectar Technologies, and now returning to McGill, Evan's trajectory epitomizes a blend of academic excellence, entrepreneurial spirit, and dedication to sustainability. Through Evan's story, we glean valuable lessons on pursuing one's passions, navigating career transitions, and making meaningful contributions to sustainability and agriculture.
What drew you to McGill’s Macdonald Campus as an undergrad?
This might not be how the editor wants me to start this interview, but I didn’t know Macdonald Campus was separate from the downtown campus when I accepted my offer. I was drawn to McGill for its academic reputation, and I knew I wanted to study environmental sciences and food systems. Growing up around the lobster industry in coastal Maine exposed me to the environmental, social, cultural, and
political dimensions of food production. The multidimensionality, especially the people and communities that produce the foods we eat, fascinated me and led me to search for university programs that addressed these topics. Lastly, I was drawn to Montréal. Coming from coastal Maine, I sought new cultural experiences. Montréal checked a lot of boxes while being a 5-hour drive away. So, despite 17-year-old Evan accepting an offer to a campus he didn’t know existed, I am very grateful how things turned out.
How has your experience as a student at McGill's Macdonald Campus shaped your career path and contributed to your success?
I owe everything to Mac campus. My career is a product of Mac campus: its professors, students, and culture. Being part of a student body with so many different perspectives on food related topics, from engineering to nutrition—I found it energizing and it motivated me to learn more with my peers. I learned about beekeeping, became the Student President of the McGill Apicultural Association, and received a Sustainability Projects Fund grant to create a summer beekeeping internship program to train student beekeepers. This led me to a side project installing sensors in beehives, which evolved into a Master’s degree project in the Bioresource Engineering department with Professor Viacheslav Adamchuk. I went on to co-found Nectar Technologies, a beekeeping technology company based in Montreal, which now monitors over 200,000 hives across North America.
As a co-founder and chief scientist at Nectar, you were deeply involved in various aspects of the company, from data science and research and development (R&D) to the actual beekeeping. What motivated your decision to step away from Nectar, and what were some of the key learnings from your time there?
There have been so many learnings it's hard to choose. One constant throughout my time with Nectar was the importance of staying true to your passions and motivations. With all the stresses, curveballs, and unknowns in starting a company, I found it paramount to remind myself why I was doing it all in the first place. For me, the motivation came from wanting to help farmers, and rural livelihoods in general. If we could make farmers’ lives easier, even slightly so, I would feel fulfilled. This desire to contribute to the people who are the backbone of our food system, paired with a hunch about the benefits of beehive data, kept me grounded in being dedicated to building the company. Equally important to your motivation is your team. I’m beyond grateful to have met Marc-Andre Roberge, my co-founder and Nectar’s CEO, and proud of what we built together.
Seven years later, I decided to leave the company when Nectar found its footing in the market. Rounding this corner is an important milestone for startups. At Nectar, it involved transitioning our energy more toward customer service and growth and less toward R&D. With this shift, I realized my motivations laid in the earlier stages of the company, which were more connected to my research at Mac on figuring out how beehive data can help beekeepers. After many discussions with Marc-Andre, we were confident about the company’s future and the team we put in place, which was the only condition where I would have left. Ultimately, after a decade of dedicating my life to beehive data, I felt ready to turn the page and look for my next professional endeavor.
Can you describe the McGill Sustainable Systems Initiative (MSSI) for our alumni audience and give a general feel of the impact of the MSSI on sustainability science research and the research community at McGill?
The MSSI's mandate is to mobilize and coordinate McGill’s world-class researchers and provide financial and logistical support for the development of multi/inter/transdisciplinary research teams which can take a systems-level approach to some of sustainability’s most challenging problems.
As we all know, sustainability issues are complex and have environmental, social, political, and economic dimensions. The MSSI was created out of the realization that the departmental and monodisciplinary organizational structures of McGill might not capture 100% of our university's potential to create knowledge on sustainability. The MSSI was founded in 2016 by a bold commitment from Principal Suzanne Fortier with the mission to serve as the University’s convenor, catalyst, connector, and overall leader of sustainability research efforts.
The results of the paradigm shift that is the MSSI have been amazing. There are now more than 250 faculty members coming from 41 departments and 9 faculties who self-identify as being engaged in sustainability research. Collectively they have secured more than $90M in external research funds and have trained over 250 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows working on sustainability-related subjects in the past 5 years. This has resulted in strong research output across the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with over 4,900 SDG-related publications in 2022 alone. The MSSI has proven to be a real difference-maker, having provided $8.5M/year over 5 years toward the direct costs of research in a set of grants that are unlike any in the research funding world. In the words of an MSSI-funded researcher, this funding “is like rocket fuel for research.”
What aspects of the MSSI piqued your interest and ultimately led you to return to McGill? How do you see this new role aligning with your passions and expertise in sustainability and data science?
I was looking for a new opportunity within sustainability, food systems specifically, but from a different angle than startups. I also was looking for a role that brought me closer to R&D, which was one of the aspects of Nectar that energized me and brought me the most excitement. Besides a few internships, Nectar was my only real professional experience, so the prospect of learning from a different organizational culture excited me. I applied to roles in larger companies, government, and civil society literally all over the world.
This role at the MSSI checked a lot of boxes for me, and the fact that it was at McGill was an added bonus.
Reflecting on your journey from studying at McGill to co-founding Nectar and now transitioning back to McGill, what advice would you give to fellow graduates about pursuing their dreams and navigating career changes or shifts?
Listen to your gut, ask for help, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes.
If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs or researchers in the field of sustainability and agriculture, what would it be?
Spend time with farmers or in the communities where you want to have an impact. Otherwise, you might spend time working on something that isn't needed or desired by the community you want to contribute to! At Nectar, some of our most key learnings came from talking to beekeepers north of Lac St. Jean during blueberry pollination and the central valley in California.