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The Brace Water Centre was founded through the generosity of a bequestÌýto º£½ÇÉçÇø made by Major James Henry Brace following his death in 1956. ÌýMajor Brace was an American WWI veteran born in 1870. ÌýHe earned a bachelor of civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1892 and worked on the East River Tunnels under New York’s Pennsylvania Station in the early 20th century. ÌýIt is there that he may have met º£½ÇÉçÇø alumnus Charles Fraser, BSc 1899, and together they founded Fraser-Brace Engineering Co. Ltd. The company’s projects included the Gouin dam in La Tuque – Quebec’s biggest ever construction project when it was completed in 1916 – and the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River, Ontario, part of the infamous Manhattan Project.Ìý

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The Brace Bequest supportsÌýthe Brace Water Centre’s activitiesÌýwhile also supporting three endowed Brace Professorships in the field of water research. ÌýThe technical activities of the endowment and the overall responsibility of the Centre are vested in the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.

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Since its founding in 1959, the Centre (originally known as The Brace Research Institute) has supportedÌýmanyÌýº£½ÇÉçÇø researchers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in various research areas, including water treatment (desalination) and water management (water supply), energy conservation and renewable energy systems (wind, solar) for water management.ÌýThe Centre's Experimental Research Station was established at º£½ÇÉçÇø’s Bellairs Research Institute in Barbados in 1961 and later moved to the Macdonald Campus. In 1999ÌýwasÌýrenamed the Brace Centre for Water Resources Management,Ìýwith a non-thesis MSc programme in Integrated Water Resource Management successfully launched in 2009. ÌýIn 2022, the Centre was again renamed to the Brace Water Centre to better include all areas of specialization within the water field at º£½ÇÉçÇø.

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