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• Western Engineering Recognizes Eric Will Doerr with 2026 Young Alumni Award

Western Engineering Recognizes Eric Will Doerr with 2026 Young Alumni Award

Western Engineering’s Young Alumni Award recognizes graduates who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in their professional careers, made meaningful contributions to their communities, and maintained a strong commitment to the Faculty in the years since graduation. The 2026 recipient is Eric Will Doerr, P.Eng., BESc’14, MESc’16, a biochemical engineer and bioprocessing educator whose career at the forefront of global vaccine manufacturing is matched by an equally active commitment to inclusion, education and community leadership.

Doerr currently serves as Head of Pilot-Scale Manufacturing Sciences, Analytics & Technology (MSAT) Labs for Canada at Sanofi, a global healthcare and biomanufacturing organization. It is the latest in a rapid sequence of six progressively senior roles he has held internally at Sanofi since 2018, a trajectory that reflects both his deep technical expertise and his ability to lead cross-functional teams in one of the world’s most complex and consequential industries.

“At face value, being a recipient of this award and joining the growing cohort that it represents is not only an immense honour but also a meaningful inflection point in how we define the modern successful engineer,” Doerr said. “Our systems, both technical and social, have grown in their integration and connectivity across our personal and professional lives and I really think that my ability to activate the concentric circles in which I belong and, in fact, cause them to collide in ways they wouldn’t otherwise have, has been the major deciding factor in this nomination.”

“On a deeper and personally bittersweet note, the person who nominated me for this award – Lesley Mounteer – did so before passing away at the start of this year. My connection with Lesley, like so many who had the pleasure of working with her whether as a student, a faculty member or a collaborator, sparked guiding principles I cherish each and every day: to bring together those who otherwise wouldn’t come together, to be a true leader who champions the collective rather than the self and to always pursue what is right versus what is popular. This award is just as much for her excellence in developing generations of Western Engineering graduates as it is for my own personal merit, and I could not be more thankful for that.”

From the small-scale lab to global manufacturing

Doerr graduated from Western Engineering in 2014 with a BESc in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, earning the E.V. Buchanan Graduate Prize and a place on the Dean’s Honour List. This achievement was followed by an MESc in Biomaterials and Biochemical Engineering in 2016, for which he received the BioFuelNet HQP Prize. During his graduate studies, he conducted research collaborations with RWTH Aachen in Germany and contributed to course development and delivery with ENSIC Nancy in France, an early sign of the international outlook that has defined his career since.

He began his professional career at Therapure Biopharma (now Resilience Therapeutics) as a Research Scientist and Engineer-in-Training working on biologics for GMP-grade clinical trials, then moved into process validation consulting before joining Sanofi internally in 2020. There, he progressed steadily through specialist, senior specialist, and senior project lead roles, taking on increasing responsibility for the engineering and validation of bulk vaccine drug substances, including but not limited to Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis processes, before being appointed to his current role as the Canadian Head of Pilot-Scale MSAT Labs in June 2026. In that role he leads a blended team of process scientists/engineers, study leads, and unionized lab staff, applying small-scale representative manufacturing processes to drive continuous improvement at full production scale.

His work spans the full biopharmaceutical lifecycle: from initial product development and clinical trial manufacturing through to the routine production of on-market vaccines supplied to patient populations worldwide. In 2024 and with successive deliveries since, he presented at conferences such as BioProcess International (BPI) West and the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering’s Education and Product Symposium (ISPE EPS) for Canada, providing real-world case studies on improvements to vaccine manufacturing processes, bringing insights from that work to the broader industry.

“The best part about working in the world of biotherapeutics, and really within the bioprocessing industry as a whole, is the ability to fully utilize the microscopic at a macro-scale in the endless pursuit of making the world a safer and healthier place to exist,” he shared. At Sanofi, our global network embodies that tireless chase towards the miracles of science to improve people’s lives all across the globe, and this kind of chase for science doesn’t only happen within the manufacturing environment or within the laboratory space.”

He added: “Biochemical engineering encompasses multifaceted technical expertise: metabolic systems, unit operations connected in purpose, supportive functions from mechanical and automation platforms operating seamlessly, and a connection to the societal benefit of improving public health independent of patient or geography. It is in this sense and capacity that true growth beyond what has traditionally defined the engineer of the past is what I am most happy to explore right now, connecting patients, people, places and purposes under one mission to not only provide lifesaving medicines but to improve the human condition, one day at a time.”

Leading on inclusion

Alongside his technical leadership, Doerr has become one of the most active voices for inclusion and belonging not only at Sanofi but within the broader engineering, academic, and healthcare communities at large. He serves as Co-Lead, now at both the Canada local and Global levels, of Sanofi’s Global Pride+ Employee Business Resource Group, an international network spanning over 19 local groups across 60+ countries that serves more than 74,000 employees, through which he develops programs, advocacy, and events that promote 2SLGBTQIA+ leaders within and in partnership with the bioprocessing industry. He also sits on Sanofi’s Canada Inclusion Council, where he helps implement initiatives designed to foster belonging across all levels of the organization.

Beyond Sanofi, Doerr serves on the Board of Directors at Casey House, Canada’s only stand-alone hospital and foundation for people living with or at risk of contracting HIV, where he contributes to maintaining quality standards, promoting mission-critical advocacy/awareness, and supporting fundraising as part of their operational model. He previously served on the Board for the AIDS Committee of Toronto prior to its dissolution and is a regular scientific keynote speaker and advocate at events hosted by CANFAR or ACDR’s HYPE Summit, where he addresses the intersection of healthcare, bioprocessing, and community.

Bridging Industry and Academia

Doerr’s commitment to the next generation of engineers is extensive and hands-on. He serves as a frequent guest lecturer across five universities in Ontario — Western, Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), the University of Toronto, York University and McMaster — bringing an industry perspective on bioprocessing to engineering students across Ontario. He is set to serve as the course lecturer for a newly developed course on bioprocessing design, flow, and optimization at TMU, where he also serves on its Industry Council for the Faculty of Chemical Engineering. He has participated in Western Engineering’s Career Insights program, Homecoming Open House, contributed to Capstone projects both at Western and TMU, and in 2024 was a guest speaker at the first Queering Engineering Conference hosted by the Western EngiQueers.

His connection to Western runs deep. Doerr has made significant financial donations to Western Engineering, split equally between the Western Engineering Student Leadership Fund and the Lesley Mounteer Award. He now also sits on the Board of Directors of the Western University Alumni Association, where he works on outreach and long-term engagement with the growing alumni network. During his student years, he served as the Head Soph for Engineering, was the Iron Ring Class Representative, edited award-winning technical documents and executed theme-based programming with the Western Engineering Toboggan Team (WETT), and returned after graduation as a Graduate Judge for both the Western Engineering Competition and TMU’s Metropolitan Engineering Competition.

Western Engineering congratulates Eric Will Doerr on receiving the 2026 Young Alumni Award and thanks him for his outstanding contributions to biochemical engineering, to the global health of patients who benefit from the biologics he helps bring to market, and to the communities at Western, in the classroom, and beyond, that he continues to serve.