Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Archives | Research & Innovation

Eight from 91��ɫ to receive diamond jubilee medals

fmaquito — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Eight members of the 91��ɫ community are among the early recipients of a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in honour of their achievements and significant contributions to Canada.

The medals are in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne as queen of Canada and some 60,000 Canadians are expected to be recognized throughout 2012.

Distinguished Research Professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada James Carley of 91��ɫ’s Department of English, a specialist in book history, was nominated for his outstanding contributions to scholarship in Canada and internationally by Senator Nicole Eaton, who is also the chair of the board of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto.

Ronald Pearlman

University Professor Emeritus Ronald Pearlman and Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus Kenneth Davey both of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Science & Engineering were nominated by the Royal Canadian Institute (RCI) for the Advancement of Science for their outstanding contributions to the institute, as well as their support of a science culture and of science literacy in Canada. In addition, Professor Peter Victor of the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) was nominated for his support of the institute’s science outreach activities.

Four members of 91��ɫ’s Learning Technology Services in University Information Technology will also be honoured. They were nominated by the RCI for their work webcasting the institute’s lectures so they could be viewed around the world, increasing the public's awareness and understanding of science. They are Bob McKenzie, assistant manager of media services, Robert Denault (BA Hons. ’05), a digital media support specialist who has worked at the University since 2003, David Gibson, digital media support specialist, and Kelly Parke, program organizer.

Robert Denault

Pearlman, first-vice-president of the RCI and incoming president, is the director of the Core Molecular Biology/DNA Sequencing Facility and former associate dean and dean of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Graduate Studies. He is also associate scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation and co-ordinates the student outreach program for Gairdner. His research interests include molecular biology and biochemistry, cell biology and genetics utilizing the new genomic and proteomic technologies.

Kenneth Davey

Davey, vice-chair of the Board of Canadian Science Publishing, is co-author of the first-year university textbook, Biology: Exploring the Diversity of Life (2009), and is the former co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Zoology. On the administrative side, Davey once held the positions of chair of 91��ɫ’s Department of Biology, dean of the Faculty of Pure and Applied Science and vice-president, academic. He previously won the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, as well as the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal. He is also an officer of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a past president of the RCI. His research explores the control of development and physiology in various invertebrates, principally insects and nematodes.

Peter Victor

Victor, past president of the RCI and the founding president of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics, is an economist who has worked on environmental issues for 40 years as an academic, public servant and consultant. He is chair of the Greenbelt Council of Ontario, as well as a member of the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation. From 1996 to 2001, Victor was dean of FES, and before that an assistant deputy minister at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

James Carley

Carley is an associate fellow of the and an honorary research fellow of Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford. His latest publication is an edition and translation of the De uiris illustribus by the Tudor antiquary John Leland. Carley’s previous works include King Henry VIII’s Prayer Book: Facsimile and Commentary (2009), (2004) and (2000).

Kelly Parke

Parke, an adjunct faculty member in the Schulich School of Business in the MBA program, has worked in the media industry for more than 30 years. As a technical producer and videographer he has worked with most of the major television networks in North America and with the BBC. In the entertainment sector he has worked on projects with the Rolling Stones, Brad Pitt and Hugh Grant and many other celebrities. In the sports world, he continues to be a videographer for many major league sports, as well as the Olympics.

Bob McKenzie

McKenzie has taught media production, delivered media storytelling seminars and served as producer/director for several broadcast, promotional and informational videos across North America for more than 35 years. As director of media for Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, he was instrumental in transitioning their distance and hybrid learning systems from satellite to live and on-demand video streaming utilizing a "flipped" classroom model of blended learning. For the last three decades, he has been a media producer/manager with 91��ɫ’s Instructional Technology & Learning Technology Services, working with faculty, students and staff to share their stories and ideas utilizing various media designs and techniques.

David Gibson

Gibson has travelled the world, 15 countries and counting, lived on three different continents and worked on two of them. In addition to working at 91��ɫ, Gibson is the co-founder and producer of Riverlife Productions, where he produces music videos and short films, one of which was funded by Bravo! and played on MuchMusic.

The medal winners nominated by the RCI will be honoured at the RCI’s Gala dinner Thursday, April 26.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professors John Saul and Paul Lovejoy to receive lifetime achievement awards from CAAS

fmaquito — Thu, 05 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

For two 91��ɫ professors, receiving an award for Lifetime Achievement in African Studies from the (CAAS) represents a major acknowledgement of decades of work in African liberation, research and teaching.

91��ɫ Professor Emeritus John S. Saul and 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor in African history and Canada Research Chair Paul Lovejoy will be presented with the awards during the opening reception of the conference of the Canadian Association of African Studies – Africa Here; Africa There – at 91��ɫ May 5 to 7.

As 91��ɫ history Professor José C. Curto, co-organizer of the conference along with sociology Professor Ratiba Hadj-Moussa, says, “They’ve spent a lifetime fighting, in one way or another, for Africa. You can’t get any better than them.”

Right: John S. Saul

President of the CAAS Dennis Cordell wrote that Saul’s research achievements, along with his “deep and long-standing commitment to the struggle for equity, equality and human rights in Africa” are legion. He also pointed to Lovejoy’s “wonderful abilities to teach and mentor” students and younger colleagues.

Left: Paul Lovejoy

Lovejoy says the award is significant to him “because of the recognition of my contribution to understanding the history of people of African descent especially so since this is the UN International Year for People of African Descent and my personal commitment to exposing the crime of the ‘slave route’ and seeking reconciliation that can only be based on truth about the past.”

In addition to receiving lifetime achievement awards, both Saul and Lovejoy will launch books in conjunction with the conference Saturday, May 7, at Accents on Eglinton Bookstore, 1790 Eglinton Ave. W., Toronto. Saul’s Liberation Lite: The Roots of Recolonization in Southern Africa (Three Essay Collective) will launch beginning at 6:30pm, followed by The Harriet Tubman Institute Series of which Lovejoy is the general series editor at 7pm. There are 10 books in the Tubman series, including Slavery, Islam and Diaspora; Africa, Brazil and the Construction of Trans Atlantic Black Identities; and Africa and the Americas: Interconnections During the Slave Trade.

Liberation Lite is comprised of five essays. “The theme I’m emphasizing is that of liberation as a multiplex concept,” says Saul. His definition of liberation would include race, nation, class and gender, but also a democratically empowered voice. "Others in Africa and elsewhere have come to define liberation only in terms of the narrow construct of national independence."

Saul says liberation has to be multidimensional to be a useful concept. “We expected the liberation struggle would yield more than that,” more than simply national liberation, but also class, race and gender freedom. It is not simply an emphasis that "we white lefties had dreamt up and taken over to Africa. We learned it there. We learned it there from Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane, FRELIMO's first president, for example.” As it stands, “liberation has been pretty light and those who are concerned have to figure out how to deepen and enrich it,” he says. He also takes a critical stance towards global capitalism and corporate imperialism, and what he calls the "re-colonizing" of Africa by a new "empire of capital". In consequence, the concluding essay looks at why socialism still has significant resonance and merit in southern Africa and beyond.

Saul has published some 19 books, including Revolutionary Traveller: Freeze Frames from a Life (Arbeiter Ring, 2009) (see YFile, Jan. 13, 2010), Development after Globalization: Theory and Practice for the Embattled South in a New Imperial Age (Fernwood Publishing, 2006) and Decolonization and Empire: Contesting the Rhetoric and Reality of Resubordination in Southern Africa and Beyond (Fernwood Publishing, 2008).

He is hard at work on three more books. He says the lifetime achievement award may well be an acknowledgement of his body of work, but he is also accepting it “on behalf of all those who have worked diligently in support of South African-related struggles over the years, as well as against Canada's own complicity – that is, our government and corporations too often being on the wrong side of such struggles there.” In 2004, Saul was elected fellow of the .

Last year, Lovejoy received the Distinguished Africanist Research Excellence Award from the University of Texas at Austin for his dedication, lifetime of service and contributions to the discipline. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, and has dedicated his career to researching and teaching African history.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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President's video highlights best of 2010, including Sherman Centre opening

fmaquito — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

A new video from 91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri offers a welcome back message to students returning for the winter term. Building on the success of his fall welcome message, the president offers a recap of the major milestones and news events of the past term.

In the high-definition video filmed in the Learning Commons at the Scott Library, available on the Office of the President website and , Shoukri congratulates some 2,000 students who graduated during Fall Convocation ceremonies. He also commends the Sherman Health Science Research Centre's opening and the induction of four 91��ɫ professors into the Royal Society of Canada, among other student and campus achievements.

You can watch all official videos on the .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Is Eating People Wrong? Professor Allan Hutchinson's tasty new book

fmaquito — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Is snacking on morsels of human flesh wrong? Apparently it is, if it involves murdering the person first – even if you’re stranded at sea without food or water. According to common law, necessity is no defence to murder.

Such a 19th-century case of murder and cannibalism is highlighted in Osgoode Hall Law School Professor 's new book, . Hutchinson, a Distinguished Research Professor, takes a look at eight cases in his book and how they have strongly influenced common law.

“These are interesting stories largely about interesting people who end up in extraordinary circumstances,” says Hutchinson. He chose these stories to illustrate that the law is a lot less structured and technical than most people realize. It is not just arcane rituals and rules. “It’s a gritty, sometimes grubby process of trying to develop law on the fly. When you scrub everything away, the law looks at dilemmas that change us as a society.”

One of the more famous dilemmas Hutchinson explores is well known by law students around the world – the 1884 case of R vs. Dudley and Stephens involving the murder and consumption of cabin boy Richard Parker following the wreck of the Mignonette, which sailed out of England and headed to Australia.

Captain Tom Dudley, Edwin Stephens and Parker abandoned the yacht for the lifeboat with nothing more than two tins of turnips and no water. About three weeks later, with Parker in a coma, Dudley and Stephens decided to kill and eat him to survive. Once rescued and back in England, the pair stood trial for murder and were sentenced to death – the judges having decided that there was no common law defence of necessity to a charge of murder, legally, ethically or morally. In the end, the men only had to serve six months in prison.

Left: Allan Hutchinson

That ruling, says Hutchinson, continues to have repercussions in common law today. "But the most startling coincidence is one of those rare occasions where life follows art," says Hutchinson. In 1837, almost 50 years before the Mignonette set sail, Edgar Allan Poe published his only novella: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. "The story tells of a young man who is shipwrecked along with two others. They survive for several days on the ship’s floating hull, but soon realize that they can only survive if one of them sacrifices himself for the benefit of the other two. After drawing lots, the cabin boy loses out and is killed and eaten. In an uncanny omen of things to come, the cabin boy’s name was none other than... Richard Parker,” writes Hutchinson.

Another case he examines is that of a woman in Scotland who, after buying a soda and drinking half of it, pours out the rest to discover a snail at the bottom. The woman falls ill and her case is taken up by a lawyer who makes it “his life mission to bring this case to the top,” says Hutchinson.

“It seriously influenced common law. It is probably the most well-known case in Canadian and British law as it gave rise to a whole set of legal doctrines and rules that make up tort law.” That one case has affected the law around medical malpractice, legal liability, whether someone in danger should be rescued and the responsibilities of manufacturers to ensure their products are safe.

The only Canadian case in Is Eating People Wrong? – Roncarelli vs. Duplessis – involved the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Quebec by then-Premier Maurice Duplessis. Canadian Frank Scott, a poet, McGill University professor and constitutional expert, defended Frank Roncarelli, a Jehovah's Witness, in legal action against Duplessis after he revoked the liquor license for Roncarelli’s restaurant. It was revoked after Roncarelli had bailed out hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses who had been arrested for selling their magazine. The Supreme Court ruled that Duplessis had overstepped his authority and that no public official was above the law.

These are all cases that tested the legal system and society, and continue to impact decisions today. But they started with people who were thrust into circumstances that needed the courts to sort out. They are interesting, quirky and not easily resolved, but they are relied upon as common law.

Hutchinson was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2004, and in 2007 he received a University-Wide Teaching Award and was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. A legal theorist, he is interested in law and politics, legal theory, the legal profession, constitutional law, torts, jurisprudence, civil procedure and racism.

He has published in most of the common law world's leading law journals. Much of his work has been devoted to examining the failure of law to live up to its democratic promise. His most recent books include Evolution and the Common Law (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and The Companies We Keep: Corporate Governance for a Democratic Society (Irwin Law, 2005).

His next book will examine some of the great judges and their influences.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Ellen Bialystok accepts $100,000 Killam Prize

fmaquito — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ Professor Ellen Bialystok accepted the $100,000 Killam Prize for outstanding career achievement at a formal ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa December 14, 2010.

Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. The award was announced in April by the Canada Council for the Arts, which administers the .

One of the most important research prizes in the world, the Killam Prize is awarded annually to five eminent Canadian scholars for their distinction in health sciences, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Bialystok is being recognized for her work in the social sciences category.

Right: Ellen Bialystok

The first in her field to research claims of cognitive deficits in bilingual children, Bialystok discovered that bilingual children and adults have distinct advantages over unilingual people when completing both linguistic and non-linguistic tasks. Her research is now revealing that this advantage continues for bilingual people as they age; she is part of a team of Canadian researchers who recently uncovered that bilingualism can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by up to five years.

Bialystok has also been recognized by the international linguistics community for her body of work on theories of language processing and on practical issues related to foreign and second-language education.

When the prize was announced, 91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri remarked that the Killam Prize “recognizes Professor Bialystok’s groundbreaking contributions to psychology and confirms the international excellence of her achievements. Her success contributes to the growing national and international leadership of 91��ɫ’s faculty in health-related research as they respond to medical, social and environmental challenges facing Canadians and people around the world.”

Bialystok was awarded a Killam Research Fellowship in 2001 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In November 2009, she received the 91��ɫ President’s Research Award of Merit in recognition of her research contributions.

Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinner commented that Bialystok’s work is changing our understanding of language acquisition and literacy, as well as cognition and aging, by using both behaviour and neuroimaging approaches. “Her research, and the collaborative research of many other faculty researching developmental and cognitive processes, reflects the Faculty’s goals of innovative research that helps keep more people healthier, longer.”

The Killam Prizes were inaugurated in 1981 with a donation by Dorothy J. Killam in memory of her husband, Izaak Walton Killam. The prizes were created to honour eminent Canadian scholars and scientists actively engaged in research, whether in industry, government agencies or universities.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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91��ɫ developmental psychology professor wins Killam Prize

fmaquito — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ Professor Ellen Bialystok has been for outstanding career achievement.

Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. She received the award this morning from the , which administers the .

One of the most important research prizes in the world, the $100,000 Killam Prize is annually awarded to five eminent Canadian scholars for their distinction in health sciences, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Bialystok was recognized for her work in the social sciences category.

Right: Ellen Biaylstok

The first in her field to research claims of cognitive deficits in bilingual children, Bialystok discovered that bilingual children and adults have distinct advantages over unilingual people when completing both linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks. Her research is now revealing that this advantage continues for bilingual people as they age.

She has also been recognized by the international linguistics community for her body of work on theories of language processing and on practical issues related to foreign and second language education.

“The Killam Prize recognizes Professor Bialystok’s groundbreaking contributions to psychology and confirms the international excellence of her achievements,” said 91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Her success contributes to the growing national and international leadership of 91��ɫ’s faculty in health related-research as they respond to medical, social, and environmental challenges facing Canadians and people around the world.”

Bialystok was awarded a in 2001. She is a . In November, she received the 91��ɫ in recognition of her research contributions.

"Ellen is a remarkable researcher who is so deserving of the Killam Prize," said Stan Shapson, vice-president, research & innovation. "Her work is cited all over the world. She has also received funding from all three of Canada's national funding bodies − the , the and the − at various points in her career, along with funding from the ."

Bialystok has developed new methodologies for studying the role of cognitive processes on second language learning as well as the impact that knowing a second language has on cognitive aging.

“By studying people of all ages, and using both behavioural and neuroimaging approaches, Professor Bialystok is changing our understanding of language acquisition and literacy, as well as cognition and aging," said Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinnner. "Her research, and the collaborative research of many other faculty researching developmental and cognitive processes, reflects the Faculty's goals of innovative research that helps keep more people healthier, longer."

Bialystok has recently published research on how bilingualism boosts children’s focus. She has also researched how bilingualism can delay the onset of dementia.

By Janice Walls, media relations coordinator.

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91��ɫ Prof. Paul Lovejoy receives Distinguished Africanist Award

fmaquito — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor in African history Paul Lovejoy, director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples, was chosen over 10 other nominees to receive this year's Distinguished Africanist Research Excellence Award from the University of Texas at Austin for his dedication, lifetime of service and contributions to the discipline.

Lovejoy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, has dedicated his career to researching and teaching African history. He is currently working on several projects, including ongoing research on the African abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, and he is just starting a new project, titled "Breaking the Chains: Presenting a New Narrative of Canada's Role in the Underground Railroad".

Left: Paul Lovejoy accepts the Distinguished Africanist Award in Texas from Ed Dorn, former dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin

"Being recognized in this fashion came as a complete surprise to me, hence what this has meant to me is very personal," says Lovejoy. "As I listened to the statement of my achievements, I felt very humble and appreciative of everything that 91��ɫ has allowed me to pursue, every dream of collaboration and every attempt to increase the accessibility of knowledge so that people can learn their own histories."

In August, Lovejoy will return to Sierra Leone, where he is principal investigator on a British Library grant under their Endangered Archives Program. He also plans to finish what he calls a long-overdue book this summer, Testimonies of Enslavement: Stories of Slavery in Central Africa. In addition, as director of the Harriet Tubman Institute, he is involved in the organization of various conferences and workshops, about eight over the coming year.

"The award is important because it recognizes what we are doing at the Tubman Institute and it shows that Canada is not peripheral to the history of Africans in diaspora."

He has authored, co-authored or edited 36 books, including , and . In 1994, his co-authored book received the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize from the Canadian Historical Association.

He is series editor for the Harriet Tubman Series on the African Diaspora with an initial 20 volumes set for publication by the end of 2010. In some of his recent publications, he has reopened debate on the role of slavery and the slave trade in Africa. Although trained as an economic historian, Lovejoy has argued forcefully that slavery and the slave trade were unlike any other institution or trade. Slaves, he argues, were "people" active in the shaping of their world and not "things" as commonly expressed in many slave studies.

He is a leading scholar who pioneered the study of the history and dynamics of the African diaspora from an African perspective. Through his research, he traces the history of migration from Africa into diaspora, following individual enslaved Africans to their destinations in the Americas. Lovejoy collaborates with an international network of researchers in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, Latin America, Africa and Europe, creating digitized historical data for his research.

His contributions and investment in African studies are reflected in his dedication to scholarship, administrative leadership, mentoring and interdisciplinary innovation.

Lovejoy is a research professor at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery & Emancipation at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom and a member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project in Paris. He received a President's Research Award of Merit from 91��ɫ last year (see YFile, Nov. 5, 2009). In 1994 and 1995, he received the Canada Council for the Arts Killam Senior Research Fellowship.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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91��ɫ scientist elected to the Royal Society of Canada

fmaquito — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ Professor K.W. Michael Siu has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the highest honour a Canadian scholar can achieve in the arts, humanities and sciences.

This year’s new Fellows will be inducted at a ceremony to be held Nov. 28 in Gatineau, Que.

A specialist in mass spectrometry whose work is highly regarded by researchers around the world, Siu is also known for service to his field in a number of professional organizations, including president of the Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry and chair of the Canadian National Proteomics Network Board of Directors.

Right: Professor K.W. Michael Siu

"We are tremendously proud that Professor Michael Siu is elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society," said Stan Shapson, 91��ɫ vice-president research & innovation. "Michael Siu is a pioneering scientist who has made significant contributions to advance research in chemistry, and especially in mass spectrometry, and has made great strides in establishing collaborations and partnerships regionally and internationally."

The citation for his election as a Fellow to the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences reads:

“Professor K.W. Michael Siu is one of Canada's foremost bioanalytical and biophysical chemists and an exceptional mass spectrometrist with an outstanding record of innovation and accomplishment. He has made most-significant contributions to understanding the structures, energetics, and ionization and gas-phase chemistries of protonated and metalated peptides as well as peptide radical ions, developing new mass spectrometry (MS) instrumentation in collaboration with Canadian industry, and developing innovative MS technologies and methodologies for proteomics, especially in the discovery, identification, verification and quantification of protein biomarkers for better diagnostics and prognostics of cancers.”

Siu is a Distinguished Research Professor (see YFile May 8, 2007) who did his PhD at Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University and arrived at 91��ɫ in 1998 after a successful career at the National Research Council Canada (NRC) where he first developed some of the pioneering techniques that he uses to help other scientists in their investigations as well as his own. He is director of 91��ɫ's , holds an Industrial Research Chair funded by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council and MDS Analytical Technologies (formerly Sciex), and is developing new instrumentation and methodologies in mass spectrometry in collaboration with the industrial partner.

He is also collaborating with researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital, St. Michael’s Hospital, University Health Network and the Hospital for Sick Children on discovering and verifying protein biomarkers for endometrial, head and neck, brain, and renal cancers. Siu also has extensive collaboration within and outside of 91��ɫ on proteomics and fundamental chemistry relevant to mass spectrometry.

Since 2005, Siu has also been 91��ɫ's associate vice-president research, science & technology.

He is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including a New Pioneers Award (see YFile, Jan. 22, 2007), the Maxxam Award for distinguished contribution in the field of analytical chemistry (see YFile Aug. 2, 2006), the 2005 Lossing Award (see YFile Jan. 20, 2006) and the Gerhard Herzberg Award from the Canadian Society for Analytical Sciences and Spectroscopy (see YFile, Sept. 13, 2004).

In an article first published in 91��ɫU ��Ա�’s 2007 Special Research Edition, Siu said he was “in the right place at the right time” to ride the technological revolution in biomolecular analysis: electrospray ionization – a Nobel Prize-winning discovery that made it possible to analyze and measure proteins with hitherto unheard of sensitivity and accuracy. “The concept of moving proteins from the solution to the gas phase in order to weigh them accurately was completely revolutionary. This was entirely virgin territory,” Siu explained. He and his colleagues at NRC quickly modified an existing mass spectrometer and began exploring the new technology’s capabilities. As the technique opened up new possibilities, Siu’s work earned him recognition as an innovator and much sought-after collaborator.

Published in 91��ɫ's e-newsletter YFile.

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