Faculty and Alumni News
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Faculty and Alumni New s Faculty Exceeds $50-Million Mark in Campaign McGill ust two years after launching the public phase of its ambitious Campaign McGill: History in the Making , the University has surpassed the $500-million point, with Jthe Faculty of Science chalking up more than $ 50 million in gifts and pledges. From alumni to foundations and friends, the support has been generous. Despite the economic difficulties of the past year, the Faculty—which aims to raise more than $85 million by 2012—was able to count on the goodwill of its supporters. Among the notable gifts was a seven-figure donation by Richard Hart , PhD’70, for Science fellowships . Hart, a longtime supporter of the Faculty and a member of the Faculty’s advisory board since 2000, was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Alumni Association in 2004. David Pelletier , BSc ’72, also established a Fellowship in Mathematics in December 2008, which was matched by McConnell Matching Funds. Like Hart, Pelletier is a longtime advisory board member, and his family includes a long list of McGill alumni. Other significant donations came from the Hylcan Foundation in support of Forging nanotubes out of DNA the Redpath Museum , Richard Tomlinson , A team of Department of Chemistry researchers led by PhD’48, DSc’01, with a gift to the Hanadi Sleiman in collaboration with Gonzalo Cosa (above), Tomlinson Scholars , as well as from has succeeded in finding a new way to manufacture nanotubes, T Terry Meguid , BSc’78, Donald Bubar , one of the important building blocks of the nanotechnology BSc’77, Paul Petras , BSc’75, and Ali Torabi of the future, out of biological DNA. Nanotubes are and Mahmoud Amirfathi , who infinitesA imally small, measuring six or seven nanometres across. Richard Hart, above, donated generously in support of (A nanometre, one-billionth of a metre, is one ten-thousandth believes strongly in the Faculty of Science students. the diameter of a human hair.) These tiny structures, have importance of giving back Just as important as these major ted the potential to solve a number of key problems facing in support of future ur gifts were the hundredfs of thousands this nanotechnology researchers, including the design generations, and plans to c monstrates, make a further gift to McGill of dollars the Faculty rteceived last t. of drug delivery vehicles, the manufacture of electronic O bottom in the coming year. His year in Annual Fund do nations. his month to our nanowires, medical implants and scaffolds for solar advice to others is For the first time in thie Fund’s e that one of the energy conversion. straightforward:“Do your i ness 61-year history, Univerosity-wide is the ability of giving while you’re living.” o the box and cross donations and pledges dtopped discoveries. I he solidifying of our the $ 10 million mark. The Annual Fund is MciGill’s aders in the field of yearly appeal to alumni, parents, faculty and staBff, and hrough such rising stars a nd Jeff Mogil, and such eminent THE AUDITORY BRAIN, BY BREGMAN friends to help support the University’s most ps ressing d Melzack and Brenda Milner. Yes,we know that most five-year-olds can ening of our new Life Sciences draw better than Psychology Professor needs and promising opportunities, providing flexible Emeritus Al Bregman, but no one C ucture project in McGill understands the inner workings of the brain funding for teaching and research initiatives, ash well as he faculties of Science and quite like Bregman. In this drawing, the M cate illness celebrated behaviourial neuroscientist a presents asimple view of how our auditory for student aid, library resources, athletics, and individual system miraculously interprets the world, nce Today will throw a represented by alake containingafishing faculties and schools. s winning Faculty members, boat, submarine, sea monster, speedboat and f l, who discovered the whale.With our back to the lake, and using News of the University’s fundraising succesoses was to Mathematics two red floats in the channels as our only guides, we must explain to our companion s latest Rhodes announced at McGill’s Leadership Summit this past October, the direction the objects are travelling.As S impossible as this seems, this is exactly the when Bill Clinton became the second U.S. president to be ws and full of job our ears do for us, correctly providing p enjoy it. our brain with an image of the world via awarded an Honorary Degree by McGill, joining Franklin the sounds we hear. Read more about our behavioural neuroscientists inside. Delano Roosevelt, who received his in 1944. Erratum On the cover of the Winter 2008 edition of Team Science Today , we reported that “most five-year-olds can draw better than Psychology professor emeritus Al Bregman.” In fact, Bregman is an accomplished artist with considerable skill in both drawing and painting. He has taken art courses at the University of Toronto, in Cambridge Massachusetts, and at the Banff School of Fine Arts. On the right is just one example of the noted psychologist’s paintings. Alexis Malozemoff is in his final year in an Kaushal Hasmukh Patel is Fahima Dossa , a U3 ambitious Honours student pursuing a pursuing a joint Honours in Physics Computer Science with and Mathematics and is a tutor Major in Neuroscience minors in Mathematics and Minor in World with the Science Undergraduate and Music Technology Society. Kaushal is also a recipient Religions, is the degree. He is the recipient recipient of an Emily of the Kurt Carl Memorial Award, of an Arthur and Crystal John Stuart Foster Scholarship in Ross Crawford Lau Scholarship. Scholarship. Physics, and Faculty of Science Scholarship. kudos Nobels, Steacies, a Balzan and More Besides the Nobel prizewinning famous work on the promotion of Meanwhile, Psychology professor display by two Faculty of Science education about evolution, and Robert Pihl won the 2009 Canadian alumni this year— Willard Boyle in elected Bruce Reed , a mathematician Psychological Association Gold Physics and in Jack Szostak in and theoretical computer scientist in Medal Award, while Ronald Melzack , Medicine—Faculty alumni collected the School of Computer Science, as emeritus professor, Department of a number of other important awards, a Fellow, in recognition of his Psychology, was awarded the first including Brenda Milner , PhD’52, outstanding scientific achievements. Outstanding Pain Mentorship Award DSc’91, winner of the prestigious by the Canadian Pain Society. International Balzan Prize for 2009, Meanwhile, Physics professor and for her extraordinary influence on renowned cosmologist Robert Finally, Don Francis , professor and the shape of neuroscience. Indeed, Brandenberger was awarded a 2009 Dawson Chair in the Department the origins of modern cognitive Killam Research Fellowship, of Earth and Planetary Sciences, neuroscience of memory can be administered by the Canada Council was awarded the Peacock Medal by traced directly to her rigorous and for the Arts, for his new approaches the Mineralogical Association of Blast from the Past: McGill imaginative studies. to superstring cosmology. Canada, and Professor George Researcher Discovers Brandenberger’s colleague, P.H. Styan , Department of Most Distant Stellar In addition to Faculty of Science Vicky Kaspi , Lorne Trottier Chair in Mathematics and Statistics, was Object Known alumni, our current academic staff Astrophysics and Cosmology and named an Honorary Member McGill Physics professor Robert Rutledge has received an impressive number of Canada Research Chair in participated in the discovery of the most in the Statistical Society of Canada. prestigious awards. Observational Astrophysics, has been distant stellar object ever found, “a beacon from the cosmic dark ages.” Gamma-ray Burst 090423, emitted by a massive star exploding into a supernova, was detected on April 23 by an international consortium of institutions including NASA, using telescopes positioned in the northern and southern hemispheres. The burst sheds light on the very origins of the universe, the researchers said. Their results are published in the journal Nature. Rutledge used the Gemini-North telescope—one of twin eight-metre optical/infrared telescopes located in Hawaii and Chile—to observe the ancient stellar object. awarded the 2009 Arthur H. Andrew Hendry (left) and Karim Nader receive congratulations from Prime Minister Stephen Harper Compton Award by the Advanced at a reception honouring recipients of the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowships. Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory. Andrew Hendry , an associate professor awarded a 2009 Prix du Québec, Peptides on Demand with the Department of Biology and the highest honour conferred by Reginald Fessenden professors— Chemistry professor Chao-Jun (C.J.) Li the Redpath Museum, and Karim the provincial government, in Nicolas Moitessier , associate professor (above) and his colleagues have Nader , an associate professor and recognition of her contribution in the Department of Chemistry and discovered an entirely new way of synthesizing peptides that may Paul Wiseman William Dawson Chair in the to the social and scientific , associate professor in revolutionize biological research. Department of Psychology, were advancement of Quebec. both Chemistry and Physics— Peptides are enormously important to 2009 recipients of E.W.R. Steacie continue to win accolades among biological and proteomic research, but Memorial Fellowships bestowed In other Physics news, the Canadian their peers. Moitessier won the 2009 classical chemistry provides no easy way by the Natural Sciences and Association of Physicists awarded its AstraZeneca Award in chemistry, to synthesize them, making the potential impact of this discovery very significant. Engineering Research Council 2009 Herzberg Medal to Physics while Wiseman won the 2009 Keith Li’s new process, by contrast, allows of Canada. professor Guy Moore while the Laidler Award from the Canadian researchers to construct a single, simple Canadian Association of Physicists Society for Chemistry. “skeleton” peptide that can be modified The Faculty continued to reap and the Centre de Recherches into any other peptide needed with the addition of a simple reagent.