Team Science Spring 2012 volu ME 6 INSIDE: ChoColatE at th E SpEED of lIght r EDpath to th E bone o tto Maa SS gEtS a fa celIft McGill’s historical leadership in education and research has been based upon our ex- cellent students. Our undergraduates are second to Spring 2012 volu ME 6 McGill: none, and they have been second to none for almost 200 years. What has changed over the last 10 years has been the quality of our academic staff. This is because our re- A Grande cent renewal took advantage of a climate where all fac- tors played to McGill’s favor: innovative programs at the federal and provincial level; the contrasting political cli- mate of Canada and the United States; the multi-cultural 3 Meet Our New Geologists École and welcoming environment of Montreal; and the excite- Over the past 60 years, the study of geological ment engendered by our renewal, with the multiplicative sciences at McGill has evolved, but has effect of strong hires building on strong hires. always tried to keep pace to suit the needs of For the last 10 years, we have been hiring about 100 pro- the mining industry. In 2011, two new faces fessors a year. In the Faculty of Science, most of our 250 or joined the Department of Earth and Planetary so professors were not here five or 10 years ago. We have Sciences. 4 re-booted the university with 35-year-old kids starting 4 The Grease Monkey their careers. Renewal has been like a raging fire. of Quantum Physics I have been at McGill since 1986. I have never seen a great- In 2011, McGill physicist Guillaume Gervais er potential for our school. When I examine the historical engineered one of the world’s smallest record, we have not been at this point for, literally, a centu- electronic circuits, and that single discovery ry. Through careful planning, through hard work, through 3 could significantly affect the speed and power happenstance, all indications are that McGill will move of ever-smaller integrated circuits. from being a strong national University, and become one of the world’s Grande Écoles. My view is that, as we do this, 8 Redpath to the Bone our students must be integrated into our academic mis- Famed biologist and Redpath Museum sion in a seamless way. This is our unique advantage to go 8 director David Green talks about the forward, to retain our great new professors, to have them museum’s vast unseen collections and the build their careers here, to achieve excellence. There is no challenges facing the Redpath as it celebrates question but that our primary influence is through our its 130th birthday this year. N students, through the added value of their research and education. 10 Otto Maass Gets a Facelift Now is the time for McGill (and in consequence for Mon- Since it opened in 1966, the Otto Maass NICOLAS MORI treal and Quebec) to step forward. Montreal was the his- Chemistry Building has hosted thousands of torical leader in education and research in Canada before researchers at McGill. Over the past two years, our country even existed. It is time for us to take up that more than 80% of the building’s research and role again, for the good of our families, our city, our prov- 10 teaching laboratories have been completely ince, and our country. We have an opportunity we have redesigned and renovated. Fast Fact: not had for a long time. Now is the time to act, and face On the cover: Raising a glass outwards and not inwards, to consolidate and build upon to the renovated labs in the Otto Maass Chemistry Building. Janet Under an ambitious our gains, and—before the United States wakes from its Belliveau, BSc’11, a graduate student long slumber of the last decade—retake our place of lead- in Chris Barrett’s research group recruitment program in the Department of Chemistry, Departments ership in innovation, teaching, and research. flanked by proud parents, Tom 6 W5 and Toni. Read more on page 11. that kicked off in 2000, (Photo by Yves Renaud) 12 Alumettes Much has changed and much has not changed at McGill, 14 Science Scrapbook McGill has hired more a Quebec institution founded by a Scotsman almost two 16 The Dean’s Quiz centuries ago. It remains an institution in which Mon- than 1,000 tenure-track trealers and all Quebecers can take pride, and which can professors. Of these, be as important for us in this century as it has been for Editor Photography Illustrations To read Team Science online, go to: Please direct comments or inquiries the last two. Michael Woloschuk Nicolas Morin Genevieve Young http://publications.mcgill.ca/science to [email protected] Yves Renaud 586 were recruited from Editorial Advisors Design Team Science is published once a year by Printed in Canada Dean Martin Grant Turcotte Design McGill University Jennifer Kambhampati Faculty of Science outside Canada. Development and Alumni Relations 3450 University Montreal, Quebec H3A 2A7 Canada team science [ 1 Testing the Waters More What’s eight kilometres long, bright blue, and about as thick Hot Rocks as a crayon? It’s the world’s largest the long thermometer thermometer, capable of cable is laid along a stretch measuring temperatures at of riverbed. By measuring metre-long intervals along its the minute changes in length to accuracies of a tenth temperature of the water, of a degree Celsius. the source of groundwater contamination can be Essentially a long fibre-optic pinpointed. cable, the thermometer uses pulses of light that are shot The thermometer has opened down its 8,000-metre length. many new doors, putting The temperature is measured McKenzie in contact with AUD N E through the amount of time researchers from a host of R it takes the light to reach disciplines. YVES various intervals. “I use it a lot, and one of The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences welcomes its two newest research stars: McGill is only one of two the best things about the geologists Vincent Van Hinsberg (left) and Christie Rowe. Rowe, formerly a researcher Canadian universities using thermometer is that it’s a and lecturer in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of this new technology, called collaborative tool,” he says. California, Santa Cruz, joined McGill in 2011 as an assistant professor and Robert Wares distributed temperature “It’s led to a lot of interesting Faculty Scholar in Economic Geology. Van Hinsberg, who hailed from the University of sensing. collaborative opportunities.” Oxford, where he was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences, joined McGill as an assistant professor and Osisko Faculty Scholar in January 2012. McGill’s ultra-long Over the past couple of years, thermometer is regularly McKenzie and his team AUD used by Jeff McKenzie, an have used the thermometer N E R Lorne Trottier Endows Office assistant professor in the in a number of successful Department of Earth and studies, including one of YVES for Science and Society Planetary Sciences. McKenzie, contaminated groundwater a hydrogeologist, says the entering a river in New York thermometer is ideal for State, and another, with Fast Fact: Chemistry professors (left to right) David Harpp, Ariel Fenster, studying the interaction Geography professor Michel and Joe Schwarcz celebrate Lorne Trottier’s $5.5-million gift to the between groundwater, which Lapointe, of fish habitats at Undergraduate research Faculty of Science last fall. Trottier’s endowment ensure a secure is water that collects or flows Parc National de la Jacques- in the Faculty of Science future for three successful outreach programs committed to bringing beneath the Earth’s surface Cartier, north of Quebec City. science out of the ivory tower and into the public domain. Of the (as in spring water), and “Another thing we’re thinking is going gangbusters, total contribution, $3 million will endow the McGill Office for Science surface water, which is water of looking at is using the and Society, which has been renamed the Trottier McGill Office for that collects above the Earth’s technology to study energy with 46 per cent of Science and Society. The remaining $2.5 million will endow the surface, as in rivers, lakes and conservation by observing students in 2010 having popular Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium and Mini-Science oceans. heat loss through hot spots series. “With this gift, Lorne Trottier becomes the single largest on the roofs of buildings,” he at least one research benefactor to the Faculty of Science in McGill history,” said Dean of To determine where says. Science Martin Grant. “The study of Science at McGill owes a lot to the groundwater may be course on their record. generosity of Lorne Trottier. In fact, I cannot imagine the Faculty of entering a river, for instance, Science without him.” 2 ] team science team science [ 3 Mathematician Wins Steacie Fellowship Robert Seiringer, associate professor in the Department of Mathemat- ics and Statistics, won a 2012 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for his work in understanding how molecules and atoms, in their various Weird, unexpected (and forms, behave collectively. presently unexplainable) things Seiringer, described by NSERC happen when you run current as “one of the leading mathemati- through wires that are that close. cal physicists in the world under the The bottom line: there are age of 40,” is exploring mathemati- SERC theories that might need N cal models that describe various phe- some re-thinking because Y nomena occurring in quantum gases, of his research.