Canada Research Chairs for two profs

a news release from the UW media relations office

A UW professor will study how to improve cancer therapy and another will explore social cognition and nervous system disorders with support from two new Canada Research Chairs awarded yesterday by the federal government. As well, five other Waterloo professors obtained renewals for their existing Canada Research Chairs.

"With the new funding, Waterloo will continue to create an environment conducive for advanced research and offer a stimulating setting for our graduate students to engage in research," said George Dixon, Waterloo's vice-president (university research).

One of Waterloo's new chairholders is John Yeow, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Micro and Nanodevices. He will receive $100,000 annually for five years.

Yeow (right), a professor of systems design engineering, seeks to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic instruments to improve the quality of life of cancer patients through early detections and effective cancer treatments. His work will design, develop, manufacture and test a miniaturized catheter device for in vivo (done in live isolated cells) imaging applications. The device allows physicians to view small human cavities that cannot be accessed at present, facilitating early detection of diseases such as cancer.

Yeow will also develop miniature radiation delivery instruments and sensors. These devices enable more focused and minimally invasive delivery of radiation beams, along with real-time measurement of the delivered dose during radiation therapy treatments.

The other new chair goes to Roxane Itier (left) as the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroimaging and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Itier will receive $100,000 annually for five years.

Itier, a professor of psychology, uses behavioural and neuroimaging techniques to examine the neural basis of fundamental aspects of social cognition, including the processing of face identity, emotions and gaze direction across a person's life span.

Important insights into those functions will be made by studying patients with brain lesions and developmental disorders in which social interactions go awry — such as autism and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Social cognition refers to the set of mental skills necessary to understand how people interact and behave in groups. The fundamental work is expected to contribute to a better understanding of the social deficiencies seen in these pathologies and will lead to rehabilitation programs.

Five UW researchers won renewals for their Canada Research Chairs. Entering their second terms are Pu Chen, Chair in Nanobiomaterials, $500,000; Achim Kempf, Chair in the Physics of Information, $500,000; Srinivasan Keshav, Chair in Tetherless Computing, $500,000; Ming Li, Chair in Bioinformatics, $1,400,000; and Daniel Scott, Chair in Global Change and Tourism, $500,000.

There are two levels of Canada Research Chairs. Seven-year chairs ($200,000 a year) are awarded to experienced researchers “widely acknowledged as world leaders” in their fields. Five-year chairs ($100,000 a year) recognize researchers considered by their peers as having “the most potential to lead” in their fields.

Back to top

Global experts meet in Waterloo this week

a news release from CIGI

More than 200 global economic thinkers from around the world will gather at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo this week for its annual international conference. The event will run from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon at CIGI headquarters, 57 Erb Street West.

The purpose of the event is to define and debate issues of critical global importance, and identify innovative practices that can assist in meeting global challenges. This year’s event will examine systemic impacts of the global economic crisis.

“Towards a Global New Deal”, which is set for October 2-4, will bring together researchers, policy makers, business executives and journalists, who will address two broad themes: the impact of the current global economic crisis on the evolution of various governance systems, and the future role of financial regulators, the shifting role of the state in economic governance, and views on whether globalization should be furthered or better harnessed in light of the crisis.

On Saturday, internationally renowned American economist Paul Krugman will give the dinner keynote. A prolific author, columnist and blogger, he is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, as well as an op-ed page columnist for The New York Times. In 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.

Economist Jagdish Bhagwati will give the dinner keynote address on Friday. He is a professor at Columbia University and senior fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. His long career includes posts as the special adviser to the United Nations on Globalization, and external adviser to the World Trade Organization. Bhagwati is well known for his advocacy of free trade.

Paul Martin, former prime minster of Canada, will open the proceedings on Saturday with the breakfast keynote address. In September l999, as Canada's finance minister, Martin was named inaugural chair of the G20, an international group of finance ministers and Central Bank governors, composed of the G7 nations and emerging market nations. He is respected internationally for his leadership in working to forge a new global financial order.

The final day of the conference features keynote speaker Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a Brazilian social theorist, politician and professor at Harvard Law School, who is widely regarded as one of today’s leading social thinkers. Unger has long been active in Brazilian and Latin American politics, as a candidate, political activist and as an advisor to world leaders. He also taught U.S. president Barack Obama while he was at Harvard University.

Besides the keynote speakers, there will be high-level panel presentations by internationally recognized speakers. Topics of discussion include the effects of the global economic crisis on global finance, trade and investment, food security and poverty, as well as environmental challenges.

Back to top

Donald Stewart, CEO of Sun Life Financial, answers a student's question following his talk to an audience in the main School of Accounting and Finance lecture hall last Tuesday. Stewart's address on "The New Financial Order: Canada and the International Financial Community" was "a great start to the tradition we want to create in the school for a fall lecture series involving senior executives from finance and insurance companies", says Alex Lippert of the faculty of arts alumni office.

Other notes as September wanes

An official opening for UW’s United Arab Emirates campus will be held in early November as part of a “Festival of Learning” taking place in Dubai, president David Johnston told the university senate on Monday. Associate vice-president (international) Leo Rothenburg reported on seeing the initial 22 students start their classes (with a possible two more expected by the time studies resume on Monday after a week-long break for the Eid festival). The three UW faculty members on hand — one each from chemical engineering, civil engineering and math — made a good impression, he reported: “Students came to me and said, we’ve never seen such good teachers.” He said the initial class was chosen from 62 applicants, of whom 45 received offers of admission. “The students are of high quality; there’s absolutely no problem with English.” Sixteen of them have UW scholarships, he noted. Rothenburg said the students are showing “remarkable leadership skills” and added that he has conferred with Allan Babor, president of the UW Federation of Students, and they’ve confirmed that the UAE students have all the same privileges as UW students; they could even run for student seats on senate. Meanwhile, they’re welcome to join clubs and activities at Dubai Men’s College, where the campus is housed, and a UW-UAE soccer team has already been organized.

The Quantum Device Theory group led by physics professor Frank Wilhelm, will be sharing in a multi-institution grant to fund research into advanced materials for superconducting qubits, says an announcement from the Institute for Quantum Computing. The grant, funded by the United States government’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, involves groups at Syracuse University, IBM and the University of California at Irvine, in addition to the IQC group. The project is a collaborative effort between materials scientists and physicists to investigate how to produce solid materials that are as free from imperfections as possible. Wilhelm will receive $100,000 (US) a year for up to five years to support his work modeling Josephson junctions – a key component of integrated circuits for quantum computing. Josephson junctions are composed of two layers of superconducting material separated by a thin layer of an insulator. The group works to create very detailed models of imperfections and noise in this insulating layer. Imperfections in solid materials are a limiting factor for progress in advancing hardware for quantum computation, as they restrict the length of computations that can be performed. By limiting the imperfections, researchers can increase the coherence time of computations. “Quantum information is very sensitive to noise, and I am glad that we can work with top materials scientists to solve this problem,” says Wilhelm.

A road show is coming to UW’s School of Architecture tomorrow. “Over the next two weeks,” says the school’s director, Rick Haldenby, “a team of nine architects and designers will cross the country, stopping in eight cities along the way to present a compact picture of the state of design in Canada. The Roadshow: Architectural Landscapes of Canada is a series of linked, broad-based national events that aim to engage the public, the profession, and the schools of architecture. At every stop, each of the nine participating architects and designers will have ten minutes to present one project. Ultimately, the goal of The Roadshow is to promote and facilitate an emergent and evolving discussion regarding contemporary architecture and design in Canada. Two of the nine presenters come from the east, west and north of Canada: Philip Beesley is a professor and Lisa Rapoport of Plant Architects is a graduate and frequent visitor to the school. The Roadshow’s bus will also transport the Pneumatic Amplifier, a massive inflatable projection device that will act as an architectural propaganda machine. The Pneumatic Amplifier has audio and visual capacity built in so that each outdoor event can be facilitated in the most public and provocative manner possible.” The Roadshow comes to UW’s Cambridge campus tomorrow night, starting at 7:00, and “members of the public are enthusiastically invited to participate.”

CAR

Back to top