Honorands announced for fall convocation

The list of people receiving honorary degrees and other special recognitions at this month's convocation ceremonies have been announced.

Alain Aspect will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science on Friday, October 24 at 10:00 a.m. and will address convocation. Aspect is the Centre National de la Recherché Scientifique (CNRS) senior researcher and professor at the Institut d’Optique and École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, and has made seminal contributions to the foundations of quantum mechanics. In 1982, he was the first person to experimentally demonstrate quantum entanglement, thereby changing our conception of “reality” and sparking the field of quantum information processing. The ongoing quantum technology revolution, including the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing, is a direct consequence of Professor Aspect’s effort. Professor Aspect has since continued to make significant contributions in fields such as single photon sources and laser cooling, and is regarded as a leader in the study of atom optics and Bose-Einstein condensate.

An author of 120 articles in international journals, Aspect has been cited more than 7,000 times, and has lectured for the University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute's "Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" course, giving a Perimeter Institute public lecture in 2007 and appearing in the award-winning documentary "The Quantum Tamers."

Lloyd Axworthy will receive an Honorary Doctor of Letters at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, October 24 and will deliver a convocation address. Axworthy, a graduate of United College who holds a doctorate from Princeton University, has had a long career in public life beginning in the 1970s, when he was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, moving to the House of Commons in 1979. He held several ministerial posts including Minister of State for the Status of Women, Minister of Employment and Immigration, Minister of Transport, Minister of Human Resources Development, Minister of Western Economic Diversification and finally as Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the latter role, he led the development of the Ottawa Treaty to ban the use of anti-personnel or land mines, and to date 161 countries have signed and ratified the treaty. Axworthy was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Also, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Axworthy initiated the International Commission on Intervention and Sovereignty to examine the responsibilities of states to intervene in cases of genocide or other extreme violence by a state against its own citizens. The work of the commission led eventually to the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect which was adopted by the United Nations in 2005. He continues to teach and speak on these issues, including in the local area at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

After leaving public office, he was installed as president and vice-chancellor at the University of Winnipeg where he has driven success at that university in creating space, programs and services for urban Aboriginal youth and families. In July 2014 he was announced as the first chancellor of St. Paul's University College. His installation as chancellor will take place the evening of October 24.

Elizabeth Bloomfield will receive an Honorary Doctor of Laws on Saturday, October 25 at 10:00 a.m. and will address convocation. Bloomfield is a well-known community leader and advocate for those with autism, leading several pioneering initiatives both intellectually and organizationally over several decades to bring improvements for those with autism while giving voice and traction to this complex developmental disability. A social innovator, Bloomfield helped to form the Ontario Society for Autistic Children, now known as Autism Ontario, the Guelph Services for the Autistic and Waterloo-Wellington Autism Services, Facilitation Wellington Dufferin, and Rainbow Programmes for Young Children. She has also played a major role in the Ontario Adult Autism Support Network. Bloomfield earned her PhD in History and completed important research on autism services such as the influential report Our Most Vulnerable Citizens, published by the Autism Society in 1992.

Convocation ceremonies will take place on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25.

 

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Distinguished profs, honorary members named

In addition to the honorary degrees, two Waterloo professors will receive the designation Distinguished Professor Emeritus:

Frank Tompa, who joined the University of Waterloo in 1974, shortly after receiving his PhD at the University of Toronto, and who has made valuable contributions to the University for forty years, will receive the designation on Friday, October 24 at 2:30 p.m. Tompa's research is in database systems, primarily focusing on the management of very large volumes of text data. His contributions are epitomized in the New Oxford English Dictionary (OED) project, which put the OED into an electronic format that could be used by both the text’s creators and its users. Professor Tompa served as co-director of the University of Waterloo Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary, where he and his colleagues built the world’s first large-scale, online, interactive text database.

Tompa has supervised four post-doctoral fellows, 25 doctoral and 56 master’s students, many of whom went on to make significant contributions in their fields. He served as the chair of the computer science department twice, and was the founding director of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.

His database systems research and work on the OED project had a major industrial impact as well, as he co-founded OpenText Corporate to commercial the software developed during the work on the OED. Today, OpenText employs more than 8,000 people and earns more than $1.3 billion annually. His research directly influenced the development of Internet search engines. Also, the road that travels in front of OpenText's offices in the David Johnston Research + Technology Park bears his name.

Adel Sedra will receive the designation on Saturday, October 25 and will address convocation. Sedra retired in 2013 following a long and distinguished record of university leadership, including 10 years as the dean of Waterloo's Faculty of Engineering and a total of 43 years spent in academia. His research has resulted in about 150 papers and the publication of three textbooks. One of his books, Microelectronic Circuits first appeared in 1982, is currently in its sixth edition, has been translated into nine languages, and is currently in use at hundreds of universities around the world.

Professor Sedra specializes in the area of microelectronics, focusing on the theory and design of circuits for communication and instrumentation systems.  He was a professor at The University of Toronto from 1969 to 2003, serving as that university’s vice-president, provost and chief academic officer for the latter 10 years. In 2003, he joined the University of Waterloo as dean of the Faculty of Engineering, a role he would carry until his retirement. During his tenure as dean, he oversaw the introduction of three new programs (mechatronics, nanotechnology, and management engineering) as well as the completion of two significant buildings for the faculty. He played an instrumental role in the building and success of the Quantum-Nano Centre. In his time as dean, he guided the Faculty through the largest academic planning process and fundraising campaign in its history, while at the same time achieving enormous growth in terms of its Faculty complement, graduate and undergraduate enrolment, research funding, and space holdings. Throughout that time, Professor Sedra remained active in teaching his undergraduate microelectronics courses.

The designation "Honorary Member of the University" will be bestowed on two individuals at this fall's convocation:

Steve Brown will be named on Friday, October 24 at 2:30 p.m. Brown has been involved at Waterloo since enrolling as an undergraduate student in Mathematics in 1967. He obtained a BMath degree in 1971 and in 1974 he obtained his PhD. He was then hired as an assistant professor in what was at the time the Department of Statistics, where he would spend his entire 39-year long career.

Brown served for 16 years in senior administrative roles including six years as chair of Statistics and Actuarial Science; two years as director of the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC); and eight years as associate dean of external relations for the Faculty of Mathematics. In all these positions, Professor Brown "demonstrated outstanding leadership and a deep commitment to the University of Waterloo." He played a leadership role in the formation of the Health Behaviour Research Group and was an active member of the steering committee for the formation of the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact. He has authored or co-authored over 70 papers in refereed publications and supervised over 20 graduate students over his career.

Susan Sykes will be named Honorary Member of the University on Saturday, October 25. Sykes served as director of the Office of Research Ethics and "contributed distinguished service to the University of Waterloo across a broad spectrum of activities." Her leadership in ethics compliance involving research with humans and animals was invaluable to the research community, and she was a regular speaker in seminars and courses across campus and in external venues. Her citation reads:

"Demonstrating exemplary transparency and accountability in her work, Susan would make it a priority to respond promptly to every communication from study participants, for which there were many. She tirelessly led initiatives to fund the university’s animal care facility and helped to oversee its construction and management. This has been a great aid to animal research on campus."

She was a founding member of the Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards (CAREB), and in 2010 received the President's Award of CAREB for "outstanding contribution and commitment to enhancing the protection of human research participants and to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the processes of ethical review of research with humans". In 2001, she was appointed to the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics.

 

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Thursday's notes

David Fransen and Paul Salvini will be among those representing the University at the Innovation City - Waterloo Region CityAge conference, running today and tomorrow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). Fransen, the former Canada's Consul General in Los Angeles, is the chair of the 2015 Waterloo Innovation Summit, and will be giving a keynote address, and Salvini, CEO of the Accelerator Centre and Associate Vice-President of Research Commercialization, will be chairing a panel discussion.

The Innovation City has "gathered leaders from across Canada and the United States to identify the practical tools and partnerships that are essential to modern innovation – and how a nexus of high-tech, research and smart urban planning will grow the economy and society."

The Stratford Campus's Town Hall meeting takes place tonight from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The meeting is being billed an opportunity for residents and businesses in Stratford to hear an update on the latest work of the University’s digital media satellite.

The Dean of Arts Office is hosting a United Way Bake Sale on Friday, October 10 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in PAS 2438.

"We welcome donations of baked or purchased baked goods," writes Juli-Ann Sannuto, assistant to the Dean of Arts. "In addition to many cookies, the sale will feature baklava, biscotti, various breads, scones and – exclusive to our sale only - Dean Peers’ Chipotle Brownies!"

The bake sale is open to everyone. Anyone with questions can contact Juli-Ann Sannuto via email or by calling extension 38246.

 

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