To the Point
CDC Canada’s solar building of the year
The U of C’s Child Development Centre has been named the Solar PV Project of the Year by the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA). The award falls on the heels of the CDC being recognized by the Canada Green Building Council as the largest and highest scoring LEED Platinum building in Canada. CanSIA’s yearly award recognizes a photovoltaic project that either through high visibility or innovative features helps the photovoltaic industry become mainstream. EVDS prof Jim Love, who accepted the award, says the CDC got top marks for both profile and design.
Nursing prof joins Calgary homeless initiative
A U of C nursing professor has joined the high-powered Calgary Committee to End Homelessness. Lorraine Melchior, adjunct professor in the Faculty of Nursing and former executive director of the Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS), will sit on the advisory board of Pathways to Housing Calgary, one of the committee’s first initiatives. This program, modeled after a similar project founded five years ago in New York, will find permanent housing for 50 chronically homeless people who, because of mental health issues, have had unstable living quarters for longer than a year. “I’m confident we can make this a community-wide, successful undertaking,” said Melchior.
Grad student wins GG’s gold medal
Michael Garret, a graduate student in the U of C’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the recipient of the 2007 Governor General’s Gold Medal. With only two recipients per year, the award recognizes academic excellence in graduate studies at Canadian post-secondary institutions. Garrett’s 2006 thesis entitled “Stochastic Quantum Teleportation and Entanglement Distillation with Imperfect Cluster States,” gained him recognition as an outstanding graduate student.
Alumni in national “best of” lists
Two U of C alumni were recently recognized in national “best of” lists in supplements in The Globe and Mail. John Burghardt, BComm’91, LLB’00, was named one of Lexpert magazine’s “Rising Stars” as one of Canada’s leading lawyers under 40. Burghardt is a partner at Felesky Flynn. Teri Currie, BSc’86, was recognized in the Globe’s Report on Top 100 Women. Currie, TD Bank Financial Group’s executive vice-president of human resources, was a recipient in the corporate category.
Social Work prof to sit on race relations panel
David Este, the Faculty of Social Work’s associate dean, research and partnerships, recently accepted an invitation to sit on the Research Advisory Panel (RAP) of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) in Canada. Created in 1997, the foundation is committed to building a national framework for the fight against racism in Canadian society. RAP will be working with the board of CRRF on all aspects of the organization’s research agenda.
U of C alumnus elected AMA president
The Alberta Medical Association’s new president is Dr. Darryl LaBuick, MD’93. “It’s a great honour to be nominated and chosen,” says LaBuick. By this time next year, the U of C MD program will boast three AMA presidents in a row—LaBuick’s predecessor is Dr. G.N. Kiefer, MD’80, and the AMA’s president-elect is Dr. Noel Grisdale, MD’92. Now a family physician in St. Albert, LaBuick runs a clinic of nine full-time general practitioners.
Students honoured for excellence in education
Ten University of Calgary students have been awarded scholarships from the education foundation of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA). In 2007, the foundation awarded 29 scholarships totalling $82,000 to high-school and post-secondary students from across Alberta who are pursuing a career in engineering, geology or geophysics.
Recipients attending U of C are:
Joseph Lagasca, Jill Saunders, Laura Reimer, Trevor Faunt, Kimberly Gould, Eva Haataja, Laura Neumann, Evan Christopher, Tyler Hale and Aravind Ganesh.