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Daily Bulletin, Tuesday, September 19

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Chris Redmond

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Sep 19, 2006, 9:01:07 AM9/19/06

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Daily Bulletin

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

* [3]Yesterday
* [4]Archive
* [5]About the Daily Bulletin
* [6]Search
* [7]RSS image RSS version

* _'Excellence' awards to 3 researchers _
* _Artist seeing into another dimension_
* _Sympathy to Dawson, and other notes_

* Editor:
* Chris Redmond
* Communications and Public Affairs
* cred...@uwaterloo.ca

[Barnett]

_New director_ of UW's school of accountancy is James Barnett, who
took on that role for a four-year term beginning August 1. Barnett is
a specialist in taxation, and was a Distinguished Teacher Award winner
earlier this year. As director he succeeds Alister Mason, who has
retired.

Link of the day

_[8]Talk Like a Pirate Day is here_

When and where

_Imaginus poster sale,_ Student Life Centre, today-Thursday 9 to 8,
Friday 9 to 5.

_Film festival:_ "In the Mind's Eye: Issues of Substance Abuse", film
showings and forums, September 19 through November 28, full schedule
[9]online.

_Sharcnet _workshop: introduction, basics of high-performance
computing, usage demo, open to all users, 1 to 4 p.m., Davis Centre
room 1304.

_Jewish studies _lecture: Rachael Turkienicz, York University,
"Angels," 7:30 p.m., Siegfried Hall, St. Jerome's University,
admission free.

_Noon concert:_ Akafist Chamber Choir, 16-voice male choir from
Moscow, Wednesday 12:30, Conrad Grebel University College chapel,
free.

_Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council_ grant information
session, of special interest to new faculty members, Wednesday 2 to 5
p.m., Davis Centre room 1302, more information [10]online.

_Cafe-rencontre_ du departement d'etudes françaises: Leonard Rosmarin,
Universite Brock, "Liliane Atlan ou le refus du desespoir", mercredi
14h30, Humanities salle 373.

_Women in Mathematics_ pasta party for female faculty, staff, grads
and undergrads in mathematics, Wednesday 5 p.m., Math and Computer
room 5158, RSVP gyun@math.

_Warrior curling _team meeting and opportunity for walk-ons, Wednesday
5 p.m., Physical Activities Complex room 1001 (both men and women).

_Centre for Family Business, _Conrad Grebel University College, annual
general meeting and program launch Friday 7 to 10 a.m., Bingemans
Conference Centre, Kitchener, details [11]online.

_St. Jerome's University_ annual Ignatian/Waterloo Catholic District
School Board Lecture: William F. Ryan, Jesuit Centre for Faith and
Social Justice, "Globalization and Catholic Social Thought", Friday
7:30 p.m., Siegfried Hall, all welcome.

_Programming contest_ open to all members of the UW community; members
will be chosen for two student teams to represent UW in ACM
international programming contest. Registration [12]online; contests
Sunday, September 24, and Saturday, September 30.

_Alumni night in England:_ Canadian alumni networking at Canada House
in Trafalgar Square, London, September 26, details [13]online.

_Homecoming_ September 30, various events. Tickets for 7 p.m. lecture
by Stephen Lewis are for sale, details [14]online.

One click away

o [15]Spectacular photo taken on the north campus
o [16]Complaints about noise from orientation toga party
o [17]Watching the debit machine at the used book store
o [18]UW researchers demonstrate map discussion interface
o [19]Province launches award for 'excellence' in post-secondary
teaching
o [20]Investment firm lists high-tech job opportunities
o [21]Student group concerned about education research contract
o [22]SSHRC announces $98 million in fellowships and scholarships
o [23]Latest big customer for local firm's course software
o [24]'A little learning is an expensive thing' (NY Times)
o [25]U of Guelph moves into 'Phase 2A' of science complex
o [26]No riot at Queen's Homecoming this year
o [27]Nominations due soon for $100,000 Killam Prizes
o [28]Court rules university president is a public official

'Excellence' awards to 3 researchers

Three faculty members are receiving UW's Award for Excellence in
Research this year, the provost told UW's senate last night: one from
arts, one from engineering, and one who retired just days ago from the
faculty of science.

The Awards for Excellence in Research were established by the senate
in 1999 to recognize individuals with "an outstanding record of
research achievement". The recipients are selected by a committee
consisting of senior, internationally renowned UW researchers.

The award winners will be recognized at Convocation in October. Here
are their names, with background information provided by the provost's
office:

_Mariela Gutierrez,_ Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies:
"Dr. Gutierrez has been recognized as the world's leading scholar on
two authors of major importance in Latin-American literature, Lydia
Cabrera and Rosario Ferre, and also as one of today's outstanding
researchers of Afro-Hispanism. She is the leading expert worldwide on
Lydia Cabrera, one of the most influential Cuban writers of the 20th
century and a prominent literary figure within the annals of Latin
American letters. Her research on the writings of Cabrera reveals an
extraordinary understanding of Spanish literature, of French-American
myths and also of African dialects.

"A leading speaker at virtually every conference in the world on her
topics, Dr. Gutierrez is also the recipient of an impressive series of
awards. In 2004, for example, she was awarded the Medal of Honor of
the City Bagnčres de Bigorre, in the French Pyrenees, in recognition
of her world-wide contributions towards fictional and socio-historical
literature written by Latin American female authors. A brilliant
Afro-Hispanic literature scholar, Dr. Gutierrez has written five books
published by top-ranked publishing houses in the United States and
Spain."

_Robert Gillham,_ retired from the Department of Earth Sciences:
"Robert Gillham's research career has been described as truly
remarkable. As the holder or co-holder of seven patents for cleaning
contaminated groundwater, his work in this area has benefited not only
Canadian society, but has impacted groundwater remediation globally.
Upon his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1997,
his citation stated his research as 'the most important advance in
groundwater contamination science of the past two decades.' In 2002,
Dr. Gillham was inducted as a Member of the Order of Canada. That same
year he was also awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal
'for outstanding service to Canada'.

"At the University of Waterloo Dr. Gillham coordinated and spearheaded
the proposal that led to the establishment of the Canadian Water
Network, a national research program under the Federal Networks of
Centres of Excellence. His impact on many areas of the hydrologic and
environmental sciences is immeasurable, and has focused a great deal
of attention worldwide on research being conducted at the University
of Waterloo."

_Magdy Salama,_ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering:
"Magdy Salama is internationally recognized as an eminent researcher
in the electrical power energy systems field, and is also making
substantial contributions in biomedical engineering. Dr. Salama's
expertise in pattern recognition to identify power systems
disturbances has led to advancements in ultrasound imaging to identify
prostate boundary segmentation which is leading to the implementation
of new early detection methods of prostate cancer.

"Results of his activities in power systems disturbance identification
and power quality control have become guidelines to many researchers
in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Far East in advancing
power engineering research. In 2002 he was elected a Fellow of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Dr. Salama's
innovative research has been leading academia and industry worldwide,
and will lead to new technology in both the engineering and medical
fields."

[29]Back to top

_Artist seeing into another dimension_

Work by [30]Robert Linsley -- the UW artist who talks to physicists --
is on display this month at a little-known public space in Kitchener,
the Hacienda Sarria on Union Street. An opening for [31]his show, "New
Research in Abstraction", was held Friday night.

He is profiled in the new issue of the online _Arts Research Update_
newsletter, where editor Angela Roorda of the dean of arts office
introduces him by quoting a character from Oscar Wilde: _"W_e live in
an age of surfaces."

For Linsley, she writes, "nothing could be truer of our own time --
and nothing more compelling to study. Like other abstract painters,
Linsley holds a long-standing fascination with both the limits and
possibilities of surfaces, particularly the surface of the canvas. How
much information can a canvas bear? And can the two dimensional
picture plane sometimes say as much as the three dimensional figures
it is typically called upon to represent?"

Contemporary theoretical physicists are also absorbed by questions
like this, says Linsley, who spends a lot of time in conversation with
scientists at Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
There is a parallel pursuit here, and an opportunity for
interdisciplinary dialogue, says the artist. "Physicists have found
that the amount of information inside a black hole, that is to say the
number of particles and their positions and speeds, is not
proportional to its volume, but to its surface area," he explains.
"This discovery, called the Bekenstein Bound, suggests that the
surface of a black hole, the so-called `event horizon,' is analogous
to the picture plane, a surface that also carries limited information
about the space behind it. It has led to a number of theories in which
two dimensional surfaces play a central role."

Linsley is one of the first to point out and, in a rigorous way,
investigate this shared artistic and scientific concern with surfaces,
says the newsletter. "While drawing upon recent discoveries in
theoretical physics, Linsley goes beyond simply illustrating
scientific concepts in his work. Instead, his aim is to initiate a
fruitful dialogue between artists and physicists in order to find a
common conceptual ground between the two activities."

To this end, Linsley is in the process of establishing a collective of
art theorists and practitioners who will work together to explore
these big-picture questions of space, time, and abstract art. With
funding from a SSHRC Research/Creation Grant in Fine Arts and a
Premier's Research Excellence Award -- [32]the first ever awarded to a
researcher in fine arts -- Linsley has already put in place two
postgraduate fellowships and is looking for a studio for himself and
the Fellows who work with him.

The idea is not only to pursue questions of science and art's
relevance to each other, but also to bring art theory and practice
together in innovative and productive ways. "With artists working
alongside theorists, in ongoing conversation and collaboration, there
is the potential for a new way of doing fine arts research, one that
can take the relation between art and science to a new level of
sophistication," he says.

Along with his postdoctoral colleagues, Linsley himself, through both
creative and theoretical projects, is exploring the limits of the
canvas's surface, just as physicists are exploring the contours and
limits of physical space. In a method and style that recalls that of
abstract painter Jackson Pollock, Linsley takes buckets of commercial
paint, creates not-quite-random collections of "puddles" on the
canvas, and then shakes the canvas around --sometimes overhead --until
the desired ragged-edged effect is achieved. Says Roorda: "These
intriguing paintings acquire a spatial and metaphoric dimension when
Linsley gives them titles that suggest geography and a cartography of
imaginary islands: `Domains in the Sea of Milk,' `Island Prospect,'
and `Easy Straits.' Linsley's two-dimensional canvases playfully evoke
other two dimensional surfaces -- maps -- which in turn carry
diagrammatic information about unseen, three dimensional topographies.
Not unlike the Bekenstein Bound."

The exhibition of work by the fine arts department's [33]New Research
in Abstraction group, consisting of Linsley and his research
colleagues, Mike Murphy, Jennifer Phelps, and Sasha Pierce, continues
all month at the Hacienda Sarria, 1254 Union Street, Kitchener.

[34]Back to top

Sympathy to Dawson, and other notes

About 60 people attended yesterday's noon-hour session in the Theatre
of the Arts to discuss last week's shootings at Dawson College and how
Canada might prevent future acts of violence on campuses and
elsewhere. In addition to the academic panel, organized by dean of
arts Ken Coates, the gathering heard words from first-year political
science student Kavita Saini, who _attended Dawson in downtown
Montreal_ last year and has many friends still at the college. "I've
stood there a hundred times," she said about the main entrance to the
college's ancient building, bloodied after last Wednesday's violence
that left one student dead. A poster-sized sympathy card from UW to
the Dawson community is available in the lobby of the Modern Languages
building today, says Tobi Day-Hamilton, marketing manager for the arts
faculty. "We invite everyone on campus to come by and sign the poster,
and we'll send it off to Dawson on Wednesday."

The fall program of non-credit courses from UW's continuing education
office is beginning, and program coordinator Dean Perkins says he's
picked out several _courses that might be of interest_ to UW staff
members, especially as they get a 50 per cent discount on the fees.
"Many staff do like scheduling out-of-the-cubicle courses at least a
few weeks in advance," he says, pointing to "Project Management
Applied Tools and Techniques" October 16-18, "The Art of Influencing
Difficult People" October 26, "Introduction to Financial Accounting"
October 27, and "Coaching for Success" November 23. Course
descriptions and details are available [35]online, and all the courses
are held at the CE headquarters ("UW's central campus", Perkins likes
to call it) on Gage Avenue in Kitchener.

The September list of winners in the prize draw for _Keystone Campaign
donors_ [36]has been posted on the Keystone web site. . . . The
_Record_ reports that the student group trying to build a student co-op
residence _on Ainslie Street in Cambridge_, near the UW Architecture
building, has raised the $50,000 required for a down payment and
expected to close the land purchase yesterday. . . . _William (Bill)
Scherrer_ will retire October 1, ending twenty years as a UW staff
member, most recently as supervisor of maintenance and cleaning at
Columbia Lake Village. . . .

The engineering faculty's online newsletter reports that "Waterloo
Engineering's [37]Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology
(CBET) will move into new facilities on the _second floor of the
Accelerator Building_ in the university's Research and Technology Park
in January 2007. The centre, currently housed on the first floor of
Needles Hall, joined the Faculty of Engineering last spring. In a
recent centre update CBET Director Howard Armitage described the
change as 'a wonderful move for CBET and the university'."

Yesterday's Daily Bulletin, quoting a news release, gave the wrong
title for Heather Kelly of food services, who is in fact the _"acting
marketing coordinator"_ there. . . . The computing system called
_"jubilation", also known as "retirees"_, will be out of operation
tomorrow from 10:00 to 1:00 for a system upgrade, the information
systems and technology department warns. . . . The staff association
says _it will offer a $500 bursary_ to a staff member or relative at
both the undergraduate and graduate levels again this term, and both
awards will be matched by the Education Credit Union to bring the
total to $1,000. . . .

A job ad is out for the position of _Federation Orientation Committee
administrative coordinator_: part-time (10 hours a week) during the
winter term and full-time next spring term. "This position," the
notice explains, "will chair cross-campus events sub-committees and
distribute tasks appropriately. . . . Extensive experience as either a
Federation Orientation Committee member or an Orientation Leader is
essential. . . . Proven event planning experience. Proven
communication skills." And you've got to have experience "managing
teams", but also the "ability to work independently". Applications are
due by September 27; more information is available from Heather
FitzGerald, director of the student life office, e-mail
hafi...@uwaterloo.ca.

CAR

[38]Back to top

[39]Yesterday's Daily Bulletin
[40]Campaign Waterloo

[41]Communications and Public Affairs
[42]University of Waterloo
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+1 519 888 4567
[43]Contact us | [44]http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca | [45]Š 2006
University of Waterloo

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