Dr. Frank van Veggel (chemistry) has won the inaugural Award for Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry from the Canadian Society of Chemistry (CSC). As the Canada Research Chair in Supramolecular Photonic Materials, van Veggel investigates the design of new materials with optical and magnetic properties—research that has huge application potential for emerging optical communication and computing technologies, and diagnostics. The CSC is one of three constituent societies of the Chemical Institute of Canada.

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A 500-plus-page special issue of Elsevier’s reputed journal Applied Mathematics and Computation (Volume 218, Issue 3, Oct. 2011) was dedicated to Dr. Hari M. Srivastava (Professor Emeritus, Department of Mathematics and Statistics) on the occasion of his 70th birth anniversary. This Special Dedication Issue stemmed essentially from a four-day international congress in honour of Srivastava, held in 2010 in Bursa, Turkey. It contains about 100 scientific research articles written by mathematical, physical, statistical and engineering scientists from all over the world. Several other international scientific research journals have also published special issues dedicated to Srivastava on the occasion of his 70th birth anniversary.

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Heather Raven (law) has been appointed Queen’s Counsel, an honour conferred on members of the legal profession by the provincial government to recognize exceptional merit and contribution. Her citation says, “Raven became the first Aboriginal person to become a senior administrator in a Canadian common law faculty when she was appointed associate dean of the University of Victoria Fwaculty of Law in 2009. Along with being a legal educator, she is a commercial and labour law expert and serves as a role model for Aboriginal law students.”

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Marjorie MacDonald (nursing), Canadian Institutes of Health Research Applied Public Health Chair in Public Health Education and Population Health Intervention Research, begins a two-year term as president of the Public Health Association of BC (PHABC). The association is a voluntary non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the public’s health by working to strengthen disease and injury prevention, health promotion and healthy public policy. This mission is fulfilled through education, research, advocacy and networking. PHABC was founded in 1953 and is a provincial branch of the Canadian Public Health Association. MacDonald aims to focus on enhancing community and civic engagement, promoting involvement of students and developing relationships with the new First Nations Health Authority of BC. She is an advisory council member of UVic’s new School of Public Health and Social Policy.

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Students in a first year environment and sustainability course surprised their professor, Dr. Phil Dearden (geography) when the class raised $550 in about 10 minutes for World Vision. In his wrap-up lecture  Dearden was talking about the sins of over consumption and the threat of underconsumption in many parts of the world...a topic that threads throughout the course. Dearden showed the class a World Vision gift catalogue and explained that a mere $100 would fund a medical clinic for a year, as drug companies would match the amount raised by a 17-fold multiplier ($100 = $1700). Dearden passed around a hat and the students gave their "spare change" which amounted to $550, or enough to fund five medical clinics for a year, plus change to fund classroom supplies. “Do the math with the multiplier and that’s quite a gift from our students,” said Dearden.

Spiritual Economies: Islam, Globalization, and the Afterlife of Development (Cornell University Press, 2010) by Dr. Daromir Rudnyckyj' (Pacific and Asian studies), was named co-winner of the 2011 Sharon Stephens Prize awarded by the American Ethnological Society, North America’s oldest association of professional anthropologists.

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Dr. Andrew Weaver (earth and ocean sciences) is the 2011 recipient of the Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science. The award cites Weaver as “an international leader in ocean and climate modelling and analysis and, in particular, as a foremost expert on the role of the ocean in climate variability and change.” Weaver’s research involves multiple aspects of ocean, climate and paleoclimate modelling. Presented annually by the Royal Society of Canada, the award is administered by the A.G. Huntsman Foundation at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia.

Budd Hall (public administration) will receive an honorary doctorate from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, NS, on Dec. 10. This tribute honours Hall’s outstanding academic service in the area of international development, community engaged research and community-based adult education. Hall is a professor in the master’s program of community development and secretary for the Global Alliance on Community-Engaged Research. He was the founding director of UVic’s Office of Community-based Research, a research and senior fellow in the Centre for Global Studies and recipient of the UVic community leadership award in 2009. He has served in leadership roles on the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, International Council for Adult Education, Canadian Network for Democratic Learning, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and the Coady International Institute Advisory Board. He is a member of the International Adult Education Hall of Fame and was selected for the 2005 Canadian Bureau of International Education Innovation in International Education Award.

Armed only with logic, strategy, mental endurance and a single computer, two UVic math and computer science teams marched into a battle of the brains against 24,000 other students and returned triumphant.

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