Psychology professor John Meyer and Robarts Research Institute scientist Terry Peters have been awarded the 2012 Hellmuth Prize for Achievement in Research.
The Hellmuth Prize for Achievement in Research recognizes faculty members with outstanding international reputations for their contributions in research – one of the defining hallmarks of a university. Two prizes are offered annually, one in the area broadly defined as the natural sciences and engineering, one in the social sciences and humanities.
“The Hellmuth Prize is the highest honour we bestow upon our colleagues for exceptional achievement in research,” said Janice Deakin, provost and acting vice-president (research). “Drs. Peters and Meyer are representative of the high calibre of expertise we have at Western, and we are very pleased to recognize them for the substantive contributions each has made to his respective field of study in imaging technology and organizational psychology. Throughout their careers they have sustained a level of excellence that can serve as an inspiration for all members of our campus community.”
This year’s awards ceremony will be held 4 p.m. May 23 in Conron Hall.
John Meyer received his PhD from Western in 1978. After spending three years at St. Thomas University (Fredericton, NB), he returned to Western where he is now a professor and chair of the graduate program in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and director of the Research Unit for Work and Productivity.
Meyer’s research interests include employee commitment, work motivation, leadership and organizational change. His work has been published in leading journals in industrial/organizational psychology (e.g., Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology) and management (e.g., Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management), and has been cited more than 6,000 times. He is also co-author of Commitment in the Workplace: Theory, Research and Application (Sage Publications, 1997) and Best Practices: Employee Retention (Carswell, 2000), and co-editor of Commitment in Organizations: Accumulated Wisdom and New Directions (Routledge, 2009).
He has consulted with private and public organizations in Canada on issues related to his research, and has been invited to conduct seminars and workshops in Europe, Asia and Australia. Meyer is a fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, American Psychological Association and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and a member of the Academy of Management.
He is a former chair of Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and editor of the OB/HRM section of the Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. In 2007, he was recognized by the Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology for his “distinguished contributions to Industrial-Organizational Psychology in Canada.”
Terry Peters is a scientist in Robarts’ Imaging Research Laboratories, a professor in Western’s Departments of Medical Imaging and Medical Biophysics, as well as a member of the graduate programs in Neurosciences and Biomedical Engineering. He received his graduate training at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) in electrical engineering, under the direction of professor Richard Bates.
Peters’ PhD work dealt with fundamental issues in computed tomography image reconstruction, and resulted in a seminal paper on the topic in 1971, just prior to the beginning of CT’s commercial development and worldwide application. For the past 30 years, his research has built on this foundation, focusing on the application of computational hardware and software advances to medical imaging modalities in surgery and therapy.
Starting in 1978 at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), Peters’ lab pioneered many of the image-guidance techniques and applications for image-guided neurosurgery. In 1997, he was recruited by Robarts to establish a focus of image-guided surgery and therapy within the Robarts Imaging Research Laboratories. His lab has expanded over the past 13 years to encompass image-guided procedures of the heart, brain and abdomen.
Peters has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, a similar number of abstracts, and has delivered more than 180 invited presentations. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine; American Association of Physicists in Medicine; as well as many others. He was awarded the Erskine Travelling Fellowship by the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) in 1996 and 2010. He has mentored more than 80 trainees at the masters, doctoral and postdoctoral levels.