Western professors Robert Stainton and Tsun-Kong Sham have been named among the 71 newly elected Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). Election to the academies of the RSC is the highest honour a scholar can achieve in the arts, humanities and sciences.
This year’s new fellows will be inducted during a ceremony on Saturday, Nov. 17 at the Ottawa Convention Centre in Ottawa.
“We are very proud that professors Stainton and Sham are joining the elite membership of the Royal Society,” said Western president Amit Chakma. “The honour reflects well not only upon their respective achievements as world-class scholars, but also upon Western’s stature among Canada’s leading research-intensive universities.”
Stainton’s research lies at the intersection of philosophy and linguistics. Trained in functional linguistics at Glendon College (BA’88) and in generative grammar at MIT (Ph.D.’93), most recently he has contributed to team projects on the history of philosophy of language, and on impairments in linguistic pragmatics in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
He is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western, and director of its Graduate Program in Linguistics.
For three decades, Sham has been a Canadian and international leader in the development and use of soft X-ray synchrotron techniques for the study of matter and has become internationally known for his unique studies of nanomaterials. He has developed three novel techniques: conductivity XAFS of liquids; X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL); and time-resolved XEOL (TRXEOL). The latter two have been applied to obtain unique structural and electronic information for a variety of technologically important materials.
Sham is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Synchrotron Radiation and Professor of Chemistry at Western.
“This year, in the year of its 130th anniversary, the RSC is pleased to congratulate the new cohort of fellows and welcome them among its ranks. These fellows were recently elected by their peers in a highly competitive environment of numerous, first-rate candidates. Through their exceptional work, these new Fellows pursue the distinguished work of a long line of researchers and creators who have contributed to expand Canada’s intellectual, artistic and scientific resources to support Canada’s population and its international scope” said Yolande Grisé, RSC president.
Founded in 1882, the RSC comprises the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada. Its mission is to recognize scholarly, research and artistic excellence, to advise governments and organizations, and to promote a culture of knowledge and innovation in Canada and with other national academies around the world.
NEWS AND NOTES
- It’s not the direction Western wanted to see itself going.
Western found itself ranked No. 173 in the 2012-13 QS World University Rankings of the top 200 global university. That number is down from No. 157 in 2011-12. It’s the university’s lowest ranking in five years. In the rankings released Tuesday, Western was tucked between the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Michigan State University.
Cambridge is once again home to the world’s No. 1 university. Yet this year the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), not the UK’s second-placed Cambridge University, takes the crown for the first time. Harvard University, University College of London (UCL) and University of Oxford round out the top five.
In total, the United States claims 130 of the world’s top 700 universities, with six of the top ten and 13 of the top 20.
Canada has two universities in the top 20 for the first time, with University of Toronto climbing to No. 19, one place behind McGill. Toronto produced more published research than any other institution during the period covered by the rankings.
Rounding out Canada’s rankings were the University of British Columbia (No. 45), University of Alberta (No. 108), University of Montreal (No. 114), McMaster University (No. 152), Western, Queen’s University (No. 175) and University of Waterloo (No. 191). - Western students, faculty and staff now can find even more live research help a click away on the Western Libraries website using ‘Ask a Librarian.’
Coordinated as a consortial chat service by the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and Scholars Portal, the service will provide more than 60 hours of chat service per week to the Western community, including evening and weekend hours.
The hours are 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The need for expanded hours, expressed frequently by users of Western Libraries chat, was one of the factors that prompted Western Libraries to join the Ask a Librarian service. The service is staffed by librarians, library assistants and interns. Western Libraries has more than 40 staff providing service through Ask a Librarian.
In addition to connecting through chat, Western Libraries will also be introducing a new service called ‘Text Ur Questions.’ Students seeking research help can text Western Libraries at 226-777-3039. - Western alumnus Terry Hamilton, a Thunder Bay teacher, was named by the 69th president of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation at its annual meeting in Niagara Falls last week.
- The City of London was honoured for its involvement with Western’s Masters of Environment and Sustainability. London has been involved with the MES program from its start five years ago, and have mentored 11 students thus far, typically in London’s environmental programs department on project topics as active transportation, water conservation and community outreach.
- Forbes has ranked Margaret Chan, BA’73, MD’77, DSc’99, Director-General of the World Health Organization, as the world 37th most powerful woman on the magazine’s 100 Women Who Rule the World list. The list is topped by German chancellor Angela Merkel. Chan ranked between Sony Pictures chairwoman Amy Pascal and entertainer Jennifer Lopez.