Western alumna Mary Catherine Fallona, BSc’61, MSc’65, chats with student Devanshi Shukla during the recent Fallona Family Interdisciplinary Research Showcase held at the Physics & Astronomy Building.
As Mary Catherine Fallona strolled through Western’s Physics and Astronomy Building, she spotted students lining the hallways, feverishly typing away on their laptops without pause. She could not help but develop an inkling to jump back into it all.
“I would love to come back to school,” said Fallona, BSc’61, MSc’65. “It would be so exciting. With all the new instruments, the things you could do – oh, wow, what could I do? What could I be?”
While a return to the classroom may not be possible, Fallona, along with her brother, James, BSc’58, MSc’62, have found the next best thing. In 2014, the Fallona siblings’ gift of more than $100,000 created the Fallona Family Interdisciplinary Science Award and Symposium Fund, a way to empower students and researchers to explore possibilities of what can happen when they work with other science disciplines.
The Fallona family hopes the gift’s legacy rallies universities behind a straightforward mantra: Talk to each other, especially if that means going outside your own discipline.
“I have ideas; you have ideas. But if we don’t talk to each other, we’re not going to know what the other is thinking,” Fallona said. “Imagine if you combine ideas, it would be double awesome, and then triple awesome, quadruple awesome and maybe even more.”
She continued, “Even just a few minutes talking to other people there is inspiration, hope. With teaching, too. If they (students) are stuck you say, ‘Have you tried it this way?’ And yes, that’s when the light goes on and everyone is happy.”
Mary Catherine, who pursued a Science career before heading into teaching, is among nine family members who graduated from Western, with a combined total of 15 degrees, including an aunt who also graduated from Brescia University College in 1924.
In the 1960s, Mary Catherine investigated a newly discovered mold with antibiotic properties. She is credited with unlocking its elements and purifying it – a project initiated by NASA to discover infections astronauts might get in the then unknown world of space travel.
After completing her graduate research, she followed in her father’s footsteps, working as a high school teacher in Toronto.
The Fallona Family Interdisciplinary Science Award is presented each year to a scientist involved in interdisciplinary work who makes a positive impact in the world. The award is given, in alternating years, to an internal university candidate or external candidate. This year, Western Chemistry professor Elizabeth Gilles was recognized for her work around the development of degradable polymers and novel mechanisms for triggering degradation to occur at specific times and locations in response to stimuli.
While Gilles’ work today involves numerous partnerships across campus, Mary Catherine admitted there wasn’t much in the way of interdisciplinary work when she was in school. She went to classes, studied while working on a double honours in Physics and Chemistry and went to the labs. It was a solo pursuit. But that has changed dramatically at her alma mater, she said.
“Every year, I am amazed with what they are doing and what they’ve gotten into. It’s really amazing,” she continued. “I feel like they’re going to save the world. It’s this sort of research and development these students are producing that is going to make a difference.
“People used to say, ‘What’s with all this highfalutin research? What’s it good for?’ Well, you never know. You don’t start into a project knowing all the answers. That’s what research is all about; you have got to find the answers.”
She continued, “How do people make decisions about anything if they don’t have all the background, or know where they can go and get it? Talk to as many people as you can, find out about as much as you can, and about as many things as you can.”
THE WINNERS ARE …
Winners of the 3rd annual Fallona Family Interdisciplinary Research Showcase included:
Fallona Family Interdisciplinary Research Award:
Chemistry professor Elizabeth Gillies
Fallona Family Interdisciplinary Poster Competition:
Freda Qi, Genomic Landscapes of Mutations Arising in a Mouse Model of Tumorigenesis with metastasis, first place;
Andre Galvao Duarte, Nitrogen Source Availability Alter the Effect of Low CO2 on Growth, Photosynthesis, and N Dynamics, second place; and
Brendan Daisley, Common Neonicotinoid Pesticide, Imidacloprid, Ipairs Insect Tolerance to Bacterial Infection and Heat Stress, third place.
