killam / en Three łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ scholars receive Killam awards /news/three-u-t-scholars-receive-killam-awards <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Three łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ scholars receive Killam awards</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ugfRuyuY 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=QrAzxE78 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=q-1JXGoJ 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ugfRuyuY" alt="Photo of Killam winners"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-05-02T11:08:01-04:00" title="Tuesday, May 2, 2017 - 11:08" class="datetime">Tue, 05/02/2017 - 11:08</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Professors Thomas Hurka (left) and Molly Shoichet (centre) each received the $100,000 Killam Prize for their research. Astrophysics Professor Roberto Abraham (right) received a two-year Killam Research Fellowship (composite by Geoffrey Vendeville)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jennifer-robinson" hreflang="en">Jennifer Robinson</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Jennifer Robinson</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/killam" hreflang="en">killam</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/molly-shoichet" hreflang="en">Molly Shoichet</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/philosophy" hreflang="en">Philosophy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/awards" hreflang="en">Awards</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/stem-cells" hreflang="en">Stem Cells</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/regenerative-medicine" hreflang="en">Regenerative Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-applied-science-engineering" hreflang="en">Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>A world-renowned philosopher, a regenerative medicine leader and an astrophysicist are the three łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ scholars recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts’ prestigious Killam Program this year.</p> <p><a href="http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/awards/uprofessors/current-professors.htm">University Professors</a> <strong>Thomas Hurka</strong> and <strong>Molly Shoichet </strong>are each receiving the $100,000 Killam Prize for their leading research in the fields of philosophy and engineering.</p> <p>This is the second year in a row that a female łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ researcher has won the Killam Prize in engineering. <a href="/news/u-t-researchers-win-prestigious-killam-prizes">Last year, bioremediation pioneer Professor <strong>Elizabeth Edwards</strong> won</a>.</p> <p>Hurka, the Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies at łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ, is the author of many works in moral and political philosophy, including <em>Perfectionism</em>, his groundbreaking book&nbsp;<em>Virtue, Vice, and Value</em> and his 2011 book,&nbsp;<em>The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters</em>. Much of his research has concerned the human good&nbsp;or which states and activities make our lives most desirable.</p> <p>“The Killam Prize is an immense honour, especially since it's for the whole body of one's scholarly work,” said Hurka. “We all try to contribute to our disciplines, and the prize is a gratifying validation that, to at least some extent, I've done that.”</p> <h3><a href="http://news.artsci.utoronto.ca/all-news/university-toronto-philosopher-awarded-2017-killam-prize-humanities/">Read more about Hurka</a></h3> <p>Shoichet, the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Tissue Engineering and senior advisor on science &amp; engineering engagement to łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ President <strong>Meric Gertler</strong>, has published more than 500 papers, patents and abstracts, and given more than 350 lectures worldwide in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and drug delivery.&nbsp;</p> <p>“It is a great honour to be in the company of so many distinguished Canadian researchers, both past and present,” said Shoichet. “This award will accelerate our research and our efforts to improve the lives of people everywhere who are living with the effects of cancer, stroke, blindness and other currently irreversible conditions.”</p> <h3><a href="/news/molly-shoichet-awarded-2016-till-mcculloch-award">Read more about Shoichet’s research</a></h3> <p>In addition, Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics Professor <strong>Roberto Abraham</strong> is receiving a two-year Killam Research Fellowship, worth $70,000 a year, to continue his work probing the low surface universe with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, the world’s biggest all-refracting telescope.</p> <p>“This is a total godsend, coming at exactly the right time,” said Abraham&nbsp;of the award that will allow him to focus on improving Dragonfly with his research partners at Yale and Harvard, and staying ahead of the competition.</p> <p>Abraham wants Dragonfly, which is stationed in New Mexico and operated remotely by a team of students located at łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ,&nbsp;to illuminate the universe’s secrets, to show what can’t be seen&nbsp;–&nbsp;the “cosmic web” where invisible dark matter collects floating baryons, the ordinary material that acts as the building blocks of stars (and&nbsp;ultimately, human beings).&nbsp;With the&nbsp;Killam, he’ll be able to tackle whether it’s best to scale up Dragonfly to handle 10 times as many lenses or just be more clever&nbsp;about how to&nbsp;use the current 48-lens arrangement.&nbsp;</p> <p>“The universe is way more interesting than we can imagine,” said&nbsp;Abraham, who is also president of the Canadian Astronomical Society.&nbsp;“We’re finding all sorts of bizarre things. Galaxies are twice as big as we thought. There are new classes of galaxies that have dark matter but don’t have any stars. Dragonfly is revealing all sorts of unexpected and wonderful new phenomena just waiting to be discovered.”</p> <h3><a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/08/27/u-of-t-astrophysicists-dragonfly-offers-a-bugs-eye-view-of-the-universe.html">Read more about Abraham's research</a></h3> <p>This year’s Killam recipients are “outstanding scholars” who are “on a quest for excellence and innovation, taking risks, imagining better futures and turning their insatiable curiosity into discoveries that benefit us all,” said Simon Brault, director and CEO of the Canada Council.</p> <p>“Congratulations to Professors Hurka, Shoichet and Abraham for this important recognition of their significant research,” said <strong>Vivek Goel</strong>, łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ’s vice-president of research and innovation. “I’d also like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the Killam Trusts for their continuing support of our scholars.”</p> <p>In total, the Killam Program is providing $340,000 to łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ researchers this year. łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ affiliated researchers have won 33 Killam Prizes since the prize was created in 1981 and a further 128 research fellowships&nbsp;–&nbsp;the most awarded to any Canadian university.</p> <p>The Killam winners from across Canada will be honoured at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on May 30.</p> <p>Alumni interested in hearing Abraham speak on Discovering Ghostly Galaxies with Dragonfly, can sign up for his 60-minute talk on Saturday, June 3 during <a href="https://events.dua.utoronto.ca/emc00/EventSearch.htm?&amp;&amp;mid=2">Spring Reunion</a>.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Tue, 02 May 2017 15:08:01 +0000 ullahnor 107210 at German history expert receives both Killam and Guggenheim fellowships /news/german-history-expert-receives-both-killam-and-guggenheim-fellowships <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">German history expert receives both Killam and Guggenheim fellowships</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-04-20T10:04:31-04:00" title="Monday, April 20, 2015 - 10:04" class="datetime">Mon, 04/20/2015 - 10:04</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Professor James Retallack (photo by Peter Dusek)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/sean-bettam" hreflang="en">Sean Bettam</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Sean Bettam</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/killam" hreflang="en">killam</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/guggenheim" hreflang="en">Guggenheim</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/fellowship" hreflang="en">fellowship</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ researchers take six honours overall</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p> Professor <strong>James Retallack</strong>’s deep dive into pre-World War One Germany – illuminating a time when the promise of democratic reform and social justice was not yet derailed by fascism and communism – has earned both the Killam Research Fellowship and the Guggenheim Fellowship.</p> <p> University of Toronto researchers took six of the prestigious fellowships in total <span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">–</span> all from the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science.</p> <p> Retallack, of the department of history, will use the fellowships to research and write <em>The Workers’ Emperor: &nbsp;August Bebel’s Struggle for Social Justice and Democratic Reform in Germany and the World, 1840-1913</em>. A biography of the leader of the Social Democratic Party in pre-World War One Germany, the book will offer a life-and-times account of the country’s missed opportunities to implement liberalism and democracy and steer away from Nazism.</p> <p> “Receiving both a Killam and a Guggenheim fellowship this year is a great honour,” said Retallack. &nbsp;“In the humanities, time to read and write is particularly precious. &nbsp;These fellowships will enable me and my graduate students to synthesize a vast array of sources and help us understand a crucial moment in German and world history.”</p> <p> łÔąĎ±¬ÁĎ took three of the six new&nbsp;Killam Research Fellowships, which are administered by the Canada Council for the Arts. &nbsp;The other recipients include&nbsp;atmospheric scientist <strong>Jonathan Abbatt</strong> and inorganic chemist <strong>Robert Morris</strong>, both of the department of chemistry.</p> <p> Abbatt studies pressing issues in climate research, including the effect of changing temperatures and sea ice on aerosol particles in the Arctic. He is the principal investigator of NETCARE, a Canadian consortium of researchers that encompasses the broad scientific expertise needed to integrate our understanding of the Arctic atmosphere and its impact on climate change.</p> <p> Abbatt says his Killam will enable him to advance his project, Aerosol Particles and Climate: Addressing Fundamental Connections in the Canadian Arctic. “The Killam Fellowship will allow me to visit different network co-investigators and to participate in fieldwork activities,” said Abbatt.</p> <p> Morris works towards a more environmentally-sustainable chemical industry. His project, Developing Catalysts Based on Iron, focuses on better understanding newly-discovered iron compounds that promise to replace the rare, expensive and sometimes toxic platinum metal catalysts that are currently used for the synthesis of fuels, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and fragrances. Further development depends on the discovery of green, efficient and selective catalysts.</p> <p> <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/greener-cheaper-safer-drugs-and-perfume-using-iron">Morris is already responsible for major breakthroughs in this field</a> and has helped lay the foundation for greener chemical processes. “With this award, we’ll be able to concentrate on the next big push in what has now become a very competitive field of catalyst discovery,” Morris said.</p> <p> Retallack is also joined by <strong>Nikolai Krementsov</strong> of the Institute for the History &amp; Philosophy of Science &amp; Technology and <strong>Thomas Keymer</strong> of the department of English in receiving Guggenheim Fellowships, administered by the&nbsp;John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation&nbsp;and offered to just 175 of 3,100 applicants from across the United States and Canada.</p> <p> Krementsov’s project, entitled I Want a Baby: The History of Bolshevik Eugenics, explores the unique history of eugenics in Bolshevik Russia after the 1917 revolution, where the discipline was not based on coercion or&nbsp;a desire to maximize the genetic fitness of the Russian people. “Why did eugenics fail to develop in Imperial Russia but flourish under the Bolsheviks, only to come to a screeching halt a decade later,” said Krementsov. “My goal is to examine this history in detail in its national and international contexts.</p> <p> <span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">“</span>Public discourse and state policies towards science often change when a state’s leadership changes, so drawing lessons from the Bolshevik Russia period may offer insights into the relationships between science and society that many nations grapple with today.”</p> <p> Keymer’s interest in libel and censorship in literature grew out of an interest in the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries during periods of political upheaval. Print was the most powerful medium for sharing ideas, and authorities went to great lengths to silence writers, with repressive laws, intimidation and proxy arrests.</p> <p> “There is so much to discover and explain about the distinctive features of 18th-century writing,” Keymer said, citing irony, ambiguity and innuendo as examples. “Authors dreamed up complex modes of expression to circumvent the constraints forced upon them at the time. It became all about how to write ingeniously.</p> <p> “These techniques remain crucial into our own time, too, in a range of repressive or coercive situations,” Keymer added. “George Orwell used them. You could even say that when Ai Weiwei was jailed or when the Charlie Hebdo satirists were killed, it was because they didn’t use them.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-04-20-Retallack-Killam_Guggenheim.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 20 Apr 2015 14:04:31 +0000 sgupta 6964 at