News Release

2009-04-21 10:31:38

UW will award 13 honorary degrees at spring convocation

WATERLOO, Ont. (Tuesday, April 21, 2009) -- The chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley and the president of McMaster University are among the 13 recipients of honorary doctorates granted during the University of Waterloo's spring convocation to be held June 10-13.

Also at convocation, UW will install Prem Watsa, chairman and CEO of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., as chancellor on Wednesday, June 10. The top Canadian business leader will address convocation for graduates in applied health sciences and environment, starting at 10 a.m. in the physical activities complex on campus.

Watsa succeeds Mike Lazaridis, founder and co-CEO of Research In Motion Ltd., who is completing two terms as chancellor. UW will name Lazaridis chancellor emeritus at a ceremony on Saturday, June 13.

Robert Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley will receive a doctor of science degree and address science graduates on Wednesday, June 10. A former president of the University of Toronto, Birgeneau is one of the most cited physicists in the world for his work on the fundamental properties of materials.

The same day, John Kelton, dean and vice-president of the faculty of health sciences at McMaster University, will receive a doctor of science. Kelton, who was instrumental in adapting McMaster's problem-based medical school curriculum to an electronic format, developed two satellite campuses of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine in Kitchener and St. Catharines.

Peter George, McMaster's long-serving president and vice-chancellor, will receive a doctor of laws degree at one of two convocation ceremonies on Thursday, June 11. He will address the first ceremony for students graduating from the faculty of arts, beginning at 10 a.m. George, a member of the Order of Canada, is credited with the introduction of innovative approaches to teaching and research that helped McMaster become one of the top research institutions in the country.

Leading off convocation on Wednesday, June 10, Yinxing Hong, chancellor of Nanjing University in China, will receive a doctor of laws degree. Hong, a noted development economist, has played a key role in nurturing rapidly growing ties between Nanjing University and UW, including the Sino-Canadian College.

Honorary degrees, along with other awards, will be given at the following convocation ceremonies:

-- Arts (second ceremony), Thursday, June 11 at 2:30 p.m. UW historian Ken McLaughlin will receive the distinguished professor emeritus title and address convocation.

* Larry Gravill, former chief of the Waterloo Regional Police Service, will receive a doctor of laws degree. Gravill, who was Canada's longest-serving municipal police chief, retired in December 2007 after 15 years in the position. He also served as president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police and Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, as well as Canadian director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

* Regna Darnell, a leading Canadian anthropologist, will receive a doctor of letters degree. An internationally recognized scholar, she has done pioneering work in the history of anthropology, as well as in linguistics and native studies. Darnell is a distinguished university professor at the University of Western Ontario, where she founded and served as director of UWO's First Nations studies program.

-- Mathematics (first ceremony), Friday, June 12 at 10 a.m.

* Murray Martin, president and CEO of Pitney Bowes Inc., will receive a doctor of laws degree and address convocation. Martin's desire to apply the best research in information security led to a close partnership between Pitney Bowes and UW researchers. His support was crucial in the establishment of the NSERC/Pitney Bowes Industrial Chair in Cryptography in 1998, which resulted in the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research.

* Arkadi Nemirovski will receive a doctor of mathematics degree. A leading researcher in optimization for more than 30 years, Nemirovski is the author of Interior Point Methods for Convex Optimization, a fundamental work in the field. In 1991, he received the most prestigious prize in optimization, the Dantzig Prize, which is jointly awarded by the Mathematical Programming Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

-- Mathematics (second ceremony), Friday, June 12 at 2:30 p.m.

* Andrew Chi-Chih Yao will receive a doctor of mathematics degree and address convocation. One of the world's most prominent computer scientists, Yao was the first to identify and study what now is known as the field of communication complexity. He has also made valuable contributions to the modern theory of cryptography. In 2000, Yao was awarded the Association for Computer Machining Turing Award, considered the Nobel Prize for computer science.

-- Engineering (first ceremony), Saturday, June 13 at 10 a.m.

* Martha Salcudean will receive a doctor of engineering degree and address convocation. Salcudean is a professor emerita of mechanical engineering at the University of British Columbia and the Weyerhaeuser Industrial Research Chair Emerita in Computational Fluid Dynamics. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering, she has published widely in the area of heat transfer and fluid flow, especially in computational fluid mechanics and the modelling of transport phenomena in industrial processes.

* Gerhard Kennepohl will receive a doctor of engineering degree. An eminent scientist, professional engineer and accomplished musician, Kennepohl is one of Canada's leading authorities in road and pavement technology. During his years spent with Gulf Canada, he was granted 10 patents. In 1987, Kennepohl joined the Ontario Ministry of Transportation as senior research scientist and soon became head of pavements and roadways research. He is the founding principal and ongoing member of the UW Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technology.

-- Engineering (second ceremony), Saturday, June 13 at 2:30 p.m. Mike Lazaridis will become chancellor emeritus and address convocation.

* James Tien will receive a doctor of engineering degree. A highly acclaimed academic in systems engineering, Tien is dean of the college of engineering at the University of Miami. He has written more than 150 refereed publications in systems evaluation, systems modelling, systems analysis, information systems and general systems. His seminal paper on systems evaluation in 1979 was the first to address the topic from an engineering perspective. In 1998, he received the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Joseph G. Wohl Outstanding Career Award.

* Manfred Conrad will receive a doctor of laws degree. Conrad, a respected local entrepreneur, established the Cora Group, Waterloo Region's largest commercial real estate development company in 1980. He was a leading figure in the development of buildings in UW's Research and Technology Park. Conrad was awarded the Business Leadership Award for Contributions to Downtown Kitchener by the Downtown Kitchener Business Association in 2001.

During convocation ceremonies, UW will present distinguished professor emeritus titles to four retired UW professors: Michael Sharratt, former dean of applied health sciences and professor of kinesiology; Patricia Wainwright, of health studies and gerontology; Phelim Boyle, of the school of accounting and finance; and Donald Grierson, of civil engineering.

As well, UW will award the title, honorary member of the university, to Al MacKenzie, former director of UW police and parking services, and John Horton, a professor emeritus in the school of planning.

Resources

Contact:

John Morris, UW media relations 519-888-4435 or jmorris@uwaterloo.ca

UW news release no. 33

2009-04-21 10:31:38