2019-2020 Faculty Awards of Excellence
Usman Alim
Education Leadership Award
Computer Science
Dr. Alim's innovative and educational leadership is demonstrated by his commitment to our Faculty and students. As co-director (with Dr. Jim Stallard) of the professional graduate program in Data Science & Analytics (DSA), Dr. Alim coordinated the teaching of all courses delivered through the Department of Computer Science, while ensuring courses taught across the program (with our program partners) also aligned well. To ensure success, he organized a workshop for all instructors to share their experiences, improve course coordination, and fine-tune the course outcomes across the different data science sub-disciplines.
To support student learning, Dr. Alim was instrumental in organizing a data science showcase event to highlight DSA student projects; this event served both as an outreach and networking event, so students could connect with local industry with data science needs.
His leadership on the recently approved application for the Master in Data Science and Analytics program demonstrates Dr. Alim’s commitment to providing high-quality, innovative, and timely teaching and learning opportunities at the University of Calgary.
Lauren DeDieu
Early Career Community Engagement Award
Mathematics and Statistics
Through her community engagement work, Dr. DeDieu has had a direct impact on the lives of hundreds of junior high and high school students, fostering an excitement about science, and mathematics in particular, encouraging students to think of themselves as belonging to a community, to work together, and to be inspired by others with similar interests.
A strong example of this, is the GEM (Girls Excel in Math) Calgary program developed by Dr. DeDieu. Her leadership involved designing the curriculum, recruiting and training teachers from participating schools and organizing the events. Teachers and students described the program as an amazing experience, where students learned ‘to find math in everyday subjects and learned things [they] never knew about’.
Another example of Lauren’s outreach work is demonstrated by her leadership of the 2019 CMS Regional Math Camp Alberta. In addition to handling camp administration and coordination activities, Lauren and the team created a new application process resulting in reaching a more diverse audience and succeeded in striking a gender balance (16 girls, 15 boys) in participants.
Eric Donovan
Established Career Research Excellence Award
Physics and Astronomy
When It comes to securing and leading major research projects, Dr. Donovan is unparalleled in Canadian space physics, and is a prominent figure on the international stage. He played a central role in the renewal and development of the Canadian GeoSpace Monitoring system. With the U of S, he led a successful CFI proposal to fund a Canadian-led radar complementing the Resolute Bay Incoherent Scatter Radar (RISR). When approached to provide an ultraviolet imager (UVI) for the Chinese-European SMILE satellite mission, he was successful in having CFI support a collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency to fund the instrumentation.
Dr. Donovan co-led the NEST strategy at the university level, paving the way for the prominent role space science has in the University’s research landscape. Furthermore, his leadership of the Faculty’s Grand Challenges exercise has resulted in a lasting contribution to galvanize the research vision that continues to guide Science.
Dr. Donovan he has sustained and transformed the Canadian space community and is the leading figure in making the University of Calgary a national and international powerhouse in the area of auroral optics. Moreover, his initiatives have led to the creation of two new CRC positions in Calgary, assuring our vitality in the field for decades to come.
Alex Dutchak
Early Career Teaching Excellence Award
Geoscience
Dr. Dutchak teaches four required, sequential courses in the Geoscience undergraduate program. These courses are demanding because each has a major experiential hands-on learning component (either field-based or laboratory-based). No other instructor has been entrusted with such a pivotal role in the core education of our students. He also teaches four other courses, revealing he has instructed eight different courses in the past 5.5 years. The breadth of disciplinary competency required to teach all these courses, combined with the range of student level (non-Majors to senior BSc thesis students), is exceptional.
Dr. Dutchak’s teaching success is attributed to authoritative expertise in the subjects he teaches; exceptional organization; clear communication; design of educationally valuable, hands-on exercises; and an emphasis on critical thinking. He also has a growing and impressive list of teaching recognitions in his young career. These includes being nominated for a number of Students’ Union Teaching Excellence Award and winning the Department of Geoscience’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2017.
Dr. Dutchak is one of two faculty members being honoured with an Early Career Teaching Excellence Award.
Justin MacCallum
Early Career Research Excellence Award
Chemistry
Dr. MacCallum has taken the bold step of establishing an experimental biochemistry research program that is synergistic with computational work. This type of integrative research is an emerging trend, only done by a handful of research groups in the world, and MacCallum’s group is the only one in Canada.
Dr. McCallum has rapidly established himself as a leader in the field of integrative structural biology, which combines experimental and computational approaches to solve the structures of biomolecules. Such advances are critical for understand biological function, both normal and diseased, and for developing new therapeutic strategies.
Experimental protein structure determination is time consuming and labor-intensive, whereas computational protein structure prediction still needs experimental validation. Efficient and reliable hybrid approaches are badly needed. Dr. MacCallum has developed a platform called MELD (Modeling Employing Limited Data). This integrated technique mitigates the limitations of both the experimental and computational methods, providing accurate protein structures while minimizing experimental time and effort. A current “hot topic” in computational structural biology, Dr. MacCallum’s research targets this area effectively and brings a unique approach to the field not currently being explored in Canada.
Rob Marriott
Early Career Innovation Award
Chemistry
Dr. Marriott directs a large research program in the area of applied sulfur chemistry. In 2012 he began as the NSERC ASRL Industrial Research Chair in Applied Sulfur Research. In 2017, his Chair was renewed and was appointed the Director of Research for ASRL. He has continued to grow important industry relationships, leading to increased industry engagement with the University and funding support for the program.
Dr. Marriott’s research program has allowed for advances to reduce the impact of releasing SO2/CO2 into the atmosphere, reduce the cost of low carbon fuel production, and increase the overall safety of gas production. None of Dr. Marriott’s research areas have been pursued by previous ASRL Research Directors. These new research results are now used throughout the international industry and demonstrate how NSERC/UCalgary/ASRL sponsorship has been able to thrive and continue to contribute to an important commercial sector.
Each year, Dr. Marriott hosts two industry-wide meetings (January and June), and visits up to 20 foreign for-profit research sponsors to discuss the applied research programs. These international visits strengthen relationships with current stakeholders and serve to attract new potential research sponsorship.
Dr. Marriott’s translation of academic research results into the domain of private industry and his continued service to the broad chemical industry, makes him a worthy candidate for this award.
Vivian Mozol
Established Career Community Engagement Award
Chemistry
Dr. Mozol sees outreach as an opportunity to promote science literacy and develop educational practice. She does this by ensuring outreach activities not only enhance public interest in chemistry through an interaction with the university community, and also provides those she works with the opportunity to innovate. Her dedication to promoting and encouraging our current students to get involved with outreach activities has our current students organize and head up their own outreach endeavors with her support.
Dr. Mozol annually arranges at least one school visit to the university for junior high and or high school students. The students will tour research facilities, observe demonstrations and experience hands-on activities related to their chemistry curriculum. Vivian also engages in the professional development for groups of 6-15 high school teachers. Based on their suggested learning outcomes she structures and facilitates a day of activities and discussions to meet their needs.
The idea creation never stops, and Dr. Mozol is always trying and working with students to develop a new way to showcase and communicate chemistry and science to the broader community.
Guether Ruhe
Established Career Innovation Award
Computer Science
Dr. Ruhe joined the University of Calgary to create the Informatics Centre of Research Excellence (iCore). Since his arrival, he has created a world-class team of research excellence in the area of software engineering decision support and established the area of Software Engineering Decisions Support (SEDS).
A proven track record in research excellence, Dr. Ruhe holds an Industrial Research Chair in Software Engineering. In 2017, he received an NSERC discovery grant to support his research in new ways to foster software product innovation. Furthermore, Dr. Ruhe is the recipient of numerous awards, including: the Alberta iCore award, an IBM research award, a Mobility Award for foreign researchers at the University of Bolzano, and the Microsoft Research Software Engineering Innovation award in 2012.
His research is even more remarkable because of its impact on society. In 2018, Dr. Ruhe played a pivotal role in the "RE Cares” initiative, where researchers participated a hackathon event for developing an application to support emergency field activity for Mutual Aid Alberta, a non-profit organization coordinating natural disaster responses in Alberta.
Dennis Salahub
Lifetime Achievement Research Excellence Award
Chemistry
Dr. Salahub join the University of Calgary in 2002 as Vice-President (Research). With an expanded mandate, he was named Vice-President (Research and International). During this tenure, he served on more than 50 boards and governing committees. Other University appointments included, as Professor in the Department of Chemistry, a member of the Centre for Molecular Simulation (CMS), and a member of the Institute for Quantum Science and Technology (IQST).
Over the span of his forty-four year career, Dr. Salahub has served the science and innovation communities more broadly in a number of roles: Director General of the Steacie Institute for Molecular Science, Program Lead of the Centers of Excellence in Molecular and interfacial Dynamics (CEMAID), a founding member of the Centre de Recherche en Calcul Appliqué (CERCA), and on NSERC’s Grant Selection Committee.
Dr. Salahub has published over 325 research papers and four edited books, has delivered 500+ invited lectures, both nationally and internationally, and his work has been cited more than 20,000 times.
Faramarz Samavati
Established Career Scholarship Excellence Award
Computer Science
Dr. Samavati is a leading expert on computer graphics and visualization., whose contributions to science and technology are recognized nationally and internationally. His work has had significant impacts on many fronts, including industrial outreach and technology transfer, training a large group of talented HQP involved in research and innovation activities, and economic innovations (including patents, software licenses and commercialization).
Dr. Samavati is a "serial entrepreneur" with many creative ideas, which repeatedly lead from one innovation to another. Together with his team, Dr. Samavati has made significant achievements in the progress and development of Digital Earth, sketch-based 3D modelling, and medical data visualization.
Dr. Samavati has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2013 Digital Alberta Award (Best in Cross-platform Content), and a Peak Scholar Award in 2014 for his excellence in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Knowledge Engagement. He was one of three finalists for the ASTech Foundation award for "Outstanding Leadership in Alberta Technology 2017.”
Mindi Summers
Early Career Teaching Excellence Award
Biological Sciences
Dr. Summers is a gifted instructor, who pushes students to explore science in a safe, respectful and collaborative environment. She strongly believes in providing authentic research experiences to her students and fosters a learning environment where students can creatively develop their scientific research skills. For example, in Zoology 576 students collect, identify, DNA sequence, and take high-resolution photographs of local invertebrates. Students develop research questions and share their results by submitting DNA records to the Barcode of Life Project, uploading images to the biological sciences digital collection, and presenting their work in a public symposium.
Dr. Summers’ reflective teaching practices are evident in the evolving design of her courses over the past four years. Engaging in a constant feedback – reflection – revision, she uses data and evidence from multiple perspectives and incorporates this in (re) designing her courses. As a result, her teaching is agile, dynamic, and continuously evolving. Her willingness to adjust and be responsive, helps students feel comfortable in a course that is very challenging and different from most other courses.
Dr. Summers is one of two faculty members being honoured with an Early Career Teaching Excellence Award.
Greg Welch
Early Career Scholarship Excellence Award
Chemistry
Since returning to the University of Calgary, Dr. Welch has established himself as a lynchpin researcher in the University’s “Energy for Today and Tomorrow” strategic research theme, leading initiatives and contributing to interdisciplinary research projects within the University’s CFREF framework. He has developed a cross-disciplinary program investigating organic materials for applications in energy conversion, printed electronics, solid-state lighting, and C02 reduction. As such, his program is diverse, interdisciplinary, extremely well-funded and highly collaborative.
He has built a laboratory eco-system involving full cycle of materials innovation from design, to synthesis, to characterization, to demonstration in devices. Bridging the gap between lab discovery and industrial application, Dr. Welch has created a small printing facility that allows the fabrication of fully functional, large area, solar cells. This project is unique in Canada and highlights his motivation to be continually pivoting to deliver transformative results.
Dr. Welch holds a Tier II CRC in Solar Energy Materials and Devices. He has been recruited as a theme leader for an NSERC Strategic Network on Green Electronics, leading a team securing an Alberta Innovates Strategic grant for Printed Organic Light Emitting Diodes.