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November 7, 2003
Their
research areas are diverse – ranging
from creating award-winning novels to engineering novel imaging
methods for
detecting breast cancer. However, a group of top University
of Calgary researchers will now share the prestigious title
of University Professor.
The University Professorships program is a made-in-Calgary
initiative aimed at recognizing and rewarding full-time faculty
members who have built distinguished careers as researchers.
To date, 12 U of C professors have been honoured with the award.
"The list of scholars awarded University Professorships
is extremely impressive, both in terms of the accomplishments
of each researcher as well as the broad spectrum of disciplines
that they represent," says Dr. Dennis Salahub, U of C
Vice-President (Research and International). “These are
some of the U of C’s stars and I salute their scholarship.”
The University Professorships program is open to full-time
faculty members as well as candidates being recruited to the
U of C as full-time professors. Nominees are forwarded by U
of C Deans and then reviewed by an advisory committee chaired
by the Vice-President (Research and International).
The six professors being awarded University Professorships
this year are: Dr.
Tristram Chivers (Chemistry)
Dr.
Victor Coelho (Music)
Dr.
Gordon Moore (Chemical and Petroleum Engineering)
Dr.
Benno Nigg (Kinesiology)
Dr.
Raj Rangayyan (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Prof.
Aritha van Herk (English)
 Tristram
Chivers (Chemistry)
As an internationally recognized synthetic inorganic chemist,
Tristram Chivers is producing new materials, a creative endeavour
that he views as art as well as science.
The artistic aspect is because Chivers is creating novel materials
with specific molecular architectures. The scientific goal
of these new chemical 'designs' is to develop useful industrial
materials, such as inorganic polymers with electronic or magnetic
properties.
As well, Chivers and his experimental chemistry lab have produced
precursors for semi-conductors, materials that are used in
the electronic industries, for example, as infrared detectors.
Chivers is also writing a book on sulfur chemistry, specifically
the text will focus on sulfur-nitrogen compounds. The broad
range of topics includes superconducting materials, new drugs
for the treatment of blood circulation problems and the mechanism
of the gunpowder reaction.
Chivers's distinguished research and teaching career is highlighted
by a long list of university, national and international awards.
For example, in 2001, Chivers was honoured with the E.W.R.
Steacie Award, an award for Canada's top chemists. In 1991,
Chivers was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (the
country's 'hall of fame' for academics).
As
well, in 2002, an issue of the Canadian Journal of Chemistry
was dedicated to Chivers "to honour his outstanding contributions
to the chemistry of the main group elements." The academic
journal included 32 articles by his colleagues, friends and
former students from all over the globe – Brazil, England,
Finland, Germany, India, Japan, Romania, Scotland, Spain, the
U.S., and Canada.
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 Victor Coelho (Music)
Victor Coelho's areas of scholarly expertise range from Renaissance
music to rock'n'roll and from the lute to the electric guitar.
Coelho,
a professor of music and director of the U of C’s
Centre for Research in the Fine Arts, has written several books
and numerous articles. His latest is the just-released text,
The Cambridge Companion to the Guitar, a comprehensive exploration
of the instrument's many genres and cultural impacts.
Coelho's next book will provide a history of instrumental
music in the Renaissance. This research project will be taking
him to Italy next September courtesy of a visiting professorship
award from Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for
Italian Renaissance Studies. Located in Florence, the centre
houses a rich library and archives.
On
a previous trip to Italy as a visiting Harvard research fellow,
Coelho discovered a score that had been ‘lost’ for
centuries. This discovery culminated in performances and scholarly
presentation of The Music of the Medici Wedding of 1608.
The music from this three-week-long, historic arts event has
since been made accessible to the masses by a major international
recording label, directed by Coelho with the Italian group
The Complesso Barocco. As well, Coelho was the artistic director
of performances of the score that took place in New York and
Calgary.
As a musician, Coelho has performed on the Renaissance lute
on international and local concert stages. He also regularly
demonstrates his vocabulary of blues licks on the Fender Stratocaster
and bottleneck slide guitar, as a member of the Rooster Blues
Band. This U of C-based band performs regularly at a wide range
of venues and is about to release its second CD.
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 Gordon Moore (Chemical and Petroleum Engineering)
Gordon Moore's research career has been dedicated to understanding
an environmentally friendlier method of enhanced oil recovery – air
injection.
Moore works closely with his colleague Raj Mehta as part of
the U of C's In Situ Combustion Research Group. The group operates
a world scale combustion lab, which was made possible through
a significant donation to the U of C by Amoco Production.
Enhanced oil recovery is usually associated with water injection
or steam injection methods. These methods increase the productivity
of a reservoir by injecting steam or water into a reservoir
to essentially push the oil to the surface or towards a more
accessible well site.
The
air injection process involves pushing air into a reservoir,
igniting a small portion of the oil
and harnessing the advance
of the resulting underground fire to move the oil. The benefits
of this method are that it doesn’t require the vast amounts
of water required for water or steam injection and it reduces
the volume of carbon dioxide vented per volume of oil produced
as compared to steam injection.
Specifically, Moore's research focuses on the highly complex
oxidation reactions that occur during in situ combustion. He
is also working to answer the tricky question of why oils that
appear to be similar in properties can behave so differently
in the air injection process.
To date, Moore's research contributions have earned him international
honours such as being named a Distinguished Member of Society
of Petroleum Engineers and a Distinguished Lecturer of the
Society of Petroleum Engineers International in 2001. He also
won the Distinguished Service Award from the Petroleum Society
of CIM in 1995.
As well, Moore and Mehta's expertise has helped establish
19 international research and educational partnerships across
the globe (with countries stretching from China to Peru) that
are benefiting the U of C and the Canadian oil patch.
As a University Professor, Moore will be able to devote more
time to the vast activities of his lab, explore various spin-off
projects and contribute new insights to timely energy issues,
such as CO2 sequestration.
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 Benno Nigg (Kinesiology)
Benno Nigg’s research expertise is focused on lower extremity
biomechanics – a field of study that is keeping society
moving towards a healthier lifestyle.
Specifically, Nigg studies how our feet handle the stress
of walking, running and general activity as well as how shoe
and orthotics manufacturers can improve their products.
Nigg
is the founder and co-director of the Human Performance Lab
(HPL) in the Faculty of Kinesiology.
The HPL is one of
the world’s leading research centres in basic and applied
human neuro-musculo-skeletal health and well-being. In fact,
last year an independent external reviewer deemed the HPL's
research activities “the best in the world in clinical
biomechanical research."
The HPL is home to a multidisciplinary research group, comprised
of nine full-time and seven adjunct faculty members doing research
in anatomy, muscle mechanics, physiology, motor control, biochemistry
and biomechanics. In total, the Human Performance Lab supports
more than 100 full-time researchers, visiting professors, postdoctoral
students, graduate students, technicians and support staff
who have come to Calgary from all over the world.
The
HPL attracts in the range of $4.6 million a year in research
funding. This funding includes Nigg’s contract research
for major corporations such as Adidas, Nike and Dr. Scholl’s.
Nigg has won several local, national and international awards
for his work, including a lifetime achievement award by the
Canadian society of Biomechanics in 2002 and the Olympic Order,
the International Olympic Committee's highest award for contributions
to exercise and sport.
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 Raj Rangayyan (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Raj Rangayyan's significant research contributions include
developing improved methods for computer-aided diagnosis
of breast cancer.
Rangayyan, a professor in the U of C's Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, works in the field of biomedical
signal and image analysis.
A method he developed for contrast enhancement in mammograms
has allowed radiologists to differentiate between malignant
and non-malignant disease of the breast, leading to earlier
detection of breast cancer. He has also developed additional
methods for detecting and analyzing indicators of breast cancer,
such as calcifications and tumors.
Rangayyan's research has also been applied to knee-joint cartilage
pathology. His contributions in this field include the development
of methods for non-invasive computer-aided diagnosis via analysis
of joint vibration signals, which could be used to monitor
the effectiveness of treatment.
Rangayyan
has recently launched a research project aimed at developing
image analysis techniques to
improve the monitoring
and treatment of neuroblastoma, a tumor found in infants that
is responsible for up to 10 per cent of all childhood cancers.
This project is in partnership with the Alberta Children's
Hospital and the University of São Paulo and Children’s
Institute in São Paulo in Brazil (where Rangayyan an
honorary visiting professor).
Rangayyan has been invited to lecture in several countries
and has received many national and international awards and
honours. In the past three years he has been elected as a Fellow
of four professional societies: the International Society for
Optical Engineering, the American Institute for Medical and
Biological Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, and the Engineering Institute of Canada.
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 Aritha van Herk (English)
Aritha van Herk is one of Alberta's most talented novelists
and an inspiring professor to new generations of creative
writers graduating from the U of C's Department of English.
To date, van Herk has published five novels: Judith, The Tent
Peg, No Fixed Address, Places Far From Ellesmere, and Restlessness.
As
well as critical acclaim, these novels have earned several
provincial and national honours, including
the Seal First Novel
Award in 1978 for Judith and the Howard O’Hagan Prize
in 1987 for No Fixed Address. Van Herk was also nominated for
a Governor General's award for No Fixed Address.
In recognition of her distinguished scholarly career, van
Herk was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
in 1997.
Her
critical and non-fiction works, A Frozen Tongue and In Visible
Ink, address questions of reading and
writing within
the context of Canadian culture and regionalism. As well, her "irreverent
but relevant" history of Alberta, Mavericks, appeared
in 2001 and won the Grant MacEwan Author’s Award.
As a University Professor, van Herk will continue her research
on the representations of laundry as text and marker within
material culture. This study, funded by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada, encompasses an analysis
of representations of laundry in western literature, art, film,
and music, and follows on her previous work on clothing and
travel within fiction and non-fiction.
Her future research will amplify her previous work on feminist
readings of the picara as melancholic character, and on transgressive
women as representational figures within both fiction and metacritical
readings.
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