Awards
2010 & 2011 Vanier Scholarships Nadine Borduas, Christina Müller and Jessica Sonnenberg Nadine Borduas, Christina Müller and Jessica Sonnenberg were awarded prestigious Vanier Scholarships in 2010 and 2011. The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships program was launched by the Government of Canada in 2009 to strengthen Canada’s ability to attract and retain the world’s toptier doctoral students. Each scholar receives up to $50,000 annually for up to three years, and each is selected based on their demonstrated leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in their graduate studies. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the recipients noting “Canada’s prosperity is fundamentally linked to science and technology and highly skilled individuals whose talents bring innovative ideas to life. I am pleased to congratulate the recipients of this year’s Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships – researchers whose ideas will help produce tomorrow’s breakthroughs and keep Canada’s economy growing.” In addition to their strong academic performances, Nadine, Christina and Jessica are all very active in the department. All three were members of the organization committee for Chemistry’s Nuit Blanche celebrations, during which a postage stamp in honour of Professor Polanyi was unveiled
(see page 10). Nadine and Jessica have served on the executive of the ChemClub, while Christina has been a part of our graduate student’s advisory committee. Currently, Nadine is researching the environmental impacts of volatile amines and their degradation products, compounds which may have negative effects on human health as well as on ecosystems. Her research involves detecting, characterizing and gaining insight into the fate of these amines in the atmosphere to ultimately help create a sustainable future. Christina’s research is focused on the development of nano and microfabrication methods and their experimental implementation in diffraction and spectroscopy experiments, she is working towards understanding atomic resolution of structural dynamics in solution phase and laser selective chemistry. Jessica is investigating the mechanism of transfer hydrogenation using iron catalysts developed in the Morris group. Specifically, she has determined that the active species are zero-valent iron nanoparticles doing asymmetric catalysis. Information provided by Nadine Borduas, Christina Müller, Jessica Sonnenberg and http://www.vanier.gc.ca Photo credit: Nadine Borduas (top), Christina Müller (middle) and Jessica Sonnenberg (bottom)
External Awards
Presented to Chemistry’s Undergraduate and Graduate Students Canadian Society of Chemistry Toronto Conference, June 2010: Organic Chemistry Graduate Poster Award, Honourable Mention Shannon Decker (Yudin group)
Undergraduate Poster Award in Physical Theoretical Chemistry
Rayomond Dinshaw (Scholes group)
Surface Science Graduate Poster Award, Honourable Mention Alon Eisenstein (Goh group)
Environmental Chemistry Graduate Poster Award
Industrial Chemistry Graduate Student Oral Presentation Award
Inorganic Graduate Poster Award
2010 AACR AstraZeneca International Scholar in Training Award
Robert McWhinney (Abbatt group) Gabriel Menard (Stephan group)
Division of Inorganic Chemistry (DIC) Award for Graduate Work in Inorganic Chemistry Danny Puzzo (Ozin group)
Organic Chemistry Oral Presentation Award Rob Webster (Lautens group)
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c h e m . u t o r o n t o . c a / d i s t i l l at i o n s 20 1 0 & 20 1 1
Serge Zaretsky (Yudin group)
Brent Page (Gunning group)
2010 University of Toronto Alumni Association Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award
Leo Mui (BSc 2008, MSc 2010, Chin group)