Spring 2013 McMaster Times

Driving Toward The Future

Developing the next generation of sustainable transportation

Learning By Helping

On the road to New Orleans with MacServe

Into The Blogosphere Young alumni plant their flags online

THE NEWSMAGAZINE FOR McMASTER UNIVERSITY ALUMNI

SPRING 2013

6............ Downtown Health Campus on track

contents

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A repeat trip to the Vanier Cup

7.......................... Another Rhodes finalist 7....... Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship 8.............. Governor General’s medal winner

Researchers from across the University are leading the development of the next generation of sustainable transportation. Ali Emadi, a Canada Research Chair (above) is one of them. Read more about McMaster’s inter-disciplinary auto research on page 12.

FEATURES

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Meet McMaster

She’s travelled around the globe, but Stephanie McLarty ‘03 is all Hamilton these days. And her local company, REfficient, is making a big impact in the online business world.

McMaster biologist Jianping Xu shatters the “mushroom myth” in rural China. See page 9.

Driving Toward the Future

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The University has a proud history in automotive research, and it’s about to get a major boost with the completion of the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre this year. Come along for a ride with some of the top researchers in the country.

DEPARTMENTS 5......................... PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 10.............................. MEET McMASTER 24.........................

Learning by Helping

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Climb aboard the bus to New Orleans for a first-hand look at a MacServe Reading Week experience. Participants helped build a house in the Ninth Ward, and visited some of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.

ALUMNI DIRECTIONS

26................................ ALUMNI ALBUM 33................................. IN MEMORIAM 34........................... McMASTER WRITES

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THE NEWSMAGAZINE FOR McMASTER UNIVERSITY ALUMNI

JD HOWELL

Associate professor J.S. Cotton ‘94, ‘97 & ‘01 and a team of students (pictured) construct Mac’s first waste heat lab. See page 9.

VOL. 28, NO. 1 - SPRING 2013

UNIVERSITY NEWS

In 1998, Mary Schmich, a columnist at the Chicago Tribune, writing as a fictional version of Kurt Vonnegut, advised new university graduates to wear sunscreen, floss, stretch and get to know their parents. It may not sound like advice that took the world by storm, but it did. If you don’t remember it, Google it.

You won’t be disappointed.

Now it’s your turn. We’re assembling the wisdom, advice and inspiration of the McMaster family … a few sentences at a time. We invite you to contribute your favourite lines of advice, motivation or inspiration through macgoodadvice.ca or by sending your note to McMaster University’s Alumni House.

Think of it as a Convocation speech by committee. We hope you’ll be part of it.”

Corrections In the story “Celebrating a Decade in the Student Centre” in our Fall 2012 edition, a gift from the DeGroote Family towards the building of the Centre was incorrectly listed as $4 million. The correct figure is $6 million.

In our Fall 2012 “Alumni Album,” Robert J. Angus is incorrectly listed as medical director of St. Joseph’s General Hospital in Hamilton. The correct location of the hospital is Comox, B.C.

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Developing the nex

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Learning By Hel

On the road to

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Into The Blogosp Young alumni pla

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SPRING 2 013

On the Cover McMaster researchers from left Saeid Habibi, Charlotte Yates and Ali Emadi with Canada’s first electric Ford Focus. Photographed in Emadi’s soon-to-open lab at the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre on Longwood Road South. Photo by JD Howell ’04.

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Publisher Andrea Farquhar

Managing Editor Gord Arbeau

Art Director JD Howell ’04

Editor Pat Morden

Contributors Andrew Baulcomb ‘08, James Clark, Patrick Deane ‘11 (honorary), Karen McQuigge ‘90, Pat Morden, Leah Rosenthal ‘07, Mark Stewart ‘06, ‘10, Matt Terry ‘09 Advertising Sales Sandra Rodwell Office of Public Relations 905-525-9140 ext. 24073 Officers, Alumni Association Mark Stewart ‘06, ‘10, president; Bill McLean ‘90, past-president; Sandra Stephenson ‘78, vice-president; Don Bridgman ‘78, financial advisor; Brian Bidulka ’87, member-at-large; Elaine Kunda ‘95, member-at-large; Brad Merkel ‘85, member-at-large; Don Simpson ‘79, member-at-large; Erin Robertson ‘07, member-at-large; David Feather ‘85, ‘89, member-atlarge; Stephanie McLarty ‘03, member-at-large.

Representatives to the University Senate Ian Cowan ‘71,‘76; Peter Tice ‘72; Suzanne Craven ’73; Bill McLean’90; Dennis Souder ’70 Representatives to the University Board of Governors Quentin Broad ’86, ‘88; Lauren Cuddy ’80, ‘84; David Lazzarato ’79; Bill McLean ‘90; Howard Shearer ’77 McMaster Times is published two times a year (spring and fall) by the Office of Public Relations in co-operation with the McMaster Alumni Association. It is sent free of charge to University alumni and friends.

Non-alumni subscriptions are available at $15 (Canada and U.S.A.) and $20 (foreign). Please make cheques payable to McMaster University.

Ideas and opinions published in the McMaster Times do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, the McMaster Alumni Association or the University. Letters and editorial contributions are welcomed. National and local advertisers are invited.

Editorial communications: McMaster Times, DTC 125 McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L9 Tel: 905-525-9140, ext. 23662 Fax: 905-521-1504 E-mail: mactimes@mcmaster.ca Website: bit.ly/McMasterTimes Canada Post Publications Mail 1473638 Postmaster: Send all returns to McMaster University c/o Advancement Services, T-27 Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8

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Cert no. SW-COC-2113

The wood in this product comes from well-managed forests, independently certified in accordance with the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council.

On academic freedom...

Patrick Deane ‘11 (honorary) President, McMaster University

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

JD HOWELL

This Fall I will travel to Bologna, Italy, to sign on behalf of McMaster University the Magna Charta Universitatum, a reaffirmation of the principles and traditions upon which the greatest universities of the west have been founded. One of the key principles of the Magna Charta is this: for a university “to meet the needs of the world around it, its research and teaching must be morally and intellectually independent of all political authority and economic power.” “Freedom in research and training,” the document continues, “is the fundamental principle of university life.”

“Academic Freedom” is the term typically used to identify this idea, the origins of which are to be found in twelfth-century Bologna, when the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa introduced a regulation to protect foreign scholars from intimidation, and therefore to establish rules and privileges appropriate to the pursuit of higher learning. That regulation, the authentica habita, was eventually taken up into the body of civil law by the Emperor Justinian, and today in many parts of the world academic freedom is guaranteed by law.

Just why this is the case, and why even in the absence of legislation, nine centuries of custom guarantee the right of scholars and students to ask questions of all kinds and probe areas of all kinds, is not always well enough understood. The Magna Charta is correct to link the exercise of academic freedom to the needs of the world, because the central paradox of university life is that we are to some extent sequestered from the world in order to serve the world, to ensure that every social, cultural, economic and scientific proposition can be weighed for its wisdom and value to humanity and the world we inhabit.

Law and custom supports academic freedom because it is for the greater good that all ideas should be subject to questioning and assessment. Conversely, those who seek personal benefit or advantages for a particular group or organization may seek to constrain freedom in research, education, and academic debate. If voices on both sides sometimes become shrill, that is because the stakes are very high. Just how high may not be apparent to society at large, in part because outside of the university we are much less likely to question our enlistment in causes of one sort or another.

The University was recently named as co-defendant in a law suit that challenged the freedom of one of our librarians to express an opinion within his area of expertise. The experience reminded us of the extent to which academic freedom is always threatened in itself and at the same time enormously threatening to others. Thus we come to yet another paradox at the heart of the university: to the extent that we challenge society, we act for its greater good.

continues on page 30

Ground broken at Downtown Health Campus

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Going global in health research

Sarah Janes

As part of the University’s ongoing internationalization efforts, McMaster entered into a new five-year agreement with the Netherlands’ Maastricht University in November, which will see both schools expand their joint graduate programs in global health. The memorandum of agreement was signed in November by McMaster President Patrick Deane and Gerard Mols, the former rector magnificus of Maastricht University. During the one-year program, students at the two universities work together remotely, and have the option of studying at the other partner school, spend time working in a developing country and meet at a combined symposium. Princess Margriet of the Netherlands also received an honorary doctorate at fall convocation.

NEWSLINE What has happened since the last issue...

NOV 2012

As part of the University’s 125th anniversary celebrations, McMaster alumni and friends returned to the campus’ original home at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music on Nov. 28, formerly known as “McMaster Hall.”

The spirited gathering featured performances by a number of student groups, including an a cappella medley of songs from decades past.

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Vanier Cup rematch thrills sports fans

Sarah Janes

The future of healthcare in Hamilton took a big leap forward in November, when ground was broken at the University’s Downtown Health Campus. The $84.6-million landmark project is a partnership between McMaster, the City of Hamilton and the Province of Ontario.

The facility is being constructed at the corner of Main Street and Bay Street in the heart of the city, and will accommodate 54,000 patient visits each year, along with hosting 4,000 McMaster students and 450 employees. McMaster President Patrick Deane, Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina, Councillor Jason Farr and Senator David Braley were among the dignitaries who took part in the official groundbreaking ceremony. Once complete in 2014, the facility will be home to teams of family doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, and will provide primary health care to 15,000 Hamiltonians – many of whom will be located in the downtown core and lower city. The Downtown Health Campus will also serve as headquarters for the city’s Public Health Services, and will provide a new home for the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine; the McMaster University School of Nursing’s nurse practitioner program; the McMaster Continuing Health Sciences Education Program and other research programs.

It was a season to remember on the gridiron, as the Marauders football team set a new CIS record with 21 consecutive victories (stretching all the way back to their 2011 campaign). The team captured the Yates Cup and Mitchell Bowl en route to a much-anticipated Vanier Cup rematch with Université Laval at the Rogers Centre – a hard-fought battle that ultimately fell to the Rouge et Or. On the heels of a record-breaking season, a trio of Marauders earned some major CIS hardware in November. Starting quarterback Kyle Quinlan was presented with the Hec Crighton Trophy as the nation’s top collegiate football player, while head coach Stefan Ptaszek earned the Frank Tindall Trophy as CIS coach of the year. Defensive end Ben D’Aguilar was given the J.P. Metras Trophy as the country’s most outstanding lineman.

The Vanier Cup attendance of 37,098 (with many fans clad in maroon and grey) shattered the previous record of 32,847.

DEC 2012

A two-day fundraising drive in early December raised more than $312,533 to directly benefit students. The 48-Hour Bursary Challenge was a hugely successful initiative of the McMaster Alumni Association, with all funds earmarked for Hamilton-area students in need of bursaries.

Rhodes finalist

Grand opening for the Sherman Centre Since opening its doors on Nov. 30, the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship has been helping graduate students and faculty members process huge amounts of data to bolster their research. The overall goal of the Centre is to reveal new information that would not have been possible to find even a few short years ago.

The facility, located on the first floor of Mills Memorial Library on McMaster’s main campus, was made possible thanks to $2.5 million gift from the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Foundation, the largest private donation in the library’s lengthy history. The Centre is home to information specialists who can guide researchers through the challenges of searching vast stores of data using technology that can instantly scour and compare information from digitized maps and books, electronic databases and other sources.

Engineering and management student Giueseppe Del Gobbo was a finalist for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship in 2012.

The native of Thorold, Ont. followed in the footsteps of fellow McMaster student Sheiry Dhillon, who was named a Rhodes Scholar one year prior. McMaster President Patrick Deane and other University officials offered advice and guidance throughout the rigorous application process.

They also put the fourth-year student in touch with several past Rhodes Scholars; an experience Del Gobbo says was “invaluable.”

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McMaster ranks high in 2012

1st

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Top 5 Most Research Intensive University in Canada Research Infosource

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Times Higher Education World Universit y Rankings

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listed Canadian schools world e in the Top 10 0 in th Shanghai Jiao Tong University

152nd QS World Universit y Rankings OVER ALL (Report based on 700 global institutions)

UNIVERSITY NEWS

(second overall) Mos t s a tisfied s t uden t s Canadia n Unive rsit y Re 2012 (T p or t he Glob e an d M ail)

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(first ov erall) Qualit y of Teac hing an d Canadia Learning n Unive rsit y Re 2012 (T p or t he Glob e an d M ail)

continues on page 30 JAN 2013

A state-of-the-art, $1.3 million teaching and learning anatomy lab opened in January at the Waterloo Regional Campus’ Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine – part of an ongoing collaboration between McMaster and the University of Waterloo.

FEB 2013

McMaster researcher Wayne Lewchuk and the United Way Toronto released new findings about the shrinking number of workers in the Toronto and Hamilton area who have stable, secure jobs.

Some 40 per cent of residents are now working in jobs with some degree of “precarious employment,” the study found.

MAR 2013

Getting a head start. The first-ever Connect to Careers job fair hosted more than 2,000 students and young alumni at the Hamilton Convention Centre on March 6. The job fair offered a professional resume critique, connections with area employers and tips on how to dress for success. dailynews.mcmaster.ca

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AWARDS & HONOURS scientist at the Centre for Innovative Cancer Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He’s also a professor of medicine with a cross-appointment in biochemistry at the University of Ottawa. Studying at McMaster may have launched his career, but Bell admits that meeting his wife (Sheila Bell ’81) was his greatest achievement at the University.

PhD graduate receives Governor General’s medal

UNIVERSITY NEWS

Renaissance expert earns Lifetime Achievement Award Konrad Eisenbichler ’73 & ’74 was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies for his major contributions to the extension of Renaissance Studies in Canada. The award was instituted in 2001 to celebrate the society’s 25th anniversary. The citation that accompanied the award noted, “On the basis of his scholarly, administrative, and professional work on the local, national and international levels, and the outstanding work he has carried out to promote Renaissance studies among students and scholars, Prof. Konrad Eisenbichler is probably the person who single-handedly has contributed the most to Renaissance studies in Canada over the past few decades.”

At the University’s Fall Concovation ceremony in November, Nikol Piskuric ’07 & ’12 was presented with the Governor General’s Academic Medal. The award is presented annually to the graduate student who has achieved the highest academic standing in his or her degree program. Only one medal is awarded to each university, and past recipients include Canadian luminaries such as Pierre Trudeau, Tommy Douglas, Kim Campbell, Robert Bourassa, Robert Stanfield and Gabrielle Roy. Piskuric completed her PhD in the Department of Biology, and was nominated for the medal by Bhagwati Gupta, associate chair of Graduate Studies, and Colin Nurse, a professor and longtime colleague.

Four McMaster researchers earn Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships It’s one of Canada’s most prestigious academic prizes, and four McMaster researchers can now call themselves Banting Postdoctoral Fellows. During an announcement at the University Club last fall, Mark Ferro ’04, Helen Kirk, Kyle Siler ’03 and Rahul Kushwah (along with 66 other recipients from across Canada) were officially recognized as Banting Fellows by Federal Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear. The awards are funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and are designed to attract and retain some of the top researchers in the world. McMaster’s dean of graduate studies Allison Sekuler said the Banting prizes create the conditions for postdoctoral fellows to do their best research, while also sharing knowledge and skills with graduate and undergraduate students. The award provides each recipient with $70,000 per year, for two years.

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Cancer researcher wins Distinguished Alumni Award Dr. John Bell ’77 & ’83 was honoured with the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award, which recognizes McMaster graduates who have attained a high level of distinction and achievement through scholarship, research, teaching, creative contributions to the arts or sciences and/or service to society. A longtime Ottawa resident and recipient of numerous awards throughout his career, Bell has established an international reputation for identifying and characterizing certain types of animal viruses that specifically infect and kill cancer cells. These “oncolytic viruses” not only hold promise as treatments of various human cancers, but also as inoculations against certain types of cancer. Bell is a senior

Theoretical researchers honoured with major fellowships A pair of University researchers received some major recognition in February. Physics and astronomy professor Catherine Kallin was awarded a prestigious Killam Research Fellowship by the Canada Council for the Arts, while associate chemistry professor Paul Ayers received an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship for his ground breaking theoretical approaches to chemistry. Kallin will be given $70,000 per year for two years to carry out research on “unconventional superconductivity,” specifically related to satellite and power technologies. Ayers will benefit from a research grant of up to $250,000 (over a twoyear period) to study catalytic systems with his McMaster-based team of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and alumni, the Ayers Group. Steacie Fellowships have been awarded since 1965, and are named in honour of Edgar William Richard Steacie - a renowned Canadian chemist, and president of the Royal Society of Canada during the mid-1950s. The Killam Program was established in memory of Izaak Walton Killam through the will of his wife Dorothy. The fellowships support advanced education and independent research.

RESEARCH NEWS Cracking the ‘happy gene’ Why are some people happier than others?

Associate professor Dr. David Meyre and a team McMaster researchers may have uncovered the answer. Scientists at the University found evidence that the FTO gene (the major genetic contributor to obesity) is also associated with an eight per cent reduction in the risk of depression. In other words, FTO does not simply cause obesity – it’s a “happy gene” as well. The remarkable findings were published in November in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. The team’s research produced the first evidence that an FTO obesity gene is associated with protection against major depression, independent of its effect on body mass index.

Depression is a common medical condition that affects up to one in five Canadians.

A wild mushroom thought to be at the cause of 400 sudden deaths spurred McMaster biologist Jianping Xu to navigate more than 30 kilometers a day through mountainous terrain and harsh weather in rural China, in search of the truth. Xu’s findings shattered a common media myth claiming the Trogia venenata mushroom contained high concentrations of the metal barium – causing high blood pressure, cardiac arrest and sudden deaths in southwestern China. Researchers tested the mushrooms and found the barium concentration was so low it would require a person weighing 150 pounds to consume at least 35 kg of the dried mushroom for it to be lethal.

The research was published online in Applied and Environmental Biology.

Virus immunity has nothing to do with age Some things get better with age. Others stay relatively the same. According to a new study led by McMaster researchers, age is ultimately a non-factor when it comes to virus immunity.

The study was conducted in partnership with the University of Toronto and the University of Pennsylvania, and examined a variety of individuals –younger than 40, between 41 to 59 years of age and older than 60 – infected with three different viruses, including West Nile. Not only did the older group demonstrate perfectly normal immune responses, but the number of virus-fighting T cells (and the

Minimizing C. difficile with probiotics

Studying efficiency, one slice at a time Mechanical Engineering students Yuxuan Cai, Adam Ritcey and Mitchell Terpstra (along with associate professor J.S. Cotton ’94, ’97 & ’01) were instrumental in developing and constructing the University’s first waste heat recovery lab, located in the John Hodgins Engineering Building. One of the long-term goals is to investigate, and hopefully improve, the efficiency of large industrial pizza ovens used in major fast-food chains – the kind that churn out dozens of deep-dish pies each day.

According to the team, a great deal of energy is wasted during the cooking process, with only a small percentage required to actually cook the pizza.

Some of that wasted by-product can be stored and put to other uses, such as powering LED lights and signage, or providing hot water to the restaurant. The lab is currently being used by undergraduate and graduate students in the Faculty of Engineering, and future research possibilities include the study of automotive drive cycles, which could have an impact on everything from emissions to fuel consumption in the cars of tomorrow.

According to research published last fall in the Annals of Internal Medicine, new cases of C. difficile-associated diarrhea (among hospitalized patients taking antibiotics) can be reduced by two-thirds with the use of probiotics. While probiotics are far from a “magic bullet” solution, McMaster assistant professor of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics Dr. Bradley Johnston says therapeutic probiotic agents, as well as some yogurts and probiotic dairy products, may be vastly underused in nursing homes and hospitals. Johnston led a research team which compiled findings from 3,818 patients in 20 randomized-controlled trials.

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UNIVERSITY NEWS

Mac biologist shatters mushroom myth

functionality of those cells) was equivalent in all three groups. The study’s principal investigator, McMaster pathology and molecular medicine professor Dr. Jonathan Bramson, says the elderly are, “certainly capable of developing immunity to viruses.” The findings were published in PLOS Pathogens.

Green and Gold

by Pat Morden

MEET McMASTER

Stephanie McLarty, ’03 completed the celebrated McMaster Arts & Science Program and then travelled the world. While saving money for a graduate program, she happened upon a business idea that made sense financially and environmentally. Today her company, REfficient, provides an online marketplace that What were the early influences on your life?

My dad was an entrepreneur and my mom helped him manage his ventures. They had a few businesses when I was growing up, so that was definitely an influence. But what’s more important is that their roles were in a sense reversed. My dad is more emotionally sensitive, and my mother is black-and-white, so it challenged the norm on a fundamental level. They always encouraged me to do whatever I believed in. And I had two older brothers, who were always pushing me by saying, “You can’t do that, you’re a girl.” I really attribute a lot of my drive to them, but they’d never have known it at the time!

Why Mac? Why Arts & Science?

In high school I was good at a number of subjects, and I wanted to go into medicine, so the Arts & Science program at Mac was a good fit. The program helped me develop the ability to connect the dots, to see the interrelationships between ideas and concepts, and the ability to relate to different groups of people. It also forced me to learn to write well, something that I hated at the time but I now see is very valuable!

How did REfficient come about?

After university I went to Thailand for six months and spent a year in India. Then I decided to do a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Transformation in Europe. But I was basically broke, so I came home and got a job with a telecom company. For eight months I drove around to old network sites across Ontario, pulled out the unused equipment, and figured out what to do with it. Some was

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allows businesses to go shopping in each other’s surplus inventories. REfficient has customers in nine countries, and is the first in Hamilton to become a Certified B Corporation, a company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental issues. All that, and she’s still only 32 years old!

reused internally, some was resold, and some was donated or recycled. It was very hard work and it was something I knew nothing about. By the end of it, I had acquired some knowledge and a good network. After my Master’s, I did some consulting in the field.

Eventually I decided to create a technologybased solution to help companies manage their equipment inventories and limit their environmental impact.

What were some of the challenges in the early stages of REfficient?

It was (and is) a great idea – if you’re going to buy equipment, check to see if someone has it as surplus first and promote reuse. But it was a new concept and we had to educate people about it. That was challenging because our budget was limited and we couldn’t just throw a multimillion dollar marketing campaign at it. We had to think of creative ways to make people aware, including things like seed paper postcards.

The other major challenge has been that as an early-stage company we only have a certain amount of resources, whether financial or human, so we really have to focus in order to get the best results. People approach me with new ideas every week, but we have to stay focused to get to the next level.

What do you enjoy most about running your company?

We’re actually taking an idea and putting it into action. It’s making a difference to the companies we work with because it helps them save money, and it’s making a difference for the environment, because it keeps reusable product out of landfill sites. It’s also making

a difference to our employees. Every day is different. I face challenges but it’s fun coming up with creative solutions.

You moved your company from Mississauga to Hamilton. Why? It’s much cheaper to do business here and we had several major customers in the area. It was also one step closer to the border, which is important because we export about 50 per cent of the product to the U.S. The Hamilton business community has rallied around us.

Personally, I love living in Hamilton. I found an amazing loft for a really affordable price, and it’s just a 10-minute drive to work.

What’s next for REfficient?

We’ve moved to a new technology platform to support where we’re going as a company.

It allows companies to search globally for the products they need and connect with more sellers. We are also providing carbon-neutral shipping.

Any advice for someone with a business idea like yours?

Find something you love, because if it’s just about the money, it’s not worth it. If you want to do something with an environmental impact, ground it in a solid business case.

Remember to grow yourself as you grow your business. Recognize what holds you back and overcome it. After all, I’m a technology entrepreneur with an education in the liberal arts – I’m living proof that you can do anything if you really want to!

Find something you love, because if it’s just about the money, it’s not worth it. If you want to do something with an environmental impact, ground it in a solid business case.

Howell JDJDHOWELL

DRIVING TOWARD THE FUTURE

by Pat Morden

Researchers from a variety of disciplines are working to develop a more sustainable approach to human transportation

There’s a big poster on the wall of Ali Emadi’s office. It depicts three parallel timelines tracing the 100-year history of motorized transportation, electric generation and telecommunications. To Emadi, it holds a very clear message.

“If Alexander Graham Bell came back and looked at today’s information technology, he wouldn’t understand a thing because there have been so many paradigm shifts since his time. But Henry Ford and Thomas Edison? They’d recognize today’s internal combustion engines and electric power industry. Our goal is to help bring about a comparable paradigm shift in these areas.”

Sounds ambitious, but Emadi is convinced McMaster is the place to do it. And he’s betting his career on it.

He is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Hybrid Powertrain and the Director of the McMaster Institute for Automotive Research and Technology (MacAUTO). He joined McMaster from a prestigious position at the Illinois Institute of Technology because he saw the potential in McMaster’s unique culture. “At Mac there are no borders between departments or between disciplines,” he says. “We have worldclass researchers who are passionate about their work and open to collaborating across disciplines.”

McMaster has a proud legacy of leadership in automotive research: the McMaster Manufacturing Research Institute has been around since the early 1990s. This spring marks a new beginning, as many of the researchers involved in MacAUTO will move into the 80,000-squarefoot McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC), located at the McMaster Innovation Park. The new facility will house industry-scale labs, bringing together advanced equipment available in no other university research setting. dailynews.mcmaster.ca

JD Howell

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In addition to the usual suspects from every field of engineering, MacAUTO brings together perspectives from chemistry, mathematics, business, public policy, occupational therapy, and even kinesiology.

While the focus is on ground-breaking research and education, MacAUTO also has a strong commitment to commercialization.

Researchers are working with a number of large and medium-sized companies, including Ford, Chrysler and GM, using private contributions to leverage government support. “We don’t do research for the sake of research,” says Emadi. “There has to be a path, a vision for how the new knowledge will result in something meaningful for the people of Ontario and Canada.”

Emadi’s own team includes some 45 researchers and is growing rapidly.

They are working on a variety of projects relating to hybrid and electric power trains and power train components, energy storage systems, micro-grids and grid interface with plug-in vehicles, energy and power management and much more. Team members are involved in the design of various electric hybrid vehicles, from motorcycles to trucks, and are even working on propulsion systems for the aerospace industry. These are the technologies that will enable the paradigm shift Emadi sees – from internal combustion engines to the electrification of transportation.

His colleague, Saeid Habibi, chair of the department of mechanical engineering, leads the Centre for Mechatronics and Hybrid Technology.

His group works on the development of diagnostic and prognostic systems for hybrid vehicles. “An important factor in developing hybrid technologies is how the systems in the vehicle all work together, because that determines reliability and longevity,” says Habibi. “We are exploring the factors that affect the longevity of vehicles and developing algorithms that can detect the inception of problems.”

JD HOWELL

“Henry Ford and Thomas Edison - they’d recognize today’s internal combustion engines and electric power industry. Our goal is to help bring about a paradigm shift in these areas.”

Driven to succeed. McMaster researchers such as Saeid Habibi (left), Charlotte Yates (centre) and Ali Emadi are looking at ways to revolutionize car travel, including experimenting with “cognitive vehicle” technology, mapping the future of the auto industry and developing the next generation of hybrid and electric powertrains. They are pictured at the soon-to-open McMaster Automotive Resource Centre on Longwood Road South along with Canada’s first electric Ford Focus automobile.

Habibi’s group is also interested in the development of the “cognitive vehicle” – using existing technologies to analyze the environment surrounding the car as it drives and providing assistance to drivers. For example, a new technology may enable cars traveling at high speeds to detect obstacles ahead. Habibi is also the principal investigator for McMaster in the Green Auto Powertrain initiative, an industryuniversity research partnership led by the University of Waterloo.

It’s estimated that 40 per cent of the cost of building a car today is spent on software to run its increasingly sophisticated electronic systems.

Tom Maibaum, the Canada Research Chair in the Foundations of Software Engineering, says the software in many cars is more complex than that in aircraft. Maibaum leads the Network for the Engineering of Complex Software-Intensive Systems for Automotive Design (NECSIS), established at McMaster with support from IBM Canada, GM and other partners. “The complexity of automobile software was beginning to overwhelm GM and they wanted to participate in some research that would enable them to produce software more efficiently, more quickly and more safely.” That fit with Maibaum’s interest in building “safetycritical” systems.

NECSIS has academic and industry partners across Canada and a variety of projects under way. The ideas and prototypes developed through NECSIS will be evaluated by the industry partners and then handed off to commercial suppliers to incorporate into their software offerings. Maibaum says the project was established at Mac because of the significant group of researchers working on “principled” approaches to software development. “We are a world-renowned centre for the rigorous engineering approach to software design,” he says. “With today’s complex systems, it’s impossible to test everything that could

happen. We can provide companies with mathematically-based analytic methods to provide some levels of guarantee about reliability.”

To be commercially viable, electric vehicles must have reliable, longlasting and affordable batteries. Gillian Goward’s research on the dynamics of ions in electrochemical devices addresses this issue. “We look at molecular or atomic-level processes, but they certainly impact performance once they’re part of a full-scale battery pack in an electric car,” she says.

Goward’s group explores how batteries evolve over time, what chemical processes happen as batteries cycle, and how to tailor chemical conditions to avoid detrimental reactions. They use nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMR) to image cells while they are cycling to understand the complex chemical processes in the moment. “A lot of it comes down to what happens on the interfaces, because that’s where the chemistry doesn’t follow the textbook,” says Goward. “There can be all kinds of side reactions that can tie up and gradually degrade capacity.”

The group is also working on hydrogen fuel cells.

In contrast to Goward’s atomic-level explorations, Charlotte Yates, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, is leading a group concerned with broad questions of provincial and national public policy around the auto industry. The Auto Pact, which helped build a strong auto industry in Ontario, was abolished in 2001, although by then the North American Free Trade Agreement had largely nullified it. Since the financial crisis in 2008, Ontario’s auto industry has been in steep decline, with loss of jobs and investment, plant closings and bankruptcies. “The automotive industry has been a real engine of growth for Ontario and Canada,” says Yates. “So in the aftermath of the crisis, we’re asking what policies we need to foster greater levels of investment, and an innovative and dailynews.mcmaster.ca

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DRIVING TOWARD THE FUTURE

The McMaster Automotive Resource Centre, also known as “MARC,” located on Longwood Road South across from McMaster Innovation Park (MIP). Once complete this year, the facility will be home to the Centre for Mechatronics and Hybrid Technologies, the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies lab and other research spaces.

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therapist. “One of the first questions we ask people who are in rehab is ‘What do you want to get back to doing,’” she says. “I heard ‘driving’ again and again.” Statistics suggest that crash risk begins to rise at the age of 70, a concern as the leading edge of the Baby Boom hits 65. On the other hand, taking away a driver’s licence can have a devastating effect on quality of life.

JD HOWELL

competitive automotive industry to the year 2030.”

Yates leads an interdisciplinary group of researchers – engineers, geographers, economists, political scientists, policy experts and representatives from industry, including Ford, Toyota and the Canadian Auto Workers. In February, she received a $2.1-million Automotive Partnership Canada (APC) grant to lead a new auto policy research partnership based at the University. One project involves drawing a “technology map” of the future of the auto industry, and then considering the implications on policy. Researchers will also be studying other jurisdictions that have used proactive policies to increase investment, innovation and access to markets. Findings will be shared through traditional academic channels, but also through workshops involving industry and policymakers. A website will house a series of position papers on key issues in the industry.

Like Emadi, Yates believes that McMaster’s culture enables such nontraditional approaches. “The University encourages dialogues between social sciences and engineering and there’s been an openness and interest on the part of researchers in both fields. Funders see that as a truly distinctive feature of what we’re doing.”

A re-born auto industry in Ontario could mean thousands of muchneeded new jobs in manufacturing. But what about the workers on those assembly lines? Jim Potvin helps auto companies design assembly plants where workers can perform their jobs without undue stress on their bodies that can lead to injuries. “For a long time it was only when somebody got hurt that anyone paid attention to the workplace environment,” says Potvin. “In the past decade the auto industry has come to understand that you can save a lot of money if you do the ergonomics right the first time. And they’ve realized that healthy workers are also more likely to do their job well, so the quality of the product is higher.”

Potvin uses computer models similar to the ones used in movies like Avatar and Toy Story to evaluate how plant designs will affect the workers in them. The technology allows his team to assess whether a worker can reach comfortably to perform a task, whether he or she would have the strength to do it from the required posture, and whether there’s a risk of injury from repetitive strain. “The job doesn’t exist yet – the car may not exist yet – but I can immerse an avatar in a computer program and say that ‘I don’t think the workers will be able to do that safely.’” Potvin’s team is funded in part by APC. Since Ford began designing plants around ergonomic concerns in 2003, injuries, claims and lost time have dropped significantly.

Brenda Vrkljan is interested in another aspect of the human interaction with cars – helping drivers, especially seniors, drive safely. Vrkljan got interested in the topic while in clinical practice as an occupational

Gillian Goward, associate professor in the University’s Department of Chemistry, is leading a research group that uses nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMR) to better understand the complex chemical processes that take place in batteries.

“Age alone isn’t going to be what helps you predict who can drive and who can’t.

You have to take into account what peoples’ cognitive, motor and perceptual abilities are. Once you begin to look at all of those things, then you’ll be able to make better predictions about who may or may not be a safe driver.”

Once you begin to look at all of those things, then you’ll be able to make better predictions about who may or may not be a safe driver.”

Other researchers at McMaster are working on a variety of issues – from developing new lightweight materials to designing power grids that support electrified transportation, and finding green power sources. It all adds up, says Emadi, to an extraordinary locus of multidisciplinary expertise that has the potential to shift paradigms and drive the future of transportation. “Vision, intellectual capability, facilities and hardware – it doesn’t get any better than this!”

DRIVING TOWARD THE FUTURE

Vrkljan is now heading the McMaster University portion of the fiveyear Candrive project, funded by the research network AUTO21.

Candrive is studying seniors driving in six cities across Canada. One goal of the project is to develop a screening tool that health professionals can use to determine whether a patient should be allowed to continue driving. Study volunteers do a battery of in-office tests and then drive around with a small GPS device in their vehicles, allowing researchers to see where and when they drive. In the next stage of the project, cameras will be mounted in volunteers’ cars, and researchers will observe them as they go for a 20-minute drive. Vrkljan is also interested in ensuring that cars and roads are designed to help people drive safely for longer. She notes, for example, that left turns are dangerous for older adults, but the problem can be ameliorated by using more roundabouts. On the other hand, drivers may not be familiar with negotiating this type of road, so further research is needed.

Psychologist Allison Sekuler, associate vice-president and dean of Graduate Studies and the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neurosciences, is also interested in challenges facing older drivers.

Determining who can get behind the wheel safely is a complex and multifaceted process, she says. “Age alone isn’t going to be what helps you predict who can drive and who can’t,” she says. “You have to take into account what peoples’ cognitive, motor and perceptual abilities are.

- Allison Sekuler, Canada Research Chair

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INTO THE BLOGOSPHERE Who Knew?

by Pat Morden

Quirky, thoughtful, challenging, informative – several recent Mac graduates have launched popular blogs.

More than 60 per cent of Canadians use social media – that’s a lot of people. Many follow their favorite blogs on a regular basis.

Blogs are an intensely personal and immediate form of self-expression. Dash down a few in-the-moment thoughts or a compelling piece of information, maybe add a photo or video, and your post could be seen by people around the world. Or not. Recently I was asked to write a story about McMaster grads who are running blogs. In the next few posts, you’ll meet six bloggers and four unique blogs, each attracting a lot of attention. But don’t take my word for it – be sure to check them out online.

INTO THE BLOGOSPHERE

Hometown Girl Goes Tourist Kristin Archer ‘11 Archer grew up in the east end of Hamilton and studied English at Mac. She says she loved going to McMaster every day because it was “such a beautiful landscape.” She started her blog, I Heart Hamilton www.ihearthamilton. ca, in May 2011 just after finishing her degree. Her goal: to be a tourist in her hometown. “I thought it would be neat to go places I’ve never been and even places I have been, and see them with fresh eyes. There is so much here, and I wondered how much I really know about my own hometown.”

Archer has a big following across several social media platforms and is often contacted by people planning events or opening businesses to write about what they’re doing. Among her favourite Hamilton scenes: the monthly Art Crawls and annual Supercrawl centred on cool James Street North.

Archer even held her own I Heart Hamilton fundraiser in summer 2012, inviting several local bands to play and raise money for the Boys and Girls Club. On her new website she also posts playlists of favourite local bands.

She has definitely struck a chord (pun intended). “It’s been amazing doing this and just seeing the pride in Hamilton. It started out as a personal project to learn more about the city, and I was surprised by the reaction I got. It’s great to share my discoveries with so many other people.”

From Seoul with Love Katie Merchant ‘07 Merchant grew up in Sarnia and came to McMaster for English and Cultural Studies.

After her degree she spent two years as manager of the Union Market. Then she and her boyfriend decamped for Seoul to teach English for a year. For Merchant, the city was a very pleasant surprise. “When I was researching Korea all I saw were the more traditional tourist attractions, but when I got there it was better than I could have imagined.” She started photographing cafes, art galleries and street life in the surprising city and sharing photos and thoughts on a blog, thank you, ok www.thankyouok.blogspot.com Back in Canada, she moved to Toronto and got a job with beauty company Aveda. The blog continued. “At first I felt that it wouldn’t be as interesting because in my head everyone already knows about Toronto. But I decided to keep

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doing the same thing – documenting things I find interesting or pleasing to the eye. I’m heavy on aesthetics and light on writing.” Although she now has a secondhand SLR camera, Merchant takes most of her beautiful images on her iPhone.

Along the way, she’s also done freelance work for the online Toronto Standard, interned at a fashion magazine, and produced a Seoul city guide for DesignSponge.

Some of her favourite posts grew out of recent trips to New York and Paris, where she developed a crush on the concept store Merci. How appropriate.

Under (and Over) the Sea Kyle Empringham ‘11 + Sujane Kandasamy ’11, ‘12

INTO THE BLOGOSPHERE

Back in June 2011, a volunteer blogger posted a story on The Starfish about shark finning, the appalling practice of removing the fins from sharks and then throwing them back in the water to drown. The post caught the eye of Jared Leto, lead singer for 30 Seconds to Mars, who tweeted it to his fans. In a blogger’s dream come true, The Starfish ended up with more than 15,000 hits on that story alone.

The Starfish www.thestarfish.ca, an ecology blog started by Empringham and Kandasamy, is a good example of what can happen when you start small and believe in what you’re doing. Empringham and Kandasamy took a biology enquiry class together in their second year at Mac and wanted to find a way to keep talking about the big issues they had learned about. Three years later, The Starfish is going strong, with thousands of followers and a small army of volunteer student writers and editors across Canada. Starfish volunteers also run workshops for high school biology students.

Kandasamy says The Starfish is a great way to reach out to people with reliable information about environmental issues. “A lot of ideas come from peer-reviewed journals, but the stories are written so that you can read them while you have a cup of coffee,” she says. “Even if you only have five minutes you can learn one thing.”

Kandasamy’s favourite posts talk about the small things each one of us can do to reduce our ecological footprint. Like the boy who threw one stranded starfish back into the ocean http://thestarfish2010.squarespace.com/how-it-started/, she believes it’s important to start somewhere. “Changing the minds of thousands of people is very difficult, but if we can just make a little difference, it can propagate into something greater.” Amen to that.

Beautiful City, Beautiful World Stephanie Trendocher ‘08, + Jacklyn Warmington, ‘10 Trendocher and Warmington both chose McMaster in part because they were drawn to the energy of the city that surrounds it. “We’re passionate about discovering new places, products and the people behind them,” says Trendocher. “In our minds, every person, place and thing has a story worth telling.” Beaux Mondes is described as a “lifestyle blog in the historic city of Hamilton.” “Hamilton is the place we call home,” she says, “but we went with the name Beaux Mondes www.beaux-mondes.com because we want to inspire readers to love their city, wherever that might be. We hope they’ll find joy in their local coffee shop, or find beauty in the work of a local artist.”

Trendocher has a day job as Marketing Coordinator with Metrolinx/GO Transit, and Warmington works with the Hamilton Conservatory of the Arts. Building on the success of the blog, the partners collaborated with the Art Gallery of Hamilton for the World Film Festival, brought pop-up shops to the Art Crawls, and have a regular gig with Hamilton Magazine. Trendocher was recently appointed to the Tourism Advisory Committee for Hamilton. “Beaux Mondes is guiding our career paths and providing us with new opportunities to contribute to our community.” dailynews.mcmaster.ca

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Learning by Helping

by Matt Terry ‘09

Each Reading Week, McMaster students and alumni travel to cities around North America to engage in service-learning projects. Fifty undergraduates travelled to New Orleans in 2012 to help Habitat for Humanity reconstruct a home destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

McMaster’s innovative MacServe program takes students out the classroom . . . and alumni out of their comfort zones.

Pastor Randy Millet stands at the front of the coach bus as it slowly makes its way through part of the Katrina-devastated Ninth Ward of New Orleans. It has been years since the hurricane hit the area, but the number of empty lots makes it seem to the 50 students on the bus that the storm was much more recent.

The students are in New Orleans over Reading Week 2012 as part of the service-learning program MacServe. They will spend a number of days building a house at a nearby Habitat for Humanity job site.

They hang on Millet’s every word as he tells them about his experience during the storm. The pastor at Adullam Church in neighbouring Arabi, Millet lost contact with more than half his congregation after Katrina’s flooding. He still doesn’t know what became of them.

His creole drawl crackles through the bus speaker system as he describes what the students are seeing: the levees, which broke after being smashed by barges left adrift in the storm; the ultramodern “Brad Pitt” houses, built by the actor’s Make It Right foundation; and a vacant field where the community’s school once stood.

“My mind was racing as we entered that neighbourhood,” says Charan Singh ‘10, who was one of a handful of team leaders, made up of senior students, young university staff and alumni. “All of a sudden it was like, ‘hey, we’re actually here,’ and then the sombre realization that what we were seeing was very real.”

The 50 students spent 24 hours on the road and travelled through five U.S. states to get to this lecture. Though they were more than 2,000 kilometres from campus, they were learning more about the politics of disaster and recovery than they ever could in a classroom.

MacServe trips are like field trips during which students do jobs

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identified as being important by those in the communities they visit.

McMaster’s Student Success Centre has organized more than 30 such trips since 2004, sending hundreds of students to communities in Canada and around the world during Reading Week, the summer break and for one-day events in September. Groups have travelled to Vancouver to work in a community garden, Cuernavaca, Mexico to build and repair houses, and downtown Hamilton to work at a community centre and shelter. An alumni-only trip to Costa Rica is in development for November 2013.

“MacServe is meant to unsettle you,” says Adam Kuhn, the Student Success Centre’s manager of student development. “It helps students see other people’s world views. They learn that they can affect positive change, and they return home much more aware of the world around them.”

Not only do students give up their spring breaks, they also get out of their comfort zones. That can mean anything from rolling up their sleeves and performing work they’ve never done before to overcoming the personal anxiety that goes with travelling and living in close quarters.

To help, University staff members organize training sessions and guest lectures before the students leave. They cover everything from group dynamics to dealing with culture shock. They introduce some of the issues students will study over the course of their trips – the impact of free trade, food security, poverty and politics among them. They also help participants understand the sensitivities inherent in travelling to a place like New Orleans, still recovering from disaster.

The students in Louisiana spent most of their time working on a house at the corner of Flake Street and Leeds Avenue, just south of Lake Pontchartrain.

They were given safety training, divided into teams and put to work.

Some worked on what became a bedroom, while others cut wood. All were enthusiastic about the task at hand. For many, it was their first

“MacServe is meant to unsettle you.

It helps students see other peoples’ world views. They learn that they can affect positive change, and they return home much more aware of the world around them.”

– Adam Kuhn, manager of student development, Student Success Centre

LEARNING BY HELPING

time doing carpentry and construction.

“I expected to do a lot of hard work, which I was unsure about,” says Anna Corrigan, now a third year biology and environmental sciences student. “But the people around us made the experience amazing.”

In the evenings, Millet taught the volunteers about the area’s unique culture, cooked up local cuisine, and talked about living through Katrina. “The magnitude of the disaster hit me when Pastor Randy showed us the line left by the floodwater in the room we were sitting in,” says Singh. “It was close to the ceiling.”

It’s this ability to get up-close and personal with topics that would ordinarily only be found in textbooks and on the Internet, along with the chance to give something back to a community in need, that makes MacServe so popular with students and alumni alike. “It instills the value and importance of serving the community, even if you’re not a part of that community,” says Singh. “It inspires students to become leaders and engage with new opportunities.”

Singh participated in a number of one-day service-learning opportunities as a student, but says she didn’t initially consider continuing her involvement as an alumna. “After convocation I realized I had some unfulfilled goals,” she says. “MacServe allowed me to revisit my university experience, meet new people and see new places, and provided me with a great deal of insight. Civic engagement is very liberating and fulfilling.”

Top photo: Alumna Charan Singh hammers a nail into the frame of what will be a bedroom at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in New Orleans. Singh travelled to the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged area of the city in February 2012 as part of McMaster’s service-learning program MacServe.

Bottom photo: Students and alumni on MacServe trips perform all sorts of tasks for their host communities, including carpentry, gardening, food preparation and painting. dailynews.mcmaster.ca

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From the Sweathogs to O Captain!

My Captain!

Mr. Kotter did it on TV. In the movies, it was Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society and in To Sir, With Love, it was Mr. Thackeray (that was Sidney Poitier’s character … and yes, I had to look that up). They all taught, inspired and even learned from students. They made us forget the teachers from the Charlie Brown shows, the ones who spoke like muted trumpets – “Wah wah wahwahhhh. Wa wahh wah wah.”

The McMaster Alumni Association may not be looking to its members to take over classrooms any time soon, but we are inviting you to become part of the student experience in two new and meaningful ways. These programs build on the Association’s extensive work in student relations over the past few years, something you have probably read about if you’re a dedicated follower of this column (and I know who both of you are).

Trinidad Tidings When I tell people that McMaster has over 160,000 alumni in over 140 countries around the world, they are usually surprised and impressed at the size of our alumni base and our geographic diversity.

In early February 2013, I traveled with Adam Myrie ’06 to Trinidad and Tobago to visit family and friends. While there, I took the opportunity to host a McMaster alumni luncheon at the Hyatt Regency in Port of Spain, Trinidad. McMaster has over 100 alumni in Trinidad – some of who traveled from Trinidad to do their schooling at McMaster, and some whose personal and professional lives brought them there.

Etienne Mendez ‘73 was a great help in reaching out to our alumni network in Trinidad and bringing everyone together. Vijaya (Kanhai) Moosai ’82 owns Omega Medical Laboratory Ltd. She shared that “a big part of my education at McMaster was meeting and living with students from so many parts of the world, including Canada, India, Africa, Europe, Korea and the Caribbean.” Catherine Chang-Kit ‘01

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We launched a pilot of the first program in February over Reading Week. We recruited some of Mac’s most interesting and engaged students from various parts of campus and gave them the opportunity to reach out to alumni one-on-one. Our students sat down with grads and talked about, well, pretty much everything. Some alumni shared memorabilia covering decades of the student experience. Others talked about career paths, community involvement, classroom experiences and extracurricular activities. Others just talked about stuff.

Our goal with the program – which we plan to roll out again on a larger scale this summer – was not just to help students understand the legacy they inherit, or to help alumni understand the current generation of Mac students, but it was also to build McMaster’s oral and anecdotal history. At a time when so much data is available with the click of a mouse, we know it’s important to the McMaster family to share and preserve the unique character of our University and this project is a small contribution to that mission.

The second project is under way right now. It’s your chance to contribute to a virtual Convocation address and provide your wit, wisdom, insight and advice to the McMaster Class of 2013. We’re building a graduation present for this year’s new alumni. It will be a collection of inspiration, knowledge, experience and counsel that comes from McMaster’s alumni a few lines at a time. Visit impact. mcmaster.ca to add your two cents to what we’re calling the Good Advice Project (GAP). Think of it as a Convocation speech by committee. I hope you’ll be a part of it, but don’t you dare tell them to “Sound my barbaric yawp!” I’ve seen Dead Poets Society fourteen times, so that one’s mine.

found that her McMaster relationship helped her find employment shortly after graduation: “I contacted my fellow recent graduates to ask if they knew of any positions. In two weeks, I had a couple of interviews. One week after that, I had a job.”

I connected with Lindsay Gillette ’82, Chairman of Trinidad’s integrated oil and gas company Petrotrin and Chairman of Pelinja Holdings Limited. We discussed international business and attended Panorama Finals, a steel pan band competition that is part of Trinidad’s Carnival. I met Adrian Manmohan’91, Head of West Indies Stockbrokers Limited, a subsidiary of RBC Financial (Caribbean).

Showing it is truly a small world, Adrian works closely with my cousin who is also employed by RBC Financial.

Almost anywhere you travel you can find McMaster alumni. I encourage you to reach out to the McMaster Alumni Association to see if McMaster alumni are active where you live or are traveling.

The instant connection McMaster graduates share is a great way to meet new friends and business partners, and to experience the change McMaster alumni are making around the world.

ALUMNI DIRECTIONS

MARK STEWART ‘06, ‘10 President, Alumni Association

KAREN MCQUIGGE ‘90, Director, Alumni Advancement

ALUMNI DIRECTIONS

ALUMNI ALBUM 1950s Chuck Simmons ’58 & ’59 and his wife Mary-Lou Simmons ’59 joined many other adventurers on the McMaster Alumni Association’s “Pearls of Southeast Asia” trip in January, journeying to China, the Philippines, Borneo/ Malaysia and Indonesia. The couple first met as students at McMaster, and have been married for 53 years.

ALUMNI ALBUM

1960s Bob Williamson ’62 and his wife Eileen celebrated their golden wedding anniversary on Aug. 31, 2012. Williamson was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in November for his outstanding volunteer work in Hamilton. He has been a volunteer member of the Hamilton Historical Board for 12 years, and has delivered more than 1,000 illustrated heritage presentations to students and community groups in the area.

Robert Ryerson ’69 & ’70 received the 2012 Gold Medal from the Canadian Remote Sensing Society – the highest honour one can receive in the field of remote sensing. Ryerson is currently serving as president of Kim Geomatics Corporation, a consulting company he founded in 1996 and to which he returned in 2005. He is a two-time graduate from the Faculty of Social Sciences. Ryerson is also a Certified Mapping Scientist (Remote Sensing) and a Fellow of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS), and has worked in more than 40 countries around the world.

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1970s

George Stephanopoulos ’71 & ’02 (honorary) was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences – one of the oldest and most wellrespected honorary societies in the United States. A renowned academic author and engineering researcher, Stephanopoulos is currently the Arthur D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fellow Academy inductees include the likes of Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson, Maria Mitchell, T.S. Eliot and John Adams.

Penny Werthner ’73 became dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary.

Werthner is regarded as one of the country’s preeminent experts in sport psychology, and has been named one of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport’s “Top 20 Most Influential Women” in sport and physical activity. Her distinguished career in the field spans more than three decades.

Cecelia Carter ’74 was inducted into the T.A. Blakelock High School Hall of Fame in Oakville last fall. Carter, a former international track star on the Canadian national team, earned a political science degree from the Faculty of Social Sciences before embarking on a 33-year teaching career. She was inducted into McMaster’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994, and was sports co-chair of Hamilton’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 1996.

Jane Allen ’77 & ’81 was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network. Allen is a partner, chief diversity officer and global leader (renewable energy) with Deloitte Consulting, and previously served as a senior policy advisor with the Ontario Ministry of Energy, and assistant dean of the Faculty of Management, University of Toronto.

Meric Gertler ’77 was named the next president of the University of Toronto on March 4. Gertler, a graduate from McMaster’s Faculty of Social Sciences, is renowned for his research involving the geography of innovative

activity and the economies of city-regions. He is the dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T, and was founding co-director of the Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems (PROGRIS) at the Munk School of Global Affairs. He will succeed David Naylor, who has been president since 2005.

Mark Fisher ’78 & ’85 was appointed chief financial officer of Kawartha Lakes. Fisher is a twotime graduate from the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Gary Davis ’79 received an honorary D.Sc. from the Faculty of Science at the University’s spring convocation ceremony.

A renowned researcher, Davis is currently director of the Joint Astronomy Centre at the Mauna Kea Observatory at the University of Hawaii. Among his many professional achievements, Davis led a team that developed the

“Top 40 Under 40” A number of McMaster graduates were named to Business Link’s first annual ‘Top 40 Under 40” list, which honoured the best, brightest and most innovative business minds in the Hamilton and Halton area. Included on the list are several McMaster alumni: James Lefebvre ’94 (FirstOntario Credit Union) Hussein Hamdani ’95 (Simpson Wigle Law LLP) Daniel Banko ’96 (Banko Media) John Pryke ’97 (KPMG LLP) Darren McMullin ’00 (Taylor Leibow LLP) Kanata Cowan ’01 (K. Cowan Law) Stephanie McLarty ’03 (REfficient) Stephen Kulakowsky ’06 (Core Urban Inc.) Mark Stewart ’06 (Art Gallery of Hamilton) Mark Hirte ’07 (Advanced Office Solutions) Rami Reda ’07 (Big Bee Convenience) Stephanie Shuster ’07 (Innovation Factory)

Fabry-Perot subsystem for the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS), and played a key role in developing the SCUBA-2 camera.

He lives in Hilo, Hawaii with his wife, Caroline.

1980s Peter Crockett ’81 was named the chief administrative officer for Oxford County in Southwestern Ontario. Crockett is a graduate from the Faculty of Engineering.

Award of Excellence, recognizing his volunteerism and generosity in giving back to the community.

He is a graduate from the Faculty of Humanities.

P.J. Ferguson ’87 was listed at No. 19 on the annual PROFIT/ Chatelaine list of Canada’s 100 Top Female Entrepreneurs.

Ferguson is president of ABL Employment in Burlington, Ont., and holds a degree in history from the Faculty of Humanities.

1990s

W. Andy Knight ’83 became director of the Institute of International Relations at the University of the West Indies, located in Trinidad & Tobago. He is a graduate from the Faculty of Humanities.

Roberto Rossini ’84 was named deputy city manager and chief financial officer for the City of Toronto. Rossini was formerly the general manager, Finance and Corporate Services, with the City of Hamilton. He is a graduate from the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Gordon Stirrett ’86, president of Gordon Stirrett Wealth Management, was awarded the 2012 Manulife Financial Leadership

David Legg ’91 has been serving as president of the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC), and is also a leadership team member for Canadian Sport for Life and a board member for the Toronto 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games. Legg has been on the board of the CPC since 1999, and has attended five Paralympic Games in various capacities. He is a Professor in the Department of Physical Education and Recreation at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

Samantha Nutt ’91 & ’94 was appointed to the Order of Canada.

A well-known physician, social and political commentator, humanitarian and founder of War Child Canada, Nutt is a two-time McMaster graduate from the Arts & Science Program and the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Julie Kells ’93 recently purchased a new home in Owen Sound, Ont., where she works as a child protection worker for Bruce-Grey Child and Family Services. Kells graduated from the Faculty of

In November, the Hamilton Gallery of distinction welcomed four McMaster graduates to its illustrious ranks. Melvin “Mel” Hawkrigg ’52 & ’97 (honorary) is well-known in the area as a sound businessman, volunteer and supporter of local athletics.

Throughout his long career, Hawkrigg has taken on senior leadership positions with a number of successful companies, and most recently served as chair of Orlick Industries Ltd. and the Hamilton Port Authority. Between 1998 and 2007, Hawkrigg sat as Chancellor of McMaster. Morris Mercanti ’76, inducted alongside brothers Peter and Sam Mercanti, helped establish the popular Carmen’s Banquet & Convention Centre in Hamilton, and currently serves as president of the Oakville Conference Centre. He is also a generous local philanthropist. Teresa Cascioli ’83 is highly regarded in business circles for turning Lakeport Brewing Company into one of the country’s most recognizable brands during the mid-2000s.

Through her charitable endeavours, Cascioli has donated millions of dollars to McMaster, St. Joseph’s Healthcare, City Kidz and other local charities. An avid sailor and adventurer, Donald Green ’08 (honorary) is known for converting Hamilton Clamp into Tridon Ltd., and launching a global auto parts empire. He skippered the Evergreen to victory in the Canada’s Cup during the late1970s, and is a former chair of McMaster’s Board of Governors.

Social Sciences, and has three “lovely” daughters.

David McLaren ’93 became a Fellow of The Society of Certified Management Accountants of Canada (FCMA). McLaren is chief financial officer of Redpath Sugar Ltd. For the past 18 years, he has made significant contributions to the accounting and financial profession, such as mentoring CMAs who aspire to become CFOs. He is also actively involved with not-profits as a proud participant and fundraiser for the

ALUMNI ALBUM

Susan Moellers ’82 became a Fellow of The Society of Certified Management Accountants of Canada (FCMA). Moellers is the Global Human Resources and Communications Comptroller at Scotiabank. She is a strong believer in mentorship, and provides regular advice and guidance to CMAs at Scotiabank, as well as recent CMA graduates on career direction. Susan is also involved with fundraising for organizations, such as Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and Ride for Sight.

United Way CN Tower Climb.

Beatrice Ekoko ’94 helped spearhead the Hamilton Association for Renewable Energy (HARE).

The goal of HARE is to educate the public regarding the benefits of community power, and to promote renewable energy in the city. HARE promotes cooperative and community-owned renewable energy in Hamilton, in order to reduce our environmental footprint and attain greater sustainability. Currently, HARE has partnered with a renewable energy cooperative called the Green

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Energy Cooperative of Ontario (GECO), to build solar photovoltaic rooftop projects in Hamilton.

Darren Myers ’96 was appointed as chief financial officer of Celestia Inc. Myers is a graduate from the Faculty of Business.

Carlos Escalante ’98 was appointed manager, builder services, with Butler Buildings (Canada).

Escalante is a graduate from the Faculty of Engineering, and holds a degree in civil engineering. He lives with his wife Laura Escalante ’97 and three sons Carlos Jr., Diego and Leandro in Ancaster, Ont. Fayez Quereshy ’99 was appointed to the Division of General Surgery at Toronto Western Hospital. He is a graduate from the Arts & Sciences Program.

ALUMNI ALBUM

2000s

Michael Dojc ’00 and Daniela Friedman ’00 are thrilled to announce the birth of their son, Dylan Will Dojc. Dylan was born on Sept. 1, 2012 at 6:46 p.m. He weighed in at 7 pounds 9 ounces, and is a happy and healthy bundle of joy.

Devon Baldry (McInnes) ’01 and her husband Matt would like to announce the birth of their second daughter, Hayden McInnes Baldry who was born on Mar. 13, 2012. Big sister Findley is very proud.

Christopher Budau ’02 was appointed as chief financial officer of Touchstone Exploration Inc. Budau is a graduate from the Faculty of Business.

Shoshannah Levitt ’03 began one-year medical internship in Israel in November. A graduate from the Faculty of Humanities,

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she spent the past four years at the Medical School for International Health – an international institute administered by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

Candace Parsons ’05 married Adam Young in Vineland, Ont. on July 9, 2012. The happy couple moved into their first home in Sarnia not long afterward.

Parsons is a math professor at Lambton College in Sarnia, and her new hubby is a musician and social media strategist.

Michael Hickey ’06 & ’11 was hired as an orthopedic surgeon at Orillia Soldiers Memorial Hospital in Orillia, Ont. Alessandra Cardarelli ’08 founded Carte Blanche, a design company that specializes in handmade custom-order coasters using natural marble or slate. Cardarelli is a graduate from the Faculty of Humanities, with a degree in Art History.

Simon Donato ’08 and McMaster Physical Plant staffer Paul Trebilcock were featured in the television show Boundless in February.

The 10-episode adventure travel documentary followed the duo as they traveled to Hawaii, Kenya, Iceland, South Africa, Thailand and other locations around the globe to compete in extreme endurance races.

Matthew Dugdale ’08 achieved his dream when he joined Hamilton Police Services. Dugdale graduated with a B.A. in political science, and later added a diploma in police studies from the Centre for Continuing Education.

His longtime girlfriend Sharon Markowski ’10 also celebrated a milestone in 2012, when she was hired as a teacher at the Hamilton Hebrew Academy. The two currently live in West Hamilton.

Making his mark, one fret at a time

By James Clark For the past two years, Chris Lounsbury ’94 has been designing and building high-end guitars for musicians – namely those searching for a custom instrument tailored to their every need.

“The biggest thrill is when I’m able to take one of my instruments and put it in the hands of a musician who is a better player than me,” says Lounsbury, who graduated from McMaster’s economics program.

Despite being a music lover, Lounsbury knows becoming a professional guitar maker is a bit of a stretch from his academic background. “I never became a fantastic player,” he says. “But I did become interested in the guitar as an object, as well as an instrument.”

His passion was so strong that Lounsbury, who is married with two young children, quit his job in computer technical support to attend a five-week intensive guitar-making program just outside of Gatineau, QC. “It was the most intense period of concentration I’ve ever experienced,” says Lounsbury, who was joined by seven other students from as far away as Japan. “It was a lot like studying for finals.”

Upon returning to Hamilton, he bought the tools and materials needed to build two acoustic guitars. Those instruments were so good that specialty guitar shops in Guelph and Toronto offered to sell them on consignment.

That initial exposure led to more inquiries from players who were looking for a unique design and tone. A more recent and elaborate creation included a mother of pearl inlay of a phoenix on the headstock.

“These are players who have a finely-developed ear and are looking for something unique,” he says. “It’s a bit like being a wine connoisseur.”

As for a musician Lounsbury would like to hear play one of his guitars, he says it would have to be legendary Canadian songwriter Bruce Cockburn or an established local musician, such as Tom Wilson or Luke Doucet.

Entrepreneurs reach into downtown core

By Leah Rosenthal ’07

a Community Youth Mobilization Officer in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

As part of her duties, HunterYoung will work alongside community development officers and researchers in addressing issues of youth and adult unemployment, violence prevention and sexual health. She previously volunteered with several organizations in the Toronto area, and is on assignment in Jamaica through Cuso International.

Jason Constabile ’11 & ’12 was hired as a software developer with Systemware Innovation in Toronto. He’s a two-time graduate from the Faculty of Engineering.

Nataleah Hunter-Young ’09 has joined forces with the Social Development Commission to serve as

Taylor Chiarot ’12 signed a oneyear professional contract with German basketball team TSV Lamstedt. Chiarot captained the Marauder women’s basketball squad, and was a formidable scoring machine throughout her collegiate career. She graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences.

ALUMNI ALBUM

Nicole Hills ’08 was awarded the prestigious Ann Collins Whitmore Student Competition Award from the Physiotherapy Foundation of Canada. Her master’s thesis, which explored muscle activation of the deep abdominal muscles on real-time ultrasound imaging, was deemed “top student research paper.” Hills graduated from McMaster’s Department of Kinesiology, and completed her thesis at Queen’s University.

What’s old is new again at Radius on Hamilton’s James Street South.

McMaster alumnus Paven Bratch ’86 and his wife of 16 years, Bela, are dedicated to the local community in more ways than one. Not only have they opened a unique café, patio and dinner hotspot in Hamilton, but they are passionate about using the healthiest and freshest ingredients with a focus on suppliers in the area.

“People have a real interest in what they are eating, what they are feeding their children and where their food is coming from.

The reason behind the restaurant is we want to be able to provide as much food as we can from our farm, from local suppliers, use organic ingredients wherever possible and bring that into the downtown,” says Bela. “We want to feed the businesses and families of Hamilton by providing healthy foods and a balance.”

During renovations for Radius, the original brick, high ceilings and fireplaces of the 19th century building were maintained. The tin ceilings were blasted with walnut shells to preserve the design while cleaning years of wear and neglect. Mennonites from St. Jacobs, Ont. who had restored the Bratch’s barn in Carlisle were hired to help preserve the downtown property, piece by piece.

Original exposed beams and bricks were maintained, barn board was brought in from the family farm and the bar was handmade using concrete. The newly restored cafe is already making waves in the community, and has attracted a dedicated local following.

In the marketing world, Paven is renowned for his savvy campaign ideas (including the hugely successful “Moo, You Win” contest, which has gone largely unchanged since its creation). His successful career has already spanned more than 25 years.

Asfand Minhas ’12 was selected to work for Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC), and will be stationed in Northern Ireland throughout the year – building and developing sport systems and sustainable sport programming. Minhas graduated from the Faculty of Science, and previously worked in the University’s Department of Athletics & Recreation.

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Artifacts to be housed in University facility

UNIVERSITY NEWS continued

Students, sports and 30 years of teaching and learning Longtime professor, dean of students and AVP student affairs Phil Wood was hailed for his years of dedication with honorary membership in the McMaster Students Union – only the 16th time such an award has been given since the mid-1960s.

“When I deal with students, it’s not from up here, it’s more from here,” said Wood, pointing to his chest. “If I had to describe what I do well, its explaining things – finding examples in the real world that a student might be familiar with, and helping them understand while motivating them.”

Wood came to McMaster in 1983 as an Engineering professor (following a brief teaching stint at Michigan State University), and made it an early mission to recruit and support well-rounded “student athletes” at the University. Over the years, he’s developed an unrivaled reputation when it comes to supporting student activities – riding the team bus to away games, hosting weekly radio segments at CFMU and writing music reviews for The Silhouette student newspaper. Wood is the recipient of numerous awards – including a prestigious 3M Teaching Fellowship (1993) – and was most recently presented with an honorary Vanier Cup ring following the Marauders’ 2011 title run.

His term as AVP, student affairs and dean of students will conclude on June 30, 2013.

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University researchers are preparing to travel back in time.

Hundreds of thousands of ancient artifacts, chronicling 12,000 years of human history, will be housed at a new centre designed to solve a problem which has troubled researchers for decades: how to track and preserve vast collections.

The $9.8-million project, Sustainable Archaeology: McMaster, is a joint venture with Western University, and will be housed in a sprawling warehouse and laboratory facility at McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton.

“This kind of facility will allow researchers from all over the world to have access to materials and data across hundreds of sites and thousands of years,” said Aubrey Cannon, director of McMaster’s new facility, and its principal investigator.

The collection features pieces such as an arrowhead fragment dating back more than 9,000 years, ancient ceramics and the skeleton a 16th century Iroquoian dog, believed to have been infected with tuberculosis. Overall, the facility has the capacity to house up to 30,000 boxes, each containing up to hundreds of artifacts. Radio-frequency identification technology (RFID) will be used to manage the collections.

First Nations communities will also be key partners in the management and operation of the facilities; ensuring Indigenous researchers have access to their own past.The new research space was featured in the Globe and Mail in February.

John Kelton honoured with $3M endowed award In March, the Faculty of Health Sciences’ vice-president and dean, Dr. John Kelton, was recognized for his outstanding research efforts with a $3M endowed award – thanks to a new partnership between philanthropist Michael G. DeGroote ’92 (honorary), Hamilton Health Sciences, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and the University.

The Dr. John G. Kelton Academic Award was officially unveiled at the Hamilton Health Sciences annual fundraising research gala, held at the Hamilton Convention Centre.

“Few individuals ever make an impact on their community that will last for generations,” said Murray Martin, president and CEO of Hamilton Health Sciences. “Dr. Kelton is one such individual whose lasting impact has been and will be felt around the world … this award will serve as a lasting tribute to the remarkable contributions of this dedicated and gifted man.”

A member of McMaster’s academic community since 1977 and the recipient of many national and international awards, Dr. Kelton’s research primarily involves platelet and bleeding disorders, with a particular focus on the disorders of pregnant women and heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.

He was quick to thank family, friends and the Faculty of Health Sciences during the gala ceremony. “This is quite an honour, as there’s nothing better than being able to help improve the health of others,” said Kelton. “I appreciate everyone who has been involved with me.”

Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne and Ancaster-DundasFlamborough-Westdale MPP Ted McMeekin ’74 were also in attendance for the announcement.

McMaster Alumni Association Community Lecture & Annual General Meeting Tuesday, May 14, Noon – 1:30 pm, Great Hall, Alumni Memorial Hall

We are pleased to announce the 2013 Alumni Gallery Inductees:

Join the McMaster Alumni Association Board of Directors for an enlightening talk by Dr. Jim Dunn, Assoc. Professor, Health, Aging & Society discussing the impacts of global and local issues on the health and well-being of the Hamilton community. Complimentary lunch will be provided – all alumni welcome to attend. Visit alumni.mcmaster.ca for details and to register.

Lillian Bayne ’79 Humanities, ’87 Social Sciences Randall Bocock ’82 Humanities Walter Butler ’70 Engineering Barbara Falco-Kazemi ’89 Health Sciences Jeffrey Remedios ’98 Business Eddie Wasser ’86 Social Sciences, ’89 Health Sciences

Alumni Gallery Induction & MAA Awards Ceremony Wednesday, May 29 6:00 pm, Convocation Hall, McMaster University

Donald Webster ’79 Kinesiology

Other accolades to be presented include the Distinguished Service Award, Honorary Alumni Membership, the Arch Award recognizing the early success of our more recent graduates, and the Albert Lager Student Award for Student Initiative. Always a highlight of the year, share your McMaster pride and come celebrate the impact McMaster students and alumni are making.

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IN MEMORIAM Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

Reginald Whidden ’25 & ’28 died May 8, 2012 at the age of 107. At the time of his passing, he was McMaster’s oldest living alumnus. Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1904, Whidden was a two-time McMaster Humanities graduate from the University’s original Toronto campus, and

Giancarlo “John” Beraldo ’74 died Dec. 21, 2012. He retired in 2008 after 27 memorable years with the Halton Catholic District School Board, and was a longtime basketball coach and supporter. Giancarlo is survived by his spouse Evy Beraldo ’76 and son Martin Beraldo ’03 & ’07.

Peter Barrie Brook ’67 died June 28, 2012 at his home in Prince Albert, SK. He is survived by his wife, Bonnie, two children and three grandchildren. Peter was active in rowing circles in Saskatchewan and across Canada, and had a lifelong concern for social justice.

Marjorie Jean Brown (Garbutt) ’50 & ’52 died peacefully Apr. 17, 2012 in North Vancouver, BC. She was a graduate from the Faculty of Health Sciences, and worked at Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital for many years.

Barbara Davison (Greenway) ’46 died Oct 2, 2011. A wise, caring and thoughtful woman who enjoyed her large family, Barbara had a wonderful life with her husband of 64 years, Alan – embracing new cities, the cottage and world travel.

Leopold Fucikovsky ’59 died July 26, 2012 in Mexico City at the age of 79. Until his final days, Fucikovsky spoke very highly of the University he called home.

Jack Gibbons ’49 died Sept. 4, 2012, peacefully and surrounded by family. Gibbons joined the RCAF in 1941, and served at bases in Canada and the U.S. He held several ranks, including Aircraftsman Second Class and

Brigadier General, and remained with his partner Margaret Elizabeth for 62 years.

Matthew Ginsburg ’06 died May 23, 2012, after a courageous battle with cancer. He completed his MD at University of Ottawa 2010, and was finishing his residency in psychiatry. Matthew was married to Lauren Nightingale ’06, and they have a daughter, Eden Sima Ginsburg.

James Illman ’67 died Aug. 16, 2012 peacefully at the Juravinski Hospital in Hamilton. Illman graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences, and worked for 35 years as an elementary school teacher and principal.

Neil Raymond Isenor ’55 died Nov. 19, 2011 at the age of 79. He lectured in the Physics Department at the University of Waterloo from 1961 to 1992. He is survived by wife Brigid, children Sandy, David and Lise and two grandchildren Carolyn and Michelle.

Hilda Katan (Wallintschek) ’71 & ’72 died Sept. 11, 2012 in Campbellton, NB. Hilda was director of medical records and the medical library at the Restigouche Hospital Centre from 1975 to 1993. She is survived by her husband James and son David.

John MacLennan ’64 & ’67 died Dec. 3, 2011. He was a two-time Social Sciences graduate.

Herbert Moore ’45 died Feb. 28, 2012 at the age of 90.

William Outerbridge ’48 died Feb. 10, 2012. He is dearly missed by his wife, Frances Outerbridge ‘50.

John Travis Plewes ’63 died July 19, 2012. Born in Ottawa, Plewes moved around the globe with his family during his childhood years before finally settling in Toronto in 1950. After obtaining a Master’s

degree from McMaster, he became a world-renowned metallurgist.

Leonid “Leo” Skirko ’64 died June 8, 2012 at the age of 73. A graduate from the Faculty of Engineering, Leo was past vice-president of the McMaster University Operatic Society and a longtime singer with the Ukrainian Canadian Opera Association and the Canadian Opera Association.

James H. “Jim” Smith ’47 died July 30, 2012, peacefully with his wife Florence Smith ’47 by his side. He served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1943 to 1945, and was a well-respected superintendent with the former Lincoln County School Board.

Donald B. Stratton ’58 & ’61 died Oct. 25, 2012 in Sarnia, Ont. He was an ordained pastor with the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec for more than 50 years.

He is survived by his wife, Catherine, and daughter, Sarah.

Shirley Tartaglia ’47 died Sept.

14, 2012, surrounded by her loving family. Shirley devoted her life to her family and friends, and loved to travel and entertain.

Susan Vajoczki ’88, ’89 & ’93 died Oct. 6, 2012 at the Stedman Community Hospice. Vajoczki was an internationally renowned teaching professor and scholar whose passion for teaching, learning and students touched every corner of our campus. A threetime McMaster graduate and 3M Teaching Fellow, Sue was committed in all of her endeavours to helping improve student learning at every level. Since 2010, she led McMaster’s Centre for Leadership in Learning, and was a beloved associate professor.

Donald J. Yeo ’68 died Jan. 9, 2012. He was a graduate from the Faculty of Humanities, with a degree in English, and is dearly missed by his wife, Joan Yeo.

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IN MEMORIAM

Lincoln “Linc” Alexander ’49 & ’87 (honorary) died Oct. 19, 2012 at the age of 90. A beloved Hamilton and a proud McMaster alumnus, “Linc” was fondly remembered by McMaster President Patrick Deane following the news of his passing. “Lincoln Alexander was a figure who was both symbol and substance of the values to which we all aspire.

Here at McMaster, he holds a dear place in our hearts – as an alumnus, as the recipient of an honorary doctorate and primarily as a friend of the university.”

Born in Toronto in 1922, Alexander served as a corporal in the Canadian Forces before earning a bachelor’s degree in history and political economy from McMaster in 1949. He graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1953, and became the country’s first black Member of Parliament in 1968, representing the riding of Hamilton West. He became Minister of Labour in 1979, and held the esteemed post of Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1985 to 1991. Prime Minister Stephen Harped paid his respects to Alexander during a visitation at Queen’s Park, and a state funeral was held in Hamilton on Oct. 26.

later earned a PhD from Yale University. His father (Whidden Hall namesake Howard Whidden) was chancellor of the University for nearly 20 years.

McMASTER WRITES

McMASTER WRITES

Samantha Blackburn ’12 released Eat Your Heart Out in June, 2012. The book is a collection of gluten-free, vegan and Ayurvedic recipes and information; it explores holistic health and wellness as a continuum through diet and lifestyle.

Terri Favro ’79 released two titles in 2012, the Niagara-based novel The Proxy Bride, which explores the “seedy underbelly” of 1960s Southern Ontario, and the graphic novel Bella and the Loyalist Heroine. Favro has been shortlisted three times for CBC Literary Awards.

Eugene Fytch ’69 self-published his new book, Good Neighbours Make Good Fences. Fytche is a graduate from the Faculty of Business, and has spent a great amount time studying the history of log fences in Eastern Ontario.

He currently lives in Almonte, Ont.

John Nixon ’72 released his first novel, Redcoat 1812 – a gripping work of historical-fiction set in the battlefields of the Niagara frontier, told in the voice of British Lieutenant James FitzGibbon.

Les Harding ’75 published his 13th book, They Knew Marilyn Monroe: Famous Persons in the Life of the Hollywood Icon on McFarland. Harding’s “biographical dictionary” focuses on references and quotes from more than 1,600

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of Monroe’s close friends, acquaintances and coworkers.

Roger Letourneau ’70 & ’72 released Operation KE: the Cactus Air Force and the Japanese Withdrawal from Guadalcanal, co-written by his son, Dennis.

The work examines the rescue of 10,600 Japanese troops from Guadalcanal during the Second World War.

Christopher MacKinnon ’02 published Canadian Sports Sites for Kids: Places Named for Speedsters, Scorers, and Other Sportsworld Citizens in November, 2012. The book’s fast-paced stories, maps and lists highlight everything you need to know about Canada’s “sports geography.”

Patty McGregor ’72 released Don’t Forget to Write: A Look at the Canadian YMCA through Historical Postcards in August, 2012.

The book is based on a collection of more than 500 YMCA postcards, and discusses the involvement of the YMCA in Canadian communities and abroad since its beginnings in Montreal in 1851.

Linda Scarangella McNenly ’08 published Native Performers in Wild West Shows via the University of Oklahoma Press. The research book examines a unique historical phenomenon from the Native American point of view, and offers thought-provoking new insights.

Elaine Schmidt ’93 wrote her first work of fiction, The Travelers: Present in the Past, published in October, 2012. The book is the first in an upcoming series for early young adult readers.

Dorothy Speak ’73 published her fourth work of fiction, a story collection entitled Reconciliation.

Her work has been compared to that of Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence. In addition to two other story collections, she has published a novel called The Wife Tree.

Nikki Rosen ’94 released Dancing Softly in November, 2012.

Described by the author as “a story of hope and overcoming,” the novel focuses on the resilience of the human spirit and the touch of a gentle God as 16-year-old Jamie DeSouza navigates life on the gritty streets of downtown Toronto.

Allan Rosenfeld ’86 & ’93 wrote and self-published Holocaust Lumber. The book is about being a child of two sole survivors of the Holocaust, and learning valuable life lessons that helped them survive.

Mike Ryan ’97 completed the third edition of Football Now! which was published in October, 2012 through Firefly Books.

Using the latest stats, figures and dozens of full-color action photos, the book examines 75 of the greatest current stars in the National Football League.

Barbara Stevens ’73 published her latest novel, Progeny, in July, 2012. The story follows a team of investigators as they piece together a number of confusing, dead-end clues and attempt to

solve a pair of local murders.

Royston Tester ’86 published Fatty Goes to China, his second collection of short fiction. Five of the eleven stories are set in a Beijing railway station, and are narrated from Chinese points of view.

Alan Voon ’92 & ’93 released Trading the China Market with American Depository Receipts: How to Play Greater China with a Winning Edge, which offers tips and strategies on how to successfully trade ADRs of Chinese stocks.

A number of McMaster alumni lent their talents to In the Wings: Stories of Forgotten Women, which was published in August, 2012.

The book includes a collection of 17 short stories (many in the genre of historical fiction), and offers a fresh take on the lives of some of the most celebrated, interesting and tragically forgotten women in history. McMaster alumni with stories in the book include: Todd McKinstry ’85; Pauline Hewak ’86; Richard Van Holst ’88 & ’90; and Rachel Harvey ’12, along with several graduates from McMaster certificate programs and former University staff. The project was originally born out of a Creative Writing course, taught by editor Bernadette Rule.