Science Contours Fall/Winter 2017 by University of Alberta Faculty of Science

Connect the thoughts . . .

Vol. 34, No. 2, Fall/Winter 2017

science.ualberta.ca

Vol. 34, No. 2, Fall/Winter 2017

The University of Alberta Faculty of Science is a research and teaching powerhouse dedicated to shaping the future by pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the classroom, laboratory, and field. Through exceptional teaching, learning, and research experiences, we competitively position our students, staff, and faculty for current and future success. Science Contours is a semi-annual publication dedicated to highlighting the collective achievements of the Faculty of Science community. It is distributed to alumni and friends of the faculty.

Dean of Science Jonathan Schaeffer Editor Jennifer Pascoe Associate Editor Katie Willis Design Lime Design Inc.

Contributing Writers Suzette Chan Kristy Condon Julie Naylor Jennifer Pascoe Katie Willis Photography John Ulan

Send your comments to: The Editor, Science Contours Faculty of Science 6-189 CCIS, University of Alberta Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2E1 science.contours@ualberta.ca

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Cortextual context In this issue, we dive deep into the connections in the Faculty of Science family.

contents 7

Dean’s message

Science news

› Beneath the surface, all is not pristine in Canada’s mountain lakes

› Roly-poly fish brains

› Nan-Oh-Canada: Physicists mark Canada 150 in small but major way

› Neuroscience tools powered by chemistry

› How smart is your city?

› Math adds up to next-generation HIV treatment

› The case of the headless Corythosaurus

12 Six degrees of scientific excellence Exploring the legacy of Avadh Bhatia 16 Innovation to industry David Brown’s business of microbiology 20 The science of social networks Your world is smaller than you think 24 Of handles and hashtags The science of social media 28 DeepMind is ready and set to GO! New research lab opens in Edmonton 32 Reflecting on our roots How professors emeriti built the past and shaped the future 35 Awards and accolades Four professors join the ranks of the Royal Society of Canada 36 What’s in a name? The lasting legacy of science supporters 38 Alumni perspectives “My life in science was a serendipitous series of events” —Laura Frost ('70 BSc, '78 PhD)

IN THE FIELD

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Fragmented forests At the interface between behavioural ecology and conservation biology, biological sciences professor Colleen Cassady St. Clair ('88 BSc) studies the effects of human activity on the behaviour of wild animals. She tries to increase coexistence between people and wildlife by, as examples, identifying factors that contribute to conflict with coyotes in urban areas, preventing birds from landing in tailings ponds in the oil sands, and reducing the likelihood of train strikes on grizzly bears in the mountain parks. St. Clair reflects on her formative years at the University of Alberta: “As an undergrad, I loved to wander the river valley near campus, watching animals and discovering new things. I never imagined I’d still be doing that decades later, calling it ‘work,’ and learning something new on every single outing.” She was recently recognized by the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations with a distinguished academic award.

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OUT OF THIS WORLD

Ground control to Col. Hadfield

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EPIC PHOTOGRAPHY

The first Canadian to walk in space, Colonel Chris Hadfield helped us celebrate World Space Week with a sold-out event at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. Pictured here, Hadfield, left, inspects a scale model of Ex-Alta 1 with Charles Nokes, masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student and AlbertaSat project manager.

DEAN’S MESSAGE

Six degrees of a science network

M an y people assume that the value of a university education lies in the knowledge and experiences that you acquire. Of course, those are the obvious benefits, and they can translate into immediate financial gain, such as by landing a great job. But there is another important asset that should not be underestimated that is part of a university education: connections. Being part of the university community—whether student, staff, faculty, or friend—means you instantly become part of a large international network. Your university time builds and strengthens connections that can serve you well in your personal and professional life. These connections will touch you in many ways, such as creating lifelong friends, forming business partnerships, opening doors, and providing numerous other unforeseen and surprising opportunities.

Being part of the university community—whether student, staff, faculty, or friend—means you instantly become part of a large international network.

For many of us, connections to our university experiences show up repeatedly throughout our lives. This issue of

Contours gives some examples of connections. They start at the University of Alberta, might follow a meandering path, then end up reconnecting to the university. Like David Brown, who was inspired by the teachings of biological sciences professor Julia Foght. He graduates, becomes an entrepreneur, wins a Governor General’s Innovation Award, then cycles back to the university by crediting Julia for his success. Or physics professor Avadh Bhatia, whose memory is preserved in an endowed fellowship for female post-doctoral fellows. The Bhatia fellowship attracts to the U of A Sharon Morsink, who has now been a faculty member here for nearly 20 years. Or David Silver, who gets his PhD in computing science,

works in academia and industry for a few years, ends up at DeepMind in London, and then, because of his intimate knowledge of the artificial intelligence expertise in the Faculty of Science, helps create the new DeepMind Alberta laboratory in Edmonton. When I started my academic career, there was a belief that everyone was connected by—at most—six degrees of separation. Social media has changed all that: We are now connected by roughly three degrees, making our big world a much more intimate planet. Build and nurture your university connections. The friend you make at the U of A might be one of the three steps to connecting to anyone in the world!

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SCIENCE

NEWS

Beneath the surface, all is not pristine in Canada’s mountain lakes

“People always look at mountain lakes like the ultimate pristine ecosystem,” said Rolf Vinebrooke, professor of biological sciences who specializes in the study of alpine lakes. “You can’t tell just by looking, but what they don’t know is that there are biological pollutants in these lakes that were never supposed to be there.” Over the summer, biologists collected a record number of samples from mountain lakes to measure their responses to climate change and past introductions of invasive sportfish.

Vinebrooke and his team of six students are sampling 150 lakes in Waterton, Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, and Jasper. They are measuring biological organisms such as phytoplankton and zooplankton—so-called bioindicators—to assess the health of the whole ecosystem. To test their hypotheses, Vinebrooke and his students are looking to similar surveys conducted during the 1900s as baseline data. In a move designed to attract tourists in the early 20th century, Environment Canada monitored mountain lakes to determine which ones they could stock with exotic sportfish such as rainbow, European brown and eastern brook trout. The consequences of these introduced non-native fish species

are still being felt roughly a century later, because they amplify the more recent effects of extreme climate events such as summer heat waves. Vinebrooke said that the introduction in the last century of non-native fish species has, in some cases, changed the entire ecosystem of these lakes—changes that have been exacerbated by climate change. By the time UNESCO declared Canada’s mountain parks World Heritage Sites in the 1980s, the irreparable damage had already been done. Vinebrooke and his students are now back in the lab testing their hypotheses regarding these environmental changes and how they have affected biological communities in these mountain lakes over the past century.

Vinebrooke’s students, pictured here sampling the water in Hunagee Pond in Yoho National Park, are studying the effects of invasive sportfish and the impact of climate change on mountain lakes.

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Vinebrooke said that the introduction in the last century of non-native fish species has, in some cases, changed the entire ecosystem of these lakes.

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Nan-Oh-Canada: Physicists mark milestone in tiny but major way

ROLY-POLY FISH BRAINS The differences between the brains of cichild fish species may provide important insights into the evolution of our own social behaviour, new research reveals. A team of international researchers, co-led by psychology professor Pete Hurd, studied different species of cichild fish in Central Africa’s Lake Tanganyika and found they showed a wide range of sociality. Some species breed in solitary pairs (but are doting parents, nonetheless), while others have larger social groups, and the researchers attribute these variations to differences in the brain. “For all the differences between human and fish society, the same bits of brain are working with basically the same chemicals to produce the same emotions,” said Hurd. “The degree of similarity between humans’ brains and fish brains—at least in this part of the social behaviour network—is very, very strong.” Examining the brains of eight cichlid fish species with different social norms, the researchers compared the size and number of neurons associated with isotocin production, the fish equivalent to human bonding hormone oxytocin. The results show that species with increased sociality, including group living and co-operative breeding, have fewer isotocinproducing neurons. This means the more social the fish are, the less isotocin they seem to use in their brains. Understanding the neurological aspects of that change in this one species can help us better understand other species, including humans. More oxytocin is associated not only with more affection and prosocial behaviour in humans, but also with a range of darker behaviours such as envy and ethnocentrism. “These are not the fancy cortical structures that we associate with abstract thought,” explained Hurd. “These are the evolutionarily conserved brain areas where our motivating emotions seem to come from.” Other research headed by Hurd examines genetic differences between more and less social humans, testing this hypothesis.

At just 32 atoms and visible only through a million-dollar scanning tunnelling microscope, a tiny maple leaf created by PhD student Roshan Achal illustrates the next wave of green technology, all while showing patriotic pride. Invisible to the naked eye, the little leaf is pulling triple duty: celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday, attempting a world record, and—with important implications for our technologydriven information society—providing critical steps towards the next generation of smaller and faster computers. “It’s super cool and super Canadian and demonstrates our strength and skill in this niche of nanotechnology,” said Achal. “Almost no one else in the world can do it this well.” Unlike other ultra-small atomic creations, this maple leaf retains its structure at room temperature. At 10 nanometres in width, the leaf is roughly 100 times smaller than the world’s smallest national flag—created at the University of Waterloo in September 2016—10,000 times smaller than a human hair, and 53 million times smaller than the world’s largest maple leaf. The leaf was built using an ultra-sharp tool, a tip just one atom Tiny maple leaf and major in width, which was perfected by accomplishment give Achal’s supervisor Robert Wolkow, PhD student Roshan Achal, professor in the Department left, and Robert Wolkow, physics professor, a big of Physics, whom Achal calls a reason to smile. “visionary.”

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Chemistry professor Robert Campbell is helping to revolutionize our understanding of the brain.

Chemistry professor Robert Campbell is developing new ways to see and manipulate the activity of neurons in the brain, which could revolutionize the way we understand the organ that controls most of the activities of the body.

Next generation neuroscience tools powered by chemistry

How smart is your city? “From conducting speedy evacuations to getting leftover catering to hungry students, the case for building smarter cities and campuses is very strong,” explained computing science professor Eleni Stroulia. So, what is a smart city? It’s a place where rich historical data are paired with robust, real-time information to develop useful and widely applicable technologies. In her graduate courses, Stroulia encouraged her

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students to develop their own ways of applying smart-cities technology to the real world. Their creative pilot projects include real-time traffic routing, parking-stall monitoring, and location-based services on campus. Traffic routing: Built by graduate student Diego Serrano and a team of undergraduate students, this application helps drivers navigate Edmonton’s roadways, using traffic data from the City of Edmonton, as well as real-time data from traffic cameras and individual reports.

“We want to help other researchers apply these new neuroscience tools to disorders ranging from chronic pain to brain injuries,” said Campbell. Campbell and his research group are developing tools to understand the inner workings of the brain in model organisms such as zebrafish, fruit flies, and mice by giving neuroscientists better ways to visualize and manipulate activity in the brain. Campbell will use natural fluorescent proteins, such as those in jellyfish and coral, as well as a photocleaveable protein—a cellular tool of Campbell’s own design that breaks into two pieces when exposed to light—that can strengthen or weaken connections between neurons using light. The tools are highly anticipated by Campbell’s colleagues, including neuroscientists, researchers, and collaborators from across the country. Their labs range in focus from developing models of depression and autism to understanding stroke and everything in between. “These are the people who are putting the tools to use in health and health-care research,” explained Campbell. “Our lab is creating new and better tools to allow them to do their job.” Campbell will receive $1 million over the next seven years through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Foundation Grant to develop the tools.

Parking stalls: Graduate student Sepehr Valipour developed an application that will tell users where parking stalls are available on the University of Alberta campus and how to get there, relying on easily available data from cameras in parking lots. The required infrastructure is already in place in some parking lots on campus, and the software could soon be deployed to save energy and time. Campus services: Graduate student Alexandr Petcovici fused information from wireless routers on campus, GPS technology and enterprises on campus to provide real-time

HOW MATH IS ADDING UP TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF HIV TREATMENT After uncovering the progression of HIV infection in the brain thanks to a new mathematical model developed by a research team in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, clinicians and researchers are developing a nasal spray to administer drugs more effectively.

PHOTO SUPPLIED

The model, developed by PhD student Weston Roda ('16 MSc) and his supervisor, Michael Li, predicts the growth and progression of HIV in the brain, from the moment of infection onward. It is the first model of an infectious disease in the brain and provides critical insight into how clinicians might best tackle the viral reservoir, a place in the body where the virus can lie dormant that is relatively inaccessible to drugs. Using this information, researchers can determine what level of effectiveness is needed for antiretroviral therapy in the brain to decrease active infection. “The more we understand and can target treatment toward viral reservoirs, the closer we get to developing total suppression strategies for HIV infection,” said Roda. In fact, his results are already being put to use in another University of Alberta lab. A research team led by Chris Power, Roda’s co-supervisor and a professor in the division of neurology in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, is planning clinical trials for a nasal spray that would get the drugs into the brain faster—with critical information on dosage and improvement rate provided by Roda’s model. Weston Roda sets his sights on HIV suppression strategies.

THE CASE OF THE HEADLESS CORYTHOSAURUS

After losing its head nearly a century ago, a dinosaur skeleton has finally been reconnected to its skull. As part of her thesis, graduate student Katherine Bramble ('14 BSc, '17 MSc) matched the headless skeleton to a Corythosaurus skull from the university’s paleontology museum that had been collected in 1920 by famed dinosaur hunter George Sternberg. “In the early days of dinosaur hunting and exploration, explorers only took impressive and exciting specimens for their collections, such as skulls, tail spines, and claws,” explained Bramble, lead author on the study. “Now, it’s common for paleontologists to come across specimens in the field without their skulls.” The headless Corythosaurus skeleton has been a tourist attraction in Dinosaur Provincial Park since the 1990s. In the early 2010s, a group of scientists noticed newspaper clippings dating back to the 1920s in the debris around the site, sparking the idea that this skeleton could be related to the skull at the U of A. That was where Bramble and her supervisor Philip Currie came in, along with former post-doctoral fellow Angelica Torices. “Using anatomical measurements of the skull and the skeleton, we conducted a statistical analysis,” Bramble explained. “Based on these results, we believed there was potential that the skull and this specimen belonged together.” In 2012, the skull and skeleton of the Corythosaurus were reunited. Whole once more, the specimen resides at the U of A.

location-based services to users on campus. Potential applications of Petcovici’s project range from alerting students about building closures to reducing food waste and energy loss. More broadly, Stroulia explained, technology that builds smarter cities and campuses has nearinfinite applications, from reducing waste to managing crisis situations and everything in between, making our world smarter and safer, one application at a time. The projects were piloted on the University of Alberta campus for development beyond.

Eleni Stroulia, professor in computing science, challenged her students to apply smart-cities tech to real-world campus solutions. S C I E N C E . U A L B E R TA . C A

“

I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on the planet.

”

hat quote, from John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation, vividly describes how networks of people can minimize social and, in some ways, physical distances on this planet. For example, the University of Alberta’s new Avadh Bhatia post-doctoral fellow, Yasaman Yazdi, is six connections away from the man for whom her fellowship is named. Yazdi is a University of Waterloo graduate who came to Alberta to work with physics professor Don Page (that’s the first degree of separation), who was once a post-doc for renowned physicist Stephen Hawking (the second degree in this scenario). When Hawking was at Caltech, he met Page and another physicist, Werner Israel (the third degree), who would become a U of A professor. Hawking and Israel, now professor emeritus, have collaborated many times over their storied careers. Israel’s own work inspired Sharon Morsink ('97 PhD) to seek him out as her thesis supervisor at the U of A. Morsink (the fourth degree) was awarded the very first Avadh Bhatia Postdoctoral Fellowship thanks to a unique arrangement made by then associate chair for graduate studies Helmy Sherif (the fifth degree). Years before, in 1969, Sherif had applied for a post-doctoral position at the U of A not knowing that the director of the Theoretical Physics Institute here was Avadh Bhatia (the sixth degree). Even back then, without instant digital communication and ubiquitous air travel, the research world was deeply interconnected.

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Six de of scientific Exploring the legacy of Avadh Bhatia

by Suzette Chan / photos John Ulan

From left, professors Don Page and Sharon Morsink, pictured atop the Department of Physics Observatory with Yasaman Yazdi, the newest Avadh Bhatia post-doctoral fellow

egrees excellence

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“

He appreciated the contribution that women could make and saw that inclusivity was vital.

”

—ROBERT BHATIA

Influential and inspirational / It is not surprising

that Bhatia would figure prominently in so many physics researchers’ networks. He was both a brilliant scientist and networker. He joined the university in 1955 and went on to help recruit the likes of Sherif, Israel, and many others. Bhatia had a profound influence in shaping the Department of Physics. His research influenced the fields of condensed matter physics and astrophysics, his teaching and supervision skills inspired students, and his leadership helped to establish the Theoretical Physics Institute. Bhatia died in 1984 after a long illness. He was so esteemed by his colleagues that several physics professors wrote in support of renaming the physics building after him. “He came to the University of Alberta in 1955 with an already established international reputation,” they wrote on Jan. 10, 1985. “His work on electron scattering in metals in collaboration with Krishnan in the 1940s has been described by a distinguished reviewer (J.M. Ziman) as ‘the key to the gate.’ His contributions to nuclear reaction theory in the early 1950s are cited in anthologies as among the classic papers in the field.” In the following years, his widow, June Bhatia, was interested in helping women in physics. June was known in the literary world as Helen Forrester. Under that name, she had written a bestselling series of memoirs based on her life growing up in wartime England. It was in England after the Second World War that June met Avadh, then a citizen of India, who was a post-doctoral fellow with physics giant Herbert Fröhlich at the University of Liverpool. By establishing the Avadh Bhatia Postdoctoral Fellowship for women, June extended her husband’s influence to subsequent generations of physicists.

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“My father respected good brains,” says Robert Bhatia, whose recent book, Passage Across the Mersey, focuses on his mother June’s life, including extensive chapters about her relationship with Avadh. The younger Bhatia says that his father grew up in a traditional family in India but subscribed to a liberal religious sect of Hinduism. “He appreciated the contribution that women could make and saw that inclusivity was vital.” Hélène Narayana, the only woman in the U of A’s PhD program in physics in the late 1960s, befriended the Bhatias, who, like her and her husband, were in a marriage that combined European and South Asian families. She remembers Avadh as a kind and generous professor who stepped in as her thesis adviser when her supervisor was on sabbatical. “He didn’t treat me as some kind of curiosity, unlike some other people,” says Narayana, who went on to become a journalist and peace activist. Narayana believes that Avadh Bhatia would have liked the fellowship named in his honour. “He would have been delighted, because it came from his wife.” Strong ties / About 30 years after Narayana

completed her PhD, an engineering student at the University of Waterloo came to the realization that she was more interested in fundamental scientific research than she was in mechanics. “I noticed that I was reading Scientific American while my classmates were reading car magazines,” recalls Sharon Morsink ('97 PhD), now an associate professor of physics at the U of A. So, she transferred to science and completed a bachelor of science degree. In 1991, as she was trying to decide where to do her graduate work, the U of A offered her the Avadh Bhatia fellowship. She accepted. Morsink did not know that the prize was initially intended for post-doctoral fellows. The one-time modification was suggested by Helmy Sherif, the associate chair of graduate studies at the time. Sherif himself had a strong tie to Avadh Bhatia. As a master’s student in Egypt in the 1960s, Sherif’s thesis work was closely based on Bhatia’s seminal work from the early 1950s at the University of Liverpool on

Facing page: Beloved physics professor Avadh Bhatia and his wife, June Bhatia. Following Avadh’s death, June, known in the literary world as Helen Forrester, established the Avadh Bhatia Postdoctoral Fellowship for women. Above left: Sharon Morsink, first recipient of the Bhatia fellowship, reflects back on receiving the honour from June Bhatia. Above right: Yasaman Yazdi, newest Avadh Bhatia post-doctoral fellow, is probing big questions in the field of quantum gravity.

the theory of nuclear reactions. Sherif continued this type of research as a graduate student at the University of Washington. He did not realize until after he accepted an offer from the U of A that he would soon be a colleague of the man who inspired his work in the field of theoretical physics. Years later, Sherif helped to launch Bhatia’s namesake award. “We felt that it would take time to get a female postdoctoral fellow,” Sherif recalls. “It was near the start of the year, so I suggested, ‘Why not for this year use it for a graduate student?’ June Bhatia agreed,” recalls Sherif, now professor emeritus. On the shoulders of giants / Morsink didn’t know

anyone in Edmonton, but she knew the work of Professor Werner Israel, a world-leading theoretical physicist. (He was also one of the professors who wrote in support of renaming the physics building after Bhatia.) Standing on the shoulders of these giants, Morsink wrote her thesis on the insides of black holes. She went on to post-doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin and was then hired on to the faculty of the Department of Physics at the U of A. Now, Morsink is set to launch a new massive open online course (MOOC) on cosmology and black holes, bringing Bhatia’s influence further out into the public sphere. “I was interested in doing this because, of course, I did my PhD on black holes from very much a mathematical and theoretical point of view,” says Morsink, who has since expanded her research interests to include astrophysics and observational astronomy. “The MOOC is going to look at how people observe black holes and the cool, theoretical stuff of black holes, for example, the event horizon, the singularity, and Hawking radiation.”

Other U of A experts who will appear in the MOOC include physics professors Doug Gingrich— who is currently looking to observe black holes at the Large Hadron Collider—and Don Page, who, in addition to collaborating with physics giant Stephen Hawking, is a major expert in black holes in his own right. (Morsink notes that like herself, Page was drawn to the U of A by Werner Israel, further signalling how profound the influence of just one person can be.) Full circle in space and time / Meanwhile, Avadh

Bhatia’s legacy continues with the most recent recipient of the Avadh Bhatia fellowship, Yasaman Yazdi. Like Sharon Morsink, Yazdi is also a graduate of the University of Waterloo and came to Edmonton where the Department of Physics has expertise in her chosen area of study. “The kind of research I was interested in was more heavily motivated by general relativity, so it was important to me to come to a department with a faculty with a lot of experience in classical general relativity,” says Yazdi, who had been based at Waterloo’s famed Perimeter Institute. “At the U of A, Don Page was the perfect candidate for that. He’s part of the generation of physicists who did work on general relativity during its golden age.” Yazdi will explore new ground as she probes the big questions involving the nature of space and time. “Broadly, my research is in the field of quantum gravity, which is a field in search of a theory that doesn’t exist yet.” By opening new lines of inquiry, Yazdi will be extending research networks, and hopefully trigger another six degrees of scientific excellence. Read more about named legacies on page 36.

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BY KRISTY CONDON PHOTOS JOHN ULAN

SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES IS ONE PIVOTAL CLASS TO SHIFT A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE AND SET THEM ON A PATH THEY WOULD OTHERWISE NEVER HAVE CONSIDERED. // INDEED, IF NOT FOR A SINGLE COURSE, David Brown (’13 BSc) may never have found his way to becoming a successful biochemist, entrepreneur, business owner, and national award winner—all before his 30th birthday. Originally from New Brunswick, Brown chose to study at the University of Alberta after visiting as a high school student to compete in a track and field competition. He liked the campus and remembered the U of A later when considering options for a postsecondary science program. Like many students, he couldn’t decide at first where he wanted his degree to take him. “I volunteered at a veterinary clinic, I studied to write the entrance exam for pharmacy, I kind of considered the MCAT, and then I thought about grad school… so I had no idea,” he says with a laugh. It wasn’t until his final year that something finally clicked. “There was one course—Industrial Microbiology, taught by Dr. Julia Foght—that I just found so interesting. I knew after that course I wanted to work in the business side of science.”

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“The exercise demanded a type of creative intelligence different from rote learning or logical deduction. It was daunting to some, but caught the imagination of more.” —Julia Foght

The course, MICRB 315, was designed by Foght with support funding from the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund. Aiming for broad accessibility across disciplines, Foght’s goal with MICRB 315 was to demonstrate microbiology as a practical tool integral to industrial processes ranging from food, beverage, and pharmaceutical production to green energy generation and municipal waste management. “[MICRB 315] was relevant to students’ everyday lives and interesting to people other than their classmates—that’s education that propagates beyond the classroom and helps to foster scientific literacy in the wider community,” says Foght, now a professor emerita. The course incorporates several entrepreneurial assignments that require students to envision and research novel virtual but feasible biotechnology products, then “pitch” the ideas to their classmates. “The exercise demanded a type of creative intelligence different from rote learning or logical deduction. It was daunting to some, but caught the imagination of more,” she explains. “David Brown was one that ‘got it’ and made the most of the challenge.”

BIRTH OF A BUSINESS One lecture featured engineering professor Dominic Sauvageau, who was invited to talk to the class about iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine), an international synthetic biology competition held annually by MIT that draws teams from universities across the world. Intrigued by the opportunity, Brown joined the U of A team of eight students, supervised by Sauvageau, who together engineered a bacterium that would consume paper waste from recycling and in turn produce chemicals used in the perfume and cosmetics industries. Since it was entered in the entrepreneurial division, the project also required the team to put together a business case and pitch to accompany the science. “It felt like a startup,” says Brown. “I learned a lot from the six months that we were working on it.” The U of A team ultimately beat out all other competitors to win the division, and the experience reaffirmed Brown’s interest in pursuing a career in business. So, when his initial job prospect after graduation fell through, he knew it was time to take the plunge. Thus, his first company—Mycodev Group—was born.

SO, WHEN HIS INITIAL JOB PROSPECT AFTER GRADUATION FELL THROUGH, HE KNEW IT WAS TIME TO TAKE THE PLUNGE. THUS, HIS FIRST COMPANY— MYCODEV GROUP—WAS BORN. The idea for the company involved using a novel process of fungal fermentation to produce chitosan, a versatile pharmaceutical ingredient with widespread applications in cancer therapy, wound care, medical devices, and genetic therapies. Although chitosan is already used in many applications today, there are challenges associated with obtaining the ingredient, which has until now been predominantly sourced from the shells of crab and shrimp. “There are a lot of problems with that supply,” explains Brown. “Not only is the purity typically bad, but the source raises some issues because of potential shellfish allergens, and there are certain cultural

David Brown, co-founder and COO of Chinova Bioworks Inc, is pictured here in the company’s lab in Fredericton, NB.

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“I THINK MOST SCIENCE STUDENTS ARE KIND OF STUCK ON FOLLOWING A TRADITIONAL CAREER PATH, SUCH AS GOING TO MEDICAL SCHOOL OR DOING GRADUATE DEGREES, BUT THERE ARE SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND IT’S REALLY NOT THAT HARD IF IT’S SOMETHING THAT YOU LOVE DOING.” —DAVID BROWN

reasons that people wouldn’t be able to use pharmaceuticals that were derived from shellfish.” By obtaining chitosan from fungus instead of shellfish, Mycodev was also able to produce a more reliable, sustainable, and higher-purity chitosan. It was a hit, and the company had immediate interest from medical device companies in the United States.

HOMETOWN HOMEBASE To help with the administrative side of the business, Brown recruited a partner to act as CEO a few months after launching Mycodev. Three years later, the two of them started an offshoot company, Chinova Bioworks, which uses mushroom chitosan as a preservative for foods, beverages, and cosmetics. Together, Mycodev and Chinova now employ more than 10 people—with the goal of growing into a hundredmillion-dollar company within 10 years. Both Mycodev and Chinova are based in Brown’s hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick. Though he initially expected to end up in a bigger centre such as Edmonton or Toronto, Brown quickly saw the advantages in being the proverbial bigger fish. “New Brunswick is a great place to start and grow a company,” he says. “It’s hard to get attention in a big province like Alberta or B.C. or Ontario—you really have to do a lot of work to get anyone to notice you. Sometimes it pays to be in a smaller province.” And Brown has already been noticed in a big way. Earlier this year, he won a Governor General’s Innovation (GGI) Award in recognition of his achievements. According to the award’s website, “These awards recognize and celebrate outstanding Canadian individuals, teams and organizations whose exceptional and transformative work help shape our future and positively impact our quality of life.” Says Brown, “It was a big surprise. I was just very honoured and humbled by it.”

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FREDERICT David Brown, pictured here in his hometown, chose to establish his businesses in Fredericton, which he describes as a great place to start and grow a company.

“THE TEACHER’S REWARD BECOMES THE SUCCESS OF THE STUDENT, AND WE GET BACK IN SATISFACTION WHAT WE INVEST IN TIME AND ENERGY.” —JULIA FOGHT MAINTAINING MENTORSHIP Along with the support he’s received from Futurepreneur—a Canadian organization for youth entrepreneurs and the nominator for Brown’s GGI award—Brown still credits that one transformational course—Industrial Biology—with setting him on the path to where he is today. He still keeps in touch with Foght. “I still actually go to her for a lot of advice— she’s a big expert in fermentation and fermentation technologies, so still if I have any questions, she’s one of the first people I’ll email.”

Though no longer actively teaching, Foght is pleased to continue providing support to her former pupils. She sees her role as akin to striking sparks amongst kindling—the students’ intelligence and engagement—then encouraging a sustained flame through gentle breaths of encouragement, even if it extends beyond the classroom and formal contact hours. “The teacher’s reward becomes the success of the student, and we get back in satisfaction what we invest in time and energy,” she explains. “I am delighted to have contributed in a small way to David’s choice of career and subsequent successes, and I count his most recent achievement of the Governor General’s award as a teacher’s bonus. With David’s permission, I told subsequent classes about the Mycodev startup company to illustrate that entrepreneurial exercises can lead to the real thing, fresh out of an undergraduate degree.” David Brown, left, receiving his Governor General’s Innovation Award from the Right Honourable David Johnston

B RIN GIN G ID E AS TO LIG H T

CTON, NB

The Faculty of Science is currently building a meeting place and catalyst for student innovation and entrepreneurship, set to open in the fall of 2018. Students will be able to access expertise, mentorship, and partner networks as they collaborate and co-operate in the development of new ideas, projects, companies, and social ventures. Rich with interdisciplinary culture and highlighting the entrepreneurial ecosystem at the University of Alberta, the new student innovation centre will also provide a launch pad for student participation in provincial and national competitions.

Reflects Brown, “These profs—Julia Foght and Dominic Sauvageau and a couple others—I’m just very lucky to have had profs like that.” He hopes his story will inspire other science students to take a serious look at pursuing an out-of-thebox career. “I think most science students are kind of stuck on following a traditional career path, such as going to medical school or doing graduate degrees, but there are so many opportunities in entrepreneurship, and it’s really not that hard if it’s something that you love doing,” he says. “Especially if it’s your business, then you feel ownership over it—and I think that really makes a difference.”

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science gets social

The science of social networks By K atie Willis ➔ Illustr ation Sébastien Thibault ➔ photos john ul an

“People you may know...” “I didn’t know you were friends with so-and-so!” “Add this person to your network.” “So, how do you know so-and-so?” “Connect with this group online.” Whether it’s online or in real life, social networks are everywhere—from your workplace to Snapchat to last week’s dinner party and everything in between. And every such network has a few things in common. 20

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here are a series of actors, also called nodes. Most commonly, we think of these as individual people, but they can also be places, events, or things. Next, there are connections between the actors. These can be friendships, professional relationships, family ties, or simply coincidences of being in the same place at the same time. Finally, there are degrees, or the number of connections an actor has. In the late 1920s, Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy first set forth the notion of the small-world paradox, suggesting that there are up to six degrees between any two people on the planet. Whether you’ve heard it called the small-world paradox, six degrees of separation, Malcolm Gladwell’s influencers, or even the Kevin Bacon effect, you’re likely familiar with Karinthy’s

Familiar strangers

theory. And, mind-boggling though it is, research shows that as our population grows, the degrees of separation between us become increasingly small.

Closer than you think For computing scientists, there is

nothing strange about the concept of social networks and network analysis. Social networks, says computing science professor and Dean Jonathan Schaeffer, are really just graphs in disguise. “Relationships between people can be represented in very large, connected graphs. When considering degrees of separation, we’re talking about the shortest distance between point A and point B on that graph.” An expert in heuristic search algorithms, Schaeffer explains that understanding the properties of these graphs, whatever type of network they may depict, is important in computing science. And in the world of the

Web 2.0, where social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Snapchat abound, our digital social networks are changing these graphs—and our networks— dramatically. “Digital social networks are much more diverse and interconnected than non-digital networks,” says Schaeffer. “They transcend all sorts of boundaries, such as geography and traditional social circles. People connect for all sorts of reasons and in all sorts of places, where in-person connections may never have been made.” In fact, a paper published by Schaeffer and colleagues in 2011 showed that there were just 3.44 degrees of separation between users on Twitter—nearly halving Karinthy’s original hypothesis. “The more people we have on this planet, the more connections we have, and the closer we become to one another,” explains Schaeffer. And this phenomenon is only on the rise.

In 1972, experimental psychologist Stanley Milgram explained the familiar stranger, a person with whom you regularly cross paths but do not interact. Milgram’s “aspect of urban anonymity” is one we’ve all encountered. Whether it’s someone on public transit or a face that continues to crop up on social media, each of us has a familiar stranger or two in our lives.

“Degrees of Separation in Social Networks,” published in the Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Combinatorial Search, is available online via Google Scholar.

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science gets social Vast applications

“Technology allows us to identify and exploit the relationships between actors— whether for scientific gain, movie recommendations, or even to understand crime.” –Osmar Zaiane

Note: Social networks are not social media

An expert in data management and

information mining, Osmar Zaiane is familiar with the power of social networks in our modern era. “If we have data that shows the relationships between entities, we can use social-network analysis to learn a great deal about it,” says Zaiane, computing science professor and scientific director of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII) at the University of Alberta. “Think everything from Netflix recommendations to health-screening behaviours.” When we understand how actors interact and, more specifically, how actors with similar features interact, we can begin to understand network characteristics, ranging from power relations to other connections we didn’t even realize were there.

Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are not social networks in and of themselves. “Social media generates social graphs that demonstrate our social networks, but they are not social networks themselves,” says computing science professor Osmar Zaiane. Rather, social networks can exist on social media, or be supported by it. And some of our most valuable networks are, in fact, offline. On that note, check out how scientists are taking advantage of the network opportunities via social media in the story on page 24.

OSMAR ZAIANE

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Biologists can use social-network analysis to understand the ways that different proteins interact with one another. Businesses can discern customer behaviour both with products and services as well as in interactions with other clients. Public health practitioners can track health outcomes. Linguists can demystify the connections between languages throughout history. Netflix users can receive better-thanever recommendations based on their peers. Are you still watching?

Everyone you never knew you’d know But for Zaiane, the most exciting

implications behind social-network analysis lie in our new-found ability to see the future . . . kind of. “Predictive social-network analysis allows us to anticipate connections between two actors,” Zaiane explains. While not quite forecasting the future, the ability to make predictions between people, events, and places has huge implications for many fields. Take criminology, for example. “Say you have mapped the criminal activity of a certain network, outlining events, people, places, and objects,” says Zaiane. “Using predictive analysis, we can see who may not be connected now but may be connected in the future. Retroactively, we can also see who may have been connected in the past, but is no longer connected now.” There is a great deal of information in social networks of all kinds. Now, social-network analysis is the tool for tapping into that wealth of knowledge. “Technology allows us to identify and exploit the relationships between actors—whether for scientific gain, movie recommendations, or even to understand crime.”

Get (net)working Whether fighting crime or simply

connecting on LinkedIn, understanding and building networks is a powerful tool and a useful skill. “In academia, as in business, building a personal network can pay huge dividends,” says Schaeffer. “These networks exist personally, professionally, academically, and in our other areas of interest. It’s all the more remarkable when they begin to intertwine.” By engaging across disciplines, social networks in academia can help researchers to solve problems beyond their own expertise and produce technologies, projects, and discoveries that simply would not have been possible before. “Sometimes, the biggest value of a university education is the connections made and the networks built therein,” says Schaeffer. “Maybe they’ll be personal, connecting you to a new friend or future spouse. Maybe they’ll help you find a job or form a startup company. Maybe they’ll enrich your life through volunteerism.” As an alumnus from the Faculty of Science, you are one of 43,721 living alumni in more than 100 countries worldwide. And, as an alumnus from the University of Alberta, you are also part of a network of more than 275,000 alumni living in 140 countries. In turn,

JONATHAN SCHAEFFER

you are connected to more than 70,000 organizations around the world that have been founded by this group, an astounding association indeed. While you may not personally know your 43,720 fellow science alumni, you share a few great things in common—your alma mater, the city of Edmonton, and the Faculty of Science. Though the mountains are high and the oceans are wide, it really is a small world after all.

“Sometimes, the biggest value of a university education is the connections made and the networks built therein.” –Jonathan Schaeffer

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science gets social

Of handles and hashtags 24

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Scientists take to social media to engage the public ➔ By jennifer pascoe

Science journalists are becoming increasingly r are, reflective of the changes in the traditional media landscape. Funding agencies are encouraging scientists to share their own research findings. While the public is simultaneously turning to social media for scientific information, scientists are also increasingly invested in this communication. The rising prominence and influence of social media are democratizing science and scientific discoveries, taking knowledge formerly relegated to the formal academy and exclusive scientific journals out into the mainstream. Social media also offers an opportunity to humanize both scientists and the research they pursue. › S C I E N C E . U A L B E R TA . C A

ISTOCK: PEOPLEIMAGES

hanks to the increasing popularity of social media, scientists have an unparalleled opportunity to share their discoveries with the world. And there has arguably never been a greater need, as science continues to move from “neat to hear about” to “need to hear about,” given various shifts on the global stage.

science gets social

“If the public is understand the

@UAlbertaScience Tweeting all things science out of the Faculty of Science

› When Bill Nye (@BillNye with more than five million Twitter followers) and Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson with nearly 10 million Twitter followers) say something, the social media world listens. But what about our University of Alberta scientists? How does social media factor into their scientific method? “I think it’s really important to popularize science, and social media is a great way to do it,” says Chris Herd— better known to his Twitter followers as @SpaceRockDoc—professor and meteorite expert in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “I’ve always been an advocate for popularizing research, whether my own or others’, and Twitter and other social media make it that much easier. Neil deGrasse Tyson is like the epitome. He makes all these witty tweets highlighting a scientific study that he thinks is cool and raising awareness about a particular issue, and gets thousands of likes and retweets.” Reinforcing the need to engage the public in science, Michael Serpe (@SerpeGroup), associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, says, “If the public is engaged in science, they understand the importance of doing science. If they understand the importance of doing science, it can lead to better funding of science. And I think it’s only through better funding of science that we’ll really advance as a society.”

Andrew Derocher @AEDerocher Biological sciences prof @UAlberta. Polar bears have been my main study species for 34 years.

Chris Herd @SpaceRockDoc Meteorite expert and curator, prof at the University of Alberta, Principal Director of ISSET, rec hoops player, kids hoops coach

Amii @AmiiThinks Amii, the #Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (formerly @aicml), performs advanced #research and #development in #AI and #MachineLearning at #UAlberta

@AlbertaSat Follow the journey of the studentdriven cube satellite, currently orbiting Earth

Jillian Buriak @JBuriak Duane Froese @tephrafan Northern researcher, scientist, technologically distracted

Prof. of Chemistry, CRC of Nanomaterials for Energy, UAlberta; Editor-in-Chief of Chemistry of Materials (ACS Publications), running addict. Oh, and mom of two.

@aurorawatch Get early warnings for the best times to view the Northern Lights

Kyle Mathewson @MathKyle Human, Bike enthusiast and commuter, Scientist, Cog neuro assistant professor at U Alberta dept. of Psych

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engaged in science, they importance of doing science.” Serpe Group @SerpeGroup

–Michael Serpe

We study the fundamental behavior of polymeric materials, polymer colloids, and photonic materials for a variety of applications.

Robert (Bob) Summers @RJSCity

Osmar Zaiane @ozaiane Professor, University of Alberta, Canada. Specializing in Data Science: Data Mining & Machine Learning @AmiiThinks Dir. Avid swimmer & motorcycle rider for fun.

Amongst our University of Alberta scientists, Twitter is the most popular platform for professional use. Here are a few handles to follow to stay on top of the latest discoveries.

@UofAObservatory

Toby Spribille @TobySpribille

Academic, Planner, General Troublemaker, I comment here mostly on politics, development, cities, & progress. I was ‘Bob from Calgary’ for a couple of fun days.

Evolutionary biologist, biodiversity nerd and dad. Lives and breathes lichens and still carries a hand lens. Yes, that is a donkey.

John P. Davis @5thsound physicist, vegetarian, father

Sally Leys @SallyLeys

Sarah A. Styler @stylergroup

I’m a researcher at the University of Alberta focusing on all aspects of sea sponge Biology.

The research group of Sarah A. Styler at the University of Alberta. We study aerosol chemistry and photochemistry in polluted urban environments.

Out-of-this-world outreach

Michaelis Group @MichaelisNMR Wild49 Ecology @Wild49Eco Researchers from #UAlberta in the Boutin and Bayne labs. We study wildlife ecology and conservation using a variety of species.

Eleni Stroulia @Eleni_Stroulia Technical woman, academic, mother, mentor, social and parasocial being

Solid-state NMR Group @ Chemistry UAlberta - Advancing Next Generation Materials through Design, Synthesis and Characterization

Still searching for more science on social? Find the Faculty of Science on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Flickr.

/UAlbertaScience @ualbertascience UAlberta Science UAlbertaScience

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DeepMind is ready and set to GO! with alumni in London and a new research lab in Edmonton By jennifer pascoe ➔ Illustr ation Sébastien Thibault

In a historic move for the global artificial intelligence community, one of the world’s leading AI research companies, DeepMind, opened its first satellite research lab outside the United Kingdom this summer in Edmonton. Headlines reflected a universal optimism that DeepMind Alberta will do for the Canadian startup AI community what DeepMind did for the London AI community, as well as create places for University of Alberta grads to stay rather than being forced to find work beyond Canadian borders.

COURTESY DEEPMIND

he connections between DeepMind and the university run deep, with roughly a dozen UAlberta alumni— some of whom played important roles in some of DeepMind’s signature advances with reinforcement learning in AlphaGo and Atari—working at the company in their headquarters in London, England. David Silver ('09 PhD), one of the most wellknown DeepMind-ers, caught the world’s attention in 2015, when AlphaGo, the program he started during his PhD studying with computing science DAVID SILVER professors Rich Sutton and Martin Mueller, bested the world’s Go Champion, Lee Sedol. “It was an amazing feeling to see that

What is DeepMind? DeepMind is on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence, developing programs that can learn to solve complex problems without being taught how, all with the goal of ultimate application to the most pressing real-world issues. DeepMind researchers typically use games as test beds for their research to develop and benchmark their algorithms. Acquired by Google in 2014, DeepMind is now part of the Alphabet group. DeepMind Alberta signals DeepMind’s commitment to accelerating Alberta’s and Canada’s AI research community.

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JOHN ULAN

“A lot of people who get trained here want to stay here, and now there’s an opportunity to retain good people and attract people back.”

—RICH SUTTON

From left, University of Alberta professors Rich Sutton, Michael Bowling, and Patrick Pilarski are heading up the new DeepMind Alberta research office in Edmonton.

Meet the DeepMind Alberta team Based in Edmonton to work closely with the Department of Computing Science, the lab is being led by computing science professors Rich Sutton and Michael Bowling as well as adjunct professor Patrick Pilarski. DeepMind Alberta is rounded out with seven more researchers, all with roots at UAlberta. Bowling is best known for his research in poker, most notably with two milestone discoveries, both published in Science. Cepheus, in 2015, solved heads-up limit Texas hold’em, and DeepStack, in late 2016, achieves professional-level play in heads-up no-limit Texas hold’em. Pilarski, the Canada Research Chair in Machine Intelligence

dream realized in Seoul in such dramatic fashion,” says Silver. “During my PhD, I dreamed of one day challenging a world champion. AlphaGo was the culmination of 12 years of research that I began back in Alberta.” Go was long viewed as the most challenging of classic games for artificial intelligence. Resulting in a landmark paper in Nature, AlphaGo further demonstrated just how intelligent AI can be, using games as a platform to demonstrate applicability, an area for which the University of Alberta is globally renowned.

for Rehabilitation, is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, looking at human-machine interaction, rehabilitation technology, and assistive robotics. Sutton is world-renowned for his foundational research in reinforcement learning—he literally wrote the textbook—in which machines learn based on their environment, much like humans, trying to replicate good outcomes and avoid bad outcomes based on learned experiences. He is the most cited researcher worldwide in reinforcement learning and the 11th most influential researcher in all of computing science, and his textbook has been called “the single most influential publication in computing science” by the Allen Institute for AI.

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The adv ice not taken Silver fondly reflects on memories of his UAlberta student days, including a departmental ski trip to Jasper—when freezing temperatures kept everyone in the basement playing board games—as well as taking part in the Pi Day beard-growing competition. However, one of the most important things he learned during his time at UAlberta was following his gut rather than well-meaning yet perhaps overly cautious advice. “The head of the department told me to switch my topic away from computer Go as it was too difficult. But what was ‘impossible’ before is now realizable with current technology. We all need to adjust our ambitions

Home(town)grown

COURTESY DEEPMIND

AI angel on their shoulders Speaking of Sutton’s advice, the AI pioneer’s work with DeepMind can be traced back to the inception of the company. In fact, DeepMind CEO and co-founder Demis Hassabis says Sutton has been instrumental to the development of DeepMind. “I first met with Rich—our first ever adviser—seven years ago when DeepMind was just a handful of people with a big idea. He saw our potential and encouraged us from day one. So when we chose to set up our first international AI research office, the obvious choice was his base in Edmonton, in close collaboration with the University of Alberta, a leader in reinforcement learning research thanks to his pioneering work.” According to Sutton’s former post-doctoral fellow Hado van Hasselt, reinforcement learning is the most exciting thing to work on. “Even after having worked on reinforcement learning algorithms for more than HADO VAN HASSELT a decade now, the idea that we can create algorithms and build agents that can solve problems themselves without us needing to specify a solution in advance is magical and fascinating to me,” says van Hasselt from London.

One of Sutton’s other former students working at DeepMind in London now has an opportunity to ponder a return to Edmonton. Joseph Modayil ('97 BSc, '99 MSc), a math COURTESY DEEPMIND

and expectations accordingly. Do not underestimate the power of reinforcement learning. Even if initial results don’t go your way, never give up, don’t compromise your goals, keep digging to understand the reasons for failure and searching for new and better approaches. Sometimes you have to have enough belief in your own ideas to ignore well-intentioned advice.” In addition to his inner voice, Silver says he often feels like he has an “inner Rich Sutton” sitting on his shoulder, giving advice on his research.

grad who eventually post-docced with Sutton, speaks with optimism about the new initiative in his hometown. “The new DeepMind research JOSEPH MODAYIL

lab in Edmonton will cause the AI community

to grow and advance the field faster.” Modayil credits his education in mathematics and computing science for providing a foundation for careful reasoning in formal domains where conventional intuition isn’t available.

Teamwork makes the dream work Van Hasselt says he learned from his supervisor Sutton how to pay attention to what is important and more importantly, to communicate it accordingly. Van Hasselt says Sutton always reinforced the need for clear communication in the lab and beyond. “Without collaboration and communication, there is little hope for progress of research as a whole,” says van Hasselt. “If you discover something but do not communicate this clearly, this can greatly diminish the potential impact and thereby limit progress. Perhaps the single most important lesson I learned from Rich Sutton was following these three rules for communication: Speak clearly; say important things first; and explain why you say what you say, or in other words, show your intent.” Communication and collaboration just got a whole lot more interesting and important for the DeepMind researchers, who, thanks to the new Alberta-based lab, will be communicating and collaborating across the globe on a scale previously unexplored. Continuing in the DeepMind tradition of a unique hybrid of academia and startup culture, the new lab represents a pipeline to keep talented people in the country. Sutton, Bowling, and Pilarski, all three of whom will remain with the Alberta READ MORE about Machine Intelligence Institute, will also artificial intelligence in the spring issue of continue teaching and supervising graduate New Trail, the University students at the university to further foster of Alberta’s alumni the Canadian AI talent pipeline and grow the magazine. country’s technology ecosystem. “Edmonton is sticky,” says Sutton with a smile. “A lot of people who get trained here want to stay here, and now there’s an opportunity to retain good people and attract people back.”

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Reflecting on our roots BY J U L I E N AY L O R

PHOTOS JOH N U L A N

JAN MURIE (ZOOLOGY/ BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES), LEFT; JONATHAN SCHAEFFER, CENTRE; CURTIS STROBECK(ZOOLOGY/ BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES), RIGHT

In 1908, in his address to the first convocation

ROGER MORTON (EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES)

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of the University of Alberta, then president Henry Marshall Tory said, “Our professors are first of all teachers. To them the largest freedom must be given. It is their duty to push into the heart of things that the truth and nothing but the truth may be discovered.” ● At that time, there were four such teachers. In the century since, thousands of professors have walked the halls, stood at the front of the class to lecture, spent countless nights in the lab or days conducting research in the field, and donned administrative caps to keep the Faculty of Science moving forward.

PHOTOS | CAPTURED AT THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE EVENT IN SEPTEMBER 2017, HONOURING EMERITI PROFESSORIATE

DOUG HUBE (PHYSICS), LEFT AND GORDON FREEMAN (CHEMISTRY), RIGHT

how our professors emeriti built the past and shaped the future

P RO F E S S OR E M E R I T U S recognizes

meritorious service to the University of Alberta by an individual professor retiring from the university, acknowledging their value due to their record of teaching, research, and community service. The individual must have attained the rank of professor and had at least 10 years of full-time service as a faculty member at the U of A. There are currently 207 professors emeriti in the Faculty of Science, and it is on the shoulders of these people that we stand today. In their careers, they have touched the lives of many thousands of undergraduate and graduate students, and they have made research contributions both big and small that changed the course of science. In recognition of these contributions and of the foundation laid by these remarkable individuals, the Faculty of Science hosted an event in September 2017 to celebrate the transformational effects that the emeriti professoriate have had on our students, staff, and faculty, past, present, and future. Here are the stories of three.

Early game research When Tony Marsland, now professor emeritus, arrived in the Department of Computing Science in 1970, his English accent earned him the comparison to a Renaissance man by the students. “They expected me to be smoking a pipe and wearing a gentleman’s flat cap.” Eventually, the students got used to him, and Marsland got used to the students. “I enjoyed all my classes, but especially the ones where I could ‘ad lib.’ First-year programming, senior-year operating systems, and any graduate course were especially enjoyable,” Marsland recalls. “I spent a lot of time preparing mental notes of points I must make, and hypothetical situations I must explore.” Marsland’s research focused on computer chess, which he had been working on since 1968, and led to his active involvement in the International Computer Chess Association. Three early research papers got him going, and over time his research in the field earned him a prestigious McCalla Professorship and recognition by IBM as a Pioneer of Computing in Canada. Marsland credits a handful of mentors—Bill Adams, John Penney, John Tartar, Arthur Wouk, and Professor

Emeritus Keith Smillie—for helping shape him as a professor. He also recalls some of the students whom he helped guide in turn. “I particularly remember Brian Wesley ('71 BSc, '74 MSc), Wayne Chelak ('71 BSc, '73 MSc), Lorna Gibson ('71 BSc, '73 MSc), Vic Shapiro ('70 BSc, '72 MSc), Murray Campbell ('79 BSc, '81 MSc), Glynis Dorey ('75 BSc), John Demco ('73 BSc, '75 MSc), and Fred Popowich ('82 BSc),” says Marsland. “And of course I am still in touch with my first graduate student, Paul Rushton ('72 MSc).”

A serendipitous encounter While he was searching for a place to do a post-doc, Bill Samuel, now professor emeritus, found himself reviewing the program at a wildlife disease meeting. A name on the program stood out: John Holmes, now professor emeritus. “I had been at a meeting in Chicago a few months before, and an ecologist told me if I wanted to work with a great parasite ecologist and a great team I should contact John Holmes,” says Samuel. Now, he was determined to not let the opportunity slip by. Holmes and Samuel had dinner, and Holmes offered Samuel the UAlberta

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“I could see in them things that I imagined in myself. What I most valued in my students was a genuine love or desire to follow the research and answer the question.” —Susan Jensen

WALTER ALLEGRETO (MATHEMATICAL AND STATISTICAL SCIENCES)

Postdoctoral Fellowship. (Jan Muir, another professor emeritus, was the first recipient.) That was all Samuel needed. He packed up his car and made the drive from the U.S., arriving in Edmonton on a snowy autumn day. Two years into a post-doc, Samuel began to build his name in wildlife parasitology. Near the end of his post-doc, Samuel was called into the office of Bill Fuller, chair of zoology at the time. “He said, ‘Well, we have a spot for a big-game person, would you like to stay? I’ll give you a few days to think it over.’ I said, ‘Are you offering me a permanent job? I don’t need to think about it; the answer is yes.’ And I accepted right on the spot.” Samuel’s time in science was spent building a research career in wildlife parasitology, working on big game. His administrative contributions include two stints as associate dean (research) for the Faculty of Science. He was instrumental in setting up the Alberta Conservation Association Grants in Biodiversity, which funds outstanding graduate students in Alberta-based research. The program has awarded more than $5 million to graduate student researchers. He also helped set up the Alberta Conservation Association Endowed Chair, which is currently held by Mark Boyce, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. With all of his contributions, Samuel reflects on his greatest thrill. “It was seeing virtually every one of my grad students becoming much more than I ever was and contributing much more than I ever had.”

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For Susan Jensen ('75 PhD), her journey to professor emerita started when she was an undergraduate student in home economics. “I didn’t have a family history that would put me into academic work, so I was very unfocused about what I wanted to be,” she recalls. “I ended up having to take very rigorous courses in biochemistry and microbiology. It was in that micro course that I first thought, ‘I really like this.’ Jim Campbell taught that course, and I remember him talking away with a deadpan delivery that was quite funny.” Jensen did well in the class, so well that it landed her in the graduate program with none other than Campbell as her supervisor. After graduating, Jensen stayed on in what was then the Department of Microbiology. In the early stages of her career, she was the go-to person to teach whatever was left vacant by a sabbatical or administration leave, often big-enrolment introductory

courses. But after she became an Alberta Heritage Scholar, she taught industrial microbiology almost exclusively. “In the senior courses, some of the students would be aiming for academic or research careers,” she says. “I could see in them things that I imagined in myself. What I most valued in my students was a genuine love or desire to follow the research and answer the question.” With the formation of the Department of Biological Sciences in 1994, Jensen took another step in her academic career, becoming the first official chair of the new department in 1995. Her 20 years of financial support for research into the production of antibiotics by an organism called Streptomyces clavuligerus was honoured by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. In retirement, Jensen still gets together with what is affectionately referred to as microbiology’s very own “Group of Seven”—Mike Pickard, Ken Roy, Gerry Stemke, Brenda Leskiw, Julia Foght, and Phil Fedorak.

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES (MICROBIOLOGY) PROFESSOR EMERITI CIRCA 1993: (L TO R) SUSAN JENSEN, KEN ROY, BRENDA LESKIW, MIKE PICKARD BRENDA LESKIW

Full circle

ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA AWARDS

PHOTOS | LEFT: RICHARD SIEMENS | CENTRE THREE IMAGES: JOHN ULAN | RIGHT: COURTESY NSERC

Joining a prestigious group of only 2,000 scientists, artists, and scholars peer-selected as the best in their field, in November four Faculty of Science professors were added to the illustrious roster of Royal Society of Canada fellows this year at the induction ceremony in Winnipeg. The 2017 inductions bring the total number of our Faculty Fellows to an impressive 52 to date.

Inducted to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists:

DENNIS HALL

KURT KONHAUSER

MARCIA SPETCH

DAVID WISHART

DARREN GRANT

PROFESSOR, CHEMISTRY (MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES DIVISION)

PROFESSOR, EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES (EARTH, OCEAN, AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES DIVISION)

PROFESSOR, PSYCHOLOGY (SOCIAL SCIENCES DIVISION)

PROFESSOR, BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND COMPUTING SCIENCE (LIFE SCIENCES DIVISION)

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PHYSICS

Dennis Hall is an organic chemist recognized as a world leader in the chemistry and chemical biology of the element boron. His research is centred on the study of the properties and the reactivity of organoboronic acids and their multiple applications in catalysis and drug discovery. His efforts led to the discovery of new and greener reaction processes and to new classes of organoboron compounds that are currently exploited as pharmaceutical agents. “Election to RSC Fellowship is a special honour because it recognizes the importance of someone’s scientific contributions in Canada. I have always been proud to represent the country on the global scene of research and scholarship. I am particularly grateful that my colleagues thought of me as worthy of this honour and took the time to nominate me.”

Kurt Konhauser is a world expert in the field of geobiology. His research ranges from the role of microbes in metal binding and forming minerals to describing the biogeochemical processes controlling elemental cycling in oceans through time. His work is significant in understanding the evolution of oxygenation on the early Earth. He has published the authoritative textbook on the subject and is the founding editorin-chief of the journal Geobiology. “Being elected to the Royal Society of Canada is a tremendous honour, one that could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of my graduate students, former and present.”

Marcia Spetch’s innovative approaches to comparative cognition have contributed to opening up a significant new research field: comparative spatial cognition. Her studies on spatial memory and orientation across different species have invigorated comparative cognition worldwide. Spetch has also significantly advanced our understanding of decision making across different species and is internationally renowned for her research on how animals perceive, learn about, and remember their worlds. “I am extremely honoured to be inducted into the Royal Society of Canada and to join the many great scholars in the society. I owe my success, in large part, to the wonderful students and colleagues I have been privileged to work with during my career and to the continual support of the University of Alberta.”

David Wishart has made important research contributions to structural biology and metabolomics. In the 1990s, he discovered fast and efficient methods to help determine protein structures. In the mid-2000s, he directed the Human Metabolome Project, a multi-year project that helped give birth to the field of metabolomics. The resources he created are now accessed by millions of users each year. “It’s a real honour to be elected to the Royal Society, but it’s an honour that I really share with my staff and students. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to do the things that led the Royal Society to elect me.”

Darren Grant, Canada Research Chair in Astroparticle Physics, is an internationally recognized leader in the study of the subatomic particles known as neutrinos. He is designing the next generation of detector experiments at the South Pole and elsewhere. He is a major contributor to the study of how neutrinos change between varieties, the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources, and the search for the nature of the elusive dark matter. “It is an honour to be elected as a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada. I feel truly humbled to be selected for this recognition by the members of the Royal Society, and I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to the important mission of the College.”

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WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Lasting legacies of science supporters past and present influence countless students and scientists

by Je n nife r Pas co e

EVER FIND YOURSELF WANDERING THE HALL of the Gunning/Lemieux Chemistry Centre and wondering exactly who Gunning and Lemieux were? n Whether it’s through a classroom like the Gilead Lecture Theatre, a lab like the Josephine Mitchell Lab, a meeting space like the Reuben Sandin Conference Centre, a student space like the Bhatia Student Commons, a named chair like the C.R. Stelck Chair in Petroleum Geology, or the plethora of named undergraduate and graduate scholarships, awards, conferences, and lecture series, naming honours leaves a legacy to inspire scientists and future scientists for decades to come.

But just who is behind the names?

unning was the chair of the Department of Chemistry from 1957 to 1974, credited for the program’s growth and progress at unprecedented levels. Raymond “Sugar Ray” Lemieux established the University of Alberta’s excellence in glycomics research, a strong tradition that continues today with the work of chemistry professors including Todd Lowary, Chris Cairo, John Klassen, Ratmir Derda, and Matthew Macauley, as well as innovations including the Alberta Glycomics Centre and GlycoNet, the National Network of Centre of Excellence, both housed at the U of A. Lemieux’s legacy extends beyond the chemistry department. In fact, his daughter, microbiologist Laura Frost, would go on to become the chair of the Department of Biological Sciences. Read more of Frost’s story on page 38.

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THE FRED H. IRWIN MEMORIAL PRIZE IN ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

THE JAMES MCCRIE DOUGLAS MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP

The Fred H. Irwin Memorial Prize in Organic Chemistry was established in 1946 by Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Irwin in memory of their son, Flying Officer F.H. Irwin. Fred Irwin was an honors chemistry student who went overseas and was killed on March 14, 1945 in Germany during the Second World War.

The James McCrie Douglas Memorial Scholarship was established in 1950 and is awarded annually to students with superior academic achievement entering the fourth year of an honors program in the Faculty of Science. James Douglas was a member of the Canadian House of Commons for Strathcona from 1909 to 1921 and served as Edmonton’s 19th mayor from 1929 to 1931. He also set up a similar scholarship in his wife’s name in the Faculty of Arts.

THE J.W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL PRIZE IN MATHEMATICS

In 1962 the J.W. Campbell Memorial Prize in Mathematics was established to recognize the efforts of a student who achieves outstanding merit in MATH 117 and 118. It was set up by Mrs. J.W. Campbell in memory of her husband, the former chair of the Department of Mathematics. Professor Campbell was also the first acting chair of the Astronomy Centre, established in 1932, and was instrumental in establishing the University Observatory built around the gifting of a 12-inch telescope and a one-inch refracting scope.

NAN AND MARGARET-ANN ARMOUR WISEST PARTICIPANT SCHOLARSHIP

Established in 2005 by Dr. MargaretAnn Armour on the occasion of her retirement from the Department of Chemistry. The scholarship is in honour of her mother, Nan, and supports students in the first year of an undergraduate degree program in the Faculty of Science who participated in the WISEST Summer Research Program.

The Clare Patershuk Travel Fund

he Clare Patershuk Travel Fund was created in honour of Clare Patershuk ('09 BsC), a psychology graduate who was killed by a drunk driver just two weeks after she graduated with her master’s degree in counselling psychology. “Clare was intelligent, insightful, loving, funny, and beautiful,” says her mother Mary Riley, who along with Clare’s father, Peter Patershuk, founded the award in their daughter’s

honour. “Clare took pride in her academic achievements, she valued learning, and she always gave of her best. We hope students receiving this award will value the opportunity to travel to and learn in different locations, something Clare would have prized.” Chris Westbury, professor in the Department of Psychology, who worked with Clare between 2007 and 2009 as her undergraduate thesis supervisor, describes Clare as a “good person, interesting, feisty, and enthusiastic. She was skeptical and thoughtful and tried to figure things out.”

MICHELLE EHMIG

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PHOTO: SUPPLIED

CLARE PATERSHUK

PHOTO: SUPPLIED

Psychology graduate Michelle Ehmig, currently working as a research associate in the Department of Psychology, was the inaugural recipient of the Clare Patershuk Travel Fund. Ehmig used the funds to attend a pet- therapy conference, learning more about animal-assisted therapy and the associated research, fuelling her desire to pursue graduate studies in counselling or cognitive neuropsychology. Like Ehmig, Patershuk too believed in the strength of pet therapy and often worked with horses in her exploration of their healing powers. “Clare Patershuk inspired people around her and encouraged them to pursue their true passion,” says Ehmig. “Awards like this support exploration of your field of study in more depth and allow you to get inspired by other members of the research community. People like Clare are my true inspiration, and I am very grateful for receiving this inspiring award.”

Alumni Perspectives

Adventures in science From student to professor emerita, enthusiasm and encouragement serve as key ingredients B y L AU R A S . F R O S T, P R O F E S S O R E M E R I TA ( ' 7 0 B S C , ' 7 8 P h D) / P h o to s J O H N U L A N

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From the vantage point of retirement, I realize that my life in science was a serendipitous series of events that revolved around the University of Alberta. M Y E A R L I E S T I N F L U E N C E S W E R E M Y PA R E N T S R AY A N D V I R G I N I A (J E A N N E ) L E M I EU X . Dad, who was hired by the chemistry department in 1961, was an exceptional scientist who set a high standard in creativity for all six of his children to follow. “All good experiments begin in the library,” he would advise. Dad gave me a book called The Art of the Soluble by Peter Medawar when I started graduate school that pointed out that you cannot solve a problem until you have the technology to tackle it. Certainly, I have seen this proven to be true many times in my career as I sought new ways to solve old problems. My mom had a PhD in physical chemistry and was an inspiration at a time when few women had such accomplishments to their name. I made the excellent choice of doing my undergraduate degree in the biochemistry department. I began as a summer student with my longtime mentor and friend Bill Paranchych in 1968 and liked his lab so much I stayed for my PhD. Biochemistry had an energy and camaraderie, carefully tended by the chair, John Colter, that made anything seem possible. Funding at the federal level was generous, the Medical Research Council (MRC) Protein Structure and Function group was in full swing, and Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) had been established, allowing really bright students to enter the graduate program. The research facilities supported by the MRC— now Canadian Institutes of Health Research

(CIHR)—allowed me to develop expertise in protein chemistry and especially electron microscopy in Doug Scraba’s lab and later with Richard Sherbourne in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. I was married with three children when I graduated, and I credit my husband Ed, Bill, and my parents for their support and encouragement to finish my PhD. In the early '80s, I learned molecular biology in Neil Willetts’ lab in Edinburgh, Scotland, (who was an old friend of Bill’s) that started my fascination with molecular biology. I had taken a course 10 years previously as a first-year grad student in bacterial genetics from Assad Ahmed across campus in the genetics department. I realized that the power of molecular biology coupled with

the satisfying concept of the control experiment was what I wanted to do. While waiting for my DNA sequencing gels to dry on many an evening, I would wander down the hall to visit with Mike James’ lab members, who taught me the basics of X-ray crystallography. This culminated in a fruitful and really fun collaboration with Mark Glover, a new crystallographer recruited by biochemistry in the '90s, which defined the high points of my research career. In 1990, I had the opportunity to move to the microbiology department—incorporated into biological sciences in 1994—as a professor with my own lab. By 2003, I was chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, which was an eye opener. The department was a smorgasbord of new, interesting topics. From the math and stats of the hardcore ecologists to the systematics of the old-style biologists, who had wonderful museum-quality collections, it was a new adventure in science. I tried to apply the ideas I had gleaned from my mentors of old: Reward enthusiasm, encourage students and staff to become expert at new (and old) technologies, keep fees as low as possible, and take advantage of any money on offer for renovations and equipment for staff and students. It is more than 50 years since I started my undergraduate degree; if I had to do it again, there really isn’t much I’d do differently. Thanks, UAlberta!

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Faculty of Science 6-189 CCIS University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2E1

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