On The Air!

Communication co-op student Tiffany Chong has the opportunity of a lifetime as an intern with the CBC, toronto. Photograph by Carol Thorbes

Tiffany Chong is winner of CBC’s Peter Gzowski internship. She spends four months in Toronto with three other interns taking a radio skills course usually only offered to experienced reporters and producers.

Round and round they'll go

The Olympic speed-skating oval will be built into the hillside below the residences at the southwest corner of SFU. It is the largest facility to be built for the games, and at an estimated cost of $65–70 million, it takes a major portion of the bid corporation’s construction and upgrade budget. It is large enough to hold two international-size hockey rinks, a 400-metre speed-skating oval, and a 440-metre running track. After the Olympics, the facility will be shared equally between the public, elite athletes, and the university..

We're Soooo Cool

Outside magazine names SFU number six in its annual list of 40 best colleges. The magazine looks at “the coolest places to work, play, study, party and live” on the basis of academic standing, access to outdoor adventure, and “a healthy environmental ethos.” It’s the only Canadian university to make the list.

Illustration by Greg White

Bee Talk

Chemist Keith Slessor’s research into how bees communicate earns him a Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C. award for exceptional research that contributes to the wider community. Slessor is dedicated to popularizing science among non-academics.

Mathematics and SARS

Top mathematicians in Canada and the United States, including SFU’s Arvind Gupta and Charmaine Dean, are collecting clinical data about SARS and plugging it into existing statistical models. Their aim is to better predict and control the spread of infectious diseases such as SARS so they can be ready for possible future epidemics.

The "Aha" Experience

Photograph by Marianne Meadahl

Mathematics really clicks for Peter Liljedahl.

Apparently that’s what people have when math suddenly makes sense. For the rest of us, for whom math still doesn’t make sense, researcher Peter Liljedahl is investigating what prompts the “Aha” experience. He’s analyzing responses from among the world’s top 150 mathematicians to see how their experiences can help create better learning conditions for math students. Liljedahl is one of nine SFU recipients of a 2003 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship.

Wax Works

Illustration by Greg White

Manitoba artist Aganetha Dyck inserts ordinary items into bees’ hives and turns out wax-entombed art. A one-week intensive course for advanced beekeepers given by biological sciences professor and bee expert Mark Winston is a major influence on Dyck, who says as a result of the course, “My art will never be the same.” A documentary film is currently in the works about the Dyck-Winston collaboration.

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Photograph by Marianne Meadahl

A high-speed Internet connection using wireless access points at key locations is helping rescue teams find lost hikers. The system is being developed by communication professor Peter Anderson, who focuses on problems related to communicating in extreme environments where radio signals fail and cellular coverage is unreliable. www.sfu.ca/cprost/projects.htm

WOSK Centre

Photo by Susan Jamieson McLarnon

Action Canada, one of two new programs.

More Women in Science

For the third year in a row, an SFU student wins a National Research Council (NRC) women in engineering and science award. This time the winner is engineering student Shirin Farrahi, who will participate in three work placements worth approximately $30,000 over the next two years.

MBA Online

The first online graduate degree program at SFU starts in January. The management of technology MBA uses the services of both the university’s learning and instructional development centre (LIDC) and SFU Surrey’s eLinc. LIDC will train faculty new to online teaching and eLinc will help instructors with course design. www.sfubusiness.ca/mot/

Photograph by Carol Thorbes

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Tracking killer earthquakes lands Jonathan Hughes (PhD’02) a prestigious Mendenhall postdoctoral research fellowship. The award, given by the U.S. Geological Survey, will allow Hughes to track the earthquake histories of numerous faults in Washington state’s Puget Sound lowland.


Jonathan Hughes holds a model of a pine pollen grain (30,000 times life-size) used to document
earthquake histories.

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Setting the Cedar Table

Photograph by Carol Thorbes

Rick Ouellet and Erma Robinson with Cedar Table logo.

First Nations students are staging a unique series of events over the next five months. The First Nations Student Association, First Nations Student Centre, and a group of SFU researchers are setting the table for frank and open discussion. The series of events will culminate in May in a full-scale conference on education issues of concern to First Nations. www.reg.sfu.ca/fnsc/

Spinning Off Cancer Research

Molecular biologist Thor Borgford secures $10 million in venture capital financing to help develop a promising anti-cancer treatment. The SFU spinoff company, drug developer Twinstrand Therapeutics Inc., uses plant toxins that have been engineered into inactive forms to attack and destroy disease cells. www.twinstrand.com

BC Bud is an economic generator

Illustration by Greg White

Economist Stephen Easton finds B.C. residents grow approximately $4.8 billion worth of pot annually, 3.6 percent of the province’s economic output. This compares to the fisheries and aquaculture industry’s $600 million contribution – less than one percent of the provincial economy. Toke, anyone!

Illustration by Greg White

Royal Society Elections

Three faculty members are elected fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, one of Canada’s amost prestigious academic accolades. Historian Jack Little, chemist Mario Pinto, and biologist Mark Winston are recognized for major contributions in their fields.

Mimicking Molecules

Photograph by Greg Ehlers Mario Pinto copies nature to design drugs, including a promising one for Type 2 diabetes.

Nature’s molecules can be copied to design better drugs. Chemist Mario Pinto’s research has unearthed a potentially powerful new compound that helps control adult-onset Type 2 diabetes and has few side effects. The new drug mimics a molecule found in a herbal remedy used to treat diabetes in Pinto’s native Sri Lanka. The drug should be on the market in a few years.

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First and Second

Business grad students score a one-two punch in the Chief Information Officer Association of B.C.’s annual scholarships award. The EMBA program’s Steven Codrington, Daryl Wong, Martin Petruk, and Naushad Kassam pick up first place. Second place goes to Craig Crawford, Karen Reutlinger, Eugene Syho, and Leon Bresler, also of the EMBA program.

Play Ball!

Pitcher Erin Thomas is named Most Valuable Player as SFU wins the NAIA national women’s softball championships in Decatur, Alabama. It’s the third consecutive trip to the finals for the team, but the first win since 1999. Head coach Mike Renney and assistants Tyler Lorenz and Julie Bodenbender are named the 2003 Speedline/ NFCA NAIA National Coaching Staff of the Year for the team’s 37-4 record.

Innovative Women

Communication professor Ellen Balka wins the YMCA Women of Distinction Award in the workplace innovation category. Her research focuses on how information technology affects women and how they have used that technology in the context of social change. Other SFU nominees are Christina Ames, Sheila Davidson, Bistra Dilkina, Malgorzata Dubiel, and Pat Halborn.

Photograph courtesy SFU Media and PR

Quantum Leap

Photograph by Diane Luckow

Steve Dodge studies the complete disappearance of electric resistance in a substance.

Physicist Steve Dodge delves into the world of quantum materials and receives a US$75,000 award from the Research Corporation in Tucson, Arizona. The award, for teaching and research, is one of the most prestigious for beginning faculty in the sciences. It will help Dodge build new experimental teaching facilities in SFU physics labs modelled after San Francisco’s famous Exploratorium.

On the Right Track


Illustration by Greg White

Volunteer mentors from universities, museums, and historical societies are collaborating online with teachers and students to study the history of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The innovative project, called Tracking Canada’s Past, is the brainchild of Kevin O’Neill, assistant professor and coordinator for SFU’s master’s program in education and technology. About 150 students and 20 adult volunteers are participating. www.trackingcanadaspast.org

Archaeologist Dana Lepofsky at Fraser Valley dig site.

A 3,000-Year-Old Village

University archaeologists, including Dana Lepofsky, are tracing down the history of several large, ancient First Nations villages in the Fraser Valley near Chilliwack. They’ve already traced one village back 3,000 years. The project is a collaborative one and includes archaeologists from UBC, UCLA, and the University of Saskatchewan, and representatives from the Sto:lo and other First Nations. aq

Photograph courtesy SFU Media and PR

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