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Vote of confidence from left to right: David Lindscoop, Janet Chiu, Amanda Chen, Kevin Chou, and Beatrice Benavides.
#1 Again
SFU is tops again in the comprehensive category of Maclean's 2010 university rankings. The university has held the position eight times in the 20 years since the rankings began, more than any other institution. Check it out at <http://at.sfu.ca/bCgrce>.
Outstanding TA Business PhD student Kirk Plangger beats out
80 other PhDs and seasoned instructors from around the world to win an outstanding teaching award from Oklahoma State University's Spears School of Business. Plangger co-taught a four-day entrepreneur program to a class of undergraduates in Oklahoma..
David Vocadlo is working to solve the mystery of Alzheimer's.
TARGETING ALZHEIMER'S
Chemistry professor David Vocadlo's spin-off company Alectos is partnering with pharmaceutical giant Merck to take aim at Alzheimer's. The SFU lab is developing com- pounds to modify a key enzyme that may lead to a breakthrough treatment to slow or even stop the disease.
GIVING BACK Ryan Beedie (BBA'91) says SFU is "where I
learned how to learn." Now the business- man and his father, Keith Beedie, are donating $22 million to the university – the largest single donation in its his- tory. The money will go to the Faculty of Business Administration, which will be renamed the Beedie School of Business. The money will help make the business faculty a global leader in several areas, including Asia-Pacific business and sus- tainability.
Award-Winning Filmmakers I
Six SFU science students win the first Gene
Screen BC film competition. Sequence Me, by Suraaj Aulakh, Linda Zhang, Cindy Li, Charles Stevens, Kelly Kim, and Daniel Chiang, explores concerns surrounding the sequencing of human genes. To view the film, go to <www.genomebc.ca>; for a better understanding of science lab techniques, go to the students' website <www.labtricks.com>.
Remembering Eric Bannister
The first chair of the Department of Kinesiology
has died. Eric Bannister was a pioneer in his field of exercise and environmental physiology.InadditiontohisworkatSFU he opened the first medical fitness centre in Vancouver.
Award-Winning Filmmakers II
Three SFU filmmakers take major awards in
the student film category in Vancouver's Short Film Festival. David McDonald's Empire City wins best director, best cin- ematography, best editing, and audience choice awards; Jun-Sun Song's The Letters wins best screenplay and best actress; and Julia Hutching's Irradiate wins best sound.
Bhangra instructors Gurpreet Sian (left) and Raakhi Sinha in the new Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
DANCE, DANCE
Traditional bhangra dancing is now a credit course offered in the new Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, located in the Woodward's redevelopment. Bhangra is a celebration dance in Punjab, traditionally performed by farmers during the harvest season. Today there is a huge competitive bhangra dance community in Canada and the U.S., made popular by shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars.
The late Warren Gill (left) in Scotland with his great friend and mentor, the late Archie MacPherson (right).
Remembering Archie MacPherson
Archie MacPherson (1922–2010), founding chair of the Department of Geography, has died.
He was acting president of SFU for a brief moment in the tumultuous summer of 1968. MacPherson wrote several papers on aspects of the geography of Scotland, but his main priority was teaching human and regional geography.
Public-Service Videos
Bollywood-style videos are being used to raise awareness among local Punjabi farm workers on how to safely wash their clothes after using pesticides. The videos, Wash With Care 1 and Wash With Care 2, are produced by SFU communication students and researchers from SFU Health Sciences.
(LtoR) Sumanpreet Chhina, Mona Rahbar and Avneet Bajwa
Saving Lives
SFU engineering science
researchers are helping keep alive bacteria- infected newborns in rural India. Ash Parameswaran and three graduate students have developed a class of plastic microfluidic chips that can determine the right antibiotic in a few hours with the aid of a simple LED light source. They are working with researchers at Bangalore's Raman Research Institute and the Centre for Biotechnology at Anna University in Chennai.
FISH AWARD
Patricia Gallaugher, fish physiologist and
conservationist, receives the Roderick Haig-Brown Conservation Award. She is recognized for her work organizing SFU's successful Speaking for the Salmon Program, which has run since 1998.
RESEARCH PUNCH
SFU researchers are having more impact than
ever before, according to Canada's Top 50 Research Universities List 2010. SFU topped all the universities in the compre- hensive category and all but two of the country's medical/doctoral universities for its publication impact. The university has also witnessed a 272 percent increase in its research income over the past decade.
High Benefit
Economics undergraduate Jordan Gutierrez
receives the Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He founded the world's largest online Spanish-language medi- cal bookstore. It serves doctors in rural Mexico who don't have easy access to medical information, and in 2010 gener- ated more than $1 million in sales.
Column Art by top to bottom: Adam Brayford/Work Intergrated Learning, Greg Ehlers/TLC, iStockphoto.com, Dixon Tam/PARM, Shaundehl Runka, SFU News/PARM, Marianne Meadahl/PAMR
Award-Winning Filmmakers I
Award-Winning Filmmakers II
