Kudos

Professor François Ricard, from the Department of French Language and Literature, is the winner of the inaugural Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize for his book, Gabrielle Roy: A Life. The prize, which will be awarded annually for the best biography written by a Canadian, is worth $10,000.

Professor Irwin Cotler, from the Faculty of Law, was elected by the people living in the Mount Royal riding to serve as their Member of Parliament in Ottawa. More than 90 per cent of the voters who turned out for the by-election cast their votes for Cotler.

Professor Konstantinos Arvanitakis, from the Departments of Psychiatry and Philosophy, has been appointed director of the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis. The institute is a graduate school for training and research in psychoanalysis under the auspices of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and the International Psychoanalytical Association.

Mr. Ian Keay, a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Economics, has received the Allen Nevins Dissertation Prize for 1998-1999, awarded for the best dissertation in economic history on a North American topic. His dissertation is entitled "Assessing the Performance of Canada's Manufacturers: Firm Level Evidence from 1902 - 1990." The selection process is conducted by the Economic History Association and the award is administered by Columbia University. Keay is the first Canadian recipient of the prize.

The McGill Redmen and Martlet soccer teams both finished the season as Quebec champions and advanced to the Canadian national finals.

Professor Arun Mujumdar, from the Department of Chemical Engineering, was awarded a medal of honour at the First Asian-Australian Drying Conference recently held in Indonesia. Mujumdar was fêted for making outstanding contributions to drying technology and for excellence in drying research. He was named honorary professor of engineering by Kasetsart University in Bangkok.

Mr. Kangming Ma, a graduate student in the Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry, won the Graduate Student Award, Canadian Section, of the American Oil Chemists' Society at the group's recent annual meeting. The title of Ma's prize-winning paper was "Trans Fatty Acid Determination in Fats and Margarine by FTIR Spectroscopy Using a Disposable IR Card."

Ms. Rebecca Shortt and Ms. Karine Lacroix, graduate students at the Brace Centre for Water Resources Management, won first place in the student design paper competition of the North Atlantic Biological Engineering Conference held in Pennsylvania in August. The title of their paper was "Design of an Automatic Control System for Subsurface Irrigation."

Professor Denis Thérien, director of the School of Computer Science, has received the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The prize is in recognition of Thérien's accomplishments in research and teaching, and entitles him to stay for a period of 12 months at a research institute of his choice in Germany.

Mr. Carlo Coscia, a master's student in the Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, is one of six engineers throughout the country to be selected by the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers for a CCPE scholarship. Coscia is conducting research on multi-component metal chloride pyrohydrolysis and the use of fluidized bed pyrohydrolysis facilities to regenerate the hydrochloric acid contained in the by-products produced during steel pickling.

Dr. Barbara Sourkes, from the Department of Pediatrics and the Intensive Ambulatory Care Service and Palliative Program at the Montreal Children's Hospital, received an award from the Children's Hospice International for her contributions to the professional literature on life-threatening illness in childhood. This award was given at the 1999 World Congress in Vienna.

Professor Raphaël Fischler, from the School of Urban Planning, earned the Catherine Bauer Wurster Prize for Best Scholarly Article on American City and Regional Planning History. The award was presented by the Society for American City and Regional Planning History for Fischler's article, "The Metropolitan Dimension of Early Zoning: Revisiting the 1916 New York City Ordinance." He also won the best article award from the Urban History Association for an essay published in The Journal of Urban History.

Professor Luba Zuk, from the Faculty of Music, and her brother Professor Ireneus Zuk, director of Queen's University's School of Music, were each awarded the title "Merited Artist of Ukraine" for their "significant personal contribution to the promotion of Ukrainian culture in the world and notable creative achievements." The Zuks, who have performed widely as a piano duo, received the honours from Ukranian president Leonid Kuchma.

Professor David Burns, from the Department of Chemistry, has been awarded the W.A.E. McBryde Medal in Analytical Chemistry. The McBryde Medal is given to one individual each year by the Canadian Society for Chemistry as a mark of distinction for research in pure or applied analytical chemistry.