Media

OTTAWA, March 17, 2008  —  Professor Pierre Berini from the School of Information Technology and Engineering of the University of Ottawa is among six rising stars of Canadian research who will receive an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship – one of Canada’s premier science and engineering research awards. It is awarded each year by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

The Steacie Fellowship will allow professor Berini, an Electrical engineer, to lead the pack in surface plasmonics which involves guiding light along metal traces in integrated structures. Biosensors and components for optical communications are the principal potential applications of this research.

“Our NSERC Steacie winners have delivered results that have earned them a well-deserved international reputation for highly original and influential research in their fields,” said Dr. Suzanne Fortier, president of NSERC. “These fellowships will allow the winners to devote their full time and attention to their work, in effect supercharging their research while freeing them from their other duties.”

The winners will receive additional funding to support their research, and their universities will receive a salary contribution to fund a replacement for the Fellow’s teaching and administrative duties, thus allowing the winners to focus on their research for two years.

The other NSERC Steacie Fellowship winners this year are:

• Troy Day, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen’s University;
• Dennis Hall, Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta;
• Jean-Christophe Leroux, Faculté de pharmacie, Université de Montréal;
• C. Barth Netterfield, Department of Physics, University of Toronto; and
• Carl Svensson, Department of Physics, University of Guelph.

The NSERC Steacie Fellowships will be presented at a ceremony tonight in Ottawa. At the same event, NSERC will honour the winner of the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering.

Edgar William Richard Steacie, for whom the Fellowships are named, was a physical chemist and President of the National Research Council of Canada from 1952 to 1962. He strongly believed that promising scientists are this country’s greatest asset and should be given every opportunity to develop their own ideas.

For full details on NSERC and the Steacie Fellowship winners for 2008 and their achievements, visit www.nserc.gc.ca/steacie.