Medicine students win health scholarship

Two U of C PhD students in the Faculty of Medicine are co-winners of a major health research scholarship. Karl Iremonger and Pierre Mattar were awarded the 14th annual Lionel E. McLeod Health Research Scholarship by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR). The award, which honors the late Dr. Lionel McLeod, AHFMR’s first president and a past dean of medicine at the U of C, is worth $21,500 to each student.

Study reveals inflammation response

A new study at the U of C reveals how the immune system triggers inflammation. Published in the scientific journal Nature, the research aims to enhance treatments for people with lupus, kidney failure, heart disease, arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. “These findings are a huge step forward in basic research into inflammation,” says Dr. Daniel Muruve, associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine. Muruve, a kidney specialist with the Calgary Health Region, worked with collaborators at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. >> read the full story

Irvine-Halliday honoured by engineers

Dave Irvine-Halliday, Schulich engineering professor and founder of Light Up The World Foundation, has received one of the highest honours awarded by the Engineering Institute of Canada. Irvine-Halliday will be awarded the K.Y. Lo Medal for significant engineering contributions at the international level on March 1 in Ottawa.

ISEEESA president off to petroleum conference

Mark Blackwell, president of the ISEEE Students’ Association, has been chosen as one of two students representing Canada at the 19th World Petroleum Congress in Madrid, Spain this summer. Fifty students from around the world will have the chance to learn and interact with one another at the world’s premier international petroleum conference.

Medicine alum named head of vet association

U of C alumnus Dr. Nick Nation, PhD’87, has been appointed president of the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association. Nation, recipient of the 2004 AVMA Veterinarian of the Year Award, was born in London, England, and moved to Calgary in 1955. He completed pre-vet studies at Simon Fraser University; his doctorate of veterinary medicine and a master’s degree at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan; and a PhD in neurotoxicology at U of C’s Faculty of Medicine. He owns and operates Animal Pathology Services (APS) Ltd., a specialty practice in Edmonton.

Social Work student garners prize

Aamir Jamal, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Social Work, has won a $2,000 prize in the worldwide graduate student competition sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS). Jamal will present his research paper, Discourses of Power: Overcoming Barriers to Girls’ Education in the Pashtun Tribes of Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan, at the 2008 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences this spring.

Barkema named vet med department head

After an international search, Dr. Herman Barkema has been appointed head of the Department of Production Animal Health at the U of C’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Barkema joined the faculty in 2006 and has been serving as interim department head for the last year. He completed his DVM degree at Utrecht University in The Netherlands in 1988. In 2001, he moved to P.E.I. to become an associate professor of epidemiology and farm service.

Top honours for Haskayne students

Four Haskayne School of Business students have received top honours at the Osgoode Cup National Undergraduate Mooting Competition. Brent Kettles and Marek Broniewski, fifth-year students in Haskayne, won the prestigious Osgoode Cup and narrowly edged out Jack Maslen and Whitney Skinner, also from Haskayne in an unprecedented all-Calgary final round. All four students were also designated Top Ten Oralists out of a field of more than 64 students from across Canada.