Awards and Accolades - May 2017

Join us in celebrating the achievements of faculty, staff and students.

Kirsten Bauer - 17 May 2017

From brilliant student research and innovative teaching, to commercialization successes and inspiring lifetime achievements, the range of accomplishments within the FoMD community shines brightly this May.


Professors emeriti Anne Fanning Binder, Infectious Diseases, and Steven Hrudey, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, will be inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2017. This is the highest honour available to Albertan citizens and we are so proud to see two of our community leaders recognized.

Fanning Binder will also be inducted into the City of Edmonton Salute to Excellence Community Service Hall of Fame on June 12, 2017 at the Winspear centre.

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Teaching & Scholarship

Vijay Daniels, Department of Medicine, received the Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.


Martin Davies, pharmacology, won the William Hardy Alexander Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

The Comprehensive Care Delivery Teaching Group in the School of Dentistry was selected as the 2017 recipient of the Teaching Unit Award. Congratulations to Ivano Ongaro, Dave Tsuijkawa, Trudy Aucoin Loretta Hursin, Byron Wong, Darrell Demchuk, Jack Margolis and Sandy Krause.

Irehobhude O. Iyioha, Assistant Adjunct Professor at the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre, received the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT) Scholarly Paper Award, 2017. Read her story here.


Sherri Kessels, Curriculum Coordinator, School of Dentistry, earned a U of A Wellness Champion Award for her contributions to student wellness. Well done!


Tim McGaw, School of Dentistry, was awarded to Dental Students Association's Best Lecturer Award.


Rose Yeung, Department of Medicine and Alberta Diabetes Institute, was recognized as a Regional Outstanding Healthcare Professional from Diabetes Canada (Alberta).


Kim Solez, Lab Medicine & Pathology and Chair of the Banff Foundation, won the "Gold Medal Award" from the Catalan Society of Transplantation in Barcelona, Spain. This was awarded at the Banff Conference on Allograft Pathology in Barcelona on March 27-31, 2017, alongside Banff Foundation co-creator Lorraine Racusen.


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Darren Freed and Jayan Nagendran were honoured with an Alberta Venture Prize for their company Tevosol. The Venture Prize awards the province's most promising early-stage technology ventures.

Tara Pidborochynski, Assistant Director of the Medically at Risk Driver (MARD) Centre, Department of Family Medicine, received a best poster award at the International Society for Hepatic Encephalopathy and Nitrogen Metabolism (ISHEN) Symposium, in March in New Delhi, India.

Students & Residents

Hein Tun, pediatrics postdoctoral fellow, was awarded a CIHR postdoctoral fellowship.

Mackenzie Coatham was awarded a Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral Award (CGS-D) from CIHR. In 2016, Mackenzie also received the William Herbert Young Cancer Research Graduate Studentship, the Cyril M. Kay Award, awarded to the top candidate doing cancer research at the University of Alberta, and a WCHRI Studentship. Mackenzie is the first PhD student in Obstetrics and Gynecology and we are exceptionally proud of her accomplishments. Mackenzie was recruited to Lynne Postovit's lab through the Graduate Program in Maternal and Child Health (MATCH) in 2015.


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Ghazaleh Eskandari Sedighi, biochemistry, won the Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Student Award for travel to the Prion 2017 Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland.


Steffane McLennan, biochemistry, is the 2017 Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate, as well as the Walter H. Johns Graduate.


Hazem Eimar, School of Dentistry, took the third place in the Charley Schultz Resident Scholar Award.


First-year MD student Geraldine Huynh won a 2017 Hannah Summer Studentship. The funds are provided by Associated Medical Services Inc. and are administered in partnership with the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine (CSHM). Over the course of this summer, Geraldine will be working on a project related to the history of the polio ward at the University of Alberta Hospital and the Aberhart Centre.


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Did we miss something?We'd love to hear about it. If you know about someone in the FoMD who deserves to be recognized, or if you have other awards-related inquiries, please contact Kirsten Bauer, Awards Coordinator at kbauer@ualberta.ca.