Robyn & Geoffrey Sperber
Have you met Geoffrey, Professor Emeritus in the School of Dentistry? Spend a few minutes getting to know him a little better.
What is your first U of A memory?
Encountering the Dentistry/Pharmacy Building on the Campus. I had no idea of the layout of the campus, and was pleasantly surprised at the prominence of the Medical Science Building, as it was then identified.
What's something your coworkers don't know about you?
That I have a son and two daughters, and I'm a grandfather of seven grandchildren.
What's your favourite distraction?
Listening to classical music.
If you were enrolling in one course, program or degree right now, what would it be?
Embryogenetics, mostly because I'm fascinated by the rapidly expanding exploration of the genetics of embryonic development in the development of a human baby.
What's a weird pet peeve you have?
People whispering.
You can invite anyone - alive or dead, real or fictional - to dinner. Who would it be?
Leonardo da Vinci. He was the pre-eminent renaissance artist in depicting dissections of human anatomy.
If you could see any live performance tomorrow, what would it be?
Les Miserables, the musical.
What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Enjoy what you have to do.
What's one thing you can't live without?
Radio access.
You've made a significant gift to the U of A toward a new health science library and Dental Museum collection. Why were these two areas important to you?
I wanted to enhance learning through books and through the historical origins of my profession. The dental profession arose out of the practice of barber-surgeons of the middle ages who, in addition to their tonsorial duties of cutting hair, also indulged in dental extractions. There is a whole historiography of early dental surgery depicted in cartoons pertaining to dentistry.
Geoffrey Sperber was born in South Africa and joined the University of Alberta's School of Dentistry in 1961. He is the author of six books on craniofacial development and dental paleoanthropology. He retired in 1996 but continues to do research and (prior to COVID-19) was a daily fixture on campus as professor emeritus. His recently announced gift to create a new health sciences library and dentistry museum is one of the largest donations to the U of A Library.