This column welcomes the submissions of all Concordia faculty and staff to promote and encourage individual and group activities in teaching and research, and to encourage work-related achievements.

Congratulations to Henry Hong (Mechanical Engineering), who has been awarded the 2001 Ralph R. Teeter Educational Award from the Society of Automotive Engineers. It will be presented this month at an SAE conference in Detroit. He has been the SAE Faculty Advisor at Concordia since 1996, working with teams of students who take part in international competitions to develop more effective alternate-fuel systems for cars and trucks.

Vince Graziano, Reference and Subject Librarian for English in the Webster Library, has published a chapter on searching databases in the humanities in a new edition of the book Manual of Online Search Strategies.

Congratulations to Omair Ahmad (Electrical and Computer Engineering), who has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in recognition of his contributions to electrical and information technology.

Catherine Mavrikakis (Études françaises) is among the five finalists for the Prix Anne-Hébert 2001, awarded by Radio-Canada and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris.

Kathleen O’Brien (Design Art) was recently awarded a $4,000 research grant from the Irish American Cultural Institute’s Research Fund and an endowment given by the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Family of St. Paul. The award presentation took place at the Irish embassy in Washington, D.C., on January 25. Since 1996, O’Brien has been compiling photo documentation of Irish Famine commemorations in Canada and Ireland over many years. This award will allow her to include sites in the U.S. O’Brien has been active in the development of Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia, including teaching a course called Transitions in Irish Art and Culture.

Congratulations to our student chapter of CSIE, the Canadian Society of Industrial Engineers, who were presented with the Robert F. Moore Award for best serving their members throughout the year in social and academic matters. The award was presented at the CSIE annual conference in Toronto in January, and 38 Concordia students attended.

Congratulations to Arshad Ahmad (Finance), who has undertaken a major volunteer task for the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE). He will be the coordinator of the 3M Teaching Fellowship Program, taking over from a professor at McMaster University who has done this work for 15 years. Ahmad is himself a 3M Teaching Fellow, and has just completed his PhD in education at McGill University.

Congratulations to Theatre student Joe Cobden, who made history by being the first anglophone to win a trophy from La Soirée des Masques, Quebec’s annual theatre awards ceremony. The Nova Scotia native, who has done some fine comic acting in student productions, won in the “revelation” category for his role in the Irish black comedy The Beauty Queen of Leenane, produced last year at the Centaur.

Karin Doerr (Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics/Simone de Beauvoir Institute) was invited by the Holocaust Education and Memorial Centre of Toronto to present a lecture for the 20th Annual Holocaust Education Week last October. Her talk was called “Arbeit macht frei: Language and Memory.”

Suresh Goyal (Decision Sciences/MIS) was recently identified by the editor of the Journal of the Operational Research Society to have published the highest number of contributions in the journal over a recent period: 43 contributions over 19 years. Goyal has also been invited to attend a three-day conference held by the Technological Institute and Superior Studies of Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, next September.

Patricia Morley, Professor Emerita of English and Canadian Studies and Lifetime Honorary Fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, gave a talk on her recent book The Mountain is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives (UBCP) to the Friends of the Library at Trinity College, University of Toronto, on February 7.

Lorna Roth (Communication Studies) presented a paper called “(re)Colouring the Public Broadcasting System in Canada: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network,” at the Rethinking Public Media in a Transnational Era conference, which took place at the Centre for Media, Culture and History at New York University in mid-January.

Hugh McQueen (Mechanical Engineering) has returned from the Metallurgical Society (AIME) annual meeting in New Orleans, where he presented one invited lecture and three research papers. Since he retired in 1998 after 30 years at Concordia, he has presented eight keynote lectures and 34 research papers at 17 international conferences. Moreover, during this period, he prepared 19 manuscripts for journals. He says that the big factor in increasing productivity was “complete cessation of committee work and reduction in teaching,” although he has enjoyed giving a course each term.