The Provost's Circle of Distinction recognizes faculty members and librarians who have received awards or recognition from external bodies such as the Order of Canada and the Order of Quebec, as well as those who have been appointed Fellows of learned bodies such as the Royal Society and other scholarly associations, or who have received 3M Teaching Awards.
Inclusion in the Provost's Circle of Distinction is determined by the receipt of external awards for career achievements rather than prizes or awards for a specific achievement. Faculty Deans, department chairs, and members of the Circle help to identify colleagues who are eligible for induction into the Circle. New members are admitted on a yearly basis.
| Faculty of Arts and Science | |
|---|---|
| Dr. Sharon McSheffrey | Department of History |
| Dr. Viviane Namaste | Simone de Beauvoir Institute |
| Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science | |
|---|---|
| Dr. Andreas Athienitis | Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Dr. Rama Bhat | Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering |
| Dr. Ahmed Kishk | Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering |
| Dr. Oskar Pekau | Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Dr. Pragasen Pillay | Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering |
| John Molson School of Business | |
|---|---|
| Dr. Steven Appelbaum | Department of Management |
Shannon McSheffrey was Chair of the Department of History from 2007 to 2010. Her research interests include, among others, gender roles, heresy and popular religion in late medieval England, and she has published multiple scholarly articles, four books, and is currently writing two more. She has received four major research grants, including some from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She has won several awards for her research and teaching and was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2002.
Viviane Namaste has been with Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute since 2002. She holds a Concordia University Tier 2 Research Chair in HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health, and her primary area of research is HIV/AIDS prevention. She has been honoured with several awards, including the 2009 Awards for Action in HIV/AIDS from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Human Rights Watch, and the 2005 Plaque honorifique Christine Jorgensen from L’Association des transsexuels et transexuelles du Quebec in 2005. She received the Outstanding Book Award for her book Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America in 2001.
Andreas Athienitis is a professor of Building Engineering at Concordia. He is the scientific director of the NSERC Smart Net-Zero Energy Buildings Strategic Research Network and the founding director of the NSERC Solar Buildings Research Network, and holds a Tier I Concordia University Research Chair in Integration of Solar Energy Systems into Buildings.
Among his achievements, Athienitis was named Concordia University Research Fellow (Senior) in 2010 and is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, was associate editor of the ISES Solar Energy and was profiled as one of the top 25 innovators in Quebec by Actualité magazine in 2009.
Athienitis is currently leading the main Canadian Research Network working on cutting-edge research in net-zero energy solar buildings. He has written more than 200 refereed papers and has received more than $18 million in research grants.
"This distinction is an important recognition which helps build a culture of excellence at Concordia," Athienitis says of being inducted into the Provost’s Circle of Achievement.
Rama Bhat has been a professor at Concordia University for 33 years. Among his duties at the university, he was the Graduate Program Director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1988 to 1990 and from 1992 to 1994, the Undergraduate Program Director from 1991 to 1992, and was Chair of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department from 2000 to 2003. Between 1998 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2008, Dr. Bhat served as Associate Dean, Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science and served as Vice-Provost, Academic Relations from 2008 to 2011.
He has been appointed a fellow at no less than five institutions, including the Canadian and American Societies for Mechanical Engineering and the Engineering Institute of Canada.
Bhat's research interests include acoustics and vibrations, and he has published 90 refereed journal publications, 91 refereed conference publications and three books.
Ahmed Kishk joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Concordia in 2011 as a Tier I Canada Research Chair (Senior) in Advanced Antenna Systems.
He is an international expert in electromagnetics and has published more than 230 articles in refereed journals and presented more than 240 conference papers, as well as contributed to 13 books. Among his acknowledgements, Dr. Kishk was named Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers in 1998.
Professor Kishk is delighted to receive the Provost's Circle of Distinction Award in recognition of his distinguished career achievements.
Oscar Pekau joined Concordia University in 1971. He served as Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering from 1989 to 1994, and he is now a professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
His areas of research include structural dynamics and earthquake engineering, and he has published more than 100 research papers. Pekau received an award from Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2001 for outstanding contributions to modeling the behavior of dam-foundation-reservoir systems. He has given several lectures in China at universities and research centers.
In 2011, Dr. Pekau was named a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.
Pragasen Pillay is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Concordia. In 2009, he became the NSERC Hydro-Quebec Senior Industrial Research Chair.
Pillay is an international expert on power engineering, and has published, among other things, 94 refereed journal articles and 181 conference papers. He has supervised and co-supervised 62 graduate students, and is currently supervising 14 graduate students.
Among his accomplishments, Dr. Pillay became Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineeringand of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in 2005.
Pillay has won many prizes, including the Order of Mapungubwe, Silver Level awarded by the President of South Africa, an award that was once won by Nelson Mandela.
Steven Appelbaum has been a professor at Concordia since 1979 and he served as Dean of the John Molson School of Business from 1983 to 1990. He held a Concordia University Research Chair from 2002 to 2009.
Among his achievements, Appelbaum was the winner of the First Graduating Class Award in 1986 for his outstanding contribution to university life. He was awarded the 1987 Life Membership as a Senior Professional in Human Resources by the Society for Human Resource Management.
In 1990, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 1998, Appelbaum was awarded the Leaders in Management Education Award. He is also the two-time winner of the Outstanding Teaching Award presented by the John Molson School of Business in 1994 and 1999.
"When you put this all together, recognitions for research and teaching, it’s nice to be acknowledged as a senior professor," Appelbaum says. "I still produce a lot, I write a lot, I teach - I haven’t slowed down."
Page Title: Provost's Circle of Distinction - 2012 - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Page URL:http://provost.concordia.ca/provost-and-team/provosts-circle-of-distinction...index.php
Date Printed: Mon May 20, 2013
