Invited Guests - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Melanie Campbell
Melanie is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy and the School of Optometry at the University of Waterloo.
Melanie Campbell earned a BSc in Chemical Physics, an MSc in Physics and, from the Australian National University, a PhD in Applied Mathematics and Physiology. Following a CSIRO Fellowship at the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics in Canberra, Campbell returned to Canada with an NSERC University Research Fellowship.
Melanie Campbell undertakes experimental and theoretical research in the optical quality of the eye and imaging of its structures. She studies eye development, eye disease and linear and nonlinear optics of the eye. Campbell is well known for her work on the gradient index optics of the crystalline lens, its changes with ageing and effects of visual experience on its refractive index distribution. She has developed and patented improved scanning laser and polarization methods for imaging the eye and biological tissues. She has collaborated in the first real-time images of cones at the rear of the eye, using adaptive optics. Recently she has discovered putative optical signals to eye growth which appear to follow a circadian rhythm. She uses ultrafast lasers to study highly localized light activated therapies for eye disease. Campbell is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK), holds an honorary Professional Physicist designation and is a former President of the Canadian Association of Physicists. Campbell was also a co-founder of Biomedical Photometrics Inc, now Huron Technologies. Campbell shared the 2004 Rank Prize in optoelectronics for her work cited as "an initial idea (that) has been carried through to practical applications that have, or will, demonstrably benefit mankind."

Marianne Fedunkiw, York University (panel moderator)
Marianne’s first degrees were in Biology, English Drama, and Journalism. Before returning to graduate school, she wrote for The London Free Press, The Globe and Mail, and Maclean Hunter publications and was also part of the team that started the Discovery Channel Canada in 1995. She earned a PhD in history of medicine from the University of Toronto in 2000, and then went on to complete a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford. In addition to her academic work, Marianne also serves as a communications consultant, specializing in education and science. Most recently she has been working with QuantumWorks, Canada’s quantum information network, which has its' headquarters here in Waterloo.

Catherine Kallin, McMaster University
Catherine Kallin did her undergraduate studies in Physics and Mathematics at UBC and obtained a PhD in Physics from Harvard in 1984. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara before joining the faculty at McMaster University in 1986. She has spent sabbaticals at Bell Labs, Cornell, UBC, Stanford and KITP, has held Sloan, Steacie and Guggenheim Fellowships, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Catherine studies novel electron behaviour in materials, including superconductors, frustrated magnets and quantum Hall systems and currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Quantum Materials Theory at McMaster.

Vicky Kaspi, McGill University
Victoria Kaspi is a Professor of Physics at McGill University, where she holds the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology, and a Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics.

She received a B.Sc. (Honours) in Physics from McGill University in 1989, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University in 1991 and 1993 respectively. From 1994-96, she was both a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a Visiting Associate at the California Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the McGill faculty in 1999, Prof. Kaspi was an Assistant Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she also held a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Space Research.

Prof. Kaspi's research centres on neutron stars: ultradense, rapidly rotating stars that are close cousins of black holes. Her research goals
are to constrain fundamental physics by observing neutron stars, as their extreme physical properties are very interesting, yet cannot be simulated in a laboratory. To this end, Prof. Kaspi observes neutron stars using the largest and most powerful radio and X-ray telescopes in the world. Among the specific questions she is hoping to answer are how neutron stars are formed, how fast they can rotate, what are they made of, and what sort of magnetic fields can they harbour. These questions ultimately constrain fundamental issues such as the equation of state of dense matter, and the physics of supernova explosions, the source of the matter out of which we are made.

Prof. Kaspi has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the John C. Polanyi Award in 2011, a Killam Research Fellowship in 2010, the Prix du Quebec in 2009, the Harvard University Sackler Lectureship in 2009, election as Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2008, and the Royal Society of Canada Rutherford Medal for Physics in 2007. This past year she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Adriana Predoi-Cross, University of Lethbridge
Dr. Adriana Predoi-Cross received her combined Bachelor and Masters degree in Engineering Physics in 1990 from the University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania. Following a two year stage at the Institute of Optoelectronics, Bucharest, she joined the Physics Department of the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton as a Ph.D. student. In 1997 she obtained a Ph.D. in molecular spectroscopy and became a pdf in the Atmospheric Physics group at the University of Toronto, Toronto. She spent nearly three years working on spectroscopic projects with applications to remote sensing and developed long standing research collaborations with colleagues from Canada and abroad. New techniques of spectroscopic analysis have been developed from the experiences of these projects and were documented in peer-refereed publications. In 2000 Dr. Adriana Predoi-Cross joined the Product Line Management at JDS Uniphase, Ottawa where she acquired an unique blend of industrial experience and interfaced with both JDS customers and scientists from other fiber-optic companies, thus enhancing her project management and communication skills. Adriana returned to the academic world in 2003 as a sessional lecturer at University of Ottawa and Carleton University, Ottawa. In July 2003 she joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge. The analysis of atmospheric trace gases, industrial process monitoring and controlling, and basic investigations of molecular structures are the main areas of research. Dr. Adriana Predoi-Cross is a recipient of a NSERC University Faculty Award.

Sarah Shandera, Perimeter Institute
Sarah Shandera received undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Arizona. She earned her PhD in Physics from Cornell University in 2006. Sarah was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Strings, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics at Columbia University before joining the Perimeter Institute as a postdoc in the cosmology group. She will be starting as an Assistant Professor of Physics at Pennsylvania State University in the fall of 2011. Sarah works on ideas for describing the very early universe, when high energy particle physics and gravity both played important roles. She also explores ways to test those ideas using observations of the universe as we see it today.

Ilse Treurnicht, CEO, MaRS Discovery District
Ilse Treurnicht is the CEO of MaRS Discovery District, a leading innovation centre located in Toronto. She oversees both the development and operations of the MaRS Centre and its broad suite of entrepreneurship and innovation programs. Ilse has worked closely with the leadership of Toronto’s academic institutions and teaching hospitals to create MaRS Innovation, an integrated commercialization platform for 14 Toronto Institutions and served as the interim Managing Director for a year following its formal launch in early 2008.

Ilse joined MaRS in early 2005 from her role as President & CEO of Primaxis Technology Ventures, a start-up stage venture capital fund focused on the advanced technologies sector. Prior to Primaxis, Ilse was an entrepreneur with senior management roles in a number of emerging technology companies. She is an active member of Canada’s innovation community and has served on the boards of private companies, industry associations and research organizations. She has also been a member of several government advisory panels.

Ilse holds a DPhil in chemistry from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes scholar. In 2009, Dr. Treurnicht was inducted into Women’s Executive Network’s Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 Hall of Fame

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